A new report published Wednesday by Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America includes stats like these: more than 30,000 single mothers have deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan and the divorce rate for female soldiers is nearly triple that of the men who wear the same uniform.
Raymond Ruddy, a 66-year-old retired businessman who runs a pro-life charity in suburban Natick, Massachusetts, is the premier benefactor of the abstinence-only sexual education movement. The Atlantic Monthly analyzes his unsubtle strategy to block comprehensive sex ed.
Fox And Burger King apologize for ad mocking Jessica Simpson's weight.
Apparently people are as racist in online dating as in real life. Go figure.
The New York Times takes on all this cougar talk. God help us.
The super smart Lauren Sandler writes about the color that just won't quit. Pink, of course.
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Guys, regarding that link about racism in online dating, did you actually look at that study by OKCupid they're referring to? The study itself engages in both racial and gender-based generalizations. Some choice quotes:
1. "Black women are sweethearts. Or just talkative."
--i.e., black women are the oversexualized mammy figures we all believed them to be?
2. "If you look at the match-by-race table before this one, the “should-look-like” one, you see that white women have an above-average compatibility with almost every group. Yet they only reply well to guys who look like them."
--i.e.,, the fact that these white women are compatible with people and nonetheless are not replying to them means that they are racist?
3. "White guys are shitty, but fairly even-handed about it."
--i.e., White guys are bad at replying to messages too, but hey, at least we're treating everyone equally poorly, unlike those white chicks who refuse to date people not because of disinterest but of because of race???
I don't know about you, but as a white woman who has a profile on that site, for the sake of making friends, I absolutely do not discriminate based on race, and I think this so-called "study" is chock full of ignorance, misinformation, and antibiotic-resistant racism and sexism.
PS. To clarify, my problem with their singling out white women as "racist" for not replying to messages is ridiculous. What they aren't telling you is that those messages which I at least am not replying to, are messages from people (of all races) who are asking me --
--whether I have an innie or an outie belly button,
--whether I will take a picture of myself in lingerie while doing the some kind of Star Trek hand signal for them to add to their collection
--whether i think i'm kidding when i say i'm bisexual
--how they would like to talk to me about my interest in philosophy but I am just too ugly
--outright homophobic, anti-feminist hate-mail that actually made me fear for my safety.
This happens all the time. OF COURSE I don't reply to these messages. I'm not even trying to get a date, and I SPECIFY that on my profile. To suggest that white women are racist not to reply to this obscures a serious problem, and risks reinforcing the stereotype that men should be entitled to unrestricted sexual access to women simply because the men are interested, are nice guys, are part of an oppressed minority, or because OKCupid gave us a high "Compatibility Percentage" (because your chance of success in love with someone is always quantifiable on a percentage scale of 0 - 100%).
Regardless of what you do, think, or say, white women on OKCupid reply more often to white men than men of any other race. And everyone responds well to white men. You can't dispute these findings, so i'm having difficulty understanding the motivation behind your attempts to discredit this (very unscientific) study. Are you seriously arguing that the fact that twice as many whites as non-whites dislike miscegenation (45% to 20%) says NOTHING? Can you please explain to me how a study that demonstrates this is, in your words, chock full of racism?
There's plenty of other things you could criticize about this study that have nothing to do with how your personal experience differs from OKC's conclusion. You don't get a sample size, there's a lot wrong with how they preselected groups based on attractiveness, and there's undoubtedly self-selection bias in the final survey results, to name just a few.
But instead, you fall back on personal experience. Have you considered that you may not be representative of your average user? I mean, you're not even on there to date. It's a dating site. Of course your attitudes are probably different than the majority of users. No one is saying that you, personally, are racist: undoubtedly there's a part of the white female population that just doesn't give a hoot about race. This doesn't mean that race means nothing to the rest of the population.
"I'm Not Racist" is not a valid rebuttal to accusations of systemic racism, just as "I'm Not Sexist" is not a valid rebuttal to accusations of systemic sexism.
PS: chance is always quantifiable on a percentage scale of 0 - 100%.
ha, ha, ha.
ok, so, no, i get the point.
--i never meant to suggest that racism is not a problem in dating. i just meant to suggest that it is no better to make generalizations about white women, particularly when you run the risk of undermining the general perception that white women are rejecting a given person for valid reasons, and not because of racism.
--my point is that the data is unreliable data from the outset, because women *in general* get these kinds of messages, and the creators of this "study" have no way of correcting for a variable like "the content of the messages and whether they were respectful and sincere," which is a serious issue in determining whether a white woman, or any woman, or man, is responding or not responding because of racism.
--if white women get a disproportionate amount more of these messages, that *is* a problem of racism, however it is the racism of the people sending the messages, and fetishizing white women, NOT the racism of the white women who ignore them for doing so.
--the data is also unreliable because they are not correcting for class, education, or religion. the only reason we have to emphasize a specific variable like the woman's race is if we BEGIN with a specific agenda and want to find fancy-looking data to corroborate that agenda. there is actually an antibiotic-resistant form of racism in statements like "white women are the most racist," insofar as it is still singling people out based on race, when it might be that an equal number of black and white people who have the same education, or religion, or class, or whatever, believe that interracial marriage is wrong. what i'm getting at here is that i would bet the single most important determining factor in opposing interracial marriage may not actually be RACE, but CLASS, religion, or education level.
--it's problematic that i can't call out the writers of this test on confusing romantic rejection with racism without it appearing that i am denying that racism exists? this trend i am talking about -- where women are accused of discrimination or frigidity if they are not sexually available when a given group of men thinks they ought to be sexually available -- is really dangerous. i'm sure george sodini would have loved these stats. in fact, on his blog he actually ranted about how "all white hoes were banging the black brothers," etc., prior to going on his killing spree... and yet there is debate about whether even his action was a gender-motivated hate crime. certainly racism exists, yes. but doesn't sexism also? why are we not talking about that?
if the authors are really that concerned about social justice in general -- they should be more vigilant. as i said, i think this study is just as racist against black women as any demographic, when it suggests that we can conclude that black women in general are "talkative sweethearts" because of an ostensibly scientific study.
also, why does my frustration at being misrepresented by the authors of this "study" offend you so personally?
about chance, you're really missing my point, which is that having a 95% match with someone doesn't obligate me to do something about it either way.
lastly, for the record, i believe and know that in general black men are disproportionately stereotyped as sexual menaces by white women, particularly upper-class white women. i attended an honors college which is mostly upper-middle class white people. the ONLY black male student there, who is a friend of mine, regularly gets accused of being a "player" or whatever, before he's even had a chance to become a part of the community. he feels so alienated he is thinking about leaving the school. i think this is a serious problem, and i am sure there are all different types of racism impacting people's decisions re: who to date.
i just don't think this strategy is helpful, especially if it alienates white women who are otherwise allies against racism by undermining their ability to choose who to write an e-mail to, via shoddily-constructed data.
I think white anti-racist allies are well aware that an analysis of the behavior of an entire social group is in no way an individual judgment of each member of that social group. If it's not about you, it's not about you.
Racialicious has two posts dedicated to talking about this information that OKCupid released, and while it seems like there are some valid questions about the method, there is also plenty of information to think about.
Right. I am verging on being pedantic here, but my point is a point about sexism masquerading as anti-racism. You can be thoroughly well-intentioned with regard to racism and still be misinformed about sexism.
I don't think that white anti-racist allies are the problem. I think that sexism is the problem, even if it is not intentional, as a side-effect of this poorly constructed data, because the same conclusions that potentially show us that racism exists also reinforce gender stereotypes and some racial stereotypes (which I've repeated ad nauseum -- frigid white women, loose black women). It's just irresponsible, I don't know that it is intentionally malicious.
Maybe you can understand Some men's adamant rejection of sexual harassment and rape studies that generalize them when the numbers clearly contradict them.
It sucks to have it thrown in your face but you just might have to accept that you have peen party to racism. maybe not directly, but certainly indirectly
I agree, Ashvil, that is an accurate comparison and a serious problem. In fact, that is such a good point that I believe I have already made it -- specifically with regard to what happens when a black man is unfairly accused of being sexually promiscuous because of his race, or the way he dresses.
I do not deny having white privilege. Having white privilege however, didn't keep me from having been born a woman. Being born white didn't keep me from being violently raped and nearly strangled when I was thirteen.
I think that focusing on our alliances is important, because it is when we think about the fact that we are all negatively affected by patriarchy -- even men -- that we are able to become strong enough to overcome the challenges that face us all.
I'm sorry I just see all of your points as analogous to a company saying, "The reason we don't have any female employees isn't because we are sexist, but because none of them were qualified!". And we all know how wrong that is
You might just have to suck it up and accept that you might be a little racist. just like a man looking at a similar study would have to accept that he is a little sexist.
really its the first step to stopping those tendencies, its not bad to admit, being in such an effed up society no one is perfect. but that shouldn't stop us from TRYING to be.
Instead of such egregious denial, maybe just say hunh, never thought of that. and then look twice at all the people you might be denying and say, am i doing this because of race?
Um... I guess the problem with this issue is that I, personally, have only gotten sexual harassment e-mails from white men, with the exception of the homophobic death threat, which was from an Asian man.
...and that despite this homophobic death threat the last person I was in a serious relationship with was Asian. But seriously, enough about my personal life. I feel like I am a politician being vetted or something!
You might just have to suck it up and accept that you might be a little racist. just like a man looking at a similar study would have to accept that he is a little sexist.
really its the first step to stopping those tendencies, its not bad to admit, being in such an effed up society no one is perfect. but that shouldn't stop us from TRYING to be.
Instead of such egregious denial, maybe just say hunh, never thought of that. and then look twice at all the people you might be denying and say, am i doing this because of race?
O_o Maybe I am entirely misunderstanding this discussion but maybe you have missed the point? It would not be off-base to say it's dripping white privilege to read a (badly structured but still fairly valid) study on racism and focus on the inherant sexism within, but I don't think she mentioned the race of the people who she is rejecting.
What I got from this is: study shows that white people of both sexes fare disproportionately better in terms of replies than people of colour. Given.
aletheia_shortwave commented that she didn't like how the study focussed on white women not replying, as if they should be obligated to reply to everyone who wants a piece of her.
She felt that the study had a sexist spin on it for women of both races. Whether or not you agree, I just don't understand where you got "I reject men of colour but it's because they harass me!" because that's what it sounds like you've read into it.
Actually they've previously done a study on what words get the best and worst results from responders. Words like interesting, smart, and so forth got better responses from women than words like sexy, pretty, and so forth. They *can*, to a point, control for this. Whether they did or not is unknown, however.
It should also be noted that your argument about the poor response rate being dependent on the kind of messages women receive is dependent on the idea that the quality of messages is dependent, or correlated with, race. Which is far more offensive.
I'm guessing that last link is meant to go here">http://www.motherjones.com/media/2009/09/code-pink>here instead of repeating the NYT article.
Thanks Bethany! I was hoping someone would have put the correct link in comments. :)
Thanks for this. There is a good book, called
_Pink Think: Becoming a Woman in Many Uneasy Lessons_ (2002) by Lynn Peril, and a lot of the historical stuff in the article from MJ is also in that book, plus more.
I was really sad that Feministing missed linking to Judith Warner's NYT article on Cougar Town that came out a few weeks ago. http://warner.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/24/the-real-cougar-fans/?8ty&emc=ty
I have yet to find a dating site that really used solid data to recommend a match with someone. I'm sure there might be some truth to what OK Cupid has revealed, but if it's like some of these sites who use a very rudimentary, highly dumbed-down criteria to suggest a match, the results can be safely called into question.
Again, the internet provides a fantastic opportunity to survey a world of douchery, and whether or not people are as racist online as they are in real life is usually much less important to me than how immature they show themselves to be in an internet environment.
OKCupid uses your responses to user-generated questions, plus your stated criteria for age/sex/religion, etc. (you can specify to filter or not to filter by these) to recommend matches. They do not take race into account when calculating matches. The more similar someone is to you in the way they answer the questions, the better a match they are.
From my personal anec-data, it's a reasonably solid system, but you shouldn't expect it to differentiate well between a 80 and 90% match.
Speaking of racism and relationships...how about this article: Interracial Couple Denied Marriage License By Louisiana Judge
A Louisiana justice of the peace said he refused to issue a marriage license to an interracial couple out of concern for any children the couple might have. Keith Bardwell, justice of the peace in Tangipahoa Parish, says it is his experience that most interracial marriages do not last long.
"I'm not a racist. I just don't believe in mixing the races that way."
Yeah, I heard about that one too... horrible. And apparently this man has some judicial powers, because justices of the peace in Louisiana aren't like JOPs elsewhere, who can just marry people. In rural communities, they run courts and have the power to decide on some preliminary criminal court cases and civil disputes.
*croggle*
This, too: Montserrate Not Guilty of Felony Assault.
A classic case of domestic abuse, and an equally classic outcome.
So not to sound accusatory or anything, but has anyone ever noticed that the feministing logo includes a woman with a ridiculously skinny waist, huge boobs, and big butt? Is there a reason behind this?
isn't that NOT what feministing is supposed to be about?
I'm sort of disillusioned by the image, i think we should get a more proportionately accurate logo
sorry i didn't know where else to post this
I believe it's an appropriation of an infamous truck-mudflap logo.
I believe it's an appropriation of an infamous truck-mudflap logo.
I believe it's an appropriation of an infamous truck-mudflap logo.
The first question in the FAQ:
What's with the logo?
The Feministing logo is meant to be ironic. We wanted to take a traditionally sexist image - the mudflap girl - and subvert her. Hence, the middle finger. We like to think of her as saying "fuck you" to the sexist beauty standard she is supposed to represent.
The first question in the FAQ:
What's with the logo?
The Feministing logo is meant to be ironic. We wanted to take a traditionally sexist image - the mudflap girl - and subvert her. Hence, the middle finger. We like to think of her as saying "fuck you" to the sexist beauty standard she is supposed to represent.
Am I racist for not being attracted to black men?
Black men have different facial structures in general to white men. Make a black man white and he will look completely different from your average caucasian, so it has nothing to do with skin color.
So I hope women with preferences will not be deemed as "racist" for not going out with someone they aren't attracted to. That's saying that all women should go out with overweight men, men of any and all religions, or anything else one could consider being judged for.
You cannot change the preferences ingrained into your head for the sake of pity and/or being judged. I don't like the word "racist" being thrown around when it comes to a person's preference in their mate. My relationship, my business. It's different from denying someone a job or anything of that sort.
That's just my take though.
I'll clarify a few things before I get called a troll and/or racist.
By facial structure, I meant that black, white, Asian, Indian, ect men will all look different from one another. While, of course, all men and women are different and I cannot say that people of any color can be painted with one brush, there's basic differences that make each ethnicity wonderful.
By "for the sake of pity" I mean when women go out with people they are not really attracted to, like a woman dating a man not appealing to her but down on his luck or because she has trouble turning him down, ect.
fthhh fthhh fthhh fthhh
thats the sound of you digging yourself deeper and deeper
Haha, I probably am. I'm not afraid to voice my opinions, even if they might be what someone considers wrong. However, Feministing has changed my views on alot of things, and I usually state my views on things when I can, even if it's not with the best wording.
By facial structure, I meant that black, white, Asian, Indian, ect men will all look different from one another.
You're thinking of stereotypical racial distinctions. Race is a social construct and as such is cultural. Someone could appear white and be black.
And so's gender (a social construct). What is up with hetro and homosexuality?! Soooo sexist.
They can tell race looking at skulls. Someone appearing white and being black is possible, white and black are skin tones, not races. Someone cannot appear Caucasian and be African.
Thank you.
Someone cannot appear Caucasian and be African.
What do you mean by Caucasian and what part of Africa are you talking about? A person from North African can certainly appear "Caucasian" and be African.
white and black are skin tones, not races.
Ok, I'll bite. Then I suppose you are including people from the Indian subcontinent and middle East as Caucasian or what?
Because if you consider someone from East Africa, it's not that far of a stretch feature wise from somebody from the India with skin toward the darker side of the spectrum.
Cover up the hair as many people do in their cultures and a dark skinned Caucasian can absolutely be mistaken for an African.
And what about the fact that a significant portion of the world is racially blended? What race are they? What about Central Asians? How about folks in the Americas and the Caribbean with Native American, European and African blood? What "race" are Melanesians again? How about indigenous Australians?
sorry for the typos
I ain't your tutor, you want to know about how race differs from ethnicity and the influence geography plays then research it. Really, it'll be fun(especially Australian Aborigines, very interesting).
I am not trying to say that all Caucasian's are white nor that all African's are black. Huge variations exist between ethnicitys and even within ethnicitys, sun exposure counts for a lot. But cut of your head and boil away your flesh (not recommended) and there is a scientist somewhere who'll tell you your race. Leave the flesh on and it's even more obvious, with or without skin pigmentation.
As for blended race people they are whatever races thay have in their make up, whether it's two, three four or five (I don't think more than five races are recognized, so you'll be going some to have more than that). Their existence in no way disproves the existence of race nor the fact that people of different races will often have certain features. (Though it is proof possible that different races can have sexual attraction to each other)
I was only trying to understand what skull size has to do with being able to tell someone's race by appearance in the context of socializing, which is what we are talking about here.
I'm still not understanding your example.
When you said: "Someone cannot appear Caucasian and be African.
Appearance often has little to do with science. How people "appear" to others is also based on the beholder's experiences, familiarity with different ethnicities, prejudices, ignorance, among other things.
Nobody has ever run up on me to measure my skull size. And arguing that people from geographically distinct regions can't occasionally be mistaken for each other by appearance is baseless claim unless you have some info I don't have.
They actually do perceived race off of phrenological measurements. The ratios do vary a bit from one ethnic group to another as strict averages, but across the diversity of human structural make-up, we're largely the same with some variance.
What I'm not saying is that it's racist to be attracted to certain racial groups over others. What I am saying is that if you're attracted to women, and find yourself not attracted to Asians, you're probably not going to be attracted to Bjork as she has some stereotypically Asian facial structure. You're probably, also, not going to be attracted to Rose-Anne Barr circa 1988 (before her eye lift). Bjork is white (Scandinavian), Roseanne is Aluetian Native American and Jewish.
What's racist is to assume all people of a racial group look the same because they're a racial group.
As for the gender is a social construct comment: it is, yes. But it's a social construct largely based in a biological component (XX versus XY) - even if it's coincidental. The gender binary is reflective of the biological binary of male-female. The gender binary is a false dichotomy because it inflicts social values onto a biological state of being.
So gender, in this instance, is different than race as far as sexual attraction. There's no genetic marker for your typical Black person, but there is a genetic market for your typical woman. Those genetic markers create most of the features that are accentuated by gendered clothing (breasts, hips, curves, lack of protruding genitalia).
They're just not the same.
Well yes, it is racist to not be attracted to someone based on race alone. But there's nothing you can do about it, but just accept that you've internalised a racist culture.
I do think it's different to know you're not attracted to a certain look and thus not be interested on something as calculated as a dating site. I think if you were to meet someone and become friends and consciously or unconsciously put them in the "never ever" category in your head that is more active racism. If you believe that you can never, ever be attracted to this person based on race then you are automatically treating them differently to someone white, whether you mean to or not.
Yeah because no one could ever love someone an overweight man or one of a different religion.
looks like you might not be racist, just weightist and ethnocentric.
please don't insult overweight men on a site that abhors the villain-izing of overweight women.
The point, you have missed it. Brittany didn't say anything about "No one", she just acknowledged that there are traits that some people find to be dealbreakers - for example, Richard Dawkins heaps such scorn on religion and religious people, that he would probably never date a devout Catholic.
This is genius Kate Harding's take on attraction. [Warning: possibly triggering disparaging comments about sexual assault] Best pithy quote: "The world is not full of Attractive People and Unattractive People. It’s full of people who are attractive to some and not to others."
Well I'd kindly ask you to leave that choice to Richard Dawkins, and Brittany to leave the choice about dating overweight men and "anything else one could consider being judged for" to the people shes been making sweeping over generalizations about. but I know some women can't stay out of other peoples business.
oh wait that was offensive? I guess i shouldn't talk about others preferences
I apologize if it came off if I said nobody would date overweight people or anything. Personally, I'm not ashamed to admit that I'm 220 pounds at 5'8, so I'm overweight myself. I would date an overweight man with no problem, personally. I like chubby men.
I was saying that people find things attractive in both personality and appearance. Some people will not find overweight men attractive. Some people will not find skinny men attractive. Some people will not find tall people attractive. Some people will not find short people attractive.
I'm not very good with my wording.
I'd also like to add that I used to be 395 pounds at one time. I abhor the treatment of overweight women and men, since I dealt with so much of it, and so much judgement.
I'd like to emphasize that I was stating other peoples' preferences! You can't deny, like this article shows, that people prefer one thing over another, even if each person's preferences vary.
I knew I'd be flamed when I posted, but at least it's not as bad as I thought.
From my own experience in expressing ideas about sexual attraction, some will indeed label you a racist.
I won't. But some people will.
As far as what you're referencing, I think you're taking an overall study too personally. It's talking about OKC users and trends within that community. It's not saying anything about a particular person.
Thank you. Women have preferences. No matter what someone says, if you show them a lineup of men or women there will be one that catches their eye. Of course personality's a much bigger part, but each person has ingrained ideas of attraction.
"Am I racist for not being attracted to black men?Black men have different facial structures in general to white men"
I remember watching a show in which black people were made to look white and white people were made to look black and they both looked the same. Its also important to realize that why we like someone or not may be due to societal racism and societal indocrination than autonomous choice. I can understand choosing someone of a certain culture if you want to have kids with them and raise them within the same cultural habits but the question of who we choose and why shouldnt be dismissed as simply 'my choice, my business.'
im just saying, i prefer asian guys, and im a white girl. but maybe thats just me.
Long time lurker, but I felt compelled to reply to this thread.
@Brittany
"Am I racist for not being attracted to black men?"
I have to say, I really think that's beside the point here. As you said, there is nothing we can do(or should do) about your own preference. But the point of the OKC data is that these preferences do not seem to be inherent, otherwise each would show a preference for his/her own group, and they are not random, as they follow a clear pattern. What this suggests is that they are the result of systematic conditioning. That much has to be admitted and understood by everyone before we can even begin to undertake correcting this.
In short, you yourself may not be racist, but it's no stretch to say that your aesthetic preferences were programmed by a deeply racist society.
Hmm...that's a good point.
I can admit the aesthetic preferences, yes. I am not attracted to an African-American man, but that might be because my parents were racist. It's not because they're black, though, honestly...but my attraction to white facial structures may have been programmed. =)
I'm just going to comment from the white women prefer white men perspective:
I have to admit that I have in the past been one of the people who says something along the lines of "I'm just not attracted to black/Asian/latino men." But come on, that's bullshit. I'm attracted to men I find attractive, no matter what their race. Who is going to argue that John Legend is not a sexy man? Who would turn down a date with Kal Penn? Not I. The percentage of white men I find attractive is probably equal to the percentage of non-white men I find attractive, but I live[d] in a part of the world that is primarily white. So let's say I find 10% of men attractive. If I encounter 200 white men in a day, that's 20 white men a day I find attractive. I could go a month before I can encounter 20 black men, let alone that many Asian or Indian men. So that's only 2 a month. With those numbers, it's easy to convince myself that I have a preference for white men because most of the attractive men I see are white. I wouldn't be surprised if the same was true for others. So if you've already got this idea in your head that you're only into white men, the nature of online dating allows you to make those arbitrary decisions when choosing whether to reply.
I have to say I agree with Lindsey Lou here. While I am not saying that there should be pressure to date someone of a different race (which would after all just be tokenism), I think that all too often someone might decide they "aren't into" a specific race simply because they don't have people from that racial category in their close circle of friends, and can only fall back on stereotypes, which are by definition caricatures that are created at a distance.
For example, I did have close friends who were black when I was in high school. And even so, before I was involved intimately with a black guy, I had to check myself for unconscious bias. And yes, I am sure these biases still persist in some form or another -- overcoming them is an ongoing process.
The problem is that certain things that make a mate desirable to someone, like education or wealth, are systematically denied to POC. This is what is interesting to me about this question -- because it means you either just have to be okay with the fact that your requirements for someone's education level or financial stability are playing into systemic racism, but that that is a compromise you are willing to make -- or you have to change those standards and recognize that POC, men or women, might face the same issues that you do as a woman with respect to oppression, and might have just as hard a time trusting your intentions as a white person as you have trusting their intentions as a man.
I totally, totally, agree with you.
Dude, that's so strange!
I used to be on Okcupid and I would always respond to the Asian dudes! I even went out with THREE of them!
And I think I might have gotten more messages from the Asian guys than most---I mentioned I used to live in Japan, and that seemed like a big draw. Wonder if that makes them racist. Kekeke. Just kidding.
And I just wanted to say, as far as OKcupid culture goes, just because a guy messages you, and you don't respond.....well, let me just put it this way, it really depends on what the person said in the message. Or it depends on the photo they've uploaded of themselves.
For example, I might not respond to message that only reads, "hey, how you doin'?" whereas I might respond to a message that says, "Wow, you lived in Japan?! What made you do that?!"
Moreover, I found that very, very, very few of the men I conversed with actually asked me out on a date. Which I found to be very weird in itself.