Romantic preference is no excuse for sexism

Yesterday I had a friend share an article on Facebook that asserted that not being "into men is not a sexual preference. It's sexist."

As with many controversial political articles posted on Facebook, the comments section erupted in arguments. The morality of romantic sexual preference is a topic of argument I've seen many times over, and have almost never seen a clear conclusion.

According to the New York Times, as many as 90% of American men reported having sexual preference for the opposite gender. So many people have these preferences that it's impossible to call all of these people sexists, right? Unfortunately, I believe that to some extent you can.

I do admit with great shame that, until college, I thought it was acceptable to say "I'm just not into men."

After attending college in Atlanta and having much more exposure to more diverse sexual preferences, I no longer believe that excluding a specific gender from attraction is a respectable choice and no longer have this "preference." It would be silly for someone to claim that they were not attracted to people with brown hair or blue eyes.

Similarly, it is silly that a person's genitals should be a significant in one's attraction. I understand that people tend to be more attracted to people who they believe they can have heterosexual coitus with, which often translates to the opposite gender, but I believe that dismissing a gender out of hand is a result of the implicit biases they have against people of that gender.

This does not necessarily make someone a bigot, in my opinion, but I think those who have these preferences should at least not make excuses that this behaviour is acceptable. It is incredibly difficult to change implicit biases, but one should never publicly justify not being attracted to a certain gender or type of genitalia.

You do not need to be attracted to every person, but it is important to at least try not to dismiss someone simply because of their gender. So in the argument of whether not (sic) being attracted to people of a certain race is sexism or simply preference, I would argue that it is a preference, but a preference motivated by sexism. Instead, we should work to find beauty others (sic) rather than letting our implicit biases decide who we are attracted to.