In his book, Never Enough (2007), about a murder committed in 2003 in Hong Kong, described by the New York Times Book Review as hard-boiled clichés with a cartoonish first impression, Joe McGinniss describes a court case in which "twink" was defined as "a gay slang term used to denote an attractive, boyish-looking gay man between the ages of 18 and 23, slender ectomorph and with little or no body hair, often blond, often but not necessarily Caucasian." Įssayist Zeb J.
Grindr survey asking users what subculture they identify with prior to its update in 2017, using twink as an example Popular culture Ī backronym has been constructed for twink, according to which it stands for "'teenaged, white, into no kink", although these specified traits are not universally accepted as either necessary or sufficient to classify an individual as a "twink". The term is used in the gay pornography industry. The term is often modified by various descriptors, e.g., femme twink, Euro twink, and muscle twink.
In some cases, it is a neutral descriptive term, and can be contrasted with bear. The term has been used by " bears" and other gay men, often in a pejorative manner. Some use the term to refer to those generally effeminate in nature, though this is not universal. They are generally in their early 20s and slim, often with a boyish appearance.
Twinks are often clean-shaven to emphasize a youthful, fresh-faced appearance. clearly coded in terms of race and age: White, young", thus establishing the intersection for which race and age come together to create a hyper-sexualized denomination, often associated with sexual acts and the pornographic industry. In regards to the term, Driver's epistemology finds that it is "a young, white, and performed masculinity that can be fetishized, consumed. History ĭue to its suspected origins, the term has been accused of relying on " ageist and racist tropes of youth and white desirability" by Susan Driver. The definition of twink has broadened, and qualifiers (such as muscle or femme) narrow the meaning to a more specific type of twink. Cream is among the well-known food-related euphemistic terms for semen.
The food is described as "little nutritional value, sweet to the taste, and creme-filled" by comparison, the young men are described as "short, and blond, and full of creme". Īnother possible origin of the term may be a derivation from the American snack cake Twinkie, commonly regarded as the quintessential junk food. Oxford Dictionaries claims twink has origins in the 1970s. Some trace its first appearance to 1963, although it may be derived from an older British gay slang term twank, which means: "The quarry of a homosexual prostitute (male) a man willing and ready to become any dominant man's 'partner' ". The exact origins of the term twink are disputed.