ADDITIONAL FATS, GREATER FEMMES: A CRITICAL EXAMINATION OF FATPHOBIA AND FEMMEPHOBIA ON GRINDR

Matthew Thomas Conte

ABSTRACT: “More oils, More Femmes: A Critical study of Fatphobia and Femmephobia on Grindr” try your own narrative towards liminalities of being a fat and femme queer on Grindr, the greatest and most-widely put social networking software geared specifically towards queer people. The bit deconstructs the now-ubiquitous occurrence in queer male forums, “no oils, no femmes,” and examines the complex intersections and interactions that you can get between queerness, fatness, and femininity. The story drastically explores the complex two fold marginalities that fat and femme queers must browse whenever their bodies and identities is concurrently eroticized and discriminated against.

Commitment

This personal narrative try aimed at every queers who’ve had to learn to play by another group of guidelines on Grindr.

This individual story started while I involved twenty years older. It actually was the very first time We installed Grindr, the largest internet based queer social media (browse: fucking) program geared particularly towards queer people. Once I begun engaging with the application, I instantly remember feeling like I did not belong. My excess fat hairy muscles existed amongst various stomach and rib cages as well as the makeup products on my face noted my queer identity as girly, which had been as opposed to the profile summaries proclaiming “masculine men ONLY.” It had been the 1st time during my lifestyle that I began to understand my personal queer system as fat and my queer personality as femme. It was the first time I decided my queerness is something that could be “wrong”—my fatness had been deemed as gross and unappealing and my personal womanliness was actually devalued and degraded. We read quickly that my queer identities been around behind a ubiquitous expression that is used on program: “No oils, no femmes.” one in reality, this expression has-been promoted a whole lot that for the low-price of $28.50, you’ll be able to celebrate pride this present year with your own Marek + Richard tank top that delineates in huge, strong characters that you aren’t interested in fats or femmes (for record, do not get this clothing). The idea of “no fats, no femmes” possess remaining me personally constantly questioning exactly what it means to “belong” on Grindr and exactly what bodies is provided a “sense of belonging” because space.

Hegemonic narratives encompassing the queer male body has made a queer room on Grindr that commemorates and welcomes whiteness, masculinity, and muscularity. Queer system that don’t adapt to these rigorous borders of character (look over: fats, femmes, and/or racialized queers) is directed on the margins of the social networking application. These queer body were confronted with a double marginality—they were rejected from direct society for exactly who they shag and love right after which refused from corporate queer neighborhood with regards to their non-whiteness, fatness, and/or womanliness. The intricate Othering and deviancy of femininity, fatness, and/or non-whiteness on Grindr is actually continuing to make an online queer room where a certain type of queerness is actually celebrated—that was a queerness that is white, male, and muscular. It is primarily the queerness that’s welcomed and invited into queer rooms without adversity; it is this queerness that is used in queer news and marketing; it is primarily the queerness this is certainly acknowledged at satisfaction events; it is this queerness that’s sought out on Grindr; and, most importantly, it is this queerness this is certainly displayed as being the “right form of queer.”

It’s important to recognize that “queer” just isn’t a homogenous personality and needs a crucial deconstruction ways by which social hierarchies (e.g., battle, lessons, sex term, physical stature) visited organize seemingly unitary kinds of sexuality. We must end up being important ways by which that numerous diversities develop between those groups just who identify as “queer.” I posit that Grindr try an area of pervasive homonormativity—that try, the queer body within area are built within raced, gendered, and classed norms (Brown, Browne and Lim 2007, 12). Further, as Jon Binnie (2007) notes:

Heteronormativity might a robust concept in complicated the way culture try structured along side two gender model—norms that enshrine heterosexuality as typical and therefore [queer] men as various other and marginal. But I am not very yes about the advantages now. The thought of heteronormativity has a tendency to lump all heterosexuals [and queers] along in the same field, and will mask or confuse the distinctions between and within sexual dissident identities and forums. (33)

The idea of a “singular queer neighborhood” ignores the key oppressions and discriminations which can be occurring within and between queer forums. The idea of homonormativity (Ferguson 2005; Nero 2005; Binnie 2004; Bell and Binnie 2004; Duggan 2014) refers to the mainstreaming of queer politics in addition to growing exposure and energy of affluent white gay guys coupled with the marginalization and exclusion of queer bodies on the basis of battle, lessons, sex identification and term, body proportions, and (dis)ability (Binnie 2007, 34). These queer body being exactly what Binnie and Bell (2004) make reference to due to the fact “queer unwelcome” (1810).

Homonormative formations in queer areas have actually designated the fat, femme and/or racialized queer looks as “unwanted” and “undesired.” To embody the “right types of Queerness” on Grindr is to be what Rinaldo Walcott (2007) means due to the fact “archetypal queer”—white, muscular, middle-class, able-bodied and masculine (237). Excess fat, femme, and/or racialized queer bodies have now been excised through the “we include a household” discussion associated with modern lgbt activity (239). We argue that excess fat, femme and/or racialized queers tend to be scripted as impostures on Grindr.