Edie: So, my friend the other night was talking, and he was asking ‘What are you going to write about next? You should write about people who go out after someone from a certain race because they haven’t slept with someone of that race.’ Is that a thing?

F: That is a thing, I would do that. I’ve hit on Chinese girls just because I’ve never dated a Chinese girl before.

E: So, I would never specifically seek out someone of a specific race because I hadn’t notched that yet on my bedpost.

F: It’s not even so much that it’s about notching for everyone – obviously I’m one person, so I can’t speak for all of us – but for some people it’s about ‘hey, I can knock this off my to-do list.’ On the other hand though, a large part of it is ‘hey, those Asian ladies are made for those tiny Asian dudes, I wonder what – as a non-Asian dude – it would be like to get up in that.

Part of it is also just – this goes for women and men, but I’m just going to say it in a very stereotypical fashion – a lot of women look the same. The first thing you notice about a person is their silhouette, their skin tone and maybe after that you’ll look at the hair and the outfit and that stuff. But if all you’ve been with is white girls your whole life, eventually you’re going to reach a point where aside from the shape of the head or something, they all kind of look the same. It’s just trying something new, I guess.

So, on the topic of trying new things, just because they’re something new, let’s move onto the topic of fetishes. Now, for a lot of vanilla things it doesn’t apply, but is there a point at which exploring or embracing a personal fetish can cross a moral line? For example, there are a lot of people who are into BDSM fantasies, who would not actively go out and start whipping the first person they see or raping them, but that doesn’t change the fact that this human being is actively going out and saying ‘I would really enjoy raping someone, I’m not going to do it, but I know that I would enjoy it.’

E: I think that when it comes to something like that, it really depends on how far you bring it. Obviously, if you’re making that moral choice not to go out and rape strangers, that’s one thing, that’s good, obviously. But if you’re in a relationship with someone and you want to play out a rape fantasy and they’re willing to play it out with you, as long as you’re doing it in a safe way, I don’t see anything wrong with that. Does that answer your question?

F: To an extent, it doesn’t address what it says about that person’s character though. For example, take a person who hates Mexicans, but never actively says it to a Mexican person, you know, that person could be the most racist person you’ve ever met. They might not go out to someone and say something like racist, but the fact of the matter is that they’re thinking that in their head. Doesn’t that part of their character matter at all, or is it OK because they keep it on the inside?

E: I think that’s a little bit different, I think that those two scenarios don’t necessarily mash up. With having this hatred about a person, it still makes you a jerk. If you hate someone just because of something that they have no control over – race, religion, whatever – that makes you undesirable because you’re prejudice.

On the other hand, I feel like the whole idea of BDSM is about power. You often see people who are dominant people in the BDSM community, they’re people who don’t have a lot of power in their life and they really want to have power over someone for a short period of time. It could be a whole relationship, and whenever they ‘play’ they just want to have that power, and they get their fix.

As long as the person that’s with them is willing to submit to it, that’s fine. Often times you see that submissive people have a lot of control in their life, and they have a lot of things that they’re the head of and they just want to let go and they want to be controlled when they’re in the bedroom.

I think that hating someone because of their race is a little different then wanting to play out that BDSM fantasy, as long as it doesn’t get to a point where you’re actually hurting someone.

Here’s one – this is more of a relationship question – say you’ve started dating someone, who should be the one to open up first?

F: Open up in what context?

E: Say you’ve just started dating someone, you’re both having fun, if you start developing feelings for someone, should the woman wait for the guy to say something and make that move toward a relationship, or should the woman just go for it?

F: That’s a multipart question, and I say that only because a lot of it is dependent on the society you’re in. For an example, in America, it is commonly assumed that the guy is going to ask the woman out. That’s been diminishing over time, but it’s still a societal expectation. In general, if a woman wanted to ask a guy out it would be totally OK.

On the other hand, though, I feel like making the first move also depends on what you’re character is. Are you the kind of person who doesn’t care what the circumstances are? You know what you want, so you do it.

E: OK, so what I’m wondering is more about taking a relationship further and moving toward exclusivity.

F: I think whoever wants to should make that push, and I say that with the understanding that it’s not even about relationships at that point, it’s just about being the kind of person that does something because they want it, which I think is an important trait.