Edward M. Gubbins '94 says he belongs in an advertisement for interracial dating. At Harvard, he jokes, he has dated "the united colors of Benetton."

Gubbins, who is white, is just one of many students who have found love on Harvard's diverse campus with someone who is not of their own race or cultural background.

But interracial love comes with costs. Undergraduates who date students of different races say their families and other members of their ethnic groups can exert pressure to limit relationships to within one's own race.

While interracial dating remains taboo in many circles, many undergraduates say the College provides an unusually accepting atmosphere in which love can cross color lines.

"People are not as constrained by those pressures at Harvard," Gubbins say. "You don't feel that people are making judgements."

In fact, students say race is similar to other differences in background that are factors in every romance.

"Every relationship has issues in it," says Angelina Snodgrass '94, who is half Hispanic And half white and is currently dating Coky T. Nguyen '95, an Asian-American. Both are editors of the Crimson.

"The interracial aspect is just another issue and not a reason not to have a relationship," Snodgrass says.

Students say interracial relationships can carry a social stigma, including director Spike Lee's notion--developed in the movie "Jungle Fever-that people date interraciallybecause of an idealized notion or curiosity aboutanother race.

"If you do date interracially, you worryslightly about [the Jungle Fever Stigma], howpeople may respond in their perception of you,"Gubbins says.

Gubbins acknowledges "there are people I haveheard of, or know, that have a particular fetish."But undergraduates for the most part say love, notcuriosity, is what brings couples together.

"There is that thing if you watch 'JungleFever'-the implication that you have some deviantexotic image of another ethnic group," Gubbinssays. "That is not the case with the people I havedated. There is no exotic, fetish thing going on."

A Black senior, who spoke on condition ofanonymity, says she is dating another senior whois white. She says she rarely has problems withderogatory comments though lately she has receivedunsolicited "Jungle Fever" remarks from youngpeople she passes on the streets of Cambridge.

"[The remarks] don't faze me; I could care lesswhat they think," she says. "If someone didanything threatening that would be a problem.Remarks don't bother me--it's too bad they'reignorant."

The senior says she finds the Harvardenvironment accepting, but "once you go intoBoston and Cambridge that is where people saythings when you get stares."

But other students, such as Rachel Kleinberg'94 say they have never experienced a negativereaction toward their interracial dating either onor off campus.