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.
This study should have included religion.
Does this mean all women are sexist since across the board they don’t respond as frequently as men?
I mean, if you are going to call white males ‘shitty’ over one or two percentage points then doesn’t it stand to reason that all women are ‘shitty’ — your word.
I have a couple of mixed race friends and they self-identify more with the non-white than the white part of their heritage. Eg. they self-define as black or asian rather than mixed race. I think that’s partly what turns white people off relationships with non-whites. At least when looking at long term relationships, if you were looking at more casual encounters I don’t think you would see the same bias.
Fashion magazines outside white countries stubbornly feature white models, (and we are not to blame for this, are we?) whereas the reverse is not true, unless occasionally to disguise the issue a little bit.
Could’t it be that the white is the most beautiful, apart from accomplished, race of all? And so they are badly sought after by everybody, including themselves.
I’m curious whether a universal error or bias has been taken into account.
Consider:
– OKCupid generally seems to appeal to a better-educated, hipper, younger group of people. I make no value judgements here, but completely anecdotal evidence shows that this site has much greater awareness among “hipsters” and that type of person vs. alternative sites. I would broadly associate these attributes with a wealthier cohort.
– Your sample sizes, based on the datasets revealed in the last few graphs, are heavily skewed toward whites. Not that this necessarily means the results are bad or untrustworthy, but I apply this to the previous point.
– I am in no way going to propose “it’s class, not race” we’re seeing. That’s not my point.
Now, drawing from this I might say that OKCupid appeals to a primarily white base. Though it makes absolutely no claim to be for people of any particular background, it has become that de facto. It’s users have self-selected themselves into a biased universe. I tend to think of a previous post, where the words “band” and “metal” correlated to higher than average response rates. That appeal is to a fairly narrow set of people, which again, is not necessarily about any certain race, but if we had a better, broader sample perhaps other musical genres would also appear favorably—certainly those that really do have the most appeal based on album sales and exposure.
Going further, with this particular dataset you are attempting to draw conclusions across many groups. I would argue that what you really have is a site with a certain known bias. I’ll give that the white dataset on this site is perhaps indicative of a larger belief. I will say, though, that for every other racial group you probably have people already aware of the bias of this site, and who self-selected themselves to look for white companions. They might be more open to these types of relationships than their racial cohort as a whole, vs. the whites on this site who just come out average for their group.
I’m unwilling to draw very much from this data. I think these analysis are very interesting, but don’t think OKC offers anything approaching the diversity of a real world random sampling.
Judging by the comments it seems most nonwhites are angry that whites prefer other whites (according to the chart) and that they’re mostly angry about it because they’d strongly prefer a white woman/man for themselves, but have discovered that we’re not interested in them (according to another of the charts).
It’s like a messy rejection, only a whole ethnic phenotype is rejecting several others. No wonder there’s been so much angst and bloodshed over the years.
Bobby, your information needs some amending:
“Racial Groupings Match Genetic Profiles, Stanford Study Finds”
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/01/050128221025.htm
“The Inconvenient Science of Racial DNA Profiling”
http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2007/10/dnaprint
It’s true that there’s greater genetic variability within populations than between them, but it isn’t a question of the sheer amount of genetic difference, but rather *which* specific traits are common to which groups. Those traits might make up only a small portion of the genome but they’re of particular interest to us as their distribution is highly lopsided, with certain traits appearing almost entirely within one group, and other traits being equally specific to others. Why fixate on these traits to the exclusion of others? Because they govern things like aggression, intelligence, and physical appearance.
This shouldn’t come as a shock to anyone. Why would we emerge from 120,000 years of isolated coevolution yet be 100% identical in our hereditary capacities?
Well, that explains why I rarely EVER get a reply back. I’m a black male, and I don’t discriminate – if she’s intelligent, not a bitch, and not ugly, I’ll message her.
And, if I get a message from some girl who can’t spell or talk about anything substantive, I’m not going to reply.
There is also a clear inverse correlation, which you barely mention, between the frequency with which a particular group sends replies and the frequency with which they receive replies. That is, the more replies a group receives, the fewer they send. This trend is clearly visible on white men, who receive above average replies but send below average replies, and on black women, who receive below average replies but send above average replies.
Not a surprising correlation. It makes sense that those who receive fewer replies would be more eager to reply to those who contact them. It’s interesting to see that reflected in the statistics, though.
I would also like to back up what a lot of people have said. This isn’t necessarily about racism, but in many cases actual sexual preference. If I were a gay man, only willing to date other men, that wouldn’t mean I was sexist, merely that I’m only sexually attracted to men, and thus only want to date men. Lots of gay men count women as their best friends, and would almost certainly come out VERY compatible with them by any rating you could do, but without the sexual spark they won’t date. Likewise, if I’m sexually predisposed toward white women, or asian women, or whatnot, that doesn’t mean I think that group is better than any other, or that I think my personality is inherently more compatible with them. It merely means I find their particular physical characteristics more attractive. I’m sure there are some racists out there, but I think the best indicator of who the real racists are is not who they reply to, but how they answer questions like “Is interracial marriage a bad idea?”
(Note: I personally am not particularly more attracted to one race than another. I’m married to a white woman, but I’ve had relations in the past with black, asian and hispanic women, and they’ve all been great.)
Yeah I definitely agree with the guy that said while white women are very liberal and open to cultures (as they say they are), they are definitely the most ethnocentric group in the world of dating. I’ve known many girls of different races and white women are by far the most sexually xenophobic. not racist. okay some ARE racist but racists are everywhere and of all different races.
The whole matter of preferences is not necessarily racism, but can be, if you are judging what a person is like by their race and not by their actual character/appearance. However, 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.
So chill out folks, the study isn’t saying that YOU are racist, it’s saying that OUR SOCIETY is racist. We all just get swept up in it.
Online daters are very choosy. They are people who aren’t happy or can’t find mates in the real world. They come online to date for a specific reason(s). America is a white oriented nation, so the white male and female online daters are going to get the most responses. Interracial dating is driven by biology. Black males get the most female dates because they are the strongest of the male bunch, Asian(and light skin Hispanic) women get the most male dates because they are the most feminine of the female bunch. Asian males and Black females are left out of the interracial dating game because of their biology. Our culture is based on biology. Both Asian males and black females are not biologically compatible with each other. Males are not suppose to be feminine and females are not suppose to be muscular.
If you are an Asian woman, and you didn’t want a non-white male mate in real life, you’re not going to want to meet on online for real life contact. If you are a white woman, and you didn’t want a non-white male mate, you’re not going to want to meet one online to meet in real life.
This is common sense…..
However interesting this might be, the conclusions drawn from the numbers are just total and utter bullocks.
Attraction is always. ALWAYS. A combination of physical appearance vs character. Even if you are dating someone who you think lacks in one of the two areas, you are doing this because they make up for it in the other. (Not counting the minority that marries for monetary gain or against their wishes.)
I prefer (amongst many things) girls with a sense of humour, girls who know their grammar, girls that are open-minded, girls that can hold their own in a relationship. I also prefer girls with long hair, I prefer girls with smooth skin, I prefer girls with nice firm breasts. Let’s hope there will never be a country filled with humour-less, small-breasted, timid Christian extremists. If this ever came to pass I would be racist as hell.
On a less sarcastic note, an example: Because of cultural upbringing Asian girls tend to be a bit more timid than western girls, in general they also have smaller breasts. These are two points that, for me, result in me being generally more attracted to western girls. Sure there are exceptions (and I’ve dated them (to my liking!)), but just a minor preference like that alters the statistics.
Having mentioned such physical traits as being slightly less attractive to me, is it so wrong for me to feel less attracted to people with a different skin-tone? I don’t find overly-tanned white girls that attractive either. It does not mean I exclude them from my potential dating pool, it just means it is slightly less likely for me to be attracted to them.
Before reading this blog post I did not even think twice about these personal preferences, but now that I have I find the post fairly insulting. I have Maroccan friends, I have Asian friends, I have Brazilian friends. Being less romantically attracted to these groups of people makes me no more a racist than someone preferring a tall woman or brown eyes.
Now someone who *disapproves* of any interracial friendships, dating, or marriage. Now *that* person is a racist.
[/rant]
I’m looking at the study that is titled:
Your Race Affects Whether People Write You Back.
Well, I do not think it is a scientific study. The study might also be biased.
Also, I do not know what persons 1) collected the data for this study and 2) what methods these people used to collect this data.
I cannot find an author for this study, so I will not believe this study. I also will ignore This study. If you are reading this study, I ask you to ignore this study as well, since this study is unsigned and this study may also be biased by the feelings of the author.
Thank You.
In addition to my previous post, and with a corrected link to my profile (hell, I’m not ashamed of my opinions).
Where are the numbers of gay men messaging straight men? I mean: since the number of responses would be incredibly low this must mean the OkCupid population is incredibly homophobic?
The fact that I am less likely to date someone with a different ethnicity makes me no more a racist than the fact that I won’t date men makes me a homophobic.
[/rant again]
wow, it’s comforting to know that most men aren’t attracted to black women.
And thanks, I didn’t know that we were ll fat, masculine and biologically inferior to other women.
But…you can’t really say that those are accurate results unless you talk to each person and they actually divulge what they’re honest reason was for rejecting the others. I don’t doubt that racism is still a problem, but you’re including certain variables that you can’t possibly be certain about…
anonjoe – “Black males get the most female dates because they are the strongest of the male bunch”
Dude, but these results say they totally don’t — the exact opposite of what you propose. They don’t even get the highest amount of minority male responses, they get near the lowest. The same with Asian females, who have high reply rates, but nowhere near Middle Eastern females, who are distinctly different in phenotype and genotype.
Arthur “Couldn’t it be that the white is the most beautiful, apart from accomplished, race of all?”
No, thanks for playing. They’re just regular humans with the same level of physical variation as the rest of us plebes. Between that and the amren guy, I think we’ve got us a nasty troll infestation.
i’m wondering if any of these statistics has to do with the representation of certain races on the site. i reply overwhelmingly to caucasian males but most of the messages i get are from caucasian males (i’m a black female, btw, if the name didn’t give me away). other races of guys haven’t really gotten too much of a fighting chance if only 1 or 2 representatives made it to my inbox vs. the dozens of white guys. what if i didn’t like the 1 pacific islander who decided to send me a message? statistically, i could seem to prefer white guys over pacific islanders, right? (which is not true at all, i’m all about the filipino lovin’)
similarly, perhaps black girls are underrepresented?
Can’t speak for anyone other than Asian people. It is prevalent in Asian culture to fit in and be accepted. Many choices in life such as one’s academic and romantic pursuits are supposed to fit within what’s considered as positive norms of Asian culture. Asians are primarily taught to stick together, and will venture outside to only include whites here in the West. Many Asians would consider whites to be the only ‘upgrade’ to fellow Asians and that can explain the bias. It’s all about the image. Being with a very plain white person will still give the folks back home a successful impression of you, while being with a fellow minority will carry the opposite feelings.
With that said, there are always exceptions, and interracial dating is all about being willing to deal with the occasional rejection due to preference. Second generation Asians and beyond are much more willing to date outside of their ethnicity since they’re further removed from the influence of Asian cultural norms. I think the Asian male/Black female pairing is on its way up here in the U.S., and to me that’s very cool.
I haven’t got time to go back through all the previous responses, so maybe this has already been raised, but I’d be curious to see how the stats break down for men messaging men and women messaging women.
According 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.
Being ‘progressive’ does not necessarily correlate with being non-racist any more than it correlates with being charitable. Studies have shown that those who self-identify as religious conservatives are actually more likely to donate to private charities, for instance, than those who identify as ‘liberal.’ So there’s a clear difference between public policy beliefs and personal actions, between what we’re willing to do ourselves and what we think others should be forced to do.
The KKK is strongly socialist. Nazi stands for ‘national socialist’ and despite what many people were brainwashed to believe in schools, a great deal of it was based on Marx. “1000 year reich” is a direct theft from Marx (Who, I think, was ripping off Christianity). The Democratic party was the political wing of the KKK for over 70 years. Margaret Sanger once supported forced eugenics (but later advocated voluntary programs via racially slanted promotion of abortions). Republicans voted for the Civil Rights in far greater numbers than Democrats. Today, the philosophy among some ideological progressives has changed to “only whites can be racist.” The claim is that only power matters in accusations of racism, but the clear result is treating people differently based on race. The problem is that “afflicting the comfortable and comforting the afflicted” does not resolve conflicts while “equality before the law” does.
The elimination of, say, affirmative action in favor of basing admissions on test results is called racist by those who identify as progressive. Any objective result, such as test scores, is labeled as ‘racist.’ African Americans who are politically conservative are told they’re “not real blacks.” (As if ‘Black’ was a political ideology.)
All of these things demonstrate a strong progressive belief that race should be taken into consideration when judging a person, which would normally be called racism.
So it remains to be proven, at least, whether those who self-identify as progressives are less likely to exhibit race based behavior or if they’re simply people who believe that morality is what we tell other people to do, not what we do ourselves.
Though personally I wonder if OKCupid has really controlled for all variables here. If white males get more replies and that makes them more selective, why is that?
Have they controlled for, say, income and education as it correlates to race (which, statistically, it does)? If people on OKCupid are those who more highly value education then what’s the education distribution here, based on race? How much of the variance does it account for?
Let me put it another way; just because match scores correlate with replies does not mean scores can automatically be taken as an indisputable proxy. It’s the old canard of correlation not equaling causation.
The folks who wrote this platform (to whom I am grateful) have been to MIT and should know this.
Anonjoe, your post is patently racist. Why? Because it’s a complete generalization that Asian men are the most “feminine” men and Black women are the most “masculine,” I think you were trying to say (the word is masculine, not mascular, btw). The standard of femininity and masculinity are entirely culturally based, and pretty subjective. I’m not even going to get into the biology part because there would be no biology to talk about if there were no Black people (because the entire human race originated in Africa). Read a book NOT written by Willie Lynch or Adolf Hitler once in a while.
Dude of course there are trolls here. It’s OKC.
And to JJ who says that the Interracial dating between white and Asians has declined as of 2000? What does it say after that. Her in Houston. After 2000 the city expanded and developed like you wouldn’t believe. More Ethnicity’s moved to the city in great numbers. People move here from all over the U.S, constantly, and in huge numbers. My point is that in 2003 I just happened to notice this trend, and it seems to be the opposite of that report. I honestly try to find AM/AF couples. And they are far and few between. Most Asian women here date White men exclusively. The younger(18-21) Asian couples seem to be making a comeback though. And the older(50+) seem to be as strong as ever, In between that I would say I have seen 80 percent of Asian women dating White men.
It’s the media’s fault, haha. Actually there are reason’s for it that I really don’t feel like getting into. Let’s just say at one point it was taught that dating a White man will bring you happiness.
But, man I would really like to see this broken down by geography. Here in Houston, yes white guys get a lot of play, but so does every else lol. Now go outside of Greater Houston about 15 miles and it gets White fast. Kind of something that happened because of “White Flight” a while back. I’m so glad I live in the city. I have never had any problem dating people of other races. But coincidentally, I have never dated a White women. Not that I haven’t had the option. But, they weren’t that attractive to me(5′ 2″, 200+ pounds). Yeah I know, I’m shallow, haha.
I think the whole white beauty thing is down to mental perception e.g. if we had grown up with black, overweight ladies portrayed as beautiful and being in the centre of media attention then that’s the type of women we men will be after. What Arthur is saying is pretty messed up, the only reason why non-white countries portray white women as the most beautiful is because of the influence the white world is having on those countries (consumerist culture, music, fashion etc.).
I hate that sort of generalisation, there are a lot of white folk out there that haven’t been colonisers, slave owners, famous scientists and engineers, conquerors or any sort of driving and influencing force and yet they are grouped together with the rest of the bunch, for example I don’t think that Moldavians have ever been in the spotlight as a nation but in the USA they’ll be perceived as white and all sorts of good and bad things that white people generally “did” there will be attributed to them. I think it’s unfair, people should be judged on an individual basis.
Also, don’t forget the issue of CLASS.
This article is interesting and it sheds light on a topic we don’t often talk about, that we don’t live in a “post racial” america, that white is still considered good, and that white men especially are privileged in our society.
I think I agree with the overall consensus… having been on-line dating for a long time this site is kind of a fluke. I LOVE this site because of how it’s set up and the options of expressing yourself, but I have noticed it’s primarily “White Guys”, where as my experiences on other sites seem to be different (I’m also SF bay area based, so seeing such a strong white male presence is odd – on other sites it’s generally Asian (including Indian) and has a much high % of African American.
I’m a white/Latin Female and most (like 90%) of the messages sent to me are from White males, closely followed by Asian with a few African American and Hispanic thrown in there.
So if you think about sheer numbers of men sending first messages, wouldn’t it make sense that “white guys” would have a higher feed back rate? Especially since it’s only a few % points anyhow. I really don’t see it as a product of “racism” and to be honest, it’s kind of stirring the pot to say that such a small difference is such.
I think It’d be interesting to see a correlation between Education, Religion, liking kids, or any of the other “subjectives” that a person is in control of. Race is subjective in it’s own way anyhow, a lot of guys I know on OKC just put “white” down because when your American, unless you “LOOK” like whatever it is you ethnically are, you are still considered “white” – this is coming from a women who looks NOTHING Latina, but still is.
Good luck all!
Who are these men who get messages from women?
I wouldn’t so much label it as ”racism,” and maybe that’s because, being a white male, I’m ”automatically the most racist thing, ever.” For me, I love all people, but as far as what I find sexually attractive attributes, it’s confined to certain races. I didn’t choose to like women rather than men, and I didn’t choose which features in a mate are more attractive. It doesn’t mean I think less of someone that I don’t want to boink. But as long as there’s a race difference between such a person and me, it has been shown that there is no way they will believe this.
Can we get race charts for [democrat,republican] sender/[democrat,republican] recipient? Or maybe a chart showing each religion’s tendency to date within their own _race_?
So basically white women are racist… and nobody wants black people… thats what I learned here
http://www.4insure.net
I am African American and have yet to date a black guy. It’s not because I’m against guys of my own race, it’s just that with the field I’m in it’s mainly white and certain characteristics of white guys attract me. The other thing is, with all the guys I’ve dated and been with I never went to them first, they came to me which I think screws up the statistics on here.
True some other races (i.e asian etc) don’t seem to do well with me. Which I do think is due to my color and the negative image most black females get through the media. However I think it depends on where you are from and who you are really.
@ anonjoe
You theory is bullshit and is based not on truth but racism. I guess common sense ain’t so damn common these days. Black women reply more becuase they are not as spoiled by the dating game as white males.
@ JC
Right on! Systematic racism has alot to do with this.
@ Herufeanor
It’ does not matter who you DATED. You MARRIED a white woman. People date and bang folks they wouldn’t marry all the time.
@ Arthur
Whiteness is shoved down the throats of people of color by no means do they like seeing you on the cover of their magazines. People of color have been rallying for years to see their beautiful people represented but since alot of editors and publishing houses are mostly run by whites we cant count on you guys to play fair. Speaking of playing fair whites are not the most accomplished because you never fought a fair fight. You actually start fights with people who do nothing to you. Greed much?
I am a black female and I will say that people aren’t so quick to respond to me even with all my accomplishments and being eligible. Racism and racial perceptions have ALOT to do with who gets what reply.
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.
Wow. All I have to say, OKCupid is that I love your stats posts!!! Thanks so much for the helpful analyzation…it makes my week
(psych major here lol)
This explains a lot. The Indian male is probably the most disadvantaged group of the whole bunch, and it makes sense. Unlike other Asians, Indians have never been fully integrated into western society. The Chinese and Japanese (and to a lesser extent, Koreans and Vietnamese) are all familiar cultures to the majority. India, as recently as the 1980s, has been stereotyped as a place where monkey brains are eaten. According to this website, many U.S. teachers believed it and passed those beliefs down to younger generations: http://web.archive.org/web/20050108064134/http://www.mssu.edu/projectsouthasia/tsa/VIN1/Rosser.htm.
But of course Indian women don’t have a hard time. They are the mutual object of affection of white men, who consider them exotic. That comes down to our society, like jc said. According to Kenpar, there are a lot of interracial couples in Houston, but they all seem to be minority women with white men. Want to know what’s sadder? Look how often each minority woman replies back to a man of her own ethnicity, and compare that to how often she replies to a white man. Indian women reply to Indian men 18% of the time, but they reply to white men 30% of the time.
This is one of the things that still bugs me about being a North American. I’m glad my ancestors moved out of India generations ago, but I don’t think they anticipated this. I’ve never even been to India. I consider myself as North American as any white North American, but they probably won’t accept me as one of them in my lifetime. It worked out for my dad, who was a novelty in the 1970s. Right now, it’s downright racist.
I also disagree with HeruFeanor. While I used to think I wasn’t attracted to certain races, I realized I was wrong. I never thought I liked black women, but then I met some really hot ones. I think, generally, a race’s physical features can be unappealing, but chances are small that a person has never been attracted to anyone of that specific race.
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. Were it a strictly friendship thinkg thoug I couldn’t care less.
I’d like to see these numbers broken down by region. I’m from Hawaii, where we have a high rate of inter-racial marriage, and it would be interesting to see how reply preferences plot out here, as well as in other areas.
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Racism is being confused with cultural differences. Relationships have a lot of hurdles to overcome. Adding cultural differences to the rest makes it that much more likely that the relationship will not work out. Although we have been legally integrated, culturally we are still apart. Of course, there are exceptions. There are racists. I’m not trying to argue that there are not.
People in the larger society tend to be with those of their race. Because I enjoy speaking about relationships with people, and about what makes them work out, and not work out, I have had the opportunity to speak with many people of different races about this. Although they had various impressions of why relationships worked out, and why they didn’t, one theme I heard repeatedly was that they felt that the cultural differences were too much of an impediment to true intimacy.
The reason I was saying earlier that racism was being confused with cultural differences is that I have dated women of my race but who were from another country. The cultural differences could not be bridged. I have heard this from others as well. Nothing I am saying is scientific, of course, because I have not done a study. It is simply anecdotal. But, I have never had anyone tell me that cultural differences made a relationship easier, and I doubt that I ever will.
I have love for everyone, and we all should, in a general way. Remember, those that are mean, or hateful, etc are the most in need of love because they are the most lost.
Sincerely, Chris
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Sad.
I agree wholeheartedly with TheVoiceOfReason. I too am a black female and I’ve found men not wanting to respond to me either. This has nothing to do with black women being overweight or masculine looking, I am neither. I just think it’s because all people have been sold a bill of goods that white women are better looking and better all around. It’s logic based on nothing and people keep believing it.
Your information must be wrong. I’m Asian, in decent shape, have plenty of photos up, and consider myself closer to the cute side than ugly… but I get like a 5% reply rate from women in general. Probably due to all the douchebags they’ve talked to and have since given up. I’ve given up on sending messages for the most part, I only visit the site to look at tests or kill time. I don’t take anything on this site seriously. But I do think the numbers seem correct. Again, except for Asian male senders. I bet we get screwed the most, and not screw in a good way.
Oh my god, are people really using “Well, I have a black/Asian/Muslim/three-legged friend, how can I be racist?” lmao
This really sucks. Personally, I don’t think race should be factor in dating. Yes, I do find myself attracted to alot of white women. I also find myself attracted to black women as well as Hispanic, Asian, and Pacific Islander women. I don’t have this philosophy of “stick with your own kind”. Unfortunately, other people do. I don’t look at it as a matter of “stick with your own kind, you’ll do better”. I look at it as “why are black men not liked as much as men of other ethnicities?” Personally, I haved learned that just because you are attracted to someone doesn’t mean that person will be attracted to you. I learned that through women not replying to my messages.
@mlkhro
I have to disagree. I think that “culture” often gets used to deflect from dealing with race. One of the flaws in this perspective is the fact that race and culture do not always line up in neat and tidy ways.
I am a black women who grew up (as in, from age 2 through leaving for college at 18) in a overwhelmingly white suburb in Connecticut. Despite having major aspects of culture in common with my white peers as a result of our growing up in the same location, going to the same schools, having the same hobbies/activities and being at the same class level, no one was remotely interested in dating me. I always had a number close male friends, but I was never the one asked to the dance (even as friends) or even *to dance*, or told that some guy thought I was cute, or that some guy “liked-liked” me. I watched all my white female friends have these experiences, while I did not.
I didn’t completely buy into the idea of my experiences being a result of my race until I went to college. My undergrad university was in a major metropolitan city, and the city and the university were both diverse, and seemed to have a number of open-minded people. I could go on about this forever and provide a lot of details, but suffice it to say that this was the first time in my life in which I noticed men finding me attractive. If the differences were few and/or subtle, I’d say it was a fluke, or that I had simply been oblivious to guy’s attentions before, but that isn’t the case, and remains so. (I was cuter when I was younger) I also notice that men have a similar reaction to me in other progressive locations, but that I still get the cold–or rather, disinterested–shoulder where I grew up, as well as in other predominantly white suburbs.
I’ve met other black women who grew up in similar towns, and they’ve shared similar experiences, as have other black women who ended up on educational and/or professional tracks where there are few people of color and/or people don’t seem comfortable with interracial dating.
I feel very fortunate to have lived in place where I was considered attractive, and even more fortunate to be married to a wonderful man who makes me feel beautiful.
If okaycupid is going to to engage in the statistical Big Brothering that this study involved, it has an ethical responsibility. And that responsibility is to clearly articulate that user information is NOT private. Furthermore, it would state flatly that user information WILL be used for research. And it would require prospective members to add an electronic initial as a form of acknowledgment and consent.
Without the above, this number crunching is both invasive and teetering on libelous. A better option that will involve willing consent without turning off new users is to make participation in such research optional. The service is otherwise “free” so this strategy would invite willing participation AND engage in full disclosure from the start.
We love you, okaycupid. You offer a good service and we all want to see this business model thrive. But don’t play fast and loose on this.
Peace.
This is not surprising, but without more data (tone and content of messages etc) it is difficult to say what it really reflects.
I know that many white males that I work with and live around would not really consider dating a black woman, not because they had sat around going “Black women are inferior so I won’t date them” but because it has not ever come up as something they would even consider.
We are so far from America’s cultural norm of what is considered beautiful, blond, thin, white and if not white, at least Asian, or ‘exotic’, that I think that most white and other race men just don’t consider black women attractive.
Which is fine for me because I really would not want to date someone who decides if they want to date me based on if I am a certain race, so it narrows down the pool considerably lol!
I long ago figured out that the world is not fair, and I am tired of being angry about it. So I won’t get that many responses to my messages big deal, fact is I really only need one