Rudynate

I had mine done. Like Elizabeth Warren's family, there is a story in my family about a native ancestor. Same scenario- no documentation, just stories. The 23andme assay revealed my ancestry to be 100% European. I did the math once and the story didn't make sense to me. My mothers family are supposed to have emigrated to Canada during the French Revolution. My great-grandfather was born in Canada in 1822. So that would leave a time window of 30 years or so in which the native ancestor could have been brought into the family. Not impossible, but less likely when you are not dealing with a long span of history.

Doesn't that go without saying. If one says, "I go for black guys," clearly you don't go for every black guy on the planet. But the whole question of race forces us into these predicaments where we feel we have to go to ridiculous lengths to clarify what we meant. A black guy who I dated was terrified of being objectified because he was black, even though he himself dated only white guys. So if he got any indication that a guy he was dating was into him because of his skin color, he would drop them flat, no explanation, just walk away. I think it was a ridiculous position, because how can you separate someone from their skin color? Even if you're not someone with a fetishistic attraction to a particular skin color, how really can you separate a man's skin color from who he is. It's part of who he is.

I If he was going to kiss you, it was ill-considered of him to surprise you with tongue-in-mouth. But if it had been preceded by a fair amount of erotic contact, I think I would have welcomed it. I've had everything from prissy therapeutic massages from straight guys to erotic massages that turned into full-on sucking, fucking and rimming on the massage table. I guess there's a time and a place.

My gym is packed with handsome Asian muscle boys like him. I think they're all straight though.

He's a different color from day to day.

This isn't the first time you and I have locked horns. We're like oil and water.

Yes, the latest neuroscience is showing that a behavioral change initiates remodeling of the CNS almost immediately, even in the aged.

I like porcelain too, but I like the transparent look of a redhead's skin. And the blood vessels showing through are sort of green.

Even if that is Even if that is true, do you reflexively go around answering whatever is asked of you. I repeat, "Who said you had to?"

I don't have any experience with any of them. I'm hot and cold on Ethan. His ad copy is very sexy, I love his face, but his body I'm not wild about.

I would agree that I am used by unacknowledged biases, but life is an endless process of peeling back the layers of the onion. Every time you get to a new layer, you get to choose whether it will use you or not.

I've made a complete turnaround with redheads. I wasn't into the pale skin tone either. But for reasons that I don't understand, a while ago, it began to seem beautiful to me. I love that lily-white skin with the blue veins showing through.

In a perfect world, that would be true. In fact, skin color is just another phenotype, like hair color, eye color, etc. However, skin color has been inextricably linked with the notion of "race" and everything that race connotes. We live in a racist society and it is impossible not to be affected by it. If people were actually able to say that they weren't into a certain skin tone in the same way that they aren't into a certain eye color, there would be no problem, and perhaps in a few generations we will get there. You say you don't seek out people who look like you as potential partners. But I bet you haven't made a categorical decision that all blue-eyed people, forever and all, are unsuitable as potential partners. And I don't imagine you have a lot of stories and preconceived notions about how blue-eyed people are and why you don't choose them as partners. You're just not into them. Because skin color is so solidly linked with "race," it is nearly impossible to make that choice.

Acknowledging a bias allows a person to choose whether they want to be used by the bias or not.

Of course they lie to themselves. That's what an unacknowledged bias is. They say to themsrlves, " That's just the way I am, I can't help it, " and some such.

A doc who really knows the diagnosis and procedure codes can work magic with insurance carriers.

They write off the cost as long as insurance pays most of it. They wouldn't write off the cost if insurance had only covered a small portion of the cost. You are fortunate if you have insurance that covers labs for HRT.

I agree with you that you just don't pull an attraction out of thin air when no potential for attraction exists, but decisions and biases shape and limit the potential for attraction in non-obvious ways. For example, a guy who's "just not into blacks" may be looking at the man of his dreams, except for the fact that he's black, and not even recognize it. More personally, I've developed a fascination recently with 250-lb bears. I didn't suddenly make that up. But I recognized it when I opened my mind a little about guys whose height/weight proportions weren't what we consider ideal.

I just love men-any color, any ethnicity.

I don't have a close relationship with any of mine. I'm not sure what they call me.

Who said they did?

What does affirmative action have to do with anything? Affirmative action is a legal remedy for institutionalized racism. Individual racism in personal relationships isn't subject to that type of legal control. The only remedy for racism at the personal level is to recognize that it's not how you want to be and to stop it.

Tatts are a behavioral choice. They don't have anything to do with a fundamental fact of a person's being over which they have no control.

But we're talking about a guy who would have been a good partner until he found out the guys ethnic background. That one piece of information changed everything.

Who said you had to?