Tendency of Ideal Racial Mating Choice

[iLney]

How about "Race doesn't matter as long as it's not my own's" option?

[martino]

I miss the personality then race option... Asian here I guess (and I'm white), but because I find their personalities much more pleasing than those of others, in overall. I guess that depends on what background/society they come from and not really as much their race...

Why am I posting here... oh yeah, I ought to be doing something else...

[KongZilla]

BTW, you forgotten to include Austronesians! ^_^

[0utf0xZer0]

Originally Posted by Sassy_Bread

Thank you.

Despite people tending to date people just because of a certain racial preference (for example here, seeing that this is an anime forum and some are affected by yellow fever)...I believe that love has no borders, including ones set up by races and ethnicities. The idea of dating a person just because he/she's this race is absolutely ridiculous.

I hope neither of you are implying that those of us that have a preference for girls (or guys) of a particular race only date people because of their race.

Complaining about the lack of a no preference option would be more on topic, seeing as the poll was never about whether race is important.

Originally Posted by Nosauz

@0utf0xzer0
Hey my point is that all I'm doing is thinking about the advantages of being white, and those advantages make me think that there is some value in dating with a white mate, not to mention being able to confer my children with a white sounding last name is another benefit, so even if they look tan, they won't be subjugated by stereotypes based on their last name.

Well, you've got a point there, seeing as having an English name is an advantage more often than not even in a relatively low-racism city like Vancouver (although there are also jobs in this city where having an ethnic last name would be an advantage too, it's just not as common). I'm just pointing out that the assimilation thing goes both ways - and if people like me were to adopt thinking like that, you wouldn't be able to assimilate your genes into a white family because nobody would be willing to take them in.

(For some reason I'm really tempted to throw in an "overriding my genes" joke ending with "if you know what I mean...")

[Nosauz]

Vancouver is lovely place, I myself am a product of Uhill Secondary School *flex* I love vancouver, actually a bunch of my buds who didn't go to the states like me are actually studying at UBC.

And yea to ever think love has nothing to do with race is just wrong, its ingrained in us subliminally or cultural stereotypes. These things that influence the way we think also affect the way we feel towards others. So naturally their prejudices will also be taken into account.

also ps the joke is more effective if you put down jeans, instead of genes

[typhonsentra]

Am I the only one bothered by the word choices by the OP. Referring to muliracial people as "Hybrids"?

[Urzu 7]

In a very real sense, race doesn't matter; to me, and to many other people. I can fall in love with a woman of any ethnic background. But I still have preferences...but for me, it isn't a preference about intangible qualities. My answer was about which type of women do I prefer the most when it comes to who I'm most physically attracted to.

I dunno what other people meant when they gave their answers, but that is what I meant. While surely there are beautiful people of every ethnic background, and I find that there are beautiful women of all ethnic types, I do have my preferences, in terms of physical appearances, being Caucasian women and east Asian women. I most certainly fall in love with a black person, or a Latino person, and so forth. But my greatest affinities are for those two types of women I said I prefer the most.

[Ledgem]

A lot of people claiming that race doesn't matter are overlooking the fact that race technically breaks down into two things: appearence (which I assumed the poll was based around) and culture (which some members have picked up on, or started discussing without realizing it). When you think of a specific race type, you intrinsically think of some stereotypes that define that race - things like "Asians are really quiet and smart" or "blacks are really loud and like rap music." Even if you're a person who claims that you'd prefer personality and compatibility over a race generalization, your own internal stereotypes dictate that you actually do have a preference for races.

As a follow-up, nobody is free from making some form of stereotypes. Humans naturally like to categorize and segregate things. If you think you're free from stereotyping, you're blind to it and/or fooling yourself otherwise.

That said, I'm Jewish and ended up going Asian, but wasn't particularly turned off to any race appearence-wise. However, culturally speaking (in terms of values and general outlook) I needed an intellectual who was also open. Due to stereotyping, that meant that I'd initially be uncomfortable with someone from a hispanic or black background. Attractive intellectual girls from those groups do exist, yet the stereotype dictates that their friends (who would likely be chosen due to "natural" segregation) and family would still be likely to conform to the stereotypes, not to mention that there'd potentially be elements of incomptibility due to their growing up in that background.

Originally Posted by Anisha93

In India......girls or guys who are considerably fair are called more"beautiful".......you might find hundreds of commercials of face-whitening creams on a local channel.....why such mentality in the first place?

I can think of a few explanations:
1) Fair skn arises from avoiding the sun. If you could afford to stay in the shade instead of working out in the field, you were likely wealthy. Fair skin was likely associated with the wealthy, and was thus seen as a point of attraction. Over time the original relation between fair skin and wealth was lost, yet the attraction to fair skin remained. (That's all just theorizing; I haven't studied Indian society.)

2) It's rare in society. People either tend to shun or love rare things in other people.

3) It actually is attractive. I personally found the standard Indian girls to be more attractive than girls from many other races (but tied with Asian), yet only recently I saw someone of Indian background who was quite pale. Nice combination, gets my approval and maybe I understand why fathers want their daughters to stay out of the sun.

So there are some possibilities to get you started.

[Cipher]

Originally Posted by Ledgem

A lot of people claiming that race doesn't matter are overlooking the fact that race technically breaks down into two things: appearence (which I assumed the poll was based around) and culture (which some members have picked up on, or started discussing without realizing it). When you think of a specific race type, you intrinsically think of some stereotypes that define that race - things like "Asians are really quiet and smart" or "blacks are really loud and like rap music." Even if you're a person who claims that you'd prefer personality and compatibility over a race generalization, your own internal stereotypes dictate that you actually do have a preference for races.

Thus the one choice only option. so a question to anyone with knowledge and information on the present general human perception or some name of branch of study of which I'm ignorant of: What is generally(slightly proven) the most attractive race? I understand that it varies, however, I believe that there is always usually one that is greater than the other.

[Ledgem]

Originally Posted by Cipher

What is generally(slightly proven) the most attractive race? I understand that it varies, however, I believe that there is always usually one that is greater than the other.

There is none. Sure, one race my temporarily seem to dominate, or it may seem to dominate in a local region, but this is because it varies with cultural trends. There is no "one size fits all," not even a "one size fits the majority."

[Nosauz]

In the end stereotypes are created for a reason, to describe things that are foreign and that we as individuals or socieites or cultures cannot explain based on our own logic. Stereotypes have become an evil meaning when in fact their just compilations of observations of a group of people who may or may not be related. It really is just a general way of looking at something, and not delving deeper into the reason why the phenomena occurs.

When you think about who you like, a lot of these things you live with, these stereotypes may they be based in fact or fiction do affect the way we perceive people. Subconsciously and consciously we acknowledge these "facts" and they help us think about the world. To say these things that are in our environment don't affect our judgement on who we find attractive then that's just complete poppycock because our thoughts and actions are all structured around the codes that we learn when we are young. This actually kind of falls into the philosophical question of whether or not man has free will or not, but that is quite a question, so to say that the things we hear as we grow, the negative and positive connotations about certain races or cultures does not affect our decision making is ridiculous.

Can you find love that contradict the ideas instilled in you? Yes, because all humans have the ability to defy their "programming" it's what separates humans from animals, we can overcome the order created by our surroundings and truly choose to do things that go against what we have been taught, what has been ingrained into our psyches but to say the least that our notions of race don't affect how we initially think of certain groups is stupid, and actually the movie District 9 really brought that up well.

[Anisha93]

Originally Posted by Ledgem

I can think of a few explanations:
1) Fair skn arises from avoiding the sun. If you could afford to stay in the shade instead of working out in the field, you were likely wealthy. Fair skin was likely associated with the wealthy, and was thus seen as a point of attraction. Over time the original relation between fair skin and wealth was lost, yet the attraction to fair skin remained. (That's all just theorizing; I haven't studied Indian society.)

2) It's rare in society. People either tend to shun or love rare things in other people.

3) It actually is attractive. I personally found the standard Indian girls to be more attractive than girls from many other races (but tied with Asian), yet only recently I saw someone of Indian background who was quite pale. Nice combination, gets my approval and maybe I understand why fathers want their daughters to stay out of the sun.

So there are some possibilities to get you started.

1. Yes......it might be true because India was ruled for about 200 years by the Britishers(the whites) and Indians were trated as slaves and all the wealth, minerals and lands were abducted by them....as the years passed, british society in India became more and more powerful, rich and people started considering them to be more classy......Indians were addressed as "Bloody Blacks" and inferiority soon took over but nationalist movemants by Gandhiji led to the freedom.....Now, although the Britishers left, some people still seem to under their influence.....

2.I recently read that in the USA and Australia.....many whites want to get tanned and use tanning products since they consider it to be beautiful....a neatly tanned body seems to look 'hot'.....is it because of rarity of that colour?

3. I live in the north part of India where many people have pale-yellowish or very-light yellow complexion though 75% of India consists of black, brown and light-brown skins.....and its tue that pale complexion is preferred more than the brown one......

[Cipher]

Originally Posted by Ledgem

There is none. Sure, one race my temporarily seem to dominate, or it may seem to dominate in a local region, but this is because it varies with cultural trends. There is no "one size fits all," not even a "one size fits the majority."

What about a slight popular ranking? Maybe not "51-90%" but ample enough to show its slight superiority. And I know it varies by setting and averages may not show much meaning but its still holds its visible importance. But I can imagine ,within micro-secs, the present impossibility of averaging everyone's perception.

[Kytherno]

My own race...or Asians.

[Lathdrinor]

Originally Posted by Cipher

What about a slight popular ranking? Maybe not "51-90%" but ample enough to show its slight superiority. And I know it varies by setting and averages may not show much meaning but its still holds its visible importance. But I can imagine ,within micro-secs, the present impossibility of averaging everyone's perception.

On average, probably white, blond-haired, blue/green-eyed Northern Europeans - Nordics, in other words. But this is all very relative and circumstantial. I mention it only because it seems that there is a preference for these traits among Europeans, and there seems to be a preference for Europeans among other "races." Of course the vast majority of people still prefer to marry within their own ethnic groups; but for those who do out-marry, there is a slight bias towards the types I mentioned. So I suppose you could consider that evidence for greater average attractiveness.

[TinyRedLeaf]

In a way, I think what Cipher wanted to ask is whether there's such a thing as "universal standard" of beauty.

And, in that case, I would agree with Ledgem: there is no such "standard". Like he said, much of what we perceive to be "beautiful" is influenced heavily by the mass media and our respective cultures.

Moreover, it's very easy to see how standards of beauty have changed over time. Just take a look, for example, at the crude sculptures left behind from the Ice Age, which grossly exaggerate the breasts and hips of the female body. To early human beings, it appears that physical traits that suggest reproductive fertility were considered "beautiful". To us, those sculptures would appear grotesque, almost pornographic.

Now, based on evolutionary assumptions, we do believe that men are wired to gravitate towards women who have features that suggest healthy and fecundity, and a recent study involving babies did suggest that there are indeed physical traits that we inherently find "beautiful".

Dr Alan Slater, a developmental psychologist at Exeter University, said newborn babies were capable of quickly learning to recognise not only facial features but whether they are attractive or unattractive.

"If you show infants a few months old two faces they will spend more time looking at the more attractive face," he said. "The notion was that this was some kind of prototype of the face, which was averaged from the various faces the infants have looked at over the first two or three months from birth.

"But, in fact, we find we get exactly the same effect with newborn infants, which is to say that newborn infants will look at the more attractive of two faces."

The problem is, however, that such preferences can be easily overridden. The same study concedes, for example, that babies are hardwired to be attracted to their mothers, whether or not she is "beautiful". In that case, it's easy to see how malleable our perceptions of beauty actually are.

Take, for another example, the recent craze over "Asian beauty" in American media. Hollywood has been recently enthralled by Asian celebrities such as Zhang Ziyi and Gong Li (paradoxically, I don't find them attractive, and I'm Chinese; more specifically, I dislike the northern Chinese look, and prefer the southern Chinese features more commonly found in celebrities from Hong Kong and Taiwan), thanks to recent blockbusters like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Memoirs of a Geisha.

But these celebrities have been around for a long time. The fact that Americans started only now to notice them is in itself a strong indication that this is just a media-driven fad. For one thing, I'm slightly amused that Zhang Ziyi is considered a hottie when many of my friends and I, here in East Asia, would consider Maggie Cheung far more attractive, despite her greater age.

And, finally, we need only to take a look at anime itself to see how perceptions of beauty can change. Quite a number of non-Japanese observers have noticed, by now, that anime characters assimilate both Western and Japanese physical features to produce an "idealised" form of beauty. One writer had even mused that this could be a sign of an emerging "monoculture".

I'd agree with that thesis to the extent that English-speaking societies are heavily influenced by an increasingly global pop culture, so it's no wonder that a "monoculture" seems to be emerging. However, there's a flipside to this argument: If such perceptions of beauty are pop-culture driven, then would it remain the same once the fads change? I wouldn't be so sure.

As for me, I'd have to say I'm naturally attracted to other East Asians, particularly southern Chinese and the Japanese. Unfortunately, I don't find Koreans attractive, because they look too similar to northern Chinese, that is, they have common features like narrow eyes, high foreheads and generally flat faces.

Curiously, I'm also attracted to northern Indians, that is, those with Aryan features. On the other hand, I find myself naturally repelled by southern Indians, because they tend to have endomorphic body shapes, flatter noses and thicker lips. By the same token, I generally find the physical features of most African people highly unattractive.

And, needless to say, because of Western media conditioning, I'm also attracted to American/European features, although that's not saying much, as the features vary tremendously over a wide range. For Europeans, for example, I find Scandinavian and Central/East European women attractive. British and German women, on the other hand, generally look bland to me.

All these are preferences that occur at an instinctual level, mind you. They have nothing to do with how I would actually treat all these different kinds of people in real life. As Nosauz said, just because I carry these stereotypes doesn't necessarily mean I'd act on them. In the end, a lot still depends on the person's personality, thoughts and behaviour. Physical looks alone do not determine whether I'd like him or her.

[King Lycan]

Don't matter to me

[LeoXiao]

I have a feeling that people will generally take their parents' looks as a standard for judging others' appearance. Unless, of course, the parents are overtly ugly.

[Cipher]

Originally Posted by TinyRedLeaf

In a way, I think what Cipher wanted to ask is whether there's such a thing as "universal standard" of beauty.

And, in that case, I would agree with Ledgem: there is no such "standard". Like he said, much of what we perceive to be "beautiful" is influenced heavily by the mass media and our respective cultures.

Moreover, it's very easy to see how standards of beauty have changed over time. Just take a look, for example, at the crude sculptures left behind from the Ice Age, which grossly exaggerate the breasts and hips of the female body. To early human beings, it appears that physical traits that suggest reproductive fertility were considered "beautiful". To us, those sculptures would appear grotesque, almost pornographic.

Now, based on evolutionary assumptions, we do believe that men are wired to gravitate towards women who have features that suggest healthy and fecundity, and a recent study involving babies did suggest that there are indeed physical traits that we inherently find "beautiful".



The problem is, however, that such preferences can be easily overridden. The same study concedes, for example, that babies are hardwired to be attracted to their mothers, whether or not she is "beautiful". In that case, it's easy to see how malleable our perceptions of beauty actually are.

Take, for another example, the recent craze over "Asian beauty" in American media. Hollywood has been recently enthralled by Asian celebrities such as Zhang Ziyi and Gong Li (paradoxically, I don't find them attractive, and I'm Chinese; more specifically, I dislike the northern Chinese look, and prefer the southern Chinese features more commonly found in celebrities from Hong Kong and Taiwan), thanks to recent blockbusters like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Memoirs of a Geisha.

But these celebrities have been around for a long time. The fact that Americans started only now to notice them is in itself a strong indication that this is just a media-driven fad. For one thing, I'm slightly amused that Zhang Ziyi is considered a hottie when many of my friends and I, here in East Asia, would consider Maggie Cheung far more attractive, despite her greater age.

And, finally, we need only to take a look at anime itself to see how perceptions of beauty can change. Quite a number of non-Japanese observers have noticed, by now, that anime characters assimilate both Western and Japanese physical features to produce an "idealised" form of beauty. One writer had even mused that this could be a sign of an emerging "monoculture".

I'd agree with that thesis to the extent that English-speaking societies are heavily influenced by an increasingly global pop culture, so it's no wonder that a "monoculture" seems to be emerging. However, there's a flipside to this argument: If such perceptions of beauty are pop-culture driven, then would it remain the same once the fads change? I wouldn't be so sure.

As for me, I'd have to say I'm naturally attracted to other East Asians, particularly southern Chinese and the Japanese. Unfortunately, I don't find Koreans attractive, because they look too similar to northern Chinese, that is, they have common features like narrow eyes, high foreheads and generally flat faces.

Curiously, I'm also attracted to northern Indians, that is, those with Aryan features. On the other hand, I find myself naturally repelled by southern Indians, because they tend to have endomorphic body shapes, flatter noses and thicker lips. By the same token, I generally find the physical features of most African people highly unattractive.

And, needless to say, because of Western media conditioning, I'm also attracted to American/European features, although that's not saying much, as the features vary tremendously over a wide range. For Europeans, for example, I find Scandinavian and Central/East European women attractive. British and German women, on the other hand, generally look bland to me.

All these are preferences that occur at an instinctual level, mind you. They have nothing to do with how I would actually treat all these different kinds of people in real life. As Nosauz said, just because I carry these stereotypes doesn't necessarily mean I'd act on them. In the end, a lot still depends on the person's personality, thoughts and behaviour. Physical looks alone do not determine whether I'd like him or her.

What are those male and female physical traits that are most commonly and instinctually(without the effect of nurture) attractive?

[Daniel E.]

Originally Posted by Ledgem

Even if you're a person who claims that you'd prefer personality and compatibility over a race generalization, your own internal stereotypes dictate that you actually do have a preference for races.


As a follow-up, nobody is free from making some form of stereotypes. Humans naturally like to categorize and segregate things. If you think you're free from stereotyping, you're blind to it and/or fooling yourself otherwise.

True that.

However, I think there's a big difference between simply stereotyping over letting said stereotyping dictate how you would live your life.

I love girls with blonde hair, yet, I think it would be foolish if I were to walk away from a good relationship simply because the girls' hair in question is not blonde. A personal preference is just that, it is not a rule or a guideline that dictates how I should decide things in life.