How About I Decide What I Find Attractive?

Sorry. Entitled Douchebag isn't a Gender
Identity.  Not even on Tumblr.

The stupidity and egocentrism of the social media age could not be better distilled into its finest quintessence, than with the proliferation of blogs, tweets and posts telling you why you're a terrible person for your dating preferences or who you think is or is not good looking.

That every person of the age of consent is completely within their rights to select their own partners - be it for a one night stand or 'till death do you part - on the basis of whatever criteria they wish, provided the chosen partner is likewise of the age of consent and, well, consents, should be common sense.

But common sense is just so last generation.  Or at least pre-social media.  Now, thanks to the wonders of technology, the woke and the wise on every internet and social media platform you can name feel quite within their rights to tell you why you're evil Hitler for excluding some category or another of people from your list of preferred mates.

Consider Donovan Trott's June 19 2017 piece in the Huffpost, entitled  [emphasis mine] "An Open Letter To Gay, White Men: No, You’re Not Allowed To Have A Racial Preference."

Yeah, you read that right.  After only very, very recently, it would seem, after winning the right to have their own sexual preference after a few thousand years or so of heterosexual clergy, a few of which I'm sure weren't pedophiles, telling gay men they weren't allowed to have a sexual preference, they now have superwoke HuffPost columnists telling them they can't have a racial preference.  In terms I'm sure we're all familiar with now.

To be clear, you’re allowed to describe the kind of guy you’re looking for and the things that turn you on but specifying the race of your desired partner is a line that is not to be crossed. It comes off as racist and that’s because it is.

Donovan, I need to explain something.  To be clear, you're either allowed to describe the kind of guy you're looking for and the things that turn you on, or you're not allowed to.  What you don't get to do is qualify this allowance in a way that advantages yourself - or not - just because you find some people's criteria to be offensive or threatening.  Yes, it may be racist. It's also their choice to make.

And - big surprise - the same threadbare rationalization for any self serving double standard that the woke and the marginalized can use to exempt themselves from the requirements they seek to impose on others, and excuse any shitty behavior they wish:

But what if Black and Asian men choose to only date other Black and Asian men? Isn’t that racist too? No... and you tried it. Look, all men are created equal but all men are not valued equally, especially in this country. Every Black and Asian man who grew up on this planet grew up surrounded by positive images of whiteness and white men. Therefore, our desire to date within our own race, when we choose to, is not rooted in any assertion made by society that we’re better than anyone else. I know this is a lot to digest so I’ll just boil it down to this: if your preference for a partner supports an existing racial hierarchy which marginalizes minorities, than your preferences are racist. And yes, that includes you rice queens and chocolate chasers too. Fetishizing me is not a compliment, it’s propping up harmful sexual stereotypes and, it too, is racist.

If you don't like dating blacks or asians, you're racist.  And if you do like dating blacks or asians, you're ... well, you get the picture, you privileged white cishet male shitlord.  Because oppressive 'Eurocentric beauty standards' or the like.

Poor bloody gay men.  Bad enough God apparently hates them for their sexual preferences.  They're also the most misogynistic men for preferring men to women as partners, according to some especially TERFy feminist groups like the old Redstockings.   And their communities are, we are told, rife with casual misogyny and even sexual assault, to boot.

Not that straight men - or gay women - get a pass, of course.  If you do not know by now, you are "transphobic" if you do not date "women" who have penises.  Says YouTuber and Everyday Feminism columnist Riley Dennis:

If you're a woman who only likes women, go ahead, identify as a lesbian, but some women have penises, and if the fact that some lesbians might be attracted to those women offends you, it's because you don't think trans women are real women.  I'm trying to show that preferences for women with vaginas over women with penises might be partially informed by the influence of a cissexist society.

Because genital compatibility apparently has nothing to do with sexual compatibility, which apparently has nothing to do with relationship compatibility overall.  It's all just a gigantic conspiracy, a massive machinery of oppression intended to oppress and marginalize trans women.  A stroke of logic reminiscent of the brilliance of anti PIV radical feminism.

Being homosexual or dating outside your race is a big no-no in a lot of racial nationalist groups, ranging from the hard white nationalist alt-right to the afrocentrists and black hebrew Israelites.  If your race was kings at some point in its history, you don't stray outside it to find love.  The problem with having royal blood, I suppose.  Part of the fine print that most people don't read when they sign up for racial nationalism is that they have all the sexual choice and relationship freedom of breeding farm animals.

Plus, it is an exercise of "thin privilege" to prefer non-obesity and even "height privilege" to not date those shorter than yourself.  And heaven help the woman who makes clear her preference for men of at least middle class income, if not more.

The public apparently knowing better than you do what you should and should not find attractive works as fervently in the negative as it does in the positive.  Meaning that academics, activists, journalists and entertainers are indeed qualified to tell you who you will not find attractive, as well as who you must find attractive.

Nowhere is this more true than for a straight male who dares express attraction for a woman, even if it is expressed via a compliment or a polite civil greeting.  Because 'social context' or some similar tripe, it simply isn't possible for a straight male to both respect women and be attracted to them.  Never mind biology and hormones, those twin fabrications of the white male patriarchy, male desire for the romantic or sexual companionship of women is entirely an expression of privilege and entitlement rooted in the belief that women aren't people and exist solely to appeal to men.  Who do these bloody men think they are, daring to find women beautiful and wanting to date or even sleep with them?  What is this world coming to?

It is similarly this sense of entitlement and privilege that is the sole cause of men also not being attracted to any woman who feels he should be attracted to her or whomever she deems he should be.  Women reserve for themselves, of course, the right to be as raunchy as they want in their expressions of desire for any man.  Because, privilege and power, of course,

Intersectional feminism.  Your tax dollars, and increasingly, your advertising dollars, at work.

The core problem is that we've been so focused on the 'consenting' side of 'consenting adult' that we actually seem to have forgotten the 'adult' side and what this actually entails.  Consent is vital, of course, but adulthood no less so.  So let me break this down for you.

I am an adult.  This means I have agency and a legally recognized capacity for responsibility for my actions.  I live with the consequences of the choices I make.  So now, dear internet, let me make some things very, very clear to you.

I decide who I find attractive, or not.  On the basis of whatever criteria I wish.  The criteria may be superficial, prejudiced or even, in alt-right parlance, degenerate.  Think of it what you will.  That does not alter the fact that my mature selfhood entitles me to find beautiful or sexy whomever I wish.  Some preferences should no doubt be taken to a psychiatrist's office.  But that is rather beside the point.

I may peaceably express this attraction to anyone capable of consent.  Note that caveat.  This rules out children and others made vulnerable due to lack of capacity to consent.  I should also observe the rules of good conduct established in whatever forum or medium that I am using to express this sentiment.  There is a time and a place and good and bad ways to express these feelings.  But to express them is the right of all adult people.

Grey areas emerge elsewhere.  Professional relationships, employee-employer relationships and the like are at high risk of being seriously complicated or even completely compromised by the introduction of so personal a factor to the relationship.  A good case can be made that such sentiments do not belong in many kinds of business and fiduciary relationships, but I hesitate to make sweeping judgements in such circumstances.

If said attraction is not reciprocated, and I am advised of this, that is the end of the matter and I should definitely refrain from further pursuit of the matter.  Because I, like all adults, am at complete liberty to not find beautiful or attractive whomever I wish.  Period.  End of story.  Further qualifications are not required of anyone beyond that.

If the attraction is reciprocated, where things go from there is between me and the consenting adult towards whom I've expressed that attraction.  Whether a single hookup, or 'till death do us part, or a simple coffee date, or netflix and chill, or a dungeon so perverse as to make the Marquis de Sade blush, or nowhere at all, respecting the caveat consenting adult, the outcome is entirely up to me and whoever that may be.  That is all there is to it.

The beauty of what I've outlined is that it's actually quite simple.  It does not depend for its validity upon concepts that might be all the rage on social media, but are never the less simply not relevant to the core right of all consenting adults to have their own attractions and preferences.  Genitals don't matter.  Skin color doesn't matter.  Social context doesn't matter.  Existing social hierarchies don't matter.  Privilege doesn't matter.  Intersectionality doesn't matter.  Declining birth rates for your race don't matter.  Holy books written thousands of years ago don't matter. This is not rocket science, people.  We're adults: you own you, I own me.  What's complicated about this?

Emotional blackmail does not belong in healthy relationships.
Sexual shaming does not belong in healthy relationships.
Weaponizing political or religious ideologies to control people in intimate settings does not belong in healthy relationships.

So let me say it one last time, in bold and colored text for emphasis:

Marginalized identities, religious dogmas and contrived racist or nationalist loyalties, do not give anyone the right to override anyone of consenting age's right to decide for themselves who they will or will not be into romantically, sexually or otherwise.  Period.  And do not, dear reader, let ANYBODY tell you otherwise.