Sexual Racism or Just Preference?

Whenever racial dating patterns come up, the same sentence appears almost immediately: “It’s just a preference.” 

And honestly, I understand why people say it. 

I believe that attraction is personal. No one owes desire to anyone. There is no morality police grading you for who you find attractive. Nor should there be. In that sense, preference is reasonable. 

Where I think things gets more interesting is not whether preference is valid — it obviously is — but how preference forms in the first place. 

When I came out as gay at age 20, I expected unfamiliarity; maybe rejection, maybe confusion. What I didn’t expect was how cleanly the social sexual ranking system would apply itself onto my nascent gay life. 

It was nonchalant. It was casual. It was normalised. And that normalisation is what struck me the most. It suggested something pervasive but powerful: before I even spoke, I was categorised and valued.

I've done a lot of thinking on this subject and I don’t believe attraction is purely nature or nurture. Biology exists. Individuality exists. Chemistry exists. But to pretend the social layer has no influence is unrealistic. And as someone who loves to quantify, my gut instinct says that attraction is approximately 70% social construction and 30% personal genetics. 

Beauty standards shift over time. The ideal body changes. What is considered “hot” in one era looks completely different in another. For example, in the Victorian Era, more body fat was considered attractive because it signalled abundance in a time where poverty and famine was common. Even as recent as 30 years ago, a lean male build was considered ideal in the West. These days a much more muscular look is the new idealised norm. These social shifts alone tell us that attraction is at least partially shaped by environment and society. 

Now, applying the same principles, if certain races are consistently portrayed as dominant, desirable, and central - and others are absent, backgrounded, or stereotyped - then that repetition does something too. Each individual instance may not be done with any malice. However the group-level cumulative result is a heavily skewed view of different groups of people. This is not even felt consciously. But it does erode perceptions steadily. 

Imagine you’re 20 and newly out. You're a bit insecure about yourself. You walk up to an ice cream stand. The twenty people before you all choose vanilla or strawberry. No one even looks at the chocolate. 

When it’s your turn, you notice the chocolate tub is untouched. The confident, cool kids are all holding vanilla and strawberry. The only few people eating chocolate look like the nerds and social outcasts. 

Which flavour are you more likely to pick? If you're being honest, probably the vanilla or strawberry. And you'd rationalise to yourself that you like it for its flavour or sweetness. The "common man" would not be picking chocolate. 

Now, I’m not saying anyone is wrong for choosing vanilla. But I am saying that humans copy signals. Especially status signals. If something appears low-status socially, fewer people will gravitate toward it or choose it - not out of malice, but out of a primal desire to belong. 

I don’t think most people have any vested interest in analysing the drivers of their preferences. Why would they? If the system works in your favour, there is no reason to interrogate it. And that's a perfectly fine worldview.

But if you’re on the disadvantaged side of that hierarchy, you'll see it differently. You feel the pattern. And once you see it, it's impossible to ignore. The hierarchy pervasively overlays itself onto all your thoughts and desires, without prejudice. 

When you talk to a new guy, the hierarchy comes into play. When you flirt with someone, the first thought becomes "Is he into Asians?" as opposed to "Is he into me?". This is not something we actively choose to do. Nor is it something we want to do. In the same way that a careful diabetic automatically considers their blood sugar before consuming food, we as humans automatically and instinctively apply the social hierarchy overlay onto all interactions.

That's why this entire concept, this entire debate, is so insidious. Not because anyone is right or wrong. But because this structure is generally only recognised by those impacted, and the impacts are over all of our entire lives. 

Now to be clear - I’m not trying to override preference. Nor am I even trying to change anyone's preference. I think preferences are the symptom - and I am trying to cure the underlying root cause. How? By trying to equalise the inputs that shape preference for everyone, at a group level. 

Study after study shows Asian men ranking lowest in desirability metrics across Western straight and queer spaces. Not once. Consistently. 

If preference were purely individual and random, the outcomes wouldn’t converge so predictably. Patterns at that scale suggest an underlying shared conditioning. And this is no surprise to anyone that is Asian living in the West. This reflects mine and countless others shared experiences. However, not much radical work has been done to address it. Not until now. 

So my approach is simple. I don’t tell anyone who to desire. I don’t shame anyone for what they’re attracted to. I respect everyone for their preferences. I just focus on changing the drivers of that - which is - what is visible. 

I have a deep belief that Asian guys have lower social sexual status in the West today because we are not shown as hot, confident, and sexual. 

So to counteract that, I create work at the deepest level of the human psyche - sexuality and reproduction - where Asian men are the main character; showing the world that Asian guys are just like everyone else - dominant, strong, and sexual.

This isn’t a moral crusade for me. It’s fundamental. 

The sexual hierarchy influences confidence, status, and self-perception. And when a group consistently sits lower in that hierarchy, the effects are magnified. I have been heavily impacted by this myself. I was a very insecure teenager - I was a very insecure 20 year old - and looking back now, I can see that I've dated / hooked up with guys that were beneath me, I've made with friends that didn't respect me, I've accepted behaviour that wasn't in my best interests - because I wasn't secure in my own worth. It's taken a tremendous amount of reflection and self discovery to arrive at where I am today. Not perfect, but better. And now that I have somewhat climbed out of the worst of it, it's my turn to help others so they don't have to repeat my mistakes. 

Preferences are valid. I don’t dispute that. But preferences are also shaped. And if I can help reshape the fundamentals that form it — through representation, visibility, and repetition - then over time, I believe the resulting outputs will change too. 

That’s why I make the work that I do. Because seeing is believing. And because that is the only way to create group level social change.