Who is to rule?

Whereas the reality is far more like

in the sense of someone categorically being uninterested dating someone for being part of some stigmatized demographic (e.g. trans, fat, racialized, disabled, etc.) even if they were fully into someone before learning they are part of that demographic

--it's always reframed as a debate around if it is prejudiced to not date the person.

I think this is such a frustrating direction for the conversation to go. obviously losing interest in someone purely for their social position within a marginalized demographic is something that emerges from prejudice. but where people absolutely lose the plot is the implication that covering up prejudice is the same as actually unlearning it. if they were to keep dating that person just to avoid being considered transphobic/fatphobic/racist/ableist/etc., that is still prejudice!

the prejudice exists whether or not they date the person. so they probably should not, because any relationship that emerges is almost guaranteed to be abusive towards the marginalized person, as it's founded on bigoted resentment.

if you lose attraction to someone because of a stigmatized characteristic, you shouldn't date them. but you are still prejudiced, and you should still work on that. not for the purpose of widening your dating pool (who cares!) but because you impact other people in the world as you move through it.

1.) the desire/disgust politics involved in proclamations of categorical exclusion of traits that stand-in for marginalized populations (esp in public in a context that obviously and explicitly builds social rapport via in-group out-group dynamics along a class line) is an important social dynamic to identify and discuss.

saying it's ''just preferences'' is literally the ideological project of naturalization again. push on ''just preferences'' and you will provoke the ''scientific'' justifications for

ableism (e.g. ''we're biologically wired to pursue healthy mates''),

racism (espousing belief in race as pre-social categorical physically differentiated races via reference to racialized bodily and facial measurements)

sexgender assignment (espousing belief in pre-social innate permanent sexgender categorization as the basis for pre-social innate permanent sexuality, e.g. "I'm homosexual therefore I am only attracted to the same Sex" which they define via equating assignment-at-birth to genital shape on a categorical basis),

and so on.

2) when we discuss desire/disgust politics we are not saying ''come fuck us uggos or we'll get you #cancelled. this is a real rape threat." anyone pretending to believe that that's what we're saying is literally just doing more of the "building rapport along a class line via desire/disgust politics" again.

they are mocking the very idea that ''undesirable'' populations are allowed to discuss this common form of social climbing at our experience via insinuating ''we'' (whatever marginalized group) are all desperate rapists whose whole lives revolve around jealousy cause they're soooo much more desirable than us (/sarcasm).

even though it's an open secret people desire every marginalized group this is done to & the "desirable" populations have to ''hide'' this desire for us & feign disgust in public to keep up this desirability kayfabe.

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