What is sexual racism?
According to Charles Stephens, it’s not just when people write things like “no blacks” or “no Asians” on their Grindr profiles. It can also be “the sexual objectification of black men by white gay men.”
Stephens is an HIV/AIDS activist and the founder of the Counter Narrative Project in Atlanta. He recently sat down with Mark King to talk about race and racism in the LGBTQ community, among other things.
“Desiring black men sexually does not make [a person] any less racist,” Charles explains. “Milo Yiannopoulos is currently the queen of this line of thinking.”
How about we take this to the next level?
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Related: Black, Bisexual, And Invisible: A Cry For Acceptance And An End To Racism In The LGBTQ Community
In case you need a recap: Yiannopoulos once claimed to have a “anti-white bedroom policy” and identifies himself as a “coal burner” because he only sleeps with black men, who he sometimes refers to as “black drug dealers.”
Charles adds, “Racism is a chronic condition. It’s something you have to constantly work against. The reward is your humanity.”
Earlier this year, Stephens wrote a piece for the Advocate pointing to iconic ’80s photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, whose hyper-sexualized photos of naked black men created a sort of domino effect when it comes to fetishizing black men in the gay community. The piece caused quite a stir.
“A lot of white gay men were very upset with me,” Charles says. “They were uncomfortable with me discussing race in the context of sexuality. I suppose having to think about race too much gets in the way of their fetishizing black penises.”
He continues, ” I think there are some white men that desire black men sexually not because they love individual black men, but because interracial desire is taboo. Or they get off on seeing their white skin next to black skin.”
This, Charles indicates, is a perfect example of sexual racism.
Related: 10 things you should never say to a black guy on Grindr
It’s a sentiment writer Jeremy Helligar, author of the book Is It True What They Say About Black Men?, also shared in an interview with Queerty a while back.
“What people don’t realize is that … by making [black men] all about how we are in bed, they are stripping us of our individuality and equating us with our penises,” Helligar explained. “After so many years of thinking of myself as a multi-dimensional human being, I realized that, for many, I was merely the size of my penis.”
Too many guys he’s met, Helligar added, have been more interested in “satisfying their curiosity than getting to know the man beyond the skin color.”
So how do we begin combating this issue?
Well, Charles says, white gay men can start by educating themselves.
“Learn something about black culture (read the poems of Essex Hemphill, the essays of Joseph Beam, films like Tongues Untied),” he says. “Listen to black gay men. Don’t confuse pity with empathy, and don’t only support black folks because you want to be a white savior or white hero.”
“We have to have real conversations about race,” he adds. “I get that they are uncomfortable. That has to end. A lot of white gay men have been slow to confront race, but this is hopefully the beginning of more dialogue.”
Related: Inspiring ‘Glitterboy’ photo project challenges notions of black masculinity and sexuality
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Donston
This article actually undermines a lot of what Queerty has been pushing lately which has been: “you should want to have sex with every race, otherwise, you’re a racist”. This is a bit closer to the reality of things and something that is actually progressive. Respecting someone, looking at them beyond sex or fetish is far more important than whether you find them sexually appealing.
Chris
What about the equal-opportunity sluts among us?
Donston
I think that’s answered in the post.
Donston
It’s also answered in the article if you read it.
barkomatic
While I believe that saying, “no Blacks, no Asians” etc on your profile is rude and racist I think the opinion expressed by Stephens and shared by Helligar crosses squarely into the over-sensitivity that is counter productive to furthering equality. However, I appreciate the fact that if people feel this way they are discussing it. I’m going to focus on hooking up with a guy–as opposed to dating — since it’s implied that after satisfying a sexual fetish with black guys then white guys move on.
The issue is objectification. Have these guys been on Grindr or to a gay bar at all in their lives or ever hooked up? If they did have these experiences, then they’d realize that pretty much all gay men objectify each other for a variety of reasons which transcend race. Some guys just want to hook up and not have a relationship–and this should not be breaking news.
If you agree to go home with a guy the same day/night you meet him then it’s completely unreasonable to expect they’ll want to date you. Sure! Sometimes hookups turn into relationships and that’s awesome, but you aren’t racist for hooking up and then not having a relationship. It could be argued that if you do this too much you have other problems, but racism for this reason alone isn’t one of them. I confess that I hooked up with a handsome black guy (after meeting at a bar) who on the same night brought up the fact he wanted children and marriage. Ok, so that is a noble goal to have — but committing to have kids isn’t something I’m going to do the first time I meet a guy so that’s why we didn’t see each other.
Godabed
a fact has nothing to do with over sensitivity. It’s a reality that men of color face. fetishism for the color of their skin whether you choose to acknowledge that fact is simply up to you.
You’re right that it’s objectification. But the point here is objectification by race. Most other things people are objectified for, their hair, their body mass, their penis, ass etc: can all be manipulated and changed. There are gay sex groups based around a lot of these fetishes. However Racism is systemic in all cultures spanning the entire world it’s one of the few things that does not change, and won’t change unless the culture itself and the views on people of color change. the dehumanization of POC has gone on for hundreds of years literally their worth literally given a price, just because mass slavery ended doesn’t mean the ideal that fueled those market places don’t exist today. They do. The same ideology that sees black men as aggressive violent uneducated, hyper masculine, diseased is the same culture that oversexualizes for massive penises and libido, those very same aggressive tendencies in bed, and hyper masculinity.
The basic take away is that Black people are people first, that’s been an acknowledge in almost all cultures that has been denied to them, They are Human. with the same human needs for love, affection, emotional investment and yes at time sexual desires. But the extreme of un-rational fanatic desire due to the color of their skin that’s a problem. you should be able to understand that at least.
Heywood Jablowme
But it’s not a one-way street. Almost all the time when black guys have wanted to have sex with me, it was simply racial, they just wanted to f*ck a cute white guy. I didn’t instigate anything; in fact 99% of the time I’d have been too shy to approach them. (This was mostly in bars – pre-Grindr era.)
“Too many guys he’s met, Helligar added, have been more interested in ‘satisfying their curiosity than getting to know the man beyond the skin color.’”
Well, that can always come later. I certainly satisfied any “curiosity” I had when I was young – (yep, black dudes are often XL) – but as with any casual trick, sometimes you end up talking and learn something about the person. Nothing wrong with that. Just listen and learn something.
Godabed
If a culture told you, you were not beautiful or the standard of beauty, and that say Asian (you can insert any other minority group) men were, they were in every facet of society, in all the major movies, magazines, positions of power, congress, fortune 500s, the ideal picture of wealth and success, and a happy life, This wasn’t only your day to day but this was your culture for hundreds of years, and on the same token that very same culture told you, that white boys, were diseased, lazy, uneducated, violent, ugly, aggressive, only good for physical labor because science and the bible said you weren’t meant for more, and a system was created at every facet to keep you in the lower rungs of society, they pushed you in ghettos, and laws were passed to make it illegal for you to move to the suburbs, you were incarcerated without cause or more harshly for the same crimes Asians committed, high paying jobs wouldn’t hire or promote white men because they were seen as risky or not competent to do the job. But white men had big penises, had sex all the time, super masculine, and really good at all sports.
Given all of that, you don’t think that being with an Asian man, the ideal symbol of the culture wouldn’t be something you would aspire to be or have? And you don’t think that in this scenario white men wouldn’t be fetishize for the color of their skin What this is essentially is feeding into the conditioning of the society around you. It’s can’t be avoided, what has to happen is people have to un-condition themselves to think the way society is telling them to think.
in short those black men aren’t fetishizing you for the color of your skin, but what you present in the culture/society. You are the standard of beauty and success. The same way a white woman is a status symbol to a athlete who believes he’s the exception to how the society sees him racially.
Heywood Jablowme
@Godabed: I’m not quite sure what to make of your analysis. You almost seem to be blaming THEM instead of me.
Gee, I was unaware that they were reacting to me as a “standard of beauty and success”… back when I was working as a bar-back / janitor / temp agency typist / dog-walker.
I really doubt that’s it. I’m guessing they MAY have zoomed in on me because I was a shy, withdrawn wimp with extreme social anxiety.
As a kid I was beat up by black guys in school a lot. But as a young adult I made the conscious decision NOT to regard adult life as an extension of my childhood. That’s one of the few conscious decisions I made but I suspect that many white guys with my history would have avoided black guys entirely and wallowed in outright racism.
Re: Grindr etc., well I’m not sure what I’d do if I were young now in the Grindr era. It seems complicated. Back in the bar era I was lucky because I didn’t have to say much of anything. I enjoyed being able to stand in a bar looking cute for 15 minutes and get picked up. Sue me!
What do you suggest I should have done instead? I am not a mindreader. My psychological and social skills were (and remain) quite limited. But as I said, I got to know some of them later on after we got to talking (black, white, Latino, Asian, South Asian, the whole bunch). I think that’s fine and all to the good.
Chris
I think that the point is that someone is racist if their motivations for having (or not) sexual encounters have to do with stereotypes involving race, skin color, and the like. Most writers have focused on people who won’t date others for those reasons in large part because of the high visibility of those judgements. This article focuses on people who date others because of those stereotypes. ….. There are times when people ground their choice on one thing that is interpreted as something else. I’ve kicked people out of bed when they’ve objected to using condoms. That’s non-negotiable to me. And I’ve been called all sorts of things — including racist and a shamer — for that. And I don’t care or even argue. ….. I still think it’s personal; and I still prefer to focus on the social, political, and economic aspects of racism. There’s way too much work that needs to be done in those spheres for me to get upset when someone rejects me based on his stereotypes about me.
KaiserVonScheiss
“Sexual racism.” Here we go again. *eye roll*
“…they are stripping us of our individuality and equating us with our penises.” Irony, someone pushing an SJW narrative is concerned with individuality. LOL. You can’t have it both ways.
Danny595
Always amusing to see folks with no boundaries, poor character, and the highest rates of STIs in the world suddenly discover that sex has a moral dimension. Too bad that sense of morality only rears its head in the context of some “social justice” fad.
Hussain-TheCanadian
I personally don’t understand the point of this article, there seems to be alot of “philosophical” jumping back and forth between actual racism and fetish sexual fantasies – Also basing this whole premise on Milo Yiannopoulos and his stupidity isnt exactly a solid foundation to begin this whole “sexual racism” outlook; im sure the black men who pounded him arent exactly feeling “cheated” either.
Danny595
The point of this post is the same point of every single SJW screed you will ever read: to put the SJW in a position of moral authority from which he judges others. That’s the whole point of the “social justice” movement. Not to make things better in the world. Not to actually listen to people about what their needs are and to help them. Not to bring people together. But to make the SJW the moral authority, a position for which he is supremely unqualified.
Heywood Jablowme
Ah yes, the SJW puts himself “in a position of moral authority from which he judges others.”
That sounds just like you, Monogamy Danny!
Xzamilloh
This is what happens when identity politics and “intersectionality” invades sex. This article is trying to be too much for too many people. How does one not leave this article with multiple conclusions? As a black man, this article felt borderline condescending, namely because I’m not that attracted to white men as I am to men of color, so articles like these always come across as men of color being mad that white men don’t want them on their terms or that they have some kind of insecurity over how they are seen in the bedroom. I don’t know… maybe it’s the fact that I love my black skin and features and how unique my grade of hair is from other races. But, this crap just makes me see these men as some white-loving desperados who just want white daddy to validate their existences, but do it without making them feel degraded or pitied. Well, good luck with that nonsense, especially with this “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” crap.
I’m tired of these stupid ass articles that seem just as racist as anything else. We don’t need pity, or special circumstances, and we damn sure don’t need the white man’s validation…. either we are equal or we are not, and I don’t see a damn thing white people have that I don’t or can’t get myself. Connor McGregor or Chris Evans, if you ever go gay, give me a call. But, otherwise, I’m gonna keep doing me.
KaiserVonScheiss
Yeah, but the SJWs think that only whites can be racist…because power and privilege or something.
By their logic, I could go to Zimbabwe and call Robert Mugabe the n-word and it wouldn’t be racist.
Heywood Jablowme
“some white-loving desperados who just want white daddy to validate their existences, ”
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
But, yeah.
Ummmm Yeah
Another article promoting the left wing extremist rape culture against gay men. What next, telling lesbians they have to have sex with men?
sydboy007
During my last trip to the USA I was quite surprised by the negative racial comments on POC grindr profiles. I get people have preferences, but saying black only or no whites was quite a shock.
Why does everything have to be coloured? Maybe if we stopped seeing a racist under every bed and micro aggression every 3 rd word we might get asking a bit better
miserylovedme24
I wish people would stop being so sensitive and offended about things. You want to sleep with a black guy, great. You want to sleep with a white guy, great. You don’t want either, great. Just let people be whatever the hell they want to be and stop trying to force people to live their lives differently.
Brian
So if you’re not into black guys you’re racist. If you’re only into black guys, you’re racist. And there are apparently no other races in the world other than black, white, and No Asians. And anything remotely related to race as to have racism as the cause, there can be no other reasons. Got it.
Has anyone at Queerty ever actually met gay men? It’s not exactly uncommon for a guy to have an extremely specific type that he’s looking for, and he won’t even consider anyone who doesn’t fit into that narrow criteria. At least until he’s desperate for dick at 2 am and will go home with whoever’s left at last call. As a whole, we’re shallow as hell.
Articles like this are why Trump is president. You can only tell white people “here’s another reason why you’re racist” so many times before it reaches a tipping point.
Prax07
Just learn to accept and own your own racism. I know I’m racist, I have valid reason to be, and I’m perfectly fine with it. Grindr and other apps have block features, I use them to weed out races I will never date or hook up with, so no need for saying No Blacks or No Latinos or No Bi Guys on my profiles. The block option is there to be used.
Tobi
Blackflakes.
Mo Bro
What all of this hand-wringing fails to address is this:
What about guys like me who are biracial?
Per the rules of rabid political correctness, I’m apparently required to invite everyone of every heritage into my bedroom.
Otherwise . . . racism, or something.
Will the left never stop seeing the world through a prism of race?
Xzamilloh
Depends how “passing” you are… then you’re given the side eye if you’re with a white person, because you’re ashamed of the black side of you. Wait, are you half-black and half-white, or was I being presumptuous?
“Will the left never stop seeing the world through a prism of race?”
I’m trying to figure out when it got so bad, because as a black man from the South, I’ve felt some bonafide racism, but you’d think it was everywhere, listening to some of these people online
Mo Bro
Yes, I’m a good ol’-fashioned mulatto, more light-skinned than dark as my father is white and my mother black. And you’re right, the black side of my family wants my siblings and me to date black, while the white side wants us to date . . . well, black, because they’re mostly hardcore liberals who think anyone who isn’t white is a societal victim and requires assistance from good SJWs.
GLF
If white people weren’t so invested in telling ourselves that we *aren’t* racist, this conversation could get a lot further. Yes, we are. All of us. It’s baked into our entire culture. Using racial epithets and wearing a white hood isn’t racism, it’s the classification and stereotyping of whole groups of people based on external characteristics and calling it “good judgment” or “the way things are” without any consideration of individual variance. Joining the Klan is just one end of the spectrum. Acknowledge your biases and move on. The best most of us can hope for is to actively work to counter our snap cultural judgments when they occur.
Xzamilloh
Wake up. You’re not special because you’re white. Guess what? We ALL make snap cultural judgments, but for some reason, in your zeal to bend over backwards to make your emotional reparations, you look at us as these inferior child-like simpletons incapable of being held to the same standards as you. Newflash: the people of color looking for you to call yourself a racist won’t be satisfied with you simply acknowledging it, because with SJWs it is never enough and it will never be enough. These are perpetual victims who vaguely define things like racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, Islamophobia, misogyny, blah, blah, blah, so that anything and everything can be seen as an affront and so that their “struggle” is never over. So acknowledge your biases all you want, but you won’t be moving on. You’ll just be the resident whipping boy who has the respect of neither side.
Prax07
Why would anyone need the respect from a group you have no interest in? If I’m biased against bi guys why should I care what they think? Same goes for anyone. If I don’t like or have an interest in a race or group, why care what their views or perceptions of me are.
BeastDong
I have been managing an unspeakable filthy interracial tumblr for 2 years. ( MandingoFever.tumblr.com)
We recently celebrated passing the 50k followers mark. I am young, black educated and I hate these kinds of articles. There are so many negative stereotypes on black, white, asian or anybody…
Why not appreciate the good one. So what if I’m sexualised? Yeah people look at a tall black guy and thinks instinctively to my wood, GOOD! It means I don’t have to chit chat and it makes it easier to pick up white, latino, indian, asian bois as the stereotype is international. I have so many Asian Top friends who are depressed about their penis and white guys instantly putting them down. I really feel for them.
I have never heard of a black bull cry about this. It’s either coming from black guys who go unlucky in the pants department or white guys that are full of white guilt. To the first group I say “suck to be you”, to the last “Get over you fu**ing self and eat that black dick”