Online dating platforms provide a unique interaction space for people with different ethnic and racial identities. Through online dating applications, its users have unparalleled access to potential partners and lovers and present prospective connections to social groups that are formerly distant. However, while these platforms present new social opportunities, discrimination and bias limit the realization of these opportunities in practice. According to Hutson et al. (2018), intimate online platforms have pervasive and broad inequities in the appeal of and desire for users of minority ethnic and racial backgrounds. Racial prejudice in online dating platforms has huge impacts on those who experience discrimination. It is on this background that this paper aims to provide insights into racial bias in online dating and its effects on men of color in Canada. Racial prejudice in online platforms is propagated by both the structural design of the platform and the individual bias of its users. Those exposed to such racial discriminations are exposed to sexual stereotypes, objectification, racial hierarchies, and power imbalances in sexual encounters, cultivating feelings of personal shame and affect their self-esteem. Men of color in Canada are exposed to racial prejudice on online dating platforms due to users’ individual bias and structural design in the form of sexual racism of the platform resulting in reduced self-esteem and feelings of personal shame.
Racial Bias in Online Dating Platforms
The development of online dating platforms has revolutionized how intimate partners meet and connect in Canada and the rest of the world. The shift from the traditional ways of partner affiliation leading to more interaction between members of shift social group. In such instances, these online platforms promote social inequities among individuals from minority racial and ethnic backgrounds besides providing new social opportunities. According to the study by Smith (2014), sexual racism online is widely pervasive and highly prevalent among the users of intimate platforms, and it affects them due to the sexual and racial stereotypes exposed to them. Personal bias plays a crucial role in propagating racial prejudice in online dating through racialized hierarchies of desire and racial beliefs.
Han and Choi (2018) explain how personal bias contributes to sexual racism in online dating by studying personal desires that lead to prejudice and how it is rooted in a large system of racial beliefs and racial hierarchies propagating racial sexism in online dating. They examine sexual fields perspective through the lens of sexual racism to understand the roles and effects of larger social structures on influencing racial beliefs and racial hierarchies. For many individuals participating in online dating, black men’s worth as potential sexual partners is defined by their race manifesting culturally, structurally, and interactionally. Han and Choi (2018) affirmed that when the lens of sexual racism is used to examine sexual fields theory, larger social structural including race has a direct impact on individual connections at the micro-level. Numerous things such as body sizes and dressing styles claimed to be exclusive preferences in the sexual fields also have racial inclinations. Hence, desirable traits in the sexual fields could form a basis for racism since somebody shapes or kinds of clothing are not race-neutral. Rather, features that are found to be attractive within the sexual field are directly influenced by the larger societal beliefs about race.
Online dating spaces are a unique domain due to their nature to allow people to express their entitled and explicit preferences along the lines of disability and race. Thus, it can be hard to challenge these preferences as discriminatory or biased. When sexual desire is described as discriminatory, it helps distinguish and label infinite attractions that result in accounts of segregation and subjugation rather than a mere sexual preference. According to Hutson et al. (2018), in extreme cases, racial hatred and overt prejudice, where an individual believes that a certain race is not worthy of respect or affection, determines the preference in potential partners in online dating. In some cases, due to their beliefs, individuals can limit their encounters in the dating platform to a certain race they believe to be superior to others. Personal bias is reflected in such preferences leading to sexual racism since they indicate racist attitudes articulated in the selection of sexual partners. Therefore, personal bias is manifested in sexual preference by reflecting predominant depictions of desired partners that denigrate, demean, and fetishize members of a particular race.
On the other hand, these online dating platforms’ structural design propagates sexual racism among their users. According to Hutson et al., online dating platforms, through features such as matching algorithms, filter, sort, and search tools, and community policies encourage sexual racism among its users. At the instance of joining these online dating programs, users categorize themselves according to characteristics that are used to sort, search, or filter potential partners based on these traits. Through the use of search tools, users are only presented with individuals that fit the description of what they do or do not want to see in potential partners. Although these features provide an efficient system of meeting people with similar characteristics, they also reduce the diversity of potential partners. Moreover, explicit or implicit exclusion based on race can occur, leading to screening out of certain races.
The design features of sorting based on stereotype-related ethnicity, race, and other categories, conceptualizes and validates these stereotypes. Using the historical differences between the ethnicities and groups, online dating platforms promote these categories as an appropriate measure for a determinant sexual partner and its users’ natural characterization. Moreover, the ability of online dating platforms to bridge the social distance is undermined by screening tools making some people invisible. Granting its users with the ability to screen based on protected characteristics such as race gives them the users the control in the choice of their sexual partners, but in a manner that naturalizes discriminatory preferences. For example, by including filters based on race, certain races are explicitly excluded and the preference presented as acceptable and normal when it should be so.
Structural design of the matching algorithms of online dating platforms also introduces forms of discrimination and bias. When joining such online dating services, individuals provide details that are used to characterize them and, based on their attributes and preferences, provided with matches. Although the use of algorithms to find matches provides efficiency, it brings many risks that are associated with the screening tools previously discussed. Moreover, the automated and opaque operation of these algorithms can make it difficult to understand why intimate matches are chosen for you.
Effects of Racial Discrimination on Men of Color in Canada
According to Han and Choi (2018), for men of color in online dating platforms, their potential as sexual partners is defined by their race. Among the gay men of color, online dating platforms are structurally viewed to be white spaces in which they are unwelcome. Moreover, the cultural aspect of the sexual field leads to a view of men of color as less desirable or exposed to certain stereotypes. This racial hierarchy of desire is manifested in sexual racism resulting in negative consequences for men of color on online dating platforms. For men of color in Canada, one major effect of being exposed to racial prejudice in online dating platforms is the deep feelings of personal shame. They tend to view themselves as less desirable when prevalent kinds of discrimination, rejected and marginalized due to their ethnicity or race occur. According to Hutson et al. (2018), in a study conducted in 2015, the results indicated that 84% of bisexual and gay men of minority racial backgrounds had experienced racism and report resultant stress among 64% of the respondents. Moreover, the manifestations of this racial hierarchy of desires have a significant impact on power balance on sexual liaisons mediated by the internet, devalued sense of self, and sexual stereotyping among Canada’s men of color. These effects are exacerbated by the solitary and private nature of online dating, which makes it hard to gain social intervention or personally confront discrimination.
Conclusion
There is a pervasive and widespread racial prejudice on online dating platforms. The structural designs of these platforms propagate racial discrimination through features such as screening tools and matching algorithms. Through the inclusion of filters protected characteristics to give control of potential partner selection to users, structural designs of online dating platforms normalize implicit and explicit exclusion of individuals based on discriminatory preferences. On the other hand, personal preferences propagate these racial prejudices on these online dating platforms. When viewed from the lens of sexual racism, sexual fields theory indicates that personal interactions at micro levels are directly influenced by larger social structures such as race. Personal preferences in the desirability of sexual partners can be racial prejudice since societal beliefs about race determine what is found to be attractive sexual fields. For the men of color in Canada, exposure to racial bias and discrimination on online dating platforms has some negatives effects due to the racial hierarchy of desire and racial experiences on these platforms. The impact of racial prejudice on men of color is devalued sense of self, lower self-esteem, and feelings of personal shame, which are due to sexual and racial stereotyping on the online platforms.
References
Han, C. S., & Choi, K. H. (2018). Very few people say “No Whites”: Gay men of color and the racial politics of desire. Sociological Spectrum, 38(3), 145-161.
Hutson, J. A., Taft, J. G., Barocas, S., & Levy, K. (2018). Debiasing desire: Addressing bias & discrimination on intimate platforms. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, 2(CSCW), 1-18.
Smith, J. (2014). Getting off online: race, gender, and sexuality in cyberspace. In Illuminating how identities, stereotypes, and inequalities matter through gender studies (pp. 109-120). Springer, Dordrecht.
