This article is about the gay slang for an attractive youthful male. For other uses, seeTwink (disambiguation).
Australian singer-songwriterTroye Sivan has been described in media, and by himself, as atwink.[1][2][3][4]
Twink isgay slang for a man who is usually (but not always) in his late teens to twenties whose traits may include a slim to average physique, a youthful appearance, and little or nobody hair.[5][6][7]Twink is used both as a neutral descriptor, which can be compared withbear,[8] and as apejorative.[5][9]
Look uptwink ortwinks in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
The exact origins of the termtwink are disputed. Some trace its first appearance to 1963, although it may be derived from an older Britishgay slang termtwank, which means: "The quarry of a homosexualprostitute (male); a man willing and ready to become anydominant man's 'partner'".[10]Oxford Dictionaries claimstwink has origins in the 1970s.[11][12]
Another possible origin of the term may be a derivation from the American snack cakeTwinkie, commonly regarded as the quintessentialjunk food. The food is described as "littlenutritional value, sweet to the taste, and creme-filled";[13][14][15] by comparison, the young men are described as "short, and blond, and full of creme",[14] withcreme being aeuphemism forsemen.[14][16]
Abackronym has been constructed fortwink, according to which it stands for "'teenaged,white, into nokink", although these specified traits are not universally accepted as either necessary or sufficient to classify an individual as a "twink".[17][18]
In his bookNever Enough (2007), about a murdercommitted in 2003 in Hong Kong, described byThe New York Times Book Review as hard-boiled clichés with a cartoonish first impression,[19]Joe McGinniss describes a court case in whichtwink was defined as "a gay slang term used to denote an attractive, boyish-looking gay man between the ages of 18 and 23, slenderectomorph and with little or nobody hair, often blond, often but not necessarily Caucasian."[20]
It has also been sparingly used to describestraight male celebrities who are skinny and have a youthful appearance, likeTimothée Chalamet,[21][4][22][23] although some object it to being used to refer to non-gay men.[24]
Grindr survey asking users whatsubculture they identify with prior to its update in 2017, usingtwink as an example
The term also serves to identify asubculture withingay culture for which members of the community may self-identify, but their stable assurance mostly comes from acceptance by other members. The subculture, as examined now, serves as a purely physical marker for attributes any one person may hold and/or acquire, highly dependent on normative society's take onbeauty standards as a whole and what the community puts forth and prescribes to.[25]
Grindr, a populardating app for gay men, lists the term as one of many "tribes" for users to "identify themselves with a niche group and filter their search to help find their type of guy."[26]
Essayist Zeb J. Tortorici notes that gay twink porn thrives on the production and performance of "consumable and visually/anally receptive masculinity."[29] A twink is "memorable for his outer packaging", not his "inner depth".[14] Twink can be seen as a popularsubgenre in gay porn widely consumed across the globe.[30] In gay pornographic content, a twink usually, but not in all cases, plays the role of the submissive and receiving character commonly known as abottom.
Susan Driver characterized the wordtwink as relying on "ageist andracisttropes of youth and white desirability".[30][10] In regards to the concept, Driver describes it as "a young, white, and performedmasculinity that can befetishized, consumed, ... clearly coded in terms of race and age",[30] thus establishing the intersection for which race and age come together to create a hyper-sexualized denomination, often associated with sexual acts and thepornographic industry.[30]
.jpg)
