Finding love online is hard. However, add societal stigma, smaller dating pool and fetishization and you have the even harder struggles for love amongst LGBTQIA+ people. For members of the community, there is constant fear of sexism, hostility, harassment, doxxing etc.
Ever since the removal of Section 377, dating apps have tried to get LGBTQIA+ people to sign up. With their ‘More Choices, More Voices’ feature, Tinder introduced 23 gender categories and teamed up with Ritviz for a queer music video called Raahi.
However, queer women and non-binary people face further marginalisation online and in the real world. The unsafe process of finding love as a queer woman was also recently explored in Rajkumarr Rao and Bhumi Pendeneker starrer Badhaai Do. From Unicorn Hunting to catfishing, being queer on a platform that predominantly caters to heterosexuality is difficult.
We scoured the web and asked 11 queer women to tell things that they’ve heard on dating apps. Beware: Reading may result in losing faith in humanity.
1. When couples make a joint dating profile and invite bisexual girls to join them, they are typically unicorn hunters. One such bio read, “He is a straight guy. I am a bi-curious girl. We are looking to spice up for our sex life. Looking for a Bi Girl for FMF threesome”.
– Anonymous
2. “This was an off-platform behaviour but I matched with a guy and told him that I was in his city for vacation. I did not respond after that. 4 hours later, somehow he showed up to my hotel to “surprise” me through my Instagram stories.”– Anonymous
3. “You’re bi? Do you get turned on looking at yourself then?”
– Anonymous
4. “I am pansexual, and a guy asked me if I would like him to smell like pancakes…what?”– Anonymous
5. “I told a guy about a very traumatic sexual encounter I had with a woman and he replied, “ohhh sexy”…”
– Anonymous
6. “Your breasts are nice, just dress feminine and show them off.”
– Anonymous
7. “I can change you, just try it for once.”
– Anonymous
8. “Are you a boy lesbian or a girl lesbian?”
– Anonymous
9. A very politically aware guy told me, “You lesbians are so exotic, I get turned on, I’m a big ally”… I’m not even a lesbian.
– Anonymous
10. “I’m with a guy but he just wants to watch us have s*x, he won’t join.”
– Anonymous
11. “I’m actually straight, I’m just looking for a friend.”
– Anonymous
Dating apps and human beings, please be better.