I think I may be a racist? **Trigger Warning**

[Complexico]

Trigger warning for mention of child abuse.

Please try and be gentle with me, and I am already grateful if anyone can offer constructive advice on how to fix this. Basically, I am not attracted to two races and the thought of having any sort of close/sexual relationship with these two races absolutely makes me want to vomit, my skin shivers, I have intense physical reactions. Men from both ethnicities were involved in prolonged abuse of me whilst I was a child so there is sort of some rational reason behind it.

However, I hate this part of myself. Is there anything I can do about it?
Is it racism or reasonable?

YABU- Racism, please do something about it.
YANBU - Rational, this is totally understandable.

Don’t be so hard on yourself. You are feeling a natural reaction to a dreadful painful experience.

This. Don't hate yourself. It would be racist if you just accepted the reaction without feeling that it was wrong - you obviously don't want to feel this way but trauma has a way of overriding logic.

(As an aside, this is what really gets me about the whole single-sex facilities argument - many if not most women have been traumatised in some way by male behaviour and it is unacceptable and unrealistic to ask us to suppress our instincts even when logically we know the risk is small).

BTW I knew someone who was in a Japanese POW camp and they didn't hate the Japanese. However, they found the sound of Japanese being spoken completely triggering. I think this is similar.

Any man who reminds me of my abuser makes me vomit into my own mouth and my eking crawls so bad I want to scratch it off!

Certain celebrities cause that reaction so I don't watch anything they are in!
Luckily it hasn't happened often in real life where Iv had to for example work etc with someone.

I don't hate them, I wish these people no harm but they through no fault of their own trigger a ptsd response for me and Iv learned that's not my fault or theirs or anyone's infact except the person who perpetrated the trauma.

Skin not ekin

You have very obvious triggers attached to them. You are repulsed by the idea of being abused. I would say that is very normal!

For what it's worth, the thought of doing anything other than kissing with a woman makes me want to sick in my mouth and I love my female friends with all my heart.

I am white and am rarely sexually attracted to men that aren't white - I usually like them as fair as they come. My also-white sibling is rarely attracted to men who are white. I don't think I'm a racist; you fancy who you fancy.

Also, I am of the opinion that everyone carries a certain level of prejudice because it's a primal human instinct, as unsavoury as it is. The important thing is what you do with that. You sound very self-aware which makes me think you are unlikely to behave in a racist way! Actions count, not thoughts.

Why oh why do you think you have to be sexually attracted to everyone, or you’re an unacceptably bigoted ‘ist’ of one type of another nowadays? Something to do with men wanting complete sexual freedom and women with no bodily autonomy perhaps? It doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things, who you are attracted to is who you are attracted to and there are plenty of those around.

I'm asexual, I can't imagine having sex with anyone, it doesn't mean I hate everyone.

PTSD

It's not racist to not be attracted to certain races. Some people have a fetish FOR certain races but no one calls them racist either.

It's not racism. I have a similar thing against Middle Eastern men as my step father looked like they do. He abused me as a child.

I'm white and am not sexually attracted to makes from ethnic minorities. I'm not racist. I have a type that turns me on, anyone that looks differently I wouldnt ever want to sleep with. I think you're being too hard on yourself. I'm also a woman but the thought of sleeping with another woman makes me feel sick. I dont hate women, I just don't find them sexually attractive. Can you seek counselling for your abuse?

Would your treatment of women or children of the 2 ethnicities you are fearful of change to those you aren't? It seems it's the men that scare you, that isnt racism OP. Stop beating yourself up. There is so much pressure in modern society to be accepting of everything and everyone. Having an opinion = not racism. Affecting treatment of others = racism. To me anyway.

Your reactions are understandable. It is your animal / reptilian brain protecting you from harm and you go into fight / flight / freeze / flop friend. These part of your brain are more basic and do not have the ability to think rationally. The rational side of you / human brain otoh knows you are being irrational and you then feel guilty.

There is a short cut in your brain Ie in your thinking pathways, which takes you straight there. It sounds very hard to challenge this on your own. If you want to slow the process down, I think this needs to be challenged in a safe environment. Feeling guilty alone will only lead to depression and not a change in your thought process at a fundamental level.

I agree with others that this is ptsd and you would benefit from therapy.I don’t think you should be setting the goal of completely overcoming these feelings. It Is far more important to give yourself the right to feel the way you do.

I hope this helps to see you are thinking things, which you don’t want to and why you are not to blame.

I don't think this is racist. You are just having an adverse reaction to people who happen to have a resemblance your abusers.

You would probably get the same reaction to people if the distinguishing features were entirely different, but reminded you of your abusers in some other way.

There's a particular tv personality who gives me the shakes and the absolute creeps. I find him totally abhorrent in every way possible and he disgusts and revolts me. Because he looks a lot like someone who assaulted me when I was 17.

A friend of mine is black and does not find white men attractive in the slightest. I wouldn’t call her racist.

It would be the same if you were adverse to men with moustaches or men with brown hair or men who wore certain types of clothes. It's not the race, it's what it reminds you of.

It is racism if you association all people from that race with what happened to you, rather than two people who hurt you who could have come from any race.

Nonsense! The OP hasn’t said all people (insert race) are going to abuse her, she’s having an involuntary response to men of a certain appearance, due to an horrific experience. That’s not racism, that’s PTSD.

What and who we are attracted to depends on many factors, physical characteristics being for most people at the top. It is not racists to not be attracted to a certain race .

However, your involuntary response and those thoughts do sound like PTSD and you might want to get some help with that and deal with the trauma of what you've been through. For your own sake and sanity, not so you can be an equal opportunity dater.

This is two separate things to me.
Firstly, there is no obligation to fancy anyone for any reason. You are sexually attracted to who you're attracted to, and there's nothing you can do about that! I'll be honest, I'm not attracted to guys who aren't white. I can't help that. I'm also not attracted to women. It's the same thing, doesn't make me a misogynist, so I'm not racist because I don't find non-white skin attractive either.
Secondly, and specifically in your case, you've suffered terrible trauma, and understandably find men who remind you of that not attractive. That is totally normal, but I do think possibly you could do with some help. Saying that, you still have the first point. You have absolutely no obligation to find everyone sexually attractive. Some do, that's good for them. Some don't. It's perfectly natural, and you (or anybody), has zero reason to feel bad about that

I posted YABU, but I don't think you're unreasonable, exactly. I was raped by a stranger of a specific race when I was a teen. For years, I used to flinch if I was near someone of that same race. If someone walked by me in the street of that race, I'd spook, like a nervous horse, and jump into the road. So I really really get how it feels and how scary it feels. It's normal. It doesn't mean you're a bad person.

However, I felt that it was racist because I was judging everyone from that race, and that is kind of the definition of racism - assuming stuff about someone of a specific race because of the colour of the skin. I think sometimes we get it in our head that racism = you're a bad person, though, which isn't true.

In my case, and I'm not saying you should be like me, I did get help. It's something I talked to my therapist about, did a bunch of mindfulness about, and it did help a lot. No one is saying at the end of this you should be aiming for hunting down men of any particular race on Tindr, but I think feeling physically sick at the thought of feeling close to someone probably isn't very healthy and can't be much of a nice way to live for you either.

Thinking of you.

Thank you everyone. I am just reading through the replies (again), but for those of you that have asked, I am having therapy and I do have a trauma diagnosis.

I have had a lot more replies than I expected.

Not racist.

You seem like you are punishing yourself because if of the ethnicity of your abusers. No one can really explain why they are attracted to the people they are. Stop punishing yourself for your own thoughts - you are obviously enlightened enough not treat people differently the evidence is the amount you have thought about this and your post itself

Thats not racism; I have the same reaction to men wearing suits. Its not a discriminatory response, its a trauma response.

It appears to be like PTSD (I am not a doctor) your reaction is understandable due to the trauma you experienced. Good luck with your therapy 🤗