hot topic.

an ongoing discussion/moment of clarity.

words.

"Most gay men already know that the more masculine you present in online dating profiles, the more interest you will attract. I’ve always known that, aside from being black, my feminine, flowing, chest-length locks were the greatest deterrent my own success, which is why I logged off altogether for a while. However, recently, I started wondering if the masculine vs. femme assumptions were true, so I signed on for a few weeks to conduct a little experiment. The results are pretty interesting—predictable, but still interesting.

I stopped looking for dates online more than a year ago because it’s just not a productive use of my time. My greatest strength is my personality, and I’m not very photogenic. Add that to the fact that black men are virtually invisible on online dating sites (unless you are in the top 5 percent of musculature and attractiveness) compared to white men (who can be completely average in every way and still fill a social calendar), and it became clear to me that looking for dates on the Internet was pointless for me, personally.

...Believe it or not, I didn’t come out of this experiment feeling bad about myself—just smarter about the way gay men (or perhaps men in general) place way too much emphasis on silly characteristics like beards and ballcaps (hint: that’s why you’re all still cranky and single).* And really, I don’t think having long hair itself is the big hang-up; it’s what my hair implies. Having long hair (especially for a black man) means you’re probably a bitchy dramatic queen that nobody wants to date. Even if the assumption isn’t that extreme, the underlying fear is “you spent too much time on your appearance and that’s not masculine.” That’s frustrating, of course, since stereotypical masculinity takes just as much work—we just don’t think of it that way. I remember chatting with this scruffy, fairly muscular guy with tattoos and chest hair and an Instagram full of masc pics; once we got to talking, he revealed his obsession with Beyoncé and said “yasss!” every other paragraph. But no matter—his picture is butch, so his dating life is always full."

SLATE: Butching Up Online: A Dating Experiment