It’s Okay to Have Preferences When Dating…So Long as You’re a Man…
Ahh, the joys of online dating as a bisexual woman.
There weren’t nearly enough pictures of “Bella” on her tinder profile. Just some photos of a tan mass of limbs, mischievous smile, lingerie, and an elegant figure. Her bio is what mostly attracted me. We messaged, and before I knew it, things got a bit kinky. Maybe I had finally found the intriguing submissive I’ve always dreamed of dating.
But the next day, her profile was gone. Perhaps she left Tinder? Perhaps she unmatched me? Most likely the former, but the sweet, sensual, exciting messages we had shared wouldn’t leave my brain, and I made up some story to myself about how maybe she accidentally unmatched (yeah right). So I did something that never works, I posted on missed connections on craigslist.
To be clear, in my posting, I advertised for Bella, and explained she was a woman, and I was looking for her.
I didn’t hear back from Bella. I did hear back from one other woman. I also heard back from about 8 men, 2 of whom politely showed interest in me, despite that I was looking for a woman named Bella. However the other 6 (75%) literally shamed me for only being interested in women. I was called sexist, and flooded with hate speech about how shallow and mean I am.
Funny, I’m willing to bet all 6 of these men, are probably heterosexual, and much like me, don’t want to date men either. However it’s not considered sexist that they prefer women. In fact, I’m pretty sure there are a number of men who would get full on angry and even rage if another male comes onto them they way they did to me. Disturbingly this exact excuse has been used as a murder defense, and it works. It’s called the gay panic defense https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gay_panic_defense
So it’s totally okay that men can prefer to date women, and anyone who pushes this boundary can literally die. However, if I have a preference for women, I am apparently sexist, and mean. Double standard anyone?
Furthermore, It’s not only considered okay for men to have preferences, such as gender, but also body type. Men can prefer women who are certain weight, breast size, hair color, skin color, ethnicity, age, fitness level, ect, and this is all considered fine. I’ve seen it many times on my friend’s dating apps. Yet if women have similar preferences in men, they can get full on angry. How dare we be so shallow? Here’s a video of a man feeling entitled to yell at a random woman buying a bagel, because someone in her gender category rejected him for his height. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrJdG376mrg.
And it’s more than just this one incident. I made it very clear on my dating profile that I don’t date men, and that I want to see pictures of queer women, yet men somehow keep showing up on my feed. And the second I swipe left, I get “Ahh you missed a connection!” on them. A friend of mine pointed out that some of the people on my tinder feed are actually clearly full-on, cis-gendered men, with beards, who have put on the label of “lesbian” in an attempts to meet queer women and convince them to date them.
Seriously? Does this happen to guys too? Straight men, do you ever get matched with gay men who put straight woman on their profiles just to catfish you into giving them a chance? Maybe they’ll change your mind. If you say no to them, are you called sexist and shamed for only liking women?
Now, to be clear, I am bisexual, and I am attracted to men in addition to women. If I met a guy I really liked, I wouldn’t be against dating him. But seeing how I just got divorced from a man, I’m just more excited to be with women after 19 years of heterosexual monogamy.
Also, the online dating risks of dating men just seem too scary for me right now. Rape culture is real, I see it every day. People getting sent dic-pics is real too, and I don’t want that. Furthermore, back when I dated men, I was often somehow subjected to an intense, cultural, investigation around if I do in fact meet their preferences. I’ve had so many people commit on my weight, breast size, hair color, skin quality, age, all to see if it makes me more desirable to men. Being shamed for not meeting, what is assumed to be men’s preferences, is not something I want to deal with right now, but have experienced a lot in my dating history. Don’t get me wrong, women have preferences too, but I find I am more likely to be shamed for not appealing to men, by both men and women and the media, as if it’s my job or something. While with women, so far, they just swipe left and move on. After 1.5 years of dating women, none of them have asked me for additional pictures, asked questions about my weight, my ‘body count,’ my but, or expressed their interests in my breast size on dating apps whiles before these things came up constantly. So not only are men allowed to have their preferences, but I literally have been told I’m less than if I don’t meet all of them.
Recently a friend posted how it’s okay for people to not want to date trans people, and that doesn’t make someone transphobic. “It’s just a preference” I kept hearing that phrase over and over again. As someone who has dated some wonderful trans women as well as non-binary persons, I have to say, I wonder if this particular ‘preference’ is more of us internalizing an ideal of attraction to an artificial gender-binary, but whatever. I’m okay with people having preferences and they don’t have to explain or justify their choices. But, if they can have their preferences against trans women, why can’t I have my preferences against cis men? Further more, why is it okay for them to broadcast their disinterest on social media, but if I make one post on craigslist, that’s just sexists then.
When we have rules like this, that men can have preferences for women, and it’s important we meet said preferences or we are not accepted by society, but women should be grateful that any man at all is interested in us, it puts us down as lower, and that our preferences, and therefore us as a gender, don’t matter. Further more, implying that men are hurt by our preferences as women, and we are sexists for having them, literally puts men in a place where we are suppose to be taking care of their emotional needs, as if they are babies. I don’t believe that. I believe Men, like all people, are strong, intelligent, capable human beings like anyone else, who can care for themselves and handle rejection like adults. Catering to their emotions only infantilizes and is demeaning to them as people. Truly respecting a person requires us not to treat them as incapable of something we know they area capable of. So, let’s allow women to have preferences instead of taking care of men’s feelings. Let me be into women. It’s just my preference.
