So true, Assman. It's the old "Now I'm not a racist, but I have noticed that blacks tend to...." in a sexual context.

Red, comparing sexual orientation, which involves gender, to race, which involves skin color, is quite a leap. The one speaks to sexual IDENTITY based on a foundational and usually immutable feature of attraction: genital sexuality. The other speaks to a feature of a partner, skin color, whose added meaning in this case is, except as "preference," a noticeably inarticulated argument for exclusion. And that is consistent with the dominant culture's general perspective toward black people. If you want to regard that as coincidence, be my guest.

Nobody has really argued with anyone's right to exert a preference or prejudice in this context. What we notice is the effort to sanitize "preference" of "prejudice," as if the former is by definition uninfluenced by the latter.

Personally, I think the problem of prejudice in this context is above all what it costs the prejudiced person.




[This message has been edited by bongo (edited February 04, 2001).]