“Guys expect me to be more rough or manly because of my ‘masculine’ signifiers such as facial and body hair.
“Straight acting and well built” implies that there are distinct masc and femme body types, most notably muscles - a definition many female athletes would scoff at. “It means you act and represent yourself in the way society expects a man should behave,” said one guy who probably Googled the definition for me. Many of the definitions of masculinity center on what straight guys “should” be like, and therefore how the ideal gay guy “should” act: “speaking in a deep voice,” “playing and watching sports like football and basketball,” and “beer drinking” were all mentioned. When I come across men on these apps who seem so dead-set on finding someone who’s “masc,” I wonder - what is it, exactly, they’re looking for? And what does it say about them? If we take traditional masculinity, heavily reliant on the social conventions of straight dudes, then they’re looking for someone “straight acting” - and yet despite some adult films I’ve seen, I’m not sure that fucking other guys is something that hypermasculine straight guys do very much. It seems like a shallow and almost egregious way to find a mate - Darwin (to say nothing of Freud!) would certainly find the concept interesting. Guys on Grindr and Scruff with “masc4masc ONLY” emblazoned on their profiles use “no femmes” as a way to weed out the unworthy. To get to the-ahem- bottom of this, I browsed gay hookup apps looking for guys who identify as or are looking for “masculine” men and asked what masculinity means to them. I asked him if I passed the test, and he seemed to begrudgingly say sure, you sound fine, and was like, ‘We can still meet if you want…’ I ended up meeting him, but we were not on the same page for a lot of reasons.
Just like to see what they sound like.’ I was like, really? WTF. He was like, ‘Hey, how’s it going? I just usually like to call guys on the phone before meeting up to make sure they’re not too femme-y. As I was getting ready (basically changing out of sweats), I got a random call. He didn’t live that far from me so I agreed to meet up with him near his place. “I was chatting with some guy on Grindr, late night (as these things go). The performance of masculinity dictates how some gay men communicate on gay hookup and dating apps: those who identify as “masc,” those who specifically seek out “MASC ONLY (no femme!!)” guys, and those who both identify as masculine as well as prefer it in their partners - the masc4masc.
But what they don’t tell you is that once you’re out of the closet, you’re out of the frying pan and into the fire, honey-because many gay men have the same hang-ups about masculinity as those spiteful boys from middle school.