Alex Rowlson for FAB Magazine:
We’ve all been there.
You visit a hookup or dating website, cruise somebody’s profile and are confronted with the list: no fats; no femmes; no Asians; no blacks; masc only; my age or younger; str8-acting, you be too; non-scene; and on and on. What we find is a lot of hate when all we want is head.
“Gay men have forgotten how to have sex,” says Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore, editor of the forthcoming anthology Why Are Faggots So Afraid of Faggots? “For so long that was supposed to be something gay men were good at, but I’m not so sure anymore. They might be good at the technique but not the openness. Sex should be about opening possibilities, not closing them off.”
The negative language so prevalent on Craigslist and Grindr seems to signal that the culture of sexual liberation has been replaced by sexual segregation.
Gay sexual oppression is catalogued painfully on the Douchebags of Grindr blog, which sorts prejudiced profiles based on everything from racism and sexism to self-hating homophobia. But even though we see it everywhere, most people are as willing to admit to the exclusionary aspects of their desires as Lindsay Lohan is to submit to drug testing — statements are qualified by “Sorry, that’s just what I’m into” or “No hard feelings, it’s just my preference.”
Sycamore says that while people have the right to say what they’re attracted to, they have a responsibility to watch how they say it. “On the one hand, people are stating their preference, but on the other, these are not neutral terms. If we were living in a culture where everything was the same, it wouldn’t be a problem. But when sexual preference reinforces dominant systems of power in an unquestioning way, that’s when it becomes problematic.”
Write on!
Married men that can’t wait to cheat with other men are the least discriminatory; however, they usually really bad at sex. Not all but most. I am here to tell you most gay men aren’t good at technique either. Over the years I have discovered that m/m sex is more and more boring.
The problem I see with this is that it’s online and visual. Men are visually stimulated and if all they have to go on is how someone looks, then they will choose what as worked for them before. I have preferences and when I search profiles it will be based on them. However, when meeting guys in real life my main preference is personality. If we get along I don’t give a shit about anything else. It sucks to be excluded for any reason especially when you aren’t given a chance, but what do you expect from the internet? I have been rejected for being too short, not short enough, being too fat, not fat enough, dick isn’t big enough, dick is too big, being too old, not old enough, and being white. Ultimately, why would you want to be with anyone who doesn’t want to be with you?
Yes! Too many of these “men” are looking for the “perfect man” which does not exist…
as a black man that has a stronger attraction for white men, this article really hits home. Ugh, I could go on for hours about this….oh well…