Sometimes, all it takes is a single word—masc—to decide if a message gets a reply. Scroll through dating app profiles of queer men on platforms like Grindr, and the pattern emerges: masc4masc, discreet only, no fems, straight-acting preferred. It’s said casually, like a preference. But for many, it cuts deeper than that. In a world that already teaches you to hide, the queer community’s own obsession with masculinity can feel like a second closet. One where your voice, your softness, your gestures get edited out… again. And somewhere between desire and dismissal, the question lingers: who gets to be wanted, and who gets left behind?
The Origins of Coping and Conditioning
For many queer men, masculinity isn’t just admired, it is an armour. You wore it to school to avoid whispers, adjusted your walk in crowded streets, and deepened your voice in phone calls with relatives. It wasn’t about comfort, but survival. Before you even had the language for your identity, you knew what not to be.
Femininity or anything soft, expressive, visible, became a risk. So you learned to tuck it away. This was never just about desire. It was about staying safe. And by the time dating enters the picture, many have already spent years shaping themselves into something palatable, something masc.
The queer community promises escape from rigid gender roles but often, those same hierarchies reappear in new clothes. Coming out was supposed to be the end of hiding. But even outside the closet, some habits stay. Now, it’s your own community asking: Top or bottom? Masc or fem?
Also read: Love, Scars, And Vulnerability: A Non-Binary Person’s Take On Vulnerabilities
The binary sneaks back in through dating apps and hookup culture. Tops are expected to be dominant, masc, emotionally restrained. Bottoms? Submissive, soft, maybe even silent. Somewhere along the way, roles became identities and those identities became rules.
The old rules remain, just rewritten slightly. Forgotten are those who don’t fit neatly into either side? What about the genderfluid, the femme doms, the quiet tops, the ones still figuring it out? Where do they go in a world obsessed with clarity?
Fetish, Fantasy, and the Search for ‘Straight-Acting’
Desire is never just about attraction. It’s also about power and about what we’ve been taught to value, and what we’ve been taught to hide. For many queer men, masculinity isn’t just desired, it is idealised. It’s framed as stable, strong, safe. It’s what gets the most swipes, the most attention, the benefit of the doubt.
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“Straight-acting” becomes currency in this economy. Not because it’s inherently more attractive, but because it mimics what the world rewards. It signals you’re not too loud, not too visible, not too queer. You fit in, or at least you know how to pass.
And while masc men are often desired, femme men are often fetishised or dismissed and seen as a phase, a prop, or a curiosity. But rarely as partners or as equals.
Speaking Masculinity: Codes, Language & Behaviour
On dating apps, it echoes in bios. You learn to modulate your language; you stop saying “yaaas,” you replace “hun” with “bro.” Even laughter becomes controlled, calibrated as if to signal: I’m not that kind of gay.
But language is more than communication, it’s a signal. A performance. And often, those who can code-switch fluently, such as queer men who can ‘pass’ as straight, get rewarded with more right-swipes, more visibility, more desirability.
So many of us are left wondering: do they want me, or the version of me that sounds like their straight friend from college?
The Eye of the Beerholder: Who Gets to Define Masculinity?
Masculinity, much like beauty, often lies in the eye of the beholder: fluid, blurry, influenced by desire and insecurity. What’s considered “masc” in Delhi may feel different in Kochi. What gets praised on Instagram might feel like too much—or too little—offline.
Sometimes, it’s the cut of your jawline. And while many claim to just have “preferences,” we rarely pause to ask: where did those preferences come from? Whose masculinity are we mirroring? Whose approval are we still chasing?
Also read: Dating as a Gay Man in Bombay
The truth is, masculinity isn’t a monolith. It shifts with class, caste, region, age, even what app you’re on. But what remains constant is this: the further you are from the masculine ideal, the harder you must work to be seen. Or sometimes, to be safe.
Community Within the Community
“I face hatred from straight people,” a friend once said. “But even straight-acting gay men look down on me. I’m tired of this.”
That ache of being othered by those who should understand, is quietly familiar to many femme-presenting men, trans men, queer men who don’t “pass.”
And so a strange hierarchy forms. Masc sits at the top, unbothered and desired. Femme becomes a warning label, something to be tolerated at best, avoided at worst. Those who sit outside the binary, fluid, undefined, unapologetically complex, are often reduced to a fetish or a phase.
This isn’t just about dating, but about dignity. About who gets softness, who gets space, and who gets asked to shrink.
The first step is noticing. Noticing when we flinch at a high voice, when we swipe left without knowing why, or when we say “preference” but mean prejudice.
Because masculinity isn’t the enemy, but rigidity is. The belief that we must perform one version of ourselves to be loved, and discard the rest.
Also read: Exploring Gentle Masculinity in Pop Culture
Healing begins where performance ends. In the quiet recognition that our desires have been shaped by systems far bigger than us. That loving masc-presenting men isn’t wrong but expecting everyone else to perform masculinity just to be seen is.
What would it look like if we let go of the checklist? If we allowed queer men to be soft, scared, nurturing, loud, flamboyant, messy, dominant, gentle, or all of it at once?
Maybe then, the word masc wouldn’t be a weapon or a wall but just another way of being.
