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[NEOPARADIGM]

Maybe it's a regional thing but I learned not to call people "exotic" when I was a little kid and I'm 36. It's been out of style as a descriptive term for people for about as long as "oriental" has.

That said, I can appreciate what someone means by an "exotic" person, and it brings to mind someone very attractive.

 

[PersonaX]

I think you should leave the thread since you can't help but consistently bring hostile garbage into every single one of your posts.

"garbage", now that's hostile, don't get mad at me for having a different view on this, thank you, but i think i'll stay for a while.

 

[Two Words]

You can take it as a compliment or not, but yes, if you look like a bollywood starlet (this is the example i'm going with, deal with it), you are looking different from the general populace here, maybe the situation will be different in the distant future with immigration and whatnot, but right now that's how it is, doesn't mean it's bad, you just do look different. I think this discussion has derailed too far, though.

A lot of people don't take it as a compliment. If you use it to compliment, they won't take it as that and simply be offended by it. Deal with it.

 

[Jado]

"garbage", now that's hostile, don't get mad at me for having a different view on this, thank you, but i think i'll stay for a while.

It was a pretty fucking garbage post. Just because you don't have a problem being marginalized doesn't mean others don't.

 

[Winterfang]

I disagree with this, when I see a beautiful lady as exotic. I mean she is a beautiful woman that some features out of the ordinary. Like for example for me a black Hispanic from the Caribbean, Girls like Paris Hilton are exotic beauties. I like her nose is different from the Barbie idea of beauty which makes her exotic.

 

[gutter_trash]

during my online dating phase a few years back, I wanted to try different flavors.
Was that a bad thing?

 

[jasonng]

I disagree with this, when I see a beautiful lady as exotic. I mean she is a beautiful woman that some features out of the ordinary. Like for example for me a black Hispanic from the Caribbean, Girls like Paris Hilton are exotic beauties. I like her nose is different from the Barbie idea of beauty which makes her exotic.

And this is why people don't like being called exotic.

 

[RockTurtle]

And this is why people don't like being called exotic.

SOME

 

[ishibear]

"garbage", now that's hostile, don't get mad at me for having a different view on this, thank you, but i think i'll stay for a while.

Stay trashy my friend.

 

[Mariolee]

SOME

Obviously he meant every single person ever.

 

[Dicer]

Obviously he meant every single person ever.

He would have worded it differently otherwise

 

[PersonaX]

Stay trashy my friend.

Haha, oh wow, now it's "trashy".

Not every country is as diverse as the US, where calling an attractive brown person, for example, "exotic" might feel weird, making them feel unusual and different in a place where they are clearly not, just trying to say how the word exotic might be used in a place i find myself in, ethnically homogeneous land, where foreign beauty is quite rare.

 

[iamblades]

First of all, that list was created by a random user on that site. Second, an IMDB list is not indicative of how the word is used in ordinary conversation. And even if we're somehow using that flimsy list as proof, did you not notice that the list is full of minorities and mixed race individuals?

But since we're using random-ass IMDB lists as arguing points, let's search for "most BEAUTIFUL" lists (instead of most exotic):

http://www.imdb.com/list/ls000435152/
http://www.imdb.com/list/ls009876876/
http://www.imdb.com/list/ls000073166/

Oh, look! What a coincidence. It's nearly all white women.

So yeah, so you're wrong. "Exotic" in normal parlance is a code word for black, Asian, Latino and other brown people who look different. I think it's some serious bullshit that people in this thread are insistent that one just take the underhanded compliment because "good intentions!" No, that's not how it works. If a minority person thinks it's a shitty compliment, don't force it upon them because you think it's an awesome thing to say.

edit: And yeah, it often does border on fetishization.

What does that have to do anything with what I said? I in no way claimed that black or mixed race people weren't or couldn't be exotic, or even that there weren't described that way more often than whites. All I claimed was that the word exotic is not some third rate backhanded compliment that white people reserve for people of other races, it is in most cases a genuine compliment, and it is used for people of basically any race.

I'm not trying to prove that exotic is a completely race neutral word in every circumstance, but all you need to do is google search for 'exotic' + modifiers to see that it is certainly not exclusively directed at people of color.

For me textbook exotic is Olivia Wilde.

 

[Winterfang]

And this is why people don't like being called exotic.

I'll like for you to elaborate on that. I don't mean it as White girls are exotic because I'm black, there's a lot of white beauties here. But Paris Hilton has an out of the ordinary feature that makes here striking. In my case being the nose.

Or one of the most beautiful girls in the planet (to me)

Jennifer Sullins is an exotic girl, she is beautiful but out of the ordinary. Which makes her exotic.

 

[Valkerionseven]

Yeah the problem is in the difference between the person giving the compliment and the person receiving it.
The person giving the compliment might be ignorant, but describes a beauty that lies beyond what he sees in daily life, i think.

That's how I have always seen it, at the same time I never use the term.

Then again I've never heard someone say it in real life. I might cringe to be honest. I feel like "exotic" when describing a woman's beauty is really outdated.

 

[Liberty4all]

Hmm I would never have imagined exotic to be an offensive word. In Toronto we have many different ethnicities and mixed individuals -- growing up I heard the word used alot.

I actually complimented a Filipino girl I just met with that term. We are married now for 12 years.

After we watched the video I asked her if she was offended years ago when I told her she was exotic to me. She said she took it to mean "beautiful/sexy" which is on the mark for where I was going.

 

[Infinite]

He would have worded it differently otherwise

people does NOT mean all people

 

[zhorkat]

Why not? It's beyond your control.
It's not like being attracted to some feature, or multiple features is a choice.

Well, thanks for turning it back to being attracted to features again. I'll stop since it seems we won't get very far.

 

[Mumei]

The problem with this is that it gives infinite and inviolate power to people who get offended and it means that they never have to question whether they are right to get offended. You can argue that it works better to apologize for offending someone rather than arguing that they shouldn't get offended, but it would also work better if they didn't get offended.
For example, I have had a woman get offended because I held the door for her, even though I hold the door for everyone. The simple answer is that no-one should hold the door for anyone as it has a justifiable potential to offend, but the result is that no-one holds the door for anyone anymore which in my mind makes the world a categorically worse place for the sake of not causing offense.
It's basically saying that any measure of potential offense outweighs pleasurable or pleasant feelings others might feel.

Well, I did say that this was a general rule.

I don't think it's possible to simplify real life interactions into always and never-evers, but I do think in general that causing offense ought to be met with an apology, and not defensiveness. I'm not trying to argue that it is never appropriate to ask why something is offensive, or even have discussion with your friends about the things that they find offensive. Great idea! You might learn why something that reads one way for you reads another way for a different person or a different group of people. Maybe there's a subtext you hadn't thought of, or a historical connotations that you didn't know about. Or you might be able to diffuse it by explaining your perspective; I can't know the result of those interactions.

But if you held the door for a stranger, and she became offended, saying, "Oh, I open doors for everyone; I'm sorry if I've caused offense," is a far sight easier and makes you come across as a lot more decent than, "You shouldn't be offended; I open doors for everyone."

 

[iburntmytongue]

I'm weirdly offended by everything the human race says. I totally feel ya.

 

[Mariolee]

He would have worded it differently otherwise

What? This is just like getting mad at someone for not putting "in my opinion" at the end of every single one of their posts. It's implied.

 

[Vast.]

People get offend by everything. It seems like they are looking for things to be offend by.

Oh brother. You're the kind of person that uses the term "Exotic", aren't you?

It's quite literally the equivalent of:

You're pretty smart for a southerner.
You have pretty big eyes for someone who's chinese.
You're hair's real? But I thought you were black.
You're pretty attractive for being a ginger.

You might be complementing the person, but it's backhanded and you're pretty much insulting the rest of their race/ethnicity. For example, the typical western male might not instantly think of south asian girls as being attactive (because of some preconceived notion of how they're supposed to look). But every single time they do, they call them exotic and question whether they're actually spanish or south american. As if girls from the sub continent can't be traditionally beautiful. Nah dude, you're just ignorant.

 

[Messofanego]

Whenever there's a discussion about a word and its implications in everyday use, people just have to bring up this hypothetical cartoonish dystopia where political correctness has overrun and now you must speak in 1984 Newspeak. Rather than now there being a diversity of voices and perspectives that you're hearing from (thanks to the internet or varied places/people), who have different takes on a concept which can maybe instill some empathy.

No one's taking away your right to say "exotic", just maybe take others into consideration now that you know how they might perceive your message. You've got people willing to share their experiences. My personal interpretation was a historical colonial thing of being exposed to foreign lands and their people; to show that the person using the word hasn't been exposed to much variety around where they live. I agree that it says more about the person saying the word than about the person they're using it for. Others have different and more modern interpretations, which is cool to take into account. Maybe it's opened your eyes to others' perspectives. Maybe later on when a situation arises, you'll be reminded that a certain word has baggage around it so you're a bit more thoughtful in knowing with whom to use the word and when to maybe avoid or replace it.

Or you could just be stubborn

 

[suzu]

I think that's where the issue lies with people being offended by being called exotic, that it's so closely associated to fetishism. And it's a valid argument that it is not and can be a legimate compliment. But it's just so hard to separate the two when you become exposed to it too often.

It's not an issue of "looking the same" at all. It's an issue of minority citizens being painted as a foreigner by the majority.

Yeah, this.

If someone says I'm exotic, I can't help but feel some weirdness about it. Especially if they know I was born and raised in the same freaking country as them too (USA).

 

[Mariolee]

Whenever there's a discussion about a word and its implications in everyday use, people just have to bring up this hypothetical cartoonish dystopia where political correctness has overrun and now you must speak in 1984 Newspeak. Rather than now there being a diversity of voices and perspectives that you're hearing from (thanks to the internet or varied places/people), who have different takes on a concept which can maybe instill some empathy.

No one's taking away your right to say "exotic", just maybe take others into consideration now that you know how they might perceive your message. You've got people willing to share their experiences. My personal interpretation was a historical colonial thing of being exposed to foreign lands and their people; to show that the person using the word hasn't been exposed to much variety around where they live. I agree that it says more about the person saying the word than about the person they're using it for. Others have different and more modern interpretations, which is cool to take into account. Maybe it's opened your eyes to others' perspectives. Maybe later on when a situation arises, you'll be reminded that a certain word has baggage around it so you're a bit more thoughtful in knowing with whom to use the word and when to maybe avoid or replace it.

Or you could just be stubborn

 

[Always-honest]

Whenever there's a discussion about a word and its implications in everyday use, people just have to bring up this hypothetical cartoonish dystopia where political correctness has overrun and now you must speak in 1984 Newspeak. Rather than now there being a diversity of voices and perspectives that you're hearing from (thanks to the internet or varied places/people), who have different takes on a concept which can maybe instill some empathy.

No one's taking away your right to say "exotic", just maybe take others into consideration now that you know how they might perceive your message. You've got people willing to share their experiences. My personal interpretation was a historical colonial thing of being exposed to foreign lands and their people; to show that the person using the word hasn't been exposed to much variety around where they live. I agree that it says more about the person saying the word than about the person they're using it for. Others have different and more modern interpretations, which is cool to take into account. Maybe it's opened your eyes to others' perspectives. Maybe later on when a situation arises, you'll be reminded that a certain word has baggage around it so you're a bit more thoughtful in knowing with whom to use the word and when to maybe avoid or replace it.

Or you could just be stubborn

Okay, good post.

Well, thanks for turning it back to being attracted to features again. I'll stop since it seems we won't get very far.

Sorry, but you seem to be talking about features. You can add a word before it, but it's still a feature. What do you want to hear? What do you want to tell us? I'm confused now.

 

[iamblades]

Well, I did say that this was a general rule.

I don't think it's possible to simplify real life interactions into always and never-evers, but I do think in general that causing offense ought to be met with an apology, and not defensiveness. I'm not trying to argue that it is never appropriate to ask why something is offensive, or even have discussion with your friends about the things that they find offensive. Great idea! You might learn why something that reads one way for you reads another way for a different person or a different group of people. Maybe there's a subtext you hadn't thought of, or a historical connotations that you didn't know about. Or you might be able to diffuse it by explaining your perspective; I can't know the result of those interactions.

But if you held the door for a stranger, and she became offended, saying, "Oh, I open doors for everyone; I'm sorry if I've caused offense," is a far sight easier and makes you come across as a lot more decent than, "You shouldn't be offended; I open doors for everyone."

Those are the exact same statement on paper. Sure I could imagine the latter statement being spit out in a hostile tone, and I could also imagine the former statement being delivered in a begrudging robotic legalistic way you see so often when someone is forced into apologizing. Tone is super important there.

How about we actually try to understand what people mean when interacting with them instead of assuming the worst and then demanding for them to apologize for offending us when in their minds they did nothing wrong? I don't see what good that does anyone.

 

[Dicer]

What? This is just like getting mad at someone for not putting "in my opinion" at the end of every single one of their posts. It's implied.

Kinda like implying about the topic at hand...

 

[YesNOnoNOYes]

Why have to stress the "exoticness" of the person? Why not just use "beautiful" or "attractive"?

Anecdata, I've been called "exotic" a few times as compliments. I usually reply with "Noted! And you look so regular!" a few times.








and now to actually go back through the thread and readdddddddddd

 

[jasonng]

SOME

I did mean some. Sorry I didn't make that clarification.

I'll like for you to elaborate on that. I don't mean it as White girls are exotic because I'm black, there's a lot of white beauties here. But Paris Hilton has an out of the ordinary feature that makes here striking. In my case being the nose.

Or one of the most beautiful girls in the planet (to me)

Jennifer Sullins is an exotic girl, she is beautiful but out of the ordinary. Which makes her exotic.

And I misread your post. Thought you were generalizing Caribbean folks when you were just describing yourself. That's what I get for skimming through on my phone.

Edit: But I did get you to tell me who Sullins is so win-win.

 

[Liu Kang Baking A Pie]

Well, I did say that this was a general rule.

I don't think it's possible to simplify real life interactions into always and never-evers, but I do think in general that causing offense ought to be met with an apology, and not defensiveness. I'm not trying to argue that it is never appropriate to ask why something is offensive, or even have discussion with your friends about the things that they find offensive. Great idea! You might learn why something that reads one way for you reads another way for a different person or a different group of people. Maybe there's a subtext you hadn't thought of, or a historical connotations that you didn't know about. Or you might be able to diffuse it by explaining your perspective; I can't know the result of those interactions.

But if you held the door for a stranger, and she became offended, saying, "Oh, I open doors for everyone; I'm sorry if I've caused offense," is a far sight easier and makes you come across as a lot more decent than, "You shouldn't be offended; I open doors for everyone."

Whenever there's a discussion about a word and its implications in everyday use, people just have to bring up this hypothetical cartoonish dystopia where political correctness has overrun and now you must speak in 1984 Newspeak. Rather than now there being a diversity of voices and perspectives that you're hearing from (thanks to the internet or varied places/people), who have different takes on a concept which can maybe instill some empathy.

No one's taking away your right to say "exotic", just maybe take others into consideration now that you know how they might perceive your message. You've got people willing to share their experiences. My personal interpretation was a historical colonial thing of being exposed to foreign lands and their people; to show that the person using the word hasn't been exposed to much variety around where they live. I agree that it says more about the person saying the word than about the person they're using it for. Others have different and more modern interpretations, which is cool to take into account. Maybe it's opened your eyes to others' perspectives. Maybe later on when a situation arises, you'll be reminded that a certain word has baggage around it so you're a bit more thoughtful in knowing with whom to use the word and when to maybe avoid or replace it.

Or you could just be stubborn

These are two wonderful, exotic posts. Great explanations.

 

[kamorra]

Always, always, always, appreciate and compliment people based on what they have control of, rather than what they don't.

"You have beautiful eyes" is off limits?

 

[Sketchbag]

"Beautiful" can fit everyone, though. Exotic is a word used in place of beautiful to remind us we're a specific kind of (usually race-based) beautiful. Why not call the same people beautiful instead of giving them their own term to remind them of how different they are? In the end, I don't want to be reminded I'm very different for no good reason. It makes me question so much about intentions and coincidences that I never had to consider before, when I could just be called hot instead.

"Exotic" can fit everyone. It depends on region. "Beautiful" can fit every one but then you create this space called "ugly" which exists therefore it applies to people. You can't have the good without the bad. Reality does not work that way. You could argue a lot on how it makes you feel but that's irrelevant to whether people can consider you exotic. You may not like it but that's what happens when we have people who look and talk differently all over the world.

 

[Liu Kang Baking A Pie]

"Exotic" can fit everyone. It depends on region. "Beautiful" can fit every one but then you create this space called "ugly" which exists therefore it applies to people. You can't have the good without the bad. Reality does not work that way. You could argue a lot on how it makes you feel but that's irrelevant to whether people can consider you exotic. You may not like it but that's what happens when we have people who look and talk differently all over the world.

People can think whatever weird things they want. I don't care.

 

[Twilight Gap]

People get offend by everything. It seems like they are looking for things to be offend by.

This.

Once got into a dumb argument with a girl after I said that she was cute. She said she was a person, not a puppy.

 

[Liu Kang Baking A Pie]

This.

Once got into a dumb argument with a girl after I said that she was cute. She said she was a person, not a puppy.

Why not respect how she feels instead of thinking it's dumb? I can understand her side, especially if she has insecurities about her particular appearance.

 

[YesNOnoNOYes]

This.

Once got into a dumb argument with a girl after I said that she was cute. She said she was a person, not a puppy.

Im on the other spectrum, I once got a dude so mad at me cuz I said that he had a babyface.

:x





spoiler: i apologised.

 

[Sketchbag]

Why not respect how she feels instead of thinking it's dumb? I can understand her side, especially if she has insecurities about her particular appearance.

I never understood the need to respect all feelings. There are dumb things people get upset over.

 

[Twilight Gap]

Why not respect how she feels instead of thinking it's dumb? I can understand her side, especially if there are insecurities involved in her appearance.

eh, it wasn't that black and white but that's not what I'm getting at.

 

[Mariolee]

Kinda like implying about the topic at hand...

Except not really? We're talking about two different degrees of implication here. "Exotic" has implications that are debatable which is what we're doing in this thread whereas with these posts it's fairly obvious that jasonng didn't mean every single person or that every poster believes their opinion to be fact.

 

[kamorra]

People can think whatever weird things they want. I don't care.

The irony.

 

[Liu Kang Baking A Pie]

The irony.

What do you mean?

 

[Winterfang]

I did mean some. Sorry I didn't make that clarification.



And I misread your post. Thought you were generalizing Caribbean folks when you were just describing yourself. That's what I get for skimming through on my phone.

Edit: But I did get you to tell me who Sullins is so win-win.

I was introduced to her by a Gaffer named Urban Rats and I was breathless.

 

[Two Words]

The thing people fail to get is that you are conversing with somebody. If they don't like what you said as a compliment, it isn't a compliment to them. If your goal was to make them feel better, you failed. Plain and simple.

 

[Mumei]

Those are the exact same statement on paper. Sure I could imagine the latter statement being spit out in a hostile tone, and I could also imagine the former statement being delivered in a begrudging robotic legalistic way you see so often when someone is forced into apologizing. Tone is super important there.

They aren't the same, though. They both contain, "I open doors for everyone," by way of explanation, but the first statement contains an apology; the second statement contains an assertion, telling someone what they should think and implicitly dismissing their opinion as invalid. The apology at least has the potential to lead to better understanding - the assertion is saying you don't care how they feel.

And yes, tone is important. But no one is being forced into apologizing. You should do something because you believe it's correct, after all, not because someone on the netterwebs told you should.

How about we actually try to understand what people mean when interacting with them instead of assuming the worst and then demanding for them to apologize for offending us when in their minds they did nothing wrong? I don't see what good that does anyone.

Ah, I think you're changing the subject here. I was talking about what I thought was the polite thing to do when you have said or done something that had offended someone. I have not said anything about looking to take offense. I'm saying that if someone does take offense, an apology is better than saying their feelings were invalid because you didn't mean for them to feel that way.

As for the offended: No, I don't think that giving people the benefit of the doubt is a bad thing. At the same time, it may be that someone has said something that you know they meant in all good intentions, but still you find insulting, like the word exotic. If this were the case for you, I think you ought to be able to say to someone who called you exotic, "I know you meant it as a compliment, but I really don't like being called exotic; it comes across as demeaning to me," and have that response respected.

I don't see what's so hard about the idea of respect for other peoples' feelings and boundaries, which is really all I think I'm advocating here.

 

[YesNOnoNOYes]

The thing people fail to get is that you are conversing with somebody. If they don't like what you said as a compliment, it isn't a compliment to them. If your goal was to make them feel better, you failed. Plain and simple.

Wisdom

 

[Thorakai]

This.

Once got into a dumb argument with a girl after I said that she was cute. She said she was a person, not a puppy.

There are 558 replies in this thread and the only contribution you can make is quoting a post on page one, which has been thoroughly elaborated upon by people on both sides of the issue? When a topic gets this long on a heated topic, put a bit more effort into your response instead of just adding a +1

 

[Twilight Gap]

Im on the other spectrum, I once got a dude so mad at me cuz I said that he had a babyface.

:x





spoiler: i apologised.

I suppose men don't want to be seen as boys

 

[Zen_Arcade]

Why not respect how she feels instead of thinking it's dumb? I can understand her side, especially if she has insecurities about her particular appearance.

Because that's a completely unreasonable reaction to that comment. I probably wouldn't want to talk to that person after that any way. If a person is so sensitive that they're going to get offended at tame compliments I wouldn't want to stick around and constantly have to walk on eggshells every time I talk.

I understand a lot of the reasons people would get offended at things, but if you're getting offended over such benign things like getting called cute and people holding doors for you, then I'm probably not going to want to stick around. Being that sensitive is off putting.

 

[Winterfang]

The thing people fail to get is that you are conversing with somebody. If they don't like what you said as a compliment, it isn't a compliment to them. If your goal was to make them feel better, you failed. Plain and simple.

That's just common courtesy. If course in this case I'll also make my intentions clear so they can understand where I'm coming from with that.