I’m a straight white dude and recent college grad who has very progressive beliefs and is looking for a committed partner who, in time, can equitably raise a family with me. I have almost zero honest-to-goodness physical preferences. I’ve dated women of various shapes and sizes, various skin, hair and eye colors, etc., and have been attracted to all of them.
Here’s what’s controversial among my friends: I want to prioritize dating women of color. I’m after a cross-cultural relationship. I believe very strongly that one of the main ways to combat racism is through relationships. Part of me thinks that I will always be somewhat disappointed if what ends up becoming one of the most important relationships in my life is with another white person. If someone is a woman of color, that checks a box for me in a real way. I am seeking to be antiracist in all my relationships.
Part of the reason that I prioritize it is to combat implicit bias, having grown up in a fairly white, quasi rural place. I am dedicated to educating myself on issues of racism, sexism and other forms of kyriarchy while also learning from marginalized people. For me, principles lead the way to attractions. I start by eating a food or adopting a habit because it’s good for me, and after trying it enough times, I find I really like it for what it is. The same applies to people I’m considering dating.
Both I and my hypothetical partner of color would be choosing more learning and less comfort, to put forth greater effort and practice more listening, than we otherwise would in a culturally homogeneous committed relationship. And one of the main ways that I hope to combat racism individually is by leveraging my own privilege (economic, family connections, education) for people of color, including any biracial children we bring into this world. Here’s my question: Despite my well-meaning antiracist principles, is this preference (as friends have suggested) wrong, insensitive or somehow itself racist? — Name Withheld
From the Ethicist:
Your devotion to self-improvement is impressive. Like a dish of quinoa and kale that you may once have forced down and now actively enjoy, a woman of color could, you think, raise your game, supplying something like antiracist roughage. You’d be using your erotic ecumenism to level up. Where your shallower classmates have hookups, your dates would be teach-ins. ‘‘Do the work,’’ the slogan urges, and you’re rolling up your sleeves.
A few cautions. You may be a little hasty in conflating ‘‘interracial’’ with ‘‘cross- cultural’’; it sounds as if you’d prefer to make a life with someone who basically shares your values and doesn’t have to Google words like ‘‘kyriarchy.’’ (I see that it’s a coinage by the feminist theologian Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza to designate interconnected systems of domination on the basis of gender, race, religion and other identities.) And then treating a relationship like a seminar can lead to trouble: What happens when you’ve finished your fieldwork, read through the syllabus and are ready for a new instructor? If the model is, instead, a healthful dietary regimen, will you allow yourself cheat days?
That much-vaunted work ethic can, I fear, sometimes overspill its bounds. (‘‘Still working on that?’’ the waiter asks, as if we’ve been peering at our pastries through a welding hood.) Play, rather than work, may sometimes be the better approach in the romantic realm. Although you’re not objectifying your hypothetical partner, you are, just a little, instrumentalizing her. That’s not to say you aren’t entitled to pursue this campaign of strenuous self-optimizing. Just be transparent about your box-checking ambitions. Perhaps some prospects will be grateful for your offer to put your privileges at their disposal while you embark on your journey of uplift. But — how to put this? — I suspect that most would rather be your honey bun than your grain bowl.
Readers Respond
The previous question was from a reader who was confounded about a common phrase. She wrote: “Having been betrayed by a partner years ago, I still don’t understand why cheaters use the phrase ‘(She/he) didn’t mean anything to me.’ How does one even respond to a statement like that? Do cheaters think that that’s supposed to somehow make the betrayed party feel better? Personally I found it demeaning and an even worse betrayal — as if infidelity is excusable because the connection was casual.”
In his response, the Ethicist noted: “That ‘didn’t mean anything’ line actually means a lot. This is how cheaters try to reassure their partners that their infidelity wasn’t going to lead to a serious relationship and needn’t spell the end of their existing one; that a fling was ‘just sex.’ … So why does the line backfire? In part because the cheated-on party doesn’t want to hear the cheater minimize the transgression: If the betrayal ‘didn’t mean anything,’ then your outrage is rendered unwarranted and inappropriate. And how penitent can someone be about such an affair? In just a handful of words then, cheaters demean the people they cheated with by dismissing them as meaningless, demean their partner by implying their pain is unjustified and demean their relationship by saying that they betrayed their beloved’s trust for a liaison they insist was insignificant.” (Reread the full question and answer here.)
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I think the Ethicist gets this response mostly right. I have never cheated or to my knowledge been cheated upon. Personally, if I learned that my partner cheated, I would want to know the circumstances. Was this a one time hookup on a business trip after one-too-many drinks? Or, was it a local friend or acquaintance and a relationship that evolved over time? To me, both state of mind and timing make a huge difference in determining the level of betrayal. Is fidelity absolute or are you accepting of the fact that people are human and sometimes stuff happens? As I get older, I find myself leaning more to the latter. Resilient and enduring relationships require some acceptance of your loved one’s faults and weaknesses. Does that include accepting the betrayal of their fidelity? For me, that depends. — Michael
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I disagree with the Ethicist’s idea that “cheaters demean the people they cheated with by dismissing them as meaningless.” Cheaters minimize the relationship but do not demean the people involved. As I learned from long-married men and women both, there is such a thing as casual sex. For many, in my opinion, it helps preserve their marriages, but it is crucial that the events remain secret until death. If you can’t handle the guilt, then don’t go there. — Larry
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Extramarital sex is never meaningless. It obviously does mean something to the person who seeks it out. Anyone who attempts to minimize the significance of their straying is simply avoiding taking responsibility for the behavior. If you want to do damage control after cheating on your partner, don’t claim that it didn’t mean anything. Instead, talk together about what you feel you are missing in the relationship. If you can address those issues, the desire to cheat will decrease. — Harvey
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All relationships are a struggle to decide how much freedom and closeness both parties need. Sometimes it matches and sometimes not. — Justeen
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Thirty-seven years ago my husband said those same words to me, as he lamented that our marriage had been destroyed by his infidelity. “It didn’t mean anything” was the grease that was supposed to lubricate his innocence and my reconsideration as we signed the divorce papers. My heart was broken, but all I could think, as he insisted we were meant to be together, was: Really? You thought so little of our bond that you were willing to throw it away for something that was meaningless? — Rebecca
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