Can Race be a fetish?

[nyctopgam]

A fetish is when there is sexual attraction to an object that is not inherently sexual. Like shoes, unlike armpit musk.

Im into white guys. Ive been attracted to them since grade school. Their whiteness is a fetish.

Can attraction to a particular race be a fetish and not just a racial preference?

 

[Telstra]

Are you attracted to an unhealthy heavy white guy ?

 

[nyctopgam]

No, not any white guy, as his race is not the sole criterion for my attraction. But my latitude is wider than white guys' choosing among their own. And yeah, I have dated heavy guys. Interestingly, I have white guys pointing out Asians they find attractive and I am like, really? We are probably more picky when it comes to our own.

 

[cocksucker4use]

I do believe that for some guys, race is a fetish. White guys into Blacks, and vice versa. Definitely white gay and straight guys I have known who are way, way into Asians exclusively. I have "dated" Asian guys, and I like some of the physical characteristics...like, smooth more pigmented skin, usually a smaller frame, whatever. But then I like Latinos, Blacks, whites...I am very picky, however. They have to have a dick. LOL. Most of us are generalists when it comes to ethnicity, with some guys being more clear about not being with one group or the other, but still. There are the fetishists for whom the ethnicity is the fascination, the turn on...the acid test of this like any fetish, is if you need to be with a white guy to get hard, to get off. Period.

 

[nycguydowntown]

if you were into anything that was white it may be a fetish but from what you describe it doesn't sound like one.

 

[nyctopgam]

if you were into anything that was white it may be a fetish but from what you describe it doesn't sound like one.

If one's fetish were shoes, would that mean any and every shoe should be a turn on? Are there gradations, nuances? I am not into any white, but I do objectify the white skin, their smell, hair colors and so on. I find darker Caucasians with skin that is less white, or with black hair, Mediterranean or Jewish looks less attractive than a pale northern redhead.

 

[mcbrion]

RACE is NOT a fetish. The skin color of the individual can be, in the same one that one is addicted to chocolate because of the taste, texture or whatever. Race does not contain traits that qualify as a fetish.

 

[nyctopgam]

What are the traits that qualify anything as a fetish?

 

[fuckari]

I don't think whiteness can be referred to as a fetish especially when the world holds unfair white "supremacist" standards of beauty anyway. Sure certain racial features can be attractive to different people, but people have preferences, sometimes people romanticise certain races. I don't think a group of people can be considered a fetish? Aren't fetishes more specific?

 

[nyctopgam]

I don't think whiteness can be referred to as a fetish especially when the world holds unfair white "supremacist" standards of beauty anyway. Sure certain racial features can be attractive to different people, but people have preferences, sometimes people romanticise certain races. I don't think a group of people can be considered a fetish? Aren't fetishes more specific?

I dont know. Do some people fetishize blacks? Can one say rice queens fetishize Asians or Asian-ness?

 

[fuckari]

I think we can fetishise races and sexualities and different groups of people. But I think the act of fetishisation is different to having an actual fetish. Does that make sense?

 

[sultrysam]

An Asian into white guys is hardly what I'd call a fetish....it's almost stereotypical at this point. Potato queens are not anything unique.

 

[nyctopgam]

I think we can fetishise races and sexualities and different groups of people. But I think the act of fetishisation is different to having an actual fetish. Does that make sense?

Interesting differentiation but not sure if I understand what this entails. Does not the act of fetishization create the fetish?

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I think we can fetishise races and sexualities and different groups of people. But I think the act of fetishisation is different to having an actual fetish. Does that make sense?

Interesting differentiation but not sure if I understand what this entails. Does not the act of fetishization create the fetish?

 

[nyctopgam]

An Asian into white guys is hardly what I'd call a fetish....it's almost stereotypical at this point. Potato queens are not anything unique.

Good point. That it is almost stereotypical means that complexities within it are hidden to get to a general point. How and why one Asian is into whites could differ widely from person to person. It could be media exposure, sexual history and conditioning, traditional Asian skin color values, colonial domination and power... or other factors that only can can probe at in this mysterious thing called our sexuality. I know I can really only speak for myself.

Also I would think it varies even within the larger culture. Like it has been said that most Asians in Asia are not into white men like we are here. For instance, there is I believe one sauna in Bangkok for white men and their admirers and another half a dozen or more that are exclusively Asian.

 

[yama900]

I think you answered your question with your first post. The definition of a fetish says that there is a sexual attraction to something that is not "inherently sexual." The "whiteness" of a guy that you like is part of who he is physically and I think physicality is something that pretty much everyone gets turned on by when they see something they like. It sounds to me like this is just a "preference." Just like someone might be attracted exclusively to tall men or muscular guys. Although a person's race could be argued to not be "inherently sexual," the specifics of what you like sound like they are.

 

[palemale]

I never saw race as a fetish. However, after looking up the definition of fetish in the sexual sense, I think an argument could be made that it is. Here are a couple of definitions:

an object or bodily part whose real or fantasied presence is psychologically necessary for sexual gratification and that is an object of fixation to the extent that it may interfere with complete sexual expression

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fetish

Psychology . any object or nongenital part of the body that causes a habitual erotic response or fixation.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/fetish

Since skin is a body part, and there are other physical attributes associated with members of particular racial groups, I think attraction to a racial group based on their physical attributes could be considered a fetish. In the final analysis, however, I do not think it is a fetish. One cannot divorce a person one is attracted to for their physical qualities from their personality, or from what one perceives as their personal, mental or emotional traits. Human beings are too complicated to be reduced to a fetish.

 

[Cwr7091]

Also, my two cents: We live in a world still heavily steeped in the impacts of European colonialism -- it's not surprising that you find "whiteness" attractive. I hate to bring this conversation away from sex, but I think you need to check yourself if you find yourself preferring any specific racial group. Fetishizing whites makes me wonder if you're simply falling in line with the dominant, white-masculine history, and if you fetishize any "minority," it makes me wonder the same thing (Africans were often fetishized during colonialism and slavery as well). It's definitely reductive to say a "race" is sexy (to say so implies that all individuals of an ethnic group look the same).

 

[Cwr7091]

So, yes: Race can be a fetish, but it's problematic, and you're reducing people to abstract stereotypes in fetishizing their "(insert race)-ness"

 

[nyctopgam]

Also, my two cents: We live in a world still heavily steeped in the impacts of European colonialism -- it's not surprising that you find "whiteness" attractive. I hate to bring this conversation away from sex, but I think you need to check yourself if you find yourself preferring any specific racial group. Fetishizing whites makes me wonder if you're simply falling in line with the dominant, white-masculine history, and if you fetishize any "minority," it makes me wonder the same thing (Africans were often fetishized during colonialism and slavery as well). It's definitely reductive to say a "race" is sexy (to say so implies that all individuals of an ethnic group look the same).

Yes you are correct. I have already noted media exposure, colonialism and conditioning as some factors in sexual attraction.

So, yes: Race can be a fetish, but it's problematic, and you're reducing people to abstract stereotypes in fetishizing their "(insert race)-ness"

It is this reductivist element that prompted my exploration in this thread. I find that objectification of whiteness is a major part of my sexual attraction. That seems to me possibly fetishistic.

 

[PhunkSpunk]

A fetish is when there is sexual attraction to an object that is not inherently sexual. Like shoes, unlike armpit musk.

For the record, the clinical term is 'paraphilia'.

Is your question really "is it racist to prefer partners of a particular race?" Personally I don't think it is, as sexuality is decidedly a 'pre-political' condition. However it gets murkier when you expect men of a different race than you to play intimate roles that perpetuate racist stereotypes, i.e. black men usually cast as 'thugs' in gay porn.