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The Palgrave Handbook of Sexual Ethics pp 421–436Cite as

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Racialized Sexual Discrimination: A Moral Right or Morally Wrong?

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Abstract

Many people claim that we have the right to act on our sexual preferences, including racialized sexual preferences, because doing so isn’t harmful, and even if it were harmful, this wouldn’t matter because either our “right” to act on our sexual preferences outweighs the harm and/or we cannot even control our sexual preferences. Against this view, Cheryl Abbate argues that (1) when white people act on anti-Black sexual preferences, white people harm Black people insofar as they reduce their objective welfare level, and (2) we can in fact, to some degree, control our racialized sexual preferences. This leads Abbate to conclude that white people don’t have even a prima facie right to act on anti-Black sexual preferences.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    For a defense of this position, see Kershnar (2018). Halwani (2017), too, suggests that people with racialized sexual desires are like people with other sexual preferences.

  2. 2.

    The term sexual racism appears in Callander et al. 2015 and Coleman 2011. See Stember 1978, pg. (xi) for his definition of sexual racism.

  3. 3.

    See Anderson et al. 2014.

  4. 4.

    For the use of this terminology, see Hutson et al. 2018.

  5. 5.

    See Mills 1994 for his discussion of white endogamy.

  6. 6.

    For more on the topic of the immorality of racial fetishization, see Zheng (2016).

  7. 7.

    See Wynne 2020.

  8. 8.

    See Brown 2018.

  9. 9.

    See Paul et al. 2010; Wade and Harper 2020.

  10. 10.

    See Brennan et al. 2013.

  11. 11.

    See Wade and Harper 2020 for a discussion about the negative effects of racialized sexual discrimination. Relatedly, white people are more likely to casually date or have sex with racial minorities than they are to marry them, which reinforces the harmful message that racial minorities are a “type” or an “experience” (West 2020).

  12. 12.

    And it’s worth noting that P1 itself is problematic. While racialized intimate preferences are preferences, they may not be personal, as they often are a product of social and cultural influence.

  13. 13.

    See Kershnar 2018, pg. 244 for his discussion about our alleged inability to control our sexual preferences.

  14. 14.

    See Coleman 2011 pg. 13 for his discussion of sexual goods

  15. 15.

    See Laumann and Yoom 1999 for a discussion about the “intraracial network effect.”

  16. 16.

    This point is made in Hutson et al. 2018.

  17. 17.

    See Huemer 2003.

  18. 18.

    If I am lied to by my partner, I cannot make fully autonomous romantic decisions, insofar as I am lacking information that is necessary for me to make informed decisions about my romantic activities.

  19. 19.

    See Regan 1983 for this example.

  20. 20.

    And perhaps we have a right, or even a moral obligation, to interfere with her drug use.

  21. 21.

    See Abbate 2020 for my prior discussion of the ethics of racialized discrimination in the dating context.

  22. 22.

    See Davis 2007 for his discussion of “lookism.”

  23. 23.

    It may be permissible to harm others (i.e., it may be permissible to reduce the objective welfare level of others) when competing rights are at stake. So, sometimes harming others doesn’t amount to wronging them. But because there is no such thing as a “right” to disrespect the personhood of others (such as by treating them as a mere means), disrespecting the personhood of others is always a harm that is wrong.

  24. 24.

    See Liu 2015.

  25. 25.

    See Hellman 2008.

  26. 26.

    Law, too, recognizes this distinction: it identifies race as a protected class but not things like hair color.

  27. 27.

    This point is made in Mills 1994.

  28. 28.

    See Gallup 2013.

  29. 29.

    See YouGov 2018 and Skinner and Hudac 2017.

  30. 30.

    This point can be found in Mills 1994.

  31. 31.

    This point can be found in Mills 1994.

  32. 32.

    See Hutson et al. 2018.

  33. 33.

    See Marway 2018 and Mills 1994 for further discussion of Eurocentric beauty ideals.

  34. 34.

    See Moreland and Beach 1992.

  35. 35.

    See Buss 1985, Little et al. 2006, and McPherson et al. 2001.

  36. 36.

    And if our segregation practices, in part, influence our racialized preferences, then we can partially control our sexualized preferences and thus can be held at least partially accountable for both having and acting on these desires.

  37. 37.

    See Dixon 2008 and Okantah 2016.

  38. 38.

    See Hergovich and Ortega 2018.

  39. 39.

    Intimate platforms arguably have a corresponding legal duty based on Public Accommodation Law. For instance, if intimate platforms continually permit users to exclude Black people, there’s a sense in which these platforms are saying “I’m open to the public and provide this social good, but not to Black people.” This argument, however, does not apply to intimate platforms that are open only to racial minorities, since the persons who are excluded by these platforms (white people) aren’t members of a protected class.

  40. 40.

    I also cannot thoroughly explore the question of whether these online dating platforms should be regulated by the courts and legislators. I suspect that there is a compelling argument in favor of such a proposal.

  41. 41.

    See Sigelman et al. 1996.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Nevada, Las Vegas, NV, USA

    Cheryl Abbate

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  1. Cheryl Abbate
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Correspondence to Cheryl Abbate .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Philosophy, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, CO, USA

    Prof. David Boonin

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Abbate, C. (2022). Racialized Sexual Discrimination: A Moral Right or Morally Wrong?. In: Boonin, D. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Sexual Ethics. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-87786-6_25

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