Welcome back, dorks. We’ve processed the messaging habits of over a million people and are about to basically prove that, despite what you might’ve heard from the Obama campaign and organic cereal commercials, racism is alive and well. It would be awesome if other big websites would go out on a limb and release their own race data, too. I can’t imagine they will: multi-million dollar enterprises rarely like to admit that the people generating those millions act like turds. But being poor gives us a certain freedom. To alienate all our users. So there.
When I first started looking at first-contact attempts and who was writing who back, it was immediately obvious that the sender’s race was a huge factor. Here are just a handful of the numbers that illustrate that:
The takeaway here is that although race shouldn’t matter in messaging, it does. A lot.
First of all, how do we know that race shouldn’t matter? Are we just making some after-school-special assumption that “true love is colorblind?” more compatibility usually
means more repliesNo, we’re not: we know race shouldn’t matter to replies because the races all match each other more or less evenly, and reply rate correlates to matching. That is, more compatibility generally means more replies.
On OkCupid you create your own unique matching system, and that means your better matches are people you actually want talk to. Below is a graph showing match percentages vs. reply rates for a random sample of 500,000 people.As you can see, in general, the better you match someone, the more likely you are to reply to a first message from them.
We can see this principle in action when we look at our trusty control, the Zodiac. Here are the match and reply rates side-by-side, with similar rates colored yellow. There’s no real need to inspect the numbers; just observe the similar colors.
- Throughout this post, yellowish colors are short-hand for “neutral” and red and green indicate “strong preference.”
People of the various Zodiac signs match each other all at roughly the average rate, and, as we would expect, they reply to messages similarly. In general, the correlation between match percentage and reply rate means that whenever we compare the match/reply charts for a given breakdown of the population, they should look about the same. However, this, like so many other fine assumptions, totally breaks down when race gets involved:
Again, don’t bother squinting, just check out the colors. We’ll soon look very closely at these tables.
So here’s last week’s compatibility by race table (I explained how we can confidently measure “compatibility” in that post). This is a blow-up of the leftmost table above:
As you can see, the races all match each other roughly evenly: good news. It means all other things being equal, two people, of whatever race, should have the same chance to have a successful relationshp. But now let’s look at the table of how individuals actually reply to each other’s messages. First we’ll examine messages sent by men to women (I know our gay readers are interested in same-sex versions of these tables, there’s a link to them here and at the end of this post):
The numbers on the perimeter of the table are the weighted average rates for each column/row. Here’s what we can know:
- Black women write back the most. Whether it’s due to talkativeness, loneliness, or a sense of plain decency, black women are by far the most likely to respond to a first contact attempt. In many cases, their response rate is one and a half times the average, and, overall, black women reply about a quarter more often that other women.
- White men get more responses. Whatever it is, white males just get more replies from almost every group. We were careful to preselect our data pool so that physical attractiveness (as measured by our site picture-rating utility) was roughly even across all the race/gender slices. For guys, we did likewise with height.
- White women prefer white men to the exclusion of everyone else—and Asian and Hispanic women prefer them even more exclusively. These three types of women only respond well to white men. More significantly, these groups’ reply rates to non-whites is terrible. Asian women write back non-white males at 21.9%, Hispanic women at 22.9%, and white women at 23.0%. It’s here where things get interesting, for white women in particular. If you look at the match-by-race table before this one, the “should-look-like” one, you see that white women have an above-average compatibility with almost every group. Yet they only reply well to guys who look like them. There’s more data on this towards the end of the post.
Let’s see what happens when it’s the women writing the messages to men.
- Men don’t write black women back. Or rather, they write them back far less often than they should. Black women reply the most, yet get by far the fewest replies. Essentially every race—including other blacks—singles them out for the cold shoulder.
- White guys respond less overall. The average reply rate of non-white males is 48.1%, while white guys’ is only 40.5%. Basically, they write back about 20% less often. It’s ironic that white guys are worst responders, because as we saw above they in turn get the most replies. That has apparently made them very self-absorbed.
Finally, here are a couple tables that shed further light on our discussion. These are site-wide answers to a couple user-written match questions. They barely need any explanation: one comments on the other, really. Together they shed more light on the theory/practice schizophrenia of people’s racial attitudes.
It’s surely not just OkCupid users that are like this. In fact, it’s any dating site (and indeed any collection of people) would likely exhibit messaging biases similar to what I’ve written up. Any dating site probably
has these biasesAccording to our internal metrics, at least, OkCupid’s users are better-educated, younger, and far more progressive than the norm, so I can imagine that many sites would actually have worse race stats. But like I said at the beginning, we’ll probably never know. See you next week.
(Addendum to original post)
Same-Sex Data for Race vs. Reply Rates
As promised, here are the same-sex versions of last week’s charts and tables. In general, they show that straights and gays share many of the same inclinations, but the prejudices of the latter are perhaps a bit less pronounced. I should say at the top that some of the sample sizes for the various race/gender slices presented here are rather small (for instance, OkCupid doesn’t have many lesbians of Indian descent), and that accounts, I think, for some of the scatter-shot nature of the color tables. Race preferences are not nearly as stark here as they are with the heterosexual data.
See for yourself:
Still, there are a few conclusions we can draw:
- Blacks get fewer responses. We saw this with the straight data, too, and here it’s true of both gay and lesbian senders. Black gay men get over 20% fewer responses than non-blacks, which is about how straight black men fared. Black women, on the other hand, do relatively much better with gays than straights. While they’re still the least replied-to group, the discrepancy is much smaller in the lesbian community.
- Whites respond by far the least to anyone.. Both white lesbians and white gay men write the fewest replies. In fact, across the two charts, whites respond about 15% less often than non-whites, and white gay men show a marked preference for other whites. On the other hand, gay white women don’t have the segregationist tendencies of their straight counterparts; they just dis everyone. Whereas last week we saw that straight white women strongly preferred other whites to the exclusion of other groups, lesbian whites respond to all 9 racial groups roughly evenly, and, in general, the lesbian community seems relatively colorblind. Only Indian lesbians receive a response rate far off the average, and as I said above, the sample size there is limited and the results might be skewed by chance.
- Asian lesbians are in demand, and they’re picky about other races. Gay Asian females are replied to the most, and, among the well-represented groups, they have the most defined racial preferences: they respond very well to other Asians, Whites, Native Americans, and Middle Easterners, but very poorly to the other groups. Latin women also express a clear preference, for Whites and Asians.
- Men prefer Middle Easterners. Gay men and straight men both respond best to Middle Easterners, and the preference is quite dramatic. I’d be interested to hear any theories why this is so.
As we did last week, we can see that all groups think, theoretically, that interracial relationships are acceptable, yet again whites are the least willing to have such a relationship themselves. This time it’s the men, not the women, who prefer most to keep to their own: it’s interesting that both in reply patterns and in their answers to these two match questions, the behavior of white straight women and white gay men are so closely parallel.
To our friends in the gay and lesbian communities: thanks for being patient and waiting for this data. We will do gay-centric articles in the future, I promise. Lately, since we’ve been dealing with complex and data-intensive subjects like race and reply rates, we’ve had to restrict ourselves to straight data in the primary post. We felt that adding a discussion of gay and lesbian trends alongside straight ones would triple the length of an already long and dense post and surely more than triple reader confusion. We will keep looking for ways to present the information you rightly expect; for now, it will be in addenda such as this one.
I agree with VoiceofReason especially on this part:
Oh by the way stop this preference bullshit it is just a euphemism for racism. People are racist and they think one is better than the other. You’d think after all these years of racial oppression and stereotypes people would be more willing to own up to their own bullshit. Let’s not beat around the bush and be honest.
MOST people are using the preference label to cover their own racism.
And NONE of you can tell me that this comment does NOT have racist overtones:
Collignon Stéphane
I’m not totally sure it could all come down to racism. I mean I couldn’t care less what colour people are but I have to admit I do usually tend to be more attracted to white/latino girls. And so yes, were I on a dating site, I’d be more likely to reply to a white/latino female than a black one.
I guess looking beyond someone’s race is too much for pathetic ass humans.
And anonjoe, you can take your “common sense” and shove it up your ass!
What a bullshit theory.
@Eva
I agree with you. Not all black women are overwight and it ANGERS me when people want to associate black women with being overweight/obese, when it is minor compared to the rest of the American population.
60% OF Americans are overweight and 80 percent will be overweight by 2020, so don’t you DARE single out black women(funny black men aren’t assume to be overweight)for being overweight/obese/larger.
@Harmony, and a few others.
What are you talking about? Have you read the responses you are criticizing? I find it both funny and disturbing that, after reading every comment on this article, that save one post by an obvious nutjob the only people even mentioning that black women are thought to be overweight are black women themselves…
@Eva.
I have found black women not responding to messages I have sent, does this make black women racist by default, just as you are insinuating men cannot look past their prejudices because they do not respond to your messages?
@kongming
Quote: “Oh my god, are people really using “Well, I have a black/Asian/Muslim/three-legged friend, how can I be racist?” lmao”.
Yes, my friend. Yes they are. I fail to see how that is funny…
I wish people could get off their high-horses for a minute and really examine what is the issue here. Nobody is better than anyone else, and shouting “racism” at anyone with a dating preference will not make you a better person. This is called a “Holier than thou” attitude and it very unbecoming, no matter what colour your skin is.
On a last note, before I stop reading this lest I pop a vein:
“Racism” is the belief that a certain race is inferior or another is superior to other races. Look it up in the dictionary if you must. Having a dating-preference regarding skin-colour is in no way tied to racism. A racist is a person that believes that one race is better than others, preferring to date a certain skin-colour means just this: you have a favorite colour.
Preferring to date women over men, for example, does in no way imply that all straight men consider women to be better than men.
Then again… I guess it is easy. It is so easy that when you are butt-ugly, or your character is flawed, or your profile is just very badly written… It is just very easy to yell “racism” when people do not respond to your messages. After all, that way they are to blame and you are the victim.
PS. I’m not denying racism exists, I am just saying dating preferences have nothing to do with it, and that not everyone shouting “racist” is right by default.
To those people saying that the results prove that everyone thinks white people are the best, here is something to consider.
As some people stated before, OkCupid tends to attract a certain type of culture. eHarmony is geared towards conservative christians, and OkCupid is geared towards the geek/dork/nerd crowd. The reason why everyone is so responsive to white people on OkCupid is because the site likely attracts people who are exposed to white people, and are around them much.
In the real world, blacks are a close second behind whites in refusal to date interracially. OkCupid is a heavily white place; minorities are few and far between in comparison. Because of this, OkCupid would work much better for whites who date only other whites than it would for minorities interested in dating their own race. So OkCupid wouldn’t be good for black men who only want black women because they are very rare on this site. It is likely that they go either to the mainstream social networking (MySpace/Facebook) sites which have a lot more black people, or they go to a more racially themed social network (such as Black Planet) to find their mate.
With all of that said, there is a higher proportion of minorities who refuse to date outside of their race than would be reflected in OkCupid’s polls for these reasons.
Mart – So… JeremyR and apples are black women? I’m assuming by “nutjob,” you meant the comment referencing Sir Mix a Lot.
“60% OF Americans are overweight and 80 percent will be overweight by 2020, so don’t you DARE single out black women(funny black men aren’t assume to be overweight)for being overweight/obese/larger.”
Well, it’s because black men aren’t the most overweight group of guys… that would be Latinos, which was news to me.
This doesn’t really follow any sort of statistical accuracy because you’re not taking the racial makeup of the general population into account. Of course there’s going to be less activity between minorities, because there are LESS of them. Even if the sample size of every racial combination is the same, you’re implying that there are the same amount of every race in the entire dating pool. There aren’t. You’re also implying that every area is the same racial makeup, which isn’t true either. A rural area in middle of nowhere Kentucky isn’t going to have the same makeup as central Atlanta.
If I live in an area where, say, 100 white girls and 20 black girls use OKC, and your sample size is 20 people, it’s simply less likely that all 20 of the black girls are going to interest me because that’s 100% of the race’s entire match population.
It’s also a matter of how many of them actually messaged me; using that same sample, if I get a message from 10 white girls (out of 100) and 1 black girl (out of 20), it doesn’t matter if I respond to the black girl and only 5 of the white girls; by OKC’s logic I respond to 100% of black girls who message me and only 50% of white girls who message me.
I’m not denying that racism exists on this site, but there are SO many other factors involved, and OKC’s social experiment isn’t even accurate in the first place.
This isn’t cool OkCupid. Racism is a powerful word and we lessen its impact every time we use it frivolously. Great job trying to match levels of attractiveness and height, but your study still doesn’t cut it. People are so different, and the users of each race that use OkCupid do not likely represent the greater population. Regardless, what is the problem with a general preference for specific race/s? Mating selection is a very personal decision, why insult those who are interested in certain mates? Save the R card for something truly disturbing.
Black women are the least likely to marry outside their race. Truest statement ever written. Asian women are the most likely, that is according to the United States Census Bureau.
Top Reasons You Think You are Not a racist (but more than likely are, since you think that you must state the following to prove that you are not):
1.My best friend is_______________(insert racial minority here)
2.I DATED (emphasis on dated, because marriage is COMPLETELY different)_________(insert race here)
3. I like women who are well educated, can speak, feminine, fit, open minded, etc. etc.
(All code for….gasp…..WHITE!!!!!, because, ya know, Black women after all are very masculine by nature of course. I mean look at that damn Beyonce and Halle Berry, and Janet Jackson, and Gabrielle Union, and Naomi Campbell-they are just so damn masculine, over weight, close minded, and COMPLETELY UNFEMININE!)
4. Biology (when all else fails, blame your racism on biology, after all that’s what eugenics is!)
5. PREFERENCE (Hmm, just like the University of Michigan’s Supreme Court case-preference. Another word for racism is discrimination. Another word for discrimination is PREFERENCE!) I mean after all, when you prefer someone who is not fat-obviously you can’t be talking about a white woman, since 4 out of 5 of them are overweight! I mean, clearly preference is for women with large breasts is not discrimination against Asian women, because after all they ALL have small breasts. And of course, you have to have women with long hair, I mean Black women-they have such short hair right? Or do they, or is that just racism, stereotypes, ignorance .
6. Not liking TAN women. (Great! So you may not be racist because Black women are NOT tan, they are BLACK. And they don’t roast in the sun, they are born that way.)
7. Because non-whites deny their whiteness (Yea right, have you ever met someone from the Philippines! They are dying o tell you how white they are.)
8. “I am not opposed to interracial dating”-for someone else, not you because after all you prefer Jennifer Ainston over Rihanna because you like perky breast?
WTF, you people are seriously racist. FIRST rule of racism-deny, deny, deny. But since, calling racist racist in 2009 is not okay. We can say preference and refer to 1-6.
FYI-Black women on non-Black dating sites is rare. Very.
Another point is that whites are more likely to be atheist. Personally, if I see Jesus mentioned in a profile I am outta there.
Also there is clear data out there showing varying education rates between the ‘races’. And that can definitely impact people’s preference.
So unless you are somehow filtering these out (and sorry the percentage matchess don’t count here because for example, I would have no problem dating a Christian but wouldn’t waste my time with somebody who felt the need to talk about Jesus in their profile — i’m guessing i’m not alone on this)
Wow. This blog post alone is the impetus for my going and re-upping my paid membership. An internet dating site with awareness of racism and sexual orientation issues? Whodathunkit?
Man, I’ve been around OKC a long time, but this is a proud moment.
Serene (aka Serenejournal)
GuruOfReason2, I have something to say about who OkCupid attracts. From what I am hearing, OkCupid doesn’t attract alot of Black people who want to date inside their own ethnicity. I am an African-American male and I don’t seek to date exclusively within my ethnicity. In fact, I am more than happy to date a White woman, Hispanic woman, Asian woman or any other ethnicity. I am more than happy to do so. You can call me the “rainbow dating type”. The issue with me is that many women do not want to date me. I have also read that Black men are seen as the most manly. I am not the “uber-manly” type. In fact, I can be soft at times. I have a hard time looking for the woman who can accept me as the guy who isn’t “uber-manly” and who has a soft side and very secure and in tune with it. Personally, I am the African-American, straight male who gets passed over for bigger(I am 5’5″ and around 130 pounds), more manly(I like Hello Kitty and I can be kind of soft at times, though I do like martial arts) men. Race has played a factor, as well as other factors. Sometimes I think geography could play a factor. I live in the South and interractial dating has been looked down on(to say the least) and even today, there are some people who still look down on it. I am aware that some atitudes are hard to change, but I don’t put up with them or try to make accomodations for them. I do what I want.
So now it’s racist to not be attracted to people of other races? Attraction isn’t something you choose, its something physical.
Also, way to be homophobic and just relying on male/female pairings.
You guys don’t get it.
You are racist.
You’re attempting to make your racism acceptable by substituting that for ‘preference.’
It seems you think only ACTIONS can be racist. Actions begin with THOUGHTS.
It’s clear that the majority of whites are controlled by internal racism. Stop being so quick ‘intellectualize’ what benefits you. Stop coasting on your white-privilege and relationship affirmative-action.
I would have more respect for you if you just admitted that white supremacy benefits you, especially since every non-white race seems ready to drop their draws for you.
Like I said before preferences are based on stereotypes which alot of times stem from racism. Everyone is guilty. So please quit with this preference bullshit. Alot of black females dont even fit the stereotypes that whites have pinned on them since the days of slaver. YES! These stereotypes are historical but have no meaning in real life. It seems as if whites have internalized racism by thinking they are superior,. The reason white men don’t respond is because they are spoiled for choice.
does it really matter? the serach function on the site makes things skewed anywyas. i’d love to be able to exculde people who mention religion in their profiles. if you are so weak that you MUST profess your love for (insert random deity) you really aren’t that strong a believer.
if the search capabilities were redesigned the numbers would be drastically changed
fascinating results. This kind of jibes with what i’ve seen. Generally, white women seem really fearful of non-white guys who approach and talk to them, i’m not really sure why. actually maybe fearful isn’t the right word more like ‘uh what are you doing? why bother?’ another thing is that asian women do seem to worship white guys, not sure what the psychology behind that is, but they fall over themselves for tall white guys.
As a black man this just goes to show that racism is alive and well in the US OF KKKA. Although I was surprised at white women being more racist then white men when it comes to dating. The question is how can we solve this, I’m thinking it goes back to the developmental stage in childhood when children are forming their worldview and negative stereotypes get put in their brains. This is why we need desegregation in schools and neighborhoods, to make people more tolerant and broaden their horizon.
1. The issue at hand is lack of response to messages based on race which I’d like to clear up a little. I am a black female and the MAJORITY of messages are sent to me by white males that usually say (verbatim) “want to fuck?” and I feel OBLIGATED to respond to that with “eat shit and die”. Unfortunately that’s counted as a reply… does that make me a sweetheart? no. It makes me willing to stand up for myself. Am I sassy because I’m black? No, it’s because I have 2 older brothers and speaking up was the way to get noticed.
2. Whoever said black women are muscluar/masculine probably enjoys screwing skinny chicks who look like 12 year old boys because they remind them of 12 year old boys…no t&a.
3. Why are white people on here so slow to admit they are racist? I frequently am told by white people about an incident they’ve had with a family member or friend of a friend who is “soooo racist”. I actually find it quite amusing that they feel the need to share that story with me, the token black in the room.
4. Let’s call it like it is…are you willing for your children to be mixed? Why not? Can you not even wrap your head around the questions because of your “preference”?
You guys are amazing for sharing openly this kind of data-mining!
Keep it up, I find your posts very interesting.
Why are the response rates so drastically lower in this set of statistics than the ones regarding word choice?
Was that first post based on EVERYTHING? Or just first-contacts? First contact would seem to be the most important message, regarding word count and so on.
This was very interesting indeed…and seems pretty accurate….i am a non traditional hispanic male. I was adopted and raised by a white college educated family…i grew up in a very white upper middle class town…..so i have to say that white chicks do seem pretty racist mostly cuase that’s the way they were raised…also they don’t want to upset their parents
what the fuck do you mean by education?
Wow. Thank you so much OkCupid!
This is like a conspiracy theory being proven. It ratifies a lot of suspicions that I’ve had. So true that we are disillusioned into thinking we believe one way, but our actions speak for themselves.
The reply rates to male senders is horrible, even for white. Men reply twice as often.
That middle eastern thing is weird for sure.
I also agree with Marc’s comment. He’s rather atypical for his phenotype. If he were another ethnicity, he’d be much more popular with the personality he has.
VoiceOfReason also makes a good point. Similar to how women are put off by Marc lack of stereotype, men are off put by supposed stereotypes of black women.
OkC you should also do one of these on INCOME and EDUCATION. I doubt it will be as skewed but still interesting. Thanks!
a) I can’t see how exercising preference in your choice of partner can be called racism. It’s your love-life, not a job.
b) “White guys are shitty…” – on the basis that they don’t respond enough? If you get a lot of responses then it’s likely that you won’t have time to respond to all of them, and also, you can pick and choose. That doesn’t make you shitty, which is a somewhat racist statement on the basis of one pretty skewed interpretation of the data – which is skewed in the first place. If you’re going to make statements like this, at least say ‘White guys who use OK cupid” rather than slam the whole race.
@Mart- you are NAIVE to think that racism isn’t tied to dating preference. maybe you can’t wrap your head around that fact but it doesn’t make it not true.. whether it is conscious to you or not, by evolutionary terms, men should be attracted to symmetrical, and therefore more beautiful, women. in no way does race factor into that. our culture and our history created the race divide.
@ JC and TheVoiceOfReason- totally agree. i will repost what you said:
“no matter how innocent any individual preference is, if you look at the way that preference twists and turns over a large group, as we see in this study, racism clearly exists at the systemic level. Regardless of whether or not any person’s preference is racist, on an individual level, the fact of the matter remains that men (as a group) find black women less attractive than other women and that women (as a group) find white men more attractive than other men. While each individual preference might just be aesthetic, it points to a system wide conditioning of the sample group to have racial bias. Your preference might not be racist in itself, but the standards of beauty in the society that influences and shapes your own personal aesthetic preferences are most certainly racist. If they weren’t, we’d end up with the all yellow grid that we get with zodiac signs.”
“Oh by the way stop this preference bullshit it is just a euphemism for racism. People are racist and they think one is better than the other. You’d think after all these years of racial oppression and stereotypes people would be more willing to own up to their own bullshit. Let’s not beat around the bush and be honest.”
i absolutely HATE the guys commenting trying say they aren’t attracted to some races just like they aren’t attracted other men. your inability to get it up for another male is genetic. your inability to get it up for a girl of another race is PROGRAMMED- by your family, by the media, and by who you’ve chosen to surround yourself with. this article further proves it- http://serc.carleton.edu/introgeo/earthhistory/humanrace.html
@Bobby- thank you for adding that article to the discussion. it is good scientific proof that culture is to blame for what the defenders of their racism call ‘aesthetic preference.’
@ARaceAgainstTime- yes, you are a racist, KKK & NAZI-loving BIGOT. sorry to break it to you, but it is not possible for your family to have been all white for 40,000 years. sorry to break it to you, but all races originally came from ‘black’ people. including you, you ignorant turd.
@Tiffany- you say the most horrible things, but you say it so nicely. if you realise ur personal prejudice, why not try to fix it? as in everything else, admitting there is a problem is the first step. attraction, especially for women, is based on much more than a first look at a picture. if you feel you’ve never been attracted to a guy of another race, could it be you never got to know very many guys of other races?
@Erin- you are wrong. because the traits of a baby takes the better dna from each of its parents, mixed blood is always stronger in the biological sense. now you have no excuse. don’t let the world push you into being racist. you were right to begin w/. almost always, the right thing is the one that is harder to do.
Its sad that we are still dealing with this. I thought something was wrong with me but this explains a lot. I think people should put that in their profile, I don’t date black men or I don’t date broke black men or whatever. If you put it in your profile then I wouldn’t contact any one that felt that way. People should be honest with themselves and with others. There would be less time wasted contacting people, trying to think of things to say. Then these people don’t take the time to reply just to say sorry you aren’t what I seek. Sad indeed because I’m sure plenty of us are just seeking new people to know and see if they can become friends or more. Every attempt isn’t about sex.
Fascinating stuff. Keep em coming!
These results don’t surprise me in the least.
As a white female, i can definitively say that I am attracted to white men. They are what I have dated in the past and am therefore used to and feel comfortable with. I am not opposed to dating men of other races, but I would never seek it out either, it’s honestly just easier to go white bread. I had one experience with “talking” to a black guy, and I caught so much shit from my male friends (I live in the south) that it made me just not want to deal with it unless the person i was seeing was insanely compatible and someone I just HAD to be with, and cultural differences overall make finding that difficult.
Plus I have a huge thing for tall guys, and just from my personal experience, a lot of non-whites (other than black men) tend to be kinda short, and that rules you out right off. I’m I’m on a site that allows me to be as choosy as this one does by giving you all the information outright about guys, I’m going to go with my “ideal” men and only reply to/message them. In real life I will certainly make allowance, but c’mon people.. this is the INTERNET. Don’t take it so damn seriously.
Thank god not being physically attracted to most individuals of any certain race is not a crime. Yet.
Disappointed (Male) , what do you think might be the reason I am not more popular with my personality if not just race?
I think alot of women don’t state what kinds of men they want to date. When I don’t get a response, I don’t know why it is. It could be anything, even race. Many women aren’t honest and don’t say they want a white male only.
I think it ia interesting how so many people are so offended over this. I am in the other category, and I am a male. All OKC is doing is getting the best sample from users and seeing trends related to race. If you thought it was neat, cool. If you didn’t, then go out and prove that you can get your preference race to respond.
And for the person who said it is homophobic, I am bisexual and wondered that too, but as I was reading, he said specifically that the m2m and f2f data will come up next week.
Well, I never thought that attraction or lack thereof was considered race related. This is a dating site after all. If I am not attracted to a certain typo of male, thats my preference. Also, when men have these one lined crappy introductions I tend not to respond as well. So I prefer intelligence, so what? I also look at their profile. I do not care for sleaze either, wow , such standards, that you need to label me a racist because there was no other catagorie to put me in. , Hmmm what about stereo typing?
Very interesting. Check out some solid analysis at Racialicious.com
http://www.racialicious.com/2009/10/09/of-okcupid-and-denials-of-racism/
I prefer natural red heads over blonds. …OH SHIT! I’m hair RACIST!! That’s right, RACIST! Because we’re all human, and “race” is just a subtle difference in our genetics… just like hair color!! My preference has made me RACIST!! Damn you, hair follicle pigmentation!! You’ve made me a hair Hitler! Who would have thought that having a simple preference would make you RACIST!
paraphrased: every white plantation owner’s wife knows the father of all the mulatto children on every OTHER plantation but has no idea why there are so many running around on her plantation…
Preference – why is it that “black” people who are the descendants of slaves are CLEARLY more ethnically diverse looking than Africans? Every black person who is descended from slaves is of mixed blood, sometimes Native American but more commonly WHITE. It is a known fact that plantation owners consistently raped and impregnated their African slaves. There was no “preference” other than being able to get their dick wet. Historically laws against interracial marriage weren’t to stop black MEN from marrying white women but rather to keep the bastard children of WHITE men and black women from inheriting property. Prime example: Thomas Jefferson. No sons from his white wife, 2 from his black sex slave. Guess who’s NOT going to inherit anything…
This so called “preference” that people have for one race or another is called a prejudice. You have prejudged all brown people to be of a lower class, less educated, unattractive etc and are not going to give them a chance because of their skin color. You prejudge based upon what you have learned from MTV’s exploitation and VH1’s Flavor of Love. You prejudge because you have been indoctrinated that a 5’5, 100lb, A cup chick with long blond hair and no booty is desirable. There WAS a preference for about 5000 years and that was for CHILDBEARING HIPS! Congratulations, we are the first generations to discount the evolutionary “preference” for a manufactured one.
Way to strike a nerve OkC! Love the study! I’d love to see the race data from other sites as well. Are poor OkC users more racially selective than those of higher socio-economic status paying for other sites? Dying to know! Keep up the good work. The rest of you can just chill out all ready. This is interesting!
A lot of the posts here are only looking at the preferences of white people and labeling them as racist for preferring other white people, you’re missing an important point. Based on these stats, it appears that whites are preferred across the board for all races. So the white people who prefer other whites are no different from other races who prefer whites as well. The question we should be asking is what makes white people so appealing as romantic partners to everybody, including themselves.
I am racist, and I fully admit it here – but not in the US meaning of the word. I simply don’t find other races attractive. I know “Asian chicks” used to be quite valued among my Canadian friends, but I couldn’t care less about them. I guess it’s an American thing then. Same, of course, with Black women.
So here’s a question to OkCupid: among the “White guys” did you include all non-North Americans that may classify as “Caucasians”? That may have spoilt the result.
The stats in this article are fascinating, but the easy flowing accusations of racism are ridiculous.
My preferences affect who I write back to.
I am not racist if I prefer white women to black, and I’m pretty angry at this article for saying I am.
OkCupid is doing a great thing to release this data, but to pile on top of it a naive, unscientific and directly insulting analysis is not helping anyone or making you look good.
OK CUpid is just reporting on the response rates of their people, and making some obvious observations about them. No need to ascribe racist motivations to them.
As far as racist motivations in individuals, I found I had to deal with that personally very early in life. Forty years ago I, as a young white male, was engaged to an even younger African’American woman. We had to make a very thorough search of our many differences of culture, background and attitude (even though she came from a solid middle-class family … her father was an M.D.) and recognize the unconscious racial stereotyping that we both engaged in sometimes. AND we had to explicitly prepare ourselves mentally for the idea that our children would have trouble in BOTH worlds, and that we would probably be totally unwelcome in many areas of this country, back in 1970. I made her sit through the movie “Giant” with me, and we talked about how even to those at the very top of society, racism is an overwhelming adversary. Her drowning, a month before our intended wedding, was the first great tragedy of my life.
We should distinguish between race and culture, even when they correlate. Historically African-Americans and other ethnic groups were perceived as inherently different, so they were unable to assimilate with the hegemonic Anglo-American culture (and probably didn’t want to) the way that, say, Eastern and Southern Europeans did. Therefore they have their own culture. People who share culture tend to have more in common and are therefore more likely to be romantically compatible.
I find dark skin to be a turn-on, so it’s too bad for me that more African-American women didn’t grow up in the middle-class suburban environment that I did. At any rate, you can’t call me shitty for wanting to date people that I have something in common with.
Interesting data but preferences for physical features is not racism. Is the next blog post going to say that men like women with bigger breasts and call it sexism?
Hmmm there are some things that this study takes for granted that I’m not sure it should.
#1 most glaring probably wrong assumption:
A reply to a first message indicates interest.
What if that reply is “f*ck off” ?
#2 Another assumption is that all messages sent are for dating/romantic purposes.
while this isn’t a social networking site, I get more “friendly” messages than messages indicating interest.
#3 Is the assumption valid that not responding to an email indicates a racial preference against the sender? How do you justify that assumption?
I think it is a mistake to assume that the only method for intercommunication on this site is used exclusively for expressing romantic interest. You are using “sending messages” as an indicator, completely ignoring the fact that messages HAVE CONTENT.
Very interesting numbers, but do they indicate what you say they do? You are taking a diverse groups use of a communication tool and giving it an overly narrow (IMO) scope.
Some numbers I’d like to see.
% of female and male users that make first contact.
Sorry to steer away from the race debate, it’s a difficult but important issue for sure, but I’d like to see stats on IM, not just messaging. I enjoy using IM, but most women have turned it off because they get bothered by very inappropriate messages from men.
It’d be fascinating to delve into things like the last few conversations before someone disabled chat, which conversations get replied to/lead to other things/contain an email or phone number from the recipient, etc. as well as who are sending all the ‘ur hott, i wanna get wit u’ messages that are turning girls off to chat (i.e. a few prolific jerks, or lots of less active ones).
Well it did not take a rocket scientist to figure this one out . All you have to do is go to the forums . You can smell the Racism as soon as yiou ope up any number of topics What scares me is these are the same kids that are in my son’s age group (20-35) . I did not teach him to hate but I am pretty sure in most of the profiles that do post hate , the apple did fall far from the tree.Our future leaders …Scary
You should do a follow-up study for gay men and women, I’m very curious!
@ Dawn
Claps! Exactly people don’t like to own up their own prejudices. Black represents lower class to men of other races. Even black men try to escape this by not responding to black women. I really do feel that O.K. Cupid should bring this to the attention of the males. I’m not surprised by the data I wish other sites would release theirs and get proactive about racism in the dating arena. I don’t think racial preferences should be allowed at all.
So again, I just wanted to point out the hypocrisy I see in these posts (non-whites angry about white people preferring to date whites yet they themselves have a preference for whites as well).
I don’t think the color is the reason people have different preferences about the races they find most beautiful, it’s more likely the differences in build and facial features that you’re seeing. Personally, if someone considers me a racist because I find white and asian girls to be the most beautiful, I’ll laugh at them. It’s not indoctrination – I don’t care for make up and I find all sizes of women attractive. As long as beauty is in the eye of the beholder, people will have racial preferences about who they want to bed.
No surprise in these findings. It has always been the case that people prefer to associate with people who are similar to them.
That is why, if you study neighborhoods, you will find to a large degree that people with similar traits — and yes, skin color, cluster together.
This has nothing to do with good vs. bad, right vs. wrong, it’s just a human behavorial phenomenon which has been occuring for centuries.
What is the big revelation here? I see nothing new.
J