[BlueTemplar]

Actually, yes, kind of the whole point - the concept of race is racist. And "looking through a lens of race" is racist too.

(EDIT : the OP doesn't mention race though, so the blame might be actually more on the answerer.)

The whole concept is not only scientifically flawed (and so was largely abandoned by anthropologists, who prefer to use the much more culturally than genetically defined concept of ethnicity), but has also resulted in untold suffering in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Not that fetishization of skin color isn't an issue, but affirming the validity of race by using it to think about this issue is guaranteed to make matters worse.

[wayoutthere]

Race as a biological imperative of some sort is absolutely hogwash. What race you are seen as says nothing about who you are as a person or what you are capable of. On that we agree.

Race as a sociological phenomenon is very real to those who experience it. Fetishization of race in sex is demonstrably real as well and not limited to women.

Regardless, race isn’t really the important part — it was just an example. You could replace race with any number of descriptors of a person (weight, height, etc) and it doesn’t make it feel any better to be fetishized; it’s not two people having sex, it’s one person having sex with an idea. Ideas aren’t supposed to have feelings, dreams, or agency.

Some combinations of these sociological states are just a lot more likely to be fetishized (and porn sites have the stats on that!) And when they are, it changes the power dynamics around sex significantly.

[AnIdiotOnTheNet]

> Actually, yes, kind of the whole point - the concept of race is racist

I disagree. Having to do with race is racial, not racist. The latter is inherently prejudiced. Merely mentioning race does not make something racist.