“No fats, no fems,” or “masc bros only,” or “white/black preferred.” These phrases are common in gay men’s profile descriptions on hookup apps. Some people view them as just preferences—which is fine—but they dislike being confronted when someone points out that their “preferences” can reflect exclusionary biases or internalized phobias. Don’t get me wrong; having a preference is natural. However, it becomes problematic in the dating and hookup scene when these preferences exclude entire groups.
Preference or “Preference”?
Preferences aren’t something you’re born with; they develop through social conditioning, personal experiences, and media influence—where you grew up, who you grew up with, who raised you, and what your mind absorbs daily, everything under the sun. But what constitutes a preference? A preference refers to what you seek in a partner. Preferences encompass physical features, values, traits, and characteristics. They guide us in who we date and who we have sex with—hell, even in platonic relationships. Secondary labels such as bears, twinks, jocks, otters, etc., also serve as ways for gay men to categorize their preferences. Preferences were never intended to be negative. Having them is perfectly fine. There is, however, a problem when there’s a blurred line between preferences and exclusionary bias.
If you ask any gay man about their experiences in the dating and hookup world, I guarantee that they will all tell you they’ve been excluded or fetishized at least once. The bios, the blocks, and the message interactions can make anyone feel a certain way. “No fats,” “no fems,” “looking for BBC,” “masc only,” and “no Latinos” are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to descriptions you’ll encounter. That’s when preferences cross the thin line into exclusionary bias or discrimination. These “preferences” are rigid in practice and, over time, lead to issues with self-esteem, mental health challenges, body dysmorphia, and worse. It doesn’t feel good coming from a community that prides itself on inclusivity. While these exclusionary biases have existed for a long time, the rise of online dating and hookup apps has amplified the problem.
The Influence of Dating and Hookup Apps
Online dating and hookups have become a popular way to meet new people, but they come with challenges. When using the internet and apps to find love or casual connections, it’s easy to fall into the trap of the “online disinhibition effect,” where individuals may feel emboldened to act in ways they wouldn’t in person. The swipe culture often encourages snap judgments based on limited information, which can shrink the dating and hookup pool. This online disinhibition can lead people to behave more harshly or express negative sentiments without considering the impact it has on others. The ease of anonymity can sometimes encourage people to let go of their more personable traits, which is unfortunate because it fosters a less kind and understanding environment for connections.
While other apps like Tinder aren’t as bad, the birth of swipe culture contributes to online disinhibition. Having the ability to swipe right (like) or left (not like) with just the flick of the finger made it easier for us as individuals to disqualify people before even giving them a chance to see if we would have liked them. It doesn’t matter how good their bio is or how alike you are—if they don’t look like someone you find attractive (mostly based on what we see on social media), then why bother? And I want to state again that having a preference isn’t a bad thing. The problem arises when the primary focus becomes more of the physical—the physical we’re conditioned to zero in on. Dating apps like Tinder conditioned society in a way that encourages quick scans for the “perfect guy” and not the guy that is good for them.
Grindr’s not-so-inclusive platform had a filter for premium users that allowed them to filter by ethnicity. It’s bad enough that the platform itself felt catered more to white and muscle men but being able to filter by ethnicity already feeds into the online disinhibition and normalizes race-based discrimination. After the George Floyd incident, the app removed the filter (which shouldn’t have been present in the first place). Despite their efforts in trying to garner the attention to draw a user base back to their app, they were met with (and rightfully so) more backlash because this bare minimum gesture seemed inauthentic, especially coming from the same app that would ban their users for non-existent problems but would still uphold the likes of users who openly sported their racist and exclusionary ideals. Whiteness is upheld as the emblem of desirability for most people using dating and hookup apps like Grindr.
“The new face of racism in online sexual and gay dating networks of gay/bisexual men…” —Ryan Wade and Harper
With whiteness being upheld so highly, that leaves room for fetishization, which also increased significant visibility due to the online disinhibition of dating/hookup apps and the media we consume. Fetishization plays a major role in racist and exclusionary biases because it limits the individuals who fall under said categories to only being viewed as just a sexual object or lifelong accessory instead of being viewed as a person with emotions and a heart. Individuals who are fetishized—specifically Black people and other people of color, have been fetishized for decades, maybe even centuries. But just as it began to die down, the media portrayed us to the audiences in negative and erotic optics. Gay Black men are viewed as always being hypermasculine, Asian men are viewed as feminine and identifying only as bottoms and Latino men are viewed as passionate and looked at as just a piece of “uncut” meat. None of the categories BIPOC people are placed into are true.
So, these “preferences” negatively impact the gay community in more ways than one. I can talk all day about what the exclusionary biases are, but it would be remiss of me to leave out how they make the people affected by them feel.
How Preferences Affect the Community
Online “preferences” dug their way into everyday life and affect the gay community not only from a dating and hookup aspect but also within friend groups. When it comes to dating within the gay community, exclusionary biases set off waves of emotional distress. Individuals in the community bring the online yearning to find the “perfect guy,” which ends up leaving lots of gay men in a consistent cycle of being ghosted and never knowing why while also trying to move on to the next guy instantly. It also leaves individuals thinking, “Am I good enough?” more often than they should. The online disinhibition that occurs through dating apps and its effect on real-life dating has left us feeling like maybe we are the problem and not the people doing the ghosting. Another aspect of online disinhibition affecting real-life dating is that most gay white men exclusively date other gay white men. Either that or they strongly prefer having a Black partner and no one else (for obvious reasons). There’s no in-between. That’s where racial preference comes into play.
While I have observed these things, I am aware that this is not everyone’s truth. However, it’s the truth for many. As stated earlier, society has placed whiteness at the top of the dating hierarchy, and this shows. Racial minorities don’t have to experience the constant rejection and fetishization that their white counterparts have, which leads me to my next point.
Real-life hooking up has not been the same since the intervention of online dating and sex apps. Online, the “perfect guy” has washboard abs, a perfect face, a plump backside, and a large front. Individuals within the gay community bring this to real life and end up disappointing themselves or disappointing others. Nonetheless, it has long-lasting effects. Gays who don’t have abs or aren’t built like Twinks are subjected to fatphobia. On the apps, gays who are above the average body weight are often rejected and sometimes even bullied. Unfortunately, weight is everything for the majority of the gay community. This led to an increase in gay men who developed eating disorders like bulimia, anorexia, and more. They feel the need to seek validation through the physical. And the gay men who are above the average weight and aren’t dismissed are mostly hooking up with someone who has a fetish for that. Chub chasers are what they are called.
Black Men are supposedly the ones who are supposed to have “big black cocks,” be hyper-masculine, and “DL” (on the down low). At least, that’s how the majority of non-Black individuals in the gay community view us. They want a thug—“DL trade” (DL and trade are two different things combined online)—someone to fulfill their fantasies. Because of this, gay Black men who don’t present as hyper-masculine thugs or whose front members are “hung” are subject to rejection and criticism in both the real world and especially online. This leaves gay Black men feeling less than others or having to change themselves to fit the image that someone wants them to be. They feel the need to build these new personas to feel that’s the only way they’ll be able to engage in hookup culture.
Gay Asian men are forever subjected to the stereotype of being nothing but bottoms for the entirety of their gay lives. That is nowhere near the truth. The feminine stereotype automatically places them in that bottom category, when in reality, Asian men come in all sexual positions (haha). Latino and Hispanic men are subjected to the stereotypical notion of always being uncut and are mostly sought out as they are fetishized for this. When I spent my time on Twitter, there were many tweets like “it’s uncut btw,” to the point where it seemed like every other tweet.
It became like some gay mating call—like it was a personality trait. Which is unfortunate, because people are more than what they’re perceived to be. Hookup culture has not been kind to minorities such as people above the average weight and racial minorities.
Exclusionary biases like those discussed in the post also make their way to friend groups. Many gay friend groups curate the people they surround themselves with based on looks and nothing else. Friend groups full of fine people and not one brain cell in sight. That’s not to say all gay men do so, but it’s pretty apparent. This even goes back to white men, as they mostly surround themselves around strictly other gay white men and will put down the notion of someone of a different race joining the friend group. Things get… cliquey.
Because of the online disinhibition effect seeping its way into the gay community, many people would eliminate themselves from a potential partner, hookup, or friend because they assume that they’re not the person’s type.
Reflecting On the Reality
I’ve had my fair share of experiences, which I talked about in the article. I’ve been turned down because I was not “hung.” I’ve been turned down because, “Sorry, I only date white or Latino men.” I’ve been blocked because I showed an inch of femininity. I’ve been ghosted and was later told it was because I wasn’t what they expected (hyper-masculine). I’ve been blocked because I’m what some people call skinny fat. I’ve had to stop dating someone because I was being fetishized. It was not a great feeling at all. Granted, I’ve grown to love myself and not fault myself for how others want to perceive me, but I still worry because this continues to happen. It’s even more disheartening to know that it’s not just my experience, but some of my friends experienced being boxed in with people’s exclusionary biases.
I have a friend who doesn’t subscribe to the masculine or the feminine norm but is subject to only being picked by people who embrace his femininity as a gay Black man. He was also fetishized for being of a more petite build and not “fat.”
Another one of my friends experienced fatphobia and fetishization in a predominantly non-POC college. After losing weight, he began to see how shallow the men were when he was not the ideal size for them. I asked more friends if they had experienced this, and almost every last one had in some way, shape, or form.
“Everyone has preferences. Everybody has biases, and because of those biases is why we have people on Jack’d, Sniffies, on Grindr who will have in their bio ‘no fats’ or ‘no fems’ because of their preferences and their biases.” — Kavon Burton.
Moving Towards Real Inclusivity
This does not have to be the end-all and be-all. We can implement changes to slowly move towards a brighter future of hookups and dating for future gaybies. One by one, we can learn to be more open-minded and detach ourselves from the online way of thinking in real life. Truth be told, the “perfect guy” for you is probably someone you’ve overlooked because they didn’t fit your exclusionary bias.
I think it’s best that we learn to distinguish between a preference and an exclusionary bias. And don’t stray away from checking people who uphold these exclusionary biases. We have to dismantle whiteness and masculinity from being pillars of the gay community. Only then will we be able to see real change. Get more involved in groups and uplift one another in times of emotional need.
Have you ever been a victim of “preferences”? If so, mind sharing? I have a few words of encouragement for you. Remember to be kind to others and, most importantly, yourself. Remember to live in your truth—be as authentic as possible, and don’t let anyone shame you for that. Your perfect guy is around the corner.
Stay gay and stay geeky,
Michael
Great read!
Thank you!