“You should just be grateful he’s into you. That’s what I think whenever a white guy wants me. It can be someone who has walked up to me at the bar, messaged me on Grindr, or dated me for three months,” André-Naquian Wheeler writes for I-D.
Although he goes on to state, that the men showing him interest aren’t doing so because of who he is, but “who society thinks I am: strong, dominant, well-endowed”. Wheeler outlines that black men are most likely to be discriminated against on dating apps, while only ever being desired as the ‘dom top’ in sexual fantasies. Frequently faced with questions like “BBC?” and “top, right?”
While dating a guy T.J, who he liked for him, Wheeler was to discover that T.J had a ‘thing’ for black guys. He was conflicted in whether T.J was dating him genuinely, or to fulfill some kind of fantasy.
What are the border lines between attraction and fetishisation? he questions.
https://www.facebook.com/INTO/videos/115417575827351/
Wheeler then goes on to discuss a video (above) released by Grindr last year, where a white guy and an Asian guy swapped profiles. Despite it being evident the kind of discrimination the Asian guy faces on a regular basis, Wheeler notes the video “is bizarrely lighthearted and full of awkward laughs, and doesn’t even attempt to dive into the larger problems embedded in these messages or how Grindr could help curb them”.
“It’s as if fetishisation is an accepted fact of life in the gay community,” he concludes on the videos lasting message that ‘people have preferences, get over it.’
While Wheeler notes moments in recent pop culture where black men have been fetishized too, but how it – and dating apps – “have steered clear of conducting a deep dive into the fetishisation of queer black male.”
But despite that, he’s had to realise that, “being black and queer was already hard enough, and that trying to find love and acceptance from a queer white male carried the chance of experiencing a new kind of rejection”.
Wheeler seeks a love that has no basis off of racial fetishization. A love based on who he is, not how he looks, and indeed, the stereotypes that come with it. But his tone of voice still seems hopeful that it’s something he can – and will – find.
