It’s a well known fact that gay white guys generally prefer to date other gay white guys. Gay Asians know it all too well, but we’re mostly complaining in our own echo chamber while white guys party on.
But there’s another form of subtle racism that we rarely talk about – gay Asians discriminate against themselves in favor of whites.
I’ve seen many an Asian stricken by potato fever, but I wanted more than just anecdotal evidence. So I dug around for some data, turning to Jack’d, one of the most popular gay mobile dating apps. After going through 200 profiles, I was shocked at what I found.
Jack’d is a treasure trove of data
Ok, so where is this Jack’d data? As an unpaid user, you only see other guy’s reply rates, however if you cough up the dough for a Pro subscription, you get access to statistics showing which age groups, scenes (twinks, bears, etc.) and races another user is interested in. There are two features in Jack’d that are used to tabulate a user’s racial preference: Match and Favorite.
For Match, Jack’d shows you random profiles of people in your city and you either click Interested, Not Interested or Skip. The Favorite button bookmarks guys you like while you’re browsing. When you Favorite a guy, he’ll be saved in your Favorites folder and he’ll get notified of it.
Methodology
I randomly picked 100 Asian guys and 100 white guys who were last online in San Francisco.
San Francisco, the gayest city in the US, was a natural choice for this study. The city is 34.4% Asian and 41.6% non-Hispanic white. Because both races are roughly equally represented in the city, one can study their preferences for each other without having to account for Asians being a small minority, which they are in most of the US.
To ensure a reliable sample, every profile needed to have a face picture and a plausible age (i.e. not 99). They also had to have an interest in at least two different age groups and two different scenes in order to select for people who’ve used the Match and Favorite features extensively. I wanted to target only San Francisco residents so I excluded anyone whose profile said they were visiting.
Diversity of Jack’d Users
I picked a random point in central San Francisco and counted all Jack’d users within a one mile radius. This one mile radius covers a diverse array of neighborhoods in the city, with bits of the Mission, the Castro, the Haight, SoMa and the Tenderloin.
You might be wondering how well Jack’d users represent the whole rainbow of races out there. It turns out that Jack’d users in central San Francisco form quite a colorful rainbow.
One might say that Asians are over-represented on Jack’d, which isn’t surprising given Jack’d’s reputation as an Asian-heavy app. If anything, the over-representation of Asians is a good thing because if we observe a bias against Asians, it can’t be attributed to their low numbers.
Determining Racial Preference
For each of the 100 Asian and 100 white guys I studied, I recorded their age, reply rate and the ethnicity distribution of guys they’re interested in.
For example, we can see in the following example that 92% of the guys Freddie’s interested in are Asian, 5% are Pacific Islanders, and the remaining 3% are split between Middle Eastern, Mixed and Other. He’s never Favorited a white, Latino or black profile.
After recording the ethnicity preferences of 100 Asian and 100 white profiles, I analyzed the data to see if I could find any obvious patterns. It didn’t take long…
Asians and Whites both avoid Asians
It turns out that both white and Asian men are somewhat allergic to Asians.
Not many rice eaters
There’s a strong bias against Asians. A significant proportion of white guys (40%) and Asians (29%) are never interested in Asians. That jives with OkCupid’s data showing that 43% of gay whites preferred to date their own race.
Plenty of potato love
Whites don’t have many haters. The vast majority of white and Asian guys are interested in white guys to at least some degree. I’ve heard many white men complain about sticky Asians, but the fact is that 93% of Asians are open to dating a white guy.
Whites prefer whites, but Asians prefer whites even more
A person prefers a race if 51% of the guys that person is interested in are of that race.
Asians have a stronger preference for white guys than white guys have for each other
The majority of gay Asians, 57%, prefer to date white guys. By contrast, only 45% of white guys prefer to date other whites. Also remember that 40.1% of users are Asian and 28.2% whites. The supply and demand dynamics are incredibly unbalanced and quite frankly sad. Why do Asians have such a gravitation towards potatoes?
Quantifying Rice Queens and Potato Queens
Let’s raise the bar even higher and see what happens when we try and pick out the rice queens and potato queens. A rice/potato queen is someone who prefers Asian/white 70% of the time or more.
Can you say potato addiction?
41% of gay Asians are potato queens. Gay Asians really, really love white guys. Almost half of gay Asians love white guys to the point where it’s an obsession. Compare this to only 18% of gay white men are rice queens. This is great news if you’re a white guy who eats rice.
Rice queens have the upper hand
A couple weeks ago I argued that the Gaysian dating world is stacked in favor of rice queens. Now we have the numbers to back that up. For every rice queen, there are 2.3 potato queens. White guys have their pick, but Asians have to settle for whatever they can get.
The only way all those gay Asians will settle with white men is to lower their standards and date older and/or less attractive white men. There’s no other way all those gay Asians’ desires can be accommodated.
Echoes of the Asian vs. White Grindr Experiment
I’ve put all the numbers we’ve seen so far onto one chart.
Notice that Asians and whites both prefer white guys by a substantial margin: the white guy is always more desirable than the Asian by a factor of 1.5-2x.
If you remember my Asian vs. White Grindr Experiment from a while back, you’ll recall that a hot white guy can expect 1.5-2x as many Grindr messages as a similarly endowed Asian. That’s almost identical to the margin by which Jack’d users prefer whites over Asians.
Asians are racist too
We often think of racism and discrimination as something whites are guilty of. But it turns out Asians are equally guilty of discriminating against themselves. You might write off the racism of whites as simply a preference for dating people who look like themselves, but how do you explain the preferences of gay Asians?
At least in the minds of gay Asians, white men are the gold standard of beauty and desirability. Maybe it’s an unavoidable consequence of growing up in American culture, where seeing almost nothing but whites on movie screens and fashion runways has indoctrinated us to the idea that only whites are attractive.
You might think that gay Asians, having grown up with the dual stigma of being both a racial and sexual minority, would be more open-minded than your average person. Some certainly seem to think they are:
Oops. I guess he meant to say he’s open-minded unless you’re Asian. 😉
I once said that gay Asians have no realistic chance of dating a hot white guy their own age. It turns out they might have the same struggles finding a hot Asian their own age too.
Emma Refusing to learn English when you live in the US is foolish and short stehigd. My parents didn’t speak a word when they came here and immediately signed up for EASL classes which are usually free. Long term success in the US requires fluency in English.
I’m asian, and I really can care shit especially to those asians who are don’t like asians. People can like whoever they want, and choose what they want. You can’t force someone right away to actually be opened-minded to like other races. Its like saying you’re trying to make a gay guy to like girls. Asians, and Whites can like and date whoever they like, but I would like to say something to those asians who hates dating asians.
Now, I am a really open-minded Asian who really don’t care about whether you’re asian, black, white, mixed, latino, european, etc… as long I’m attracted to you, we can be together regardless. I’ve seen each unique beauty in all men of the world. Of course I would only goes to those who are actually opened-minded as well. If I ever meet those racist asians who’s racist to asians, I won’t ever talk to them. They be thinking they all that, but in reality they are just dogs to the other races’ parties. I’ve seen too many actually. Some of those asians be watching too much white-on-white gay porn. They probably don’t even watch gay black porn, nor gay japanese porn. I can watch all of them.
Those asians said their preference are white folks, but in reality they are just plain racist and they just hate their own race. They don’t admire their own features at all. They don’t know how beautiful it is to be an asian. If some asians here wanna be like that, I rather just go to another asian country to date another asian. Maybe those asian would be more open-minded towards asians at least.
But I guess in reality, whoever race is the dominant in a country, those are likely to be more preferred than other race.
I am quite sad for these self-hating Asian males. It is okay if you date outside of your race, but it is not okay when you start to bash your own race. Internalized racism runs deep in some gay Asians. Some ended up with ugly unattractive white males for the sole purpose of wanting acceptance and the feeling of having a higher status or trophy bf because he’s white. This sick mentality is the mentality of trying to fix in. I can’t fix in, so I must find me a white boyfriend. I find it awfully sad that as a gay Asian in California, I’ve met many of these rude Asian guys. Yes, I’ve found many Asian guys that love Asian guys. I myself is one and very proud of my heritage and my love for Asian males. I don’t care if you date outside your race, but be proud of who you are and love yourself. I love my beautiful black hair, my almond eyes, my nice skin and my beautiful culture.
Like I told one self-hating Asian guy I’ve met. If you love yourself in the mirror, you will have no problem dating and liking someone who looks like you. Internalized racism is quite sad and it has affected not just gay Asians, but gay blacks.
If only your message could reach the ears of those who need to hear it most, because every word is true.
I wish more gay Asian men would wake up and realise that there is absolutely no way in which gay white men are superior to those of any other ethnicity.
Arab, Latino, Mediterranean, Black, and yes, Asian men, each possess a beauty that is unique, perfect and undiminishable. Of this we must always be proud.
Our Father who art in heaven, halo be thy name, thy kingdom come thy will be done, one earth as it is in heaven, give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, Amen.
Leave my people alone.
Our Father who art in heaven, halo be thy name, thy kingdom come thy will be done, one earth as it is in heaven, give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, Amen.
You have done a lot of damage to the asian community. Do you understand or will you will like all the others, hatefilled and possessed by evil spirits.
Our Father who art in heaven, halo be thy name, thy kingdom come thy will be done, one earth as it is in heaven, give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, Amen.
Oh your Gay, oh well, doesn’t mean you can’t be as evil as your hatefilled bretheren. Being gay does no let you off the hook for treating others like they are less than human beings, do you want to know where homosexuality comes from? I think I’ll keep that to myself, its… too fucked up even for a homosexual to understand, …. way too fucked up, so be kind unto others. Understand or do you lack empathy as well?
Our Father who art in heaven, halo be thy name, thy kingdom come thy will be done, one earth as it is in heaven, give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, Amen.
One day you will die, and all religions point to the same philosophy, we all have to look at ourselves when we die, and we will be questioned. What did I do with my life? Are you prepared to face judgement that will lead you to hell, where pain and suffering is all you will know. Think really hard. And know many people are in hell, many mean spirited hateful people, who will damage you endlessly, as you have done to others.
Our Father who art in heaven, halo be thy name, thy kingdom come thy will be done, one earth as it is in heaven, give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, Amen.
Read this white man. For judgement will come for you, God is a just God, and his justice will not sleep forever.
Our Father who art in heaven, halo be thy name, thy kingdom come thy will be done, one earth as it is in heaven, give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, Amen.
Love others, all others, do no love thyself, for that is the path of Lucifer. Who is never allowed into heaven ever again.
Our Father who art in heaven, halo be thy name, thy kingdom come thy will be done, one earth as it is in heaven, give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, Amen.
You will face judgement.
As so will I
Our Father who art in heaven, halo be thy name, thy kingdom come thy will be done, one earth as it is in heaven, give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, Amen.
Very soon, you and your kind will face judgement. But to you who are kind and just, I like you, welcome to my kingdom, there’s everyone there. But no evil people, who look at appearance and not the soul.
Our Father who art in heaven, halo be thy name, thy kingdom come thy will be done, one earth as it is in heaven, give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, Amen.
One day you will face judgement, and you will feel the fire of anger from injustice, and you will bow before God, and I will too.
Our Father who art in heaven, halo be thy name, thy kingdom come thy will be done, one earth as it is in heaven, give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, Amen.
Are you the one trying to sell my soul to the Devil? Those whom I care about, so that you can have everything you want in life?
Our Father who art in heaven, halo be thy name, thy kingdom come thy will be done, one earth as it is in heaven, give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, Amen.
Men of lawlessness, one day you will see me, and you will know what empathy will be like.
Our Father who art in heaven, halo be thy name, thy kingdom come thy will be done, one earth as it is in heaven, give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, Amen.
Are you my brother’s keeper, will you protect humanity, or wil you use others to feel better about yourself.
Our Father who art in heaven, halo be thy name, thy kingdom come thy will be done, one earth as it is in heaven, give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, Amen.
Do not lie.
Our Father who art in heaven, halo be thy name, thy kingdom come thy will be done, one earth as it is in heaven, give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, Amen.
Men of lawlessness, you will face judgement, and on that day, my cup will flow.
Our Father who art in heaven, halo be thy name, thy kingdom come thy will be done, one earth as it is in heaven, give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, Amen.
Satan does not care what you look like, he will own this earth, and all those who follow his teachings of pretty looks, and physical appearance, with no soul.
Will face judgement.
Our Father who art in heaven, halo be thy name, thy kingdom come thy will be done, one earth as it is in heaven, give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, Amen.
Spread the word, for he who sins dies.
Our Father who art in heaven, halo be thy name, thy kingdom come thy will be done, one earth as it is in heaven, give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, Amen.
One day you shall be judged.
Our Father who art in heaven, halo be thy name, thy kingdom come thy will be done, one earth as it is in heaven, give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, Amen.
I don’t have racial preferences, but what I do have is a preference for really strong, buff guys. What might be a problem is that most Asians I see are really skinny or are too thin in general. This is what I mostly see on those dating websites. I wouldn’t mind hooking up with Asians if they were muscular, since many hunks on my campus are Asians (hehe). I think this may be part of the problem, but this is just my personal experience. Oh, and I like the man to be somewhat trimmed down there, but asian porn really doesn’t address that. I generally watch white/latino porn cuz the porn stars keep the grass mowed. Again, it’s not about the race, but the general physique.
Our Father who art in heaven, halo be thy name, thy kingdom come thy will be done, one earth as it is in heaven, give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, Amen.
One day you shall be judged. Men of lawlessness, you will see me in the end.
Not sure if this was mentioned somewhere on another post, but one of the Main reasons why Asian and other Men of Colour desire White partners is because of FREEDOM. The White male, represents a kind of “passport” and liberation from in-group Oppressions. White men know that they have few, if any, constraints and limitations. They can do what the fuck they want and have no barriers. They have an ability to Transcend so many racial, cultural and class Boundaries that Men of Colour can not or perhaps dont think about. A white guy can take the Asian guy places where he dared not tread, where doors were closed. The white guy can also offer a kind of insulation from harsh racist exclusion—-but only in liberalist White circles. So given this kind of psychic freedom to move, to transcend, to fit into any social context, why wouldn’t this attribute seem desirable, why wouldn’t the Asian (Black or Latino) want to secure this kind of privilege. And it isn’t about Money or Class…certainly having Money helps…But even the most working class / blue collar White man still has these Options and choices that aren’t necessarily open to Asian men. Asian men just want to break away the myriad and hidden constraints of their own group (ie homophobia, patriarchy, class distinctions). Another Asian lover might not be able to offer this kind of access and mobility. Another Asian guy brings only Oppression with him.
Hmm I agree, and I don’t think it’s a point that has been mentioned yet. You’ve managed to articulate something which previously has been best described as ‘Asian inferiority complex’ or ‘self-hate’ but neither of these two terms fully explain the phenomena. Looks like there really is a more rational basis for the obsession Asians have with whites; a protection from racism itself. This also means that it will continue to persist in some degree until the racial descrepencies are dealt with, and it’s not something as easy as simply ‘learning to love your own race’.
Yes, but it’s not just Asians preferring Whites. They prefer Whites over ALL races. I live in the UK, and I can tell you, in my gay community, Asians are much more racist towards their own people and other ethnic minorities than Whites, and then complain they can’t get a man! Obviously, this is not all Asians, but the majority of Asians. I’ve seen way more Black-Black gay couples than Asian-White gay couples. However, the most common interracial gay couple was Black-White. So maybe Asians must start to learn to love themselves. I once dated an Indian and he was hot and confident about himself, he didn’t pander to White men or POC men, he knew he was beautiful and he wasn’t going to let anyone tell him otherwise. Many gay Asians have severe self-esteem issues and they need to learn to love themselves for who they are. So do many other POC men. We need to learn to love ourselves for who we are and not let anyone else pull us down, and most importantly, we must not pull ourselves down.
P.S. I’m Black.
Sorry that’s bullshit. I live in London and I’ve never even seen a gay white-black couple. I’ve seen more white-indian and white-asian couples too.
This comes from a Indian person who’s attended every gay pride since 2006 and loves to go to gay bars in central London. London’s 25% black but I never see any gay blacks around, and they even need a segregated pride event to get themselves through.
Stop ponying around and trying to make Indians feel bad. It’s not as if there aren’t the occasional token black guy in magazines for you to fetish over. If you really wanted a good representation of what gay people like, you would see something like Asians, Indians, Blacks – not Blacks, Nothing else.
London is about 13% Black.
Gay blacks are stereotyped as racist and chavvy in the United Kingdom, and I’ve heard they’ve got a similar stereotype in the US too. Probably why most people avoid becoming friends with black people.
There is a serious problem with Whites who consistently try to make Asians out to be racist rather than acknowledging the underlying factors of white racial centralization in the gay world and whiteness being the default in the gay world as well as in the world in general. Thus all people of color are and have been effected to different extents by this white supremacy and this imagery of white is right and white being the most favorable to have. Its a poison so its not surprising the strong preference Asian men would have to whites especially when in the same context the whole structure of the Asian male in the US is de masculinized , desexualized, misrepresented or non existence. oppressed and erased at best. So that is internalized and thus white is seen as something to glorify and to pursue, to be , to achieve or at least be with. its a token and a prize. Again I should note that all people of color are effected by white supremacy and the racial ideals and they are have effects. Self hate is something very real that non whites have to deal with. having to deal second, feel un worthy and all other kinds of nonsensical low life feelings because f the effects of consistent brainwashing and media imaging that places white at the center of our worlds. Its not that Asians are racist as whites, hell no. Asians are people of color who also suffer like the rest of us the effects of white supremacy shoved down our throats every damn day.
You absolutely hit the nail on the head. Preach my man, preach!
The fact of the matter is when white men talk about issues surrounding men of color they either underestimate the racist experience of men of color or exaggerate sentiments felt by men of color. Ultimately what it comes down to is lack of perspective.
But how can you, (and I know a lot of wrote men don’t want to hear this) but you can’t.
How can you understand what is like to be outside of the status quo from birth, and have to face that everyday. Racism doesn’t have to be to be malicious, most often it is implicit. In many ways white privilege, is the privilege of not having to reflect on the state of society everyday. To not have to wonder or think about ones standing or others preconcieved notions based on their race. Society sells us that white is beautiful, normal, the gold standard and it’s all right there, commercials, tv shows, advertisements.
Of course this is the past where whites try to explain it away, stop reading, or turn away. But people of color can’t turn away from it. It’s something that they have to deal with everyday on some level or another.
The reason race is a bother issue than sexuality is because. Ultimately you can be incognito gay. You can’t be incognito black or asian. From a block away, from a resume, from the sound of your voice, people will and DO have preconceived notions of who you are and alot of it (especially in blacks) is not positive.
Why does this matter? Because it DOES effect these people’s ability to function in society, they are treated differently, barred from opportunities and told that they are less than.
I’m sick and tired of people’s saying well just learn to ignore it. Dear White people: try being black for one week anywhere and see how differently your experience is. But then again there willbbe a subconcious space and lifetime and positive reinforcement from being white that will most likely protect your ego from any substantial impact.
Whites are less than 10% of the World population. Think about that.
hear, hear. thumbs up for this comment.