The article R15 posted from Vice is a superficial puff piece that sidesteps any real questions. But Vice posting an article written by a non-binary femme is automatically hard hitting journalism, so what more could anyone ask for?
A chunk of the article describes drooling over hot straight guys on Tinder (OMG!), then being disappointed that none of them want to hook up with someone wearing lipstick and three days of stubble. The deep revelation comes when the hormone-taking author has much more success with Tinder matches. What could be the cause??
> "Meredith," Alok finally blurted out, interrupting me in a tone replete with tolerance. "You look cis."
Color me shocked that Vice hasn't gotten a Pulitzer yet for these kinds of journalistic insights.
The article goes on to talk about how, despite their many social media followers, they're ignored and "femmezoned" by gay guys. It concludes:
> Jacob and Alok don't need more claps or raised hands, more YASSSS's or SLAY's. What they need is to be found deeply, undeniably fuckable. Yet for all their brilliance, fuckability is exactly what some gender nonconforming femmes, even social media celebrities, don't ever seem to have.
At no point does the article really try to ask why this is so; it simply declares that we're all victims of centuries of social conditioning. Strange... the famous Soloflex guy commercials hit TV and magazines just when I hit puberty in the early 80's. I'd never in my life laid eyes on a guy like that, and I couldn't take my eyes off him. I didn't even have a clear idea of what I wanted to do with him, but I intensely wanted to look at him and touch him. What centuries of brainwashing does a 13 year old boy undergo, exactly? People have their own ingrained sense of what makes another person "deeply and undeniably fuckable," and society's pressure to find a woman attractive had no effect on me.
The idea that these two aren't considered attractive because of society's brainwashing seems exactly like the idea that gay kids just need some training and they'll "revert" to their natural straightness. Just wrong. Attraction goes much deeper than that. And of course no one is asking these two why they don't feel attracted to each other.
If someone feels the need to present themselves as gender-nonconforming, that's no skin off my nose. But don't tell the world that it's upside down because hot guys don't want to fuck.