Loving v. racism in gay sex and dating in Maine and beyond

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People often wonder why Maine remains one of the whitest, least diverse states in the nation. I could talk about how politics, policies, and systemic racism, but there are also less obvious things that have an impact on whether Black and brown people choose to stay and make their home here.

I’m talking about the sex and dating among gay men in Maine. It’s an issue that doesn’t quite get as much attention given recent police shootings and focus on systemic racism, but for the many white people wanting to join the anti-racism movement, dating and relationships also need examination.

Personally, this was one of the reasons I almost stayed in Washington, D.C., in 2016. Compared to Maine, both the people and the dating scene was vastly more diverse. It was completely different energy and I felt my body, heart, and mind alive in a way I haven’t felt. Professionally I was doing better. Academically (I was a visiting student at Howard University School of Law), I excelled. And personally, I felt that there were those around me (Black and brown gay men, for the most part) who understood what it was like being a queer person of color.

I didn’t realize how constrained my dating life was in Maine until I lived a year in D.C. And only upon returning to Maine in 2017 did I have some measure to go by.

But first, a little housekeeping.

For this particular piece, I will be focusing on racism in the queer sex and dating scene in Maine (a lot of the research I reference are studies of gay and bisexual men). I use queer as an umbrella term to refer to LGTBQ+ people. For readers who have only known “queer” as a slur, there has been movement toward reclaiming the word and using it positively and proudly to refer to the LGBTQ+ community.

This piece will also refer to “white standards of beauty,” which has its roots in scientific racism in the 18th and 19th  centuries. In a nutshell, some of the founders of scientific racism, like Johann Blumenbach (who counted Karl Marx among his fans), proclaimed the skulls of white people as the most symmetric and beautiful. If you’d like to learn more about scientific racism, listen to NPR’s Code Switch episode Is Beauty In The Eyes Of The Colonizer?

Now, let’s face the facts.

Stonewall survey in 2018, for instance, found that 51% of queer people of color experience racism in the LGBT community. This is one of a number of studies that show that racism is prevalent in the queer dating scene, especially in an age when we are reliant on dating apps like Tinder and Grindr (a dating app for gay, bisexual, and trans men). Recent studies take it further in showing the real, harmful effects racism is having on Black and brown LGBTQ+ people.

One of the ways in which racism manifests in queer sex and dating is through “personal preferences.” In in-depth interviews of gay males in 2015 revealed that some men applied filters that showed them mostly white men while excluding men of color, especially Black men.

In data published by OkTrends (an OkCupid blog), a look at the reply rates show the trends in terms of response rates by race. White, gay men are the only ones who are more likely to respond to someone of the same race, clocking in at 44%. They are least likely to reply to Black males, with a reply rate of 32%. Gay men of other races are more likely to respond to males who are not the same race. Both Black and Asian gay men, for instance, are more likely to respond to Middle Eastern men. Black, gay men also are more likely to respond to “other males,” which I assume are mixed-race or biracial men.

In a 2019 study of gay and bisexual men, researchers broke down sexual racism into four categories, exclusion, rejection, degradation, and erotic objectification, and found that objectification (i.e. seeing Black men as more dominant and aggressive or Asian men as submissive and compliant) led to elevated levels of both depression and feelings of lower self-worth. This was somewhat surprising to the researchers because erotic objectification on its surface seemed to provide an opportunity for Black and brown gay and bisexual men compared to outright exclusion and rejection.

This goes to further the argument made in Robinson’s 2015 law article, in which he states that “sexual racism does not exist simply as a categorical exclusion, such as ‘no Blacks or Asians,’ but may permeate long-term relationships. For instance, a man of color may be deemed desirable only insofar as he adheres to sexualized racial stereotypes.”

In many ways, the real, harmful effects of erotic objectification aren’t all that surprising because it is rooted in white supremacist ideas centered around the colonization, subjugation, exploitation, and exoticization of Black and brown people. Consider, for example, an instance when a white, gay male refers to Asian men as “rice,” Black men as “chocolate,” or Latino men as “spice.” Consider also that Black men are usually confined to being “tops” (code for more masculine) and are seen as larger, more aggressive, and dominant, while Asians are confined to being “bottoms” (code for more feminine) and seen as more submissive. White, gay men, however, are free to choose a top, bottom, versatile without being confined by racial stereotypes doled out to gay men of color.

What about lesbian, bisexual, and trans people of color?

While these studies mostly examine gay online dating and sex, it does not erase the fact that racism and discrimination exist for lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people of color. In the Stonewall survey referenced earlier, one respondent commented that “it’s not just white cis abled people who are LGBT+. I am an Arab, ex Muslim, autistic, mentally ill, poor brown girl who is also bi. No LGBT+ supports me or accommodates, I am invisible to you.’” There is also a small but growing body of research on trans people of color. One study on youth revealed an alarming trend showing that racism combined with transphobia correlated with more than half of trans youth of color experiencing forced sex and nearly 60% having traded money for sex and resources.   

The fact remains that more research needs to be done specifically on racism in sex and dating among lesbian and trans people of color.

So what do we do?

To be honest, I am not entirely sure. As pointed out in the VICE article How Queer People of Color Are Combating Sexual Racism, the answer isn’t simply for queer people of color to stop dating white people.

“No matter how they go about accomplishing it,” the author writes. “[M]ost QTPOC share the same goal: finding politically and racially conscious partners who will validate them as people. And that doesn’t always mean writing off white people altogether.”

And as Per$ia, a San Francisco–based Latinx drag queen, put it in the same article, “Be more open. Don’t let societal bullshit prevent you from trying something new. There’s more out there than Cliff, who works at Google and takes selfies hiking with his dog.”

With that said, what we must do is continue to recognize, unearth, and uproot racism in all its forms. The answer is not passivity or silence.

As Kimberle Crenshaw succinctly stated, “We are a society that has been structured from top to bottom by race. You don’t get beyond that by deciding not to talk about it anymore. It will always come back; it will always reassert itself over and over again.”

Links to Learn More

BIOGRAPHY

Marpheen Chann is a Portland, Maine-based thinker, writer, educator and speaker on social justice, equity, and inclusion. As a gay, first-generation Asian American born in California to a Cambodian refugee family and later adopted by an evangelical, white working-class family in Maine, Marpheen uses a mix of humor and storytelling to help people view topics such as racism, xenophobia, and homophobia through an intersectional lens. Marpheen is the Development, Communications, and Education Associate at the Holocaust and Human Rights Center of Maine. Marpheen holds a bachelor’s degree in Political Science from the University of Southern Maine and a law degree from the University of Maine School of Law (but does not practice law).

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