I (white woman) was chatting with a black man on a dating app some years back. Everything was going well until he started talking about my skin and how excited it made him. I tried to direct the conversation elsewhere, but he kept going back to the topic. It gave me the ick and it quickly became clear that’s the main thing he liked about me. That’s when I stopped talking to him.

I think it’s cool to be physical with someone with a different color skin - it’s interesting, but it’s a small detail in the grand scheme of things. If you’re more interested in someone’s color than in who they are as a person, that’s taking it too far. Maybe some people are down for being fetishized, but I’m not into that.

But with that said, you’re probably right - I don’t doubt white men do it more often, I just wouldn’t be the target of it and thus don’t see it as much. I feel for my sisters of color. I only had the one experience (so far), but I imagine they’ve dealt with it much more frequently. It sucks when you think you’re meeting someone cool and it turns out they can’t see beyond the most superficial of your features.