Current Events > Why do so many gay minorities claim Grindr is racist?

(+) Yeah! (+)

I talked to many minorities and they claimed that you can only be succesful if you are white or latino, everyone have their preferences, but is it that bad? (Well latinos never told me Grindr was racist though). Just curious about the experiences of gay minorities here.
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It's not so much that hook up apps are racist. It's that the gay community in general can be racially biased putting hot white (or rather light-skinned) guys on the highest pedestal, while a lot of guys with darker skin men and Asians are not seen as popular.

One of the contributors for this is white and latino gay men being the most common token gay men in American media. That means they're more likely to be represented positively (attractively) to viewers. White gay dudes in media are not hard to find at all, they even get leading roles. And the gay latino "Alejandro" cliche has been a sexualized fantasy among gay men for eons. This can affect opinions and sexual demands in gay communities, including some minority men favoring white or lighter-skin partners just like a bunch of minority guys fetishize white chicks. There's a fuck ton of media encouraging them to do so.

Gay Asian men are not commonly seen on American media, often being portrayed as goofy-looking comic relief when they are. Same can be said for a lot of token gay black dudes, who are often either presented as flaming queens or "ironic reveals" as big intimidating guys who are actually gay.

There's also the noticeable anti-gay beliefs in some black communities which really puts off a lot of gay men from trying to date black men. It's considered baggage that they could easily bypass just skipping over black dudes. It's not fair, but it is what it is. Gay black men in the US often have a rougher life than other gay men because of these issues, so they're more likely to seek partners outside of black demographics in hopes of dealing with less drama too.


So basically if you're a gay Asian man, you're one of the underdogs in gay dating in the US. And home-grown black guys have stigmas and stereotypes attached to them that can turn potential partners away. Some of it's racism, some of it's the fact that a lot of black communities won't get their shit together in accepting LGBT folk. And black LGBT suffer for it.
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I would think gay guys in general are more open when it comes to race

either way, life's not fair. get the fuck over it and do it the best you can.
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Eh, I've been able to meet up with some hot as fuck black and Asian guys from Grindr. But probably because their standards are lowered by the hot as fuck white and latino dudes rejecting them >_>

Solid Snake07 posted...

I would think gay guys in general are more open when it comes to race

It's a common expectation that is unfortunately not the real case.

It would make more sense that gays would be less picky about race when most of us don't reproduce (so we don't get as hung up on what our kids will look like) and we typically have some familiarity with discrimination at some point. But there's still a lot of racial bias when picking partners. Some gay men will shy away from dating men of other races, fearing an awkward culture clash. It's similar to why some heterosexual people avoid the same.

In the end, "preferences" reign supreme. And I'm afraid those trends leaves some demographics on the bottom with dating media.


I know there's plenty of hot black and Asian men out there. But then race has never really been one of my priorities with dating. Compatibility was. It just made more sense to me on account that gay men only made up a small portion of the country to begin with, being less picky means better odds. However, some other people just flat out won't consider anyone outside of their favored races as potential partners. And they miss out on a lot of hotties because of it.
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it's racist because there are a huge amount of gay men who discriminate solely based on race. and in quite an offensive way (e.g. no rice, no blacks)
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Parappa09 posted...

it's racist because there are a huge amount of gay men who discriminate solely based on race. and in quite an offensive way (e.g. no rice, no blacks)

Just what I wanted to say
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Parappa09 posted...

it's racist because there are a huge amount of gay men who discriminate solely based on race. and in quite an offensive way (e.g. no rice, no blacks)

What I want to add based on your post and on the topic title, is that there are gay guys of all "races" who engage in such behaviour which makes it a complex issue. It's easy to say that gay white men just date other whites, but I have seen plenty of "minority profiles" on Grindr where the guy explicitly state he's only into white guys and that other blacks, other Asians or whatever needn't bother.
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BalanceLost posted...

Parappa09 posted...

it's racist because there are a huge amount of gay men who discriminate solely based on race. and in quite an offensive way (e.g. no rice, no blacks)

What I want to add based on your post and on the topic title, is that there are gay guys of all "races" who engage in such behaviour which makes it a complex issue. It's easy to say that gay white men just date other whites, but I have seen plenty of "minority profiles" on Grindr where the guy explicitly state he's only into white guys and that other blacks, other Asians or whatever needn't bother.

yeah fair point, at the end of the day it's discriminatory and racist behaviour no matter who it comes from. the LGBT community overall can be a little toxic when it comes to race. just look at this article which came out two weeks ago:

https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/gay-bars-can-be-mind-bogglingly-racist

racism like that happens so often, and normally against minorities
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Solid Snake07 posted...

I would think gay guys in general are more open when it comes to race

either way, life's not fair. get the fuck over it and do it the best you can.

Why?
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As a gay Asian.

Yes all the gay hook ups are racist. There are even apps that are focused on certain races to hook up with
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Yeah there's a good amount of people put racial preferences on dating apps.

Personally I have no preferences towards race so I don't care, but don't really care if someone prefers x or y. I've met plenty of guys who don't like white guys (I'm mixed but look mostly white) and I just move on from it. Funny enough, I felt the most standoffish came from gay Asians who only want to date other gay Asians or Latinos. But I live in an area of a lot of Asians

I am learning so much
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I will say it's somewhat amusing to see food being used as slang for racial preferences. Rice, curry, potatos, etc
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There's also the "no fats no femmes" thing that I honestly see more than the racial stuff, again, not knocking anyone for having preferences, it's just the ways it's expressed by some is a little tacky.

Also there's some that are obsessed with a certain race and it doesn't really fee much better. Lol being told you "love x guys" can be a turn off since I'd feel you would just replace me with any other x guy

The paid version of grindr allows one to filter out profiles on a wide range of things. While some guys are more overt in their... preferences and claim stuff in their profiles, there's a swath of guys who just flat out never see (nor get seen by?) their undesired types (age, race, body-type, HIV status, etc)

I've got one friend who literally filters out blacks and asians. So it's a thing, but he's like one out of ~thirty that I've seen do that. Everyone else is more subconcious about it (if at all). Still, my gay friend/hookup circle tends to be white and latino but I can't tell if it's a sexual preference thing or a socio-economic/cultural thing; the line between potential hookup, potential friend, and potential mate is very blurred one.
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