

The Black Damsel In Dating Distress: A Response to OkCupid's Conclusions - araneae
http://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2010/03/the-black-damsel-in-dating-distress/37085/

======
yummyfajitas
There is another explanation of OkCupid's conclusions which is not discussed
in that blog. The author of the blog even censored a comment pointing this
fact out.

39% of black women are obese, compared to 23% of white women. Men prefer to
date non-obese women.

<http://minorityhealth.hhs.gov/templates/content.aspx?ID=6456>

~~~
jorgeortiz85
The OkCupid blog post claims they were careful to control for attractiveness:

 _We were careful to preselect our data pool so that physical attractiveness
(as measured by our site picture-rating utility) was roughly even across all
the race/gender slices._

[http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/2009/10/05/your-race-
affec...](http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/2009/10/05/your-race-affects-
whether-people-write-you-back/)

So even though guys were rating these black women to be as "attractive" as the
non-black women in the sample, the black women were getting fewer responses
from guys.

~~~
yummyfajitas
I stand corrected. Apparently OkCupid does a good job with their numbers.

------
byrneseyeview
It's more parsimonious to just assume that black women have fewer options.

Black men between 20 and 34 (prime mate-choosing years) have an 11%
incarceration rate. The unemployment rate and median income among
(unincarcerated) black men is also low. So black women are more likely to
_need_ to look for people of a different racial background.

That means that if everyone has a slight bias towards their own ethnic group,
it's going to hit black women the hardest. (It would be a pretty strange
mutation if you didn't have that bias.)

Thus, they have to try the hardest, and have the least to show for it.

Or they're on Ebony Elite.

~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
_It would be a pretty strange mutation if you didn't have that bias_

Since this is potentially a sensitive subject, I'll preface my question with
the assertion that I'm not offended, just curious.

I have no such bias; why do you consider it a "strange mutation?"

~~~
sokoloff
I would imagine that the argument of GP is roughly: Suppose in a population at
a certain time, 2 simple genetics based traits suddenly become available
(visible/detectable) during mate selection.

Trait A has the property that whether you have or don't have a particular
expresion of it, you seek mates in the same condition.

Trait B has the property that you randomly select mates without regard to
their trait B status matching yours.

Trait A would tend to persist or even be amplified throughout generations,
while trait B would be dispersed and become less obvious over generations.

Given the obviousness of race during mate selection, and the fact that the
human race as a whole has not homogenized in that dimension, I would say that
there is some non-trivial natural preference among humans to pick "like" when
seeking mates.

(There are of course obvious flaws in the above thinking, the most obvious I
can think of being that societal mobility has only in the last few hundred
years made it reasonably practical to date outside the local area in which you
were born. I do however think that there's a genetic basis for "birds of a
feather" in mate selection, and that that doesn't imply the root cause is an
undesirable form of racism.)

------
petercooper
_That's because all the black men who don't want to date white women are on
the African American Dating Network or Blacksinglesconnection. There simply is
no real white corollary. Stormfront excluded, there aren't many "WhiteSingles"
websites or "EliteIvory" dating sites. There is no Caucasian Dating Network,
because the broader world is the Caucasian Dating Network. [..]_

Disagree. The reason there are no popular white-focused dating sites is
because they would be hounded or sued out of business! It's "racist" for white
people to congregate on a race-dependent basis, but acceptable for people of
other races. I guess it's our payback for our ancestors being idiots in the
distant past.

That said, I think racial segregation is a "problem" (though it's not always
"racist", per se). The existence of dating sites exclusively for certain races
is the issue here.

We need to go one way or the other. We ignore race and discourage its use as a
demographic tool, or we celebrate it and allow people to silo as they see fit.
Our society seems to have mostly chosen to ignore race and consider it a non-
issue, so "Blacksinglesconnection" or "EliteNoire" (Are you _shitting_ me?
This really exists?) should be as distasteful to our society as a hypothetical
"Whitesinglesconnection" would be.

~~~
henrikschroder
Why should it be hideous?

Let me try an analogy. Discrimination based on sexual orientation is illegal
in a lot of places, and seen as equally bad as discrimination based on race.

But there are plenty of dating sites that are exclusively targeted to gay men
or lesbian women. If you think that race segregating dating sites are bad,
then what are dating sites that segregate on sexual orientation? Are they also
bad?

But a gay dating site that didn't segregate on sexual orientation would be
completely useless! And to the extent gay men are members of non-segregating
dating sites, they will definitely filter out all the women and be filtered
out by all the straight men, so in essence they would self-segregate.

We have anti-discrimination laws because race or gender or sexual orientation
are irrelevant in some areas, such as the ability to perform a job. That's why
it's illegal to deny a job applicant based on those attributes.

But when it comes to dating, those attributes are relevant! Incredibly
relevant! Everyone has preferences when it comes to dating, and it not racist
to only date people of one's own race. It is not sexist to only date people of
one's preferred gender. It is not bad to want to date people that share your
culture, your religion, your world view.

It is not bad or distasteful to have segregated dating sites.

~~~
petercooper
First, if race-specific dating sites aren't offensive to you (and to me, they
ARE) then why not race-specific bars? Or race-specific public transport?

 _But there are plenty of dating sites that are exclusively targeted to gay
men or lesbian women. If you think that race segregating dating sites are bad,
then what are dating sites that segregate on sexual orientation? Are they also
bad?_

No, because dating is entirely _about_ sexual orientation. Straight men date
straight women. Gay men date gay men. And so on. When it comes to race,
however, that argument doesn't hold up.

There's no biological reason for a straight man to date a gay man. There's
also no biological reason, however, for a straight white man to _avoid_ non-
white women. If one has a personal preference, that's OK to exercise
passively, but holing yourself up in a segregated community is rather
anachronistic.

If there should be racially based dating sites, should there be bars/leisure
facilities/supermarkets for white/black people to hang out who don't like
being in the company of people of other races? My opinion is "hell no", but if
you disagree, well that's your opinion.

 _(I'm sure people have dated folks with incompatible sexual preferences in
the past, but that's pretty much incompatible with the whole idea of dating.)_

~~~
henrikschroder
_If one has a personal preference, that's OK to exercise passively, but holing
yourself up in a segregated community is rather anachronistic._

You clearly do not belong to any minority, because if you did, you would
understand how incredibly nice it is to be in an environment where you're not.
A lot of people that belong to a minority clearly see value in services that
target their niche, and it's very difficult to explain this to people that
don't.

There is an ocean of difference between targeting a niche, and discriminating
a group. A race-specific bar, i.e. one that targets a race or culture or
nationality or sexuality is perfectly ok. Denying service to a group is not
ok, that's discrimination, but that's not what we're talking about here. The
niche dating sites we were discussing aren't discriminating, they're targeting
a niche, and that has to be ok.

 _No, because dating is entirely about sexual orientation. Straight men date
straight women. Gay men date gay men. And so on. When it comes to race,
however, that argument doesn't hold up._

Yes it does, because dating is about physical attraction for most people, and
unless you are extremely desperate, you have physical preferences. Some people
likes blondes. Some people like brunettes. Some people like black hair. Is
that bad? Some people like whites, some people like blacks, some people like
asians. Is that bad? Is that racism? Should we condemn it? How?!?

And since some people have those preferences, why not have niche dating sites
that caters to them?

~~~
petercooper
_You clearly do not belong to any minority_

Unless you're demographically perfect in some way, everyone belongs to a
minority in some way or another. I'm a rare southerner in a northern town - I
don't want to socialize with "other" southerners, because that has nothing to
do with my identity. I don't see a need to fraternize with people who are
"like" me, beyond sharing a language and them not being religious nutcases.

 _The niche dating sites we were discussing aren't discriminating, they're
targeting a niche, and that has to be ok._

Even when they say things like "exclusively for black people" (e.g.
<http://allblackdating.com/>)?

 _Some people likes blondes. Some people like brunettes. Some people like
black hair. Is that bad?_

You can exercise preferences within open systems. It doesn't require
discriminatory silos. The concept of a dating site "exclusively for blondes"
is as ridiculous as a dating site "exclusively for whites." If you have
preferences (and, sure, we all do) you can filter and exercise those within
larger, non discriminatory systems like OKCupid.

 _Some people like whites, some people like blacks, some people like asians.
Is that bad? Is that racism?_

Often. If I didn't want to hire an Asian because I didn't "like Asians", that
would be racist. If I didn't like a _particular_ Asian for some reason, that's
not (necessarily) racist.

I understand that people might have preferences on the race of people they
date, but closing their minds to even seeing people of other races come up on
their dating site sends a bad signal.

------
jrockway
This isn't explicit anywhere, but OkCupid is all about subgroups. For many
people, there is an equal number of guys and girls in each sub-group, so
message response rates are consistent and people are generally happy.

It seems like, for black girls, that there is not an equal subgroup; there
aren't enough guys that find them interesting for all of them. So the girls
desperately respond to every message, and the guys don't seem interested --
there is a large supply of girls they like, and a small supply of guys.
Furthermore, this subgroup is easy to measure, because your gender and your
race are in your profile. It is easy to count the number of messages that
black girls write, because the database has an "is black" field in addition to
a "number of messages written" field.

But... I think there are other subgroups that don't do too well on OkCupid
like the, "hi u ar so hawt" group of guys. There just aren't many women on the
site that like that, but there are a ton of guys like that. So OkCupid ends up
being pretty bad for these guys. They send messages (if you can call them
that) like crazy, but they never get any responses. This is harder to
quantify, though, because there is no "sends thoughtless messages to anything
that seems female" field in the database. Buy it's exactly the same effect;
one group is in high supply, and the thing that group wants is in low supply.
So the group in high supply gets a lot of rejected messages.

It's not about race, it's about supply and demand.

(And oh yeah, this is all from the perspective of a straight guy. I imagine
the dynamics in the gay/lesbian communities are a little different, since in
theory, everyone in the pool is equally attracted to everyone else.)

~~~
pw0ncakes
I'm sure you don't mean to do so, but you shouldn't compare black women to "u
r so hawt" guys. Very different categories, and very different dating
problems. The moron can stop being a moron and learn how to write decent
messages. In addition, his disadvantage is a shortcoming that sends a strong
signal about his worthiness for a relationship. The black woman's disadvantage
comes from her being black, which will never change and which is a signal of
anything other than her skin having melanin.

It's not just OkCupid. Black women face a systematic disadvantage in the
dating scene, even now and even among educated people. I'm not saying that
it's so severe as to make it impossible for a black woman to find a decent
partner, but the disadvantage exists and it's a lot more common for an
attractive black woman to have long single spells. I know a couple of
beautiful, smart, incredible black women in their mid-20s who haven't even
kissed a guy, much less been in a relationship. Asian men face a disadvantage
of a different character that is arguably as bad. Anyone who can't see this is
either living in delusion or sheltered.

~~~
jrockway
_I'm sure you don't mean to do so, but you shouldn't compare black women to "u
r so hawt" guys. Very different categories, and very different dating
problems._

The only problem / category I am discussing is "doesn't get what they want out
of OKCupid". You could argue that the "u r so hawt" guys don't deserve to get
anything out of OKCupid, and I would agree with you. But I am looking at it
from their perspective, rather than from the perspective of an unbiased
observer. And the reality is that they are probably sad because they are
rejected so frequently.

 _I know a couple of beautiful, smart, incredible black women in their mid-20s
who haven't even kissed a guy, much less been in a relationship._

I know a lot of people, male and female, like this. There are a lot of people
that aren't in relationships, despite what TV tells you. And, even if the odds
are totally in your favor, you still have to take a lot of rejection to get
anything out of online dating. The reply rate is like 1-in-5 even for
white/white with a 95% match percentage. It's not easy for anyone.

------
jondoh
It's nice to see somebody making an effective argument against those high-and-
mighty OkCupid data lords. I've read a number of their posts, and they are
actually quite careless in making assertions as though they are experts.

Anyone who works with data knows that subtle changes in how you define a
metric can lead to drastically different findings. Ever heard the saying:
"There are lies, damn lies, and statistics." In real science, you need to do
everything possible to try to prove yourself wrong, and fail. They hardly seem
to do anything so rigorous. They choose one metric, see what the outcome is -
gasp, something sensational! Write a post about it.

~~~
gruseom
They lost me when I noticed they were mucking around with chart axes to make
effects look more significant than they are
(<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1065203>), surely the oldest trick in
the book. Besides that, the posts can only count as pseudo-scientific in the
absence of the data being available for review. But such criticisms do kind of
miss the point, which is that this has been very effective marketing.

~~~
Confusion
What's wrong with 'mucking around' with chart axes? Scientists do that all the
time, because effects are often hardly visible with 'normal' axes and you have
something you wish to make clearly stand out. Skipping part of an axis and
changing the scales is a normal, even required, thing to do.

~~~
gruseom
Really? Because it's also a notorious way to distort data. It sounds like you
have more experience with this than I do, but I'm puzzled by the contradiction
here. When is it a normal, even required scientific technique and when is it
the oldest "how to lie with statistics" trick in the book?

~~~
Confusion
OK, that's an interesting question. I guess it depends on the audience. When
your audience is scientifically minded, they will know how to interpret your
axes and understand why you made a certain choice. They might criticize you
for it, but you know such a choice will be scrutinized, so you won't try to
deceive them. When your audience consists of less numerically literate folks,
you have to be careful with your axes, as you make something appear more
interesting that it actually is. If I take a graph from a scientific
presentation and use it in an article for lay people, I'm not trying to trick
them, but it may appear as such. I guess it's a fine line between making the
interesting bits stand out and making bits stand out to make them seem
interesting.

------
oliveoil
Please start throwing rocks at me, but I can also see a much simpler
explanation behind the numbers than those constructed in the post.

Just don't throw rocks at OkCupid, it's their job to analyze the numbers and
match all those people in the best way they can. It's a nice bonus for
everyone who is still on the dating scene (or in the dating website business)
that OkCupid actually publishes what they find.

~~~
Confusion
What is constructed in the post is not an alternative explanation of the
numbers. It is an explanation of an effect that needs to be taken into account
to explain the numbers. It may even dominate the explanation, but that's not
asserted in the article. You have fallen into an "either-or" trap.

------
aristoxenus
As fascinating as I find the work Chris is doing and writing about over at the
OkCupid blog, I've been pretty disappointed by his willingness to use all that
data to "objectify" in demeaning ways (calling people ranked low in his
attractiveness scales "hideous", the poor-black-women thing, etc). Thanks,
Coates, for the welcome critique.

~~~
byrneseyeview
If "hideous" applies to anyone, shouldn't it apply to people who get the
lowest grades on dating sites? Or should he just assume that the truly hideous
won't even bother?

~~~
aristoxenus
I think it takes a certain lack of humanity to use the word "hideous" to
describe anybody's born appearance.

~~~
byrneseyeview
Is that because it's not nice, or it's not accurate?

~~~
aristoxenus
Because by being so strong and unkind, it amplifies the recognition of a
material or perceptual accident of nature into a needless conceptual
flattening of a person's entire presence in the world. Depending on the self-
esteem of the person it may be referring to, it's impolite at best, and cruel
at worst.

What I think Chris forgets in his writeups is that actual individuals who may
fall into those regions of his chart may at some point read it. Why be so
abrasive about it?

~~~
byrneseyeview
Ugliness is not a nice thing to have! Like stupidity, or unfriendliness. At
the extremes, words for those traits are also generic insults: words like
"hideous," "retard," and "asshole" all describe people. And they're often used
as more generic pejoratives.

These words are all relative. If you decide that "asshole" is simply too cruel
a term, people end up using the next-cruelest term as the cruelest-possible
one. So maybe if someone cuts you off in traffic, you say "Jerk!" But now
"jerk" can't be used to categorize someone, since _it's_ the worst word.

You'll just be forced to keep making your language more and more bland.
There's no logical point at which your argument stops applying: "He's very
special, and doesn't play well with others. And he's a more authentically
handsome person," will eventually be wordy way to say "He's a hideous,
retarded asshole."

There's no loss of meaning, but there's a profusion of syllables. Let's just
say what we mean, and assume that people with unfortunate traits have gotten
used to hearing about them by now.

------
orblivion
What the hell does not finding black women attractive have to do with racism?
This has nothing to do with what's "considered" beautiful, as if beauty is
something to be considered logically. A lot of white people just don't find
black people attractive. What, do you want white men to date black women they
find unattractive out of _fairness_? That's just condescending, it doesn't do
anybody's self esteem any good.

The OK Cupid article displays righteous indignation for no good reason, and
I'm disappointed that the articles critiquing it still seem to accept this
basic premise.

~~~
psyklic
There was a lot of debate on this surrounding the original OKCupid blog post.

In summary, it is subconciously racism. I may not find people of a certain
race attractive. However, let's say that I become good friends with some
people of that race. Then, I will see that they are like me, and I will start
to find some people of that race attractive too. (Of course there are
exceptions, but this is how it generally works.)

Things like this happen outside of race as well -- people who have gay friends
are drastically more likely to support gay marriage. Why? Because they realize
that gays are like them and that the stereotypes just aren't true.

~~~
ErrantX
I think it is _wrong_ to call this racism. Even subconcious racism.

If it is a lack of interaction it is simply that. :)

On the other hand I think attraction is in two forms; physical and mental
attraction. Your talking about the latter but the former is clearly important
too.

Genetic physical characteristics are an aspect of this, sure, but I dont think
it's racism. I find certain bulgarian (random example) women unattractive
because of their genetic characteristics too :)

> people who have gay friends are drastically more likely to support gay
> marriage

As it happens I have don't think I have gay friends (not for any particular
reason) and I fully support gay marriage. :) But I take your point there - and
I think it is far more applicable than the first one you made.

(disclaimer: I am an advocate of the idea that the constant use of the term
racism when not applied to actual, evil, racism is damaging. And that the best
medicine for the whole sorry mess is to no longer worry about it and ostracize
elements of society that do)

~~~
orblivion
> Your talking about the latter but the former is clearly important too.

In his/her defense, I've found that certain girls can actually seem
_physically_ attractive once I get to know them. So it's not as cut and dry.

------
danieldon
Hopefully everyone here can recognize that Ta-Nehisi Coates' post simply
presents a hypothesis and contains absolutely no supporting data.

~~~
carbocation
He is relying on the same _data_ for his assertions as everyone else has been.
I see his _analysis_ of that data as no less valid than that of OKCupid, etc.

~~~
danieldon
Maybe you read a different post, but the one linked here simply argues that
"any black person will tell you, when black folks date online they don't go to
OKcupid," then lists a bunch of sites targeting black users and concludes that
the OKCupid data is not representative of the public at large, despite the
complete absence of supporting data. I don't see an analysis of data, just a
hypothesis.

~~~
darshan
Coates is pointing out that there are good reasons to suspect strong sample
bias. OkCupid didn't address this -- they just assumed an unbiased sample. I
find Coates' argument far more compelling than OkCupid's blind assumption.

Blacks do look seriously underrepresented based on the response rates to the
two questions. (Suggesting that blacks account for around 4% of OkCupid's
users.) That's hardly proof of anything, but it does offer some credence to
Coates' argument.

In the real world, it's often very hard to find compelling data, so we
sometimes have to rely on compelling argument.

~~~
danieldon

        Coates is pointing out that there are good reasons
        to suspect strong sample bias.
    

If that was all he did then there wouldn't be a problem, but it wasn't. He
also made unsubstantiated, anecdotal claims, and he presented the whole thing
as fact.

    
    
        OkCupid didn't address this -- they just assumed an unbiased sample.
    

The OKCupid post very explicitly addressed how their user demographics differ
from the norm.

------
gizmomagico
People please, stop being so goddamn politically correct and admit that most
white men just don't consider black women all that appealing.

I know I sure don't. Seriously, a black woman has to be Naomi Campbell to
pique my interest, and even then she'd need to be.. less black. Halle Berry?
-To use an annoying expression: "meh".

That's just how it is. This is not racism, we're just wired this way. It's
lame to wax poetic about what could theoretically be "wrong" when we all know
the deal.

White women are desired by men of all races, just like Asian women. Black
women are mostly desired by black men.

------
pw0ncakes
Cless Alvein said it well:

[http://alvanista.wordpress.com/2009/09/14/black-and-white-
pa...](http://alvanista.wordpress.com/2009/09/14/black-and-white-part-1-of-
aleph-0/)

------
TheSOB88
One of my friends, who is black, says he avoids black women due to the way
they act. Perhaps this has something to do with it?

