But as I’m learning and growing, I’m like, “OK, this is what you make it.” The first time I got on Grindr, I didn’t want to pick “twink” as a category, but there was no other category I fell into, so I begrudgingly put it.
The perceived notion that I got initially was “younger, hairless, kind of vapid, not really intelligent, and just good as a bottom.” Just a one-sided archetype, and I didn’t like it at all. What was associated with the word that you didn’t like? Isaiah Cruz: For a while, I didn’t like the word “twink” because of what I associated with it, but everyone else tells me I qualify for it as a demographic, so I guess I do. Here’s my conversation with the twink with a difference. Isaiah is also dabbling in fiction writing, working on “a dark fantasy story with magic.” And yes, he’s been known to go to bars, but he’s hardly defined by that as a way of life. He’s Isaiah Cruz, a 27-year-old native New Yorker who studied creative writing and journalism at Hunter College and who works as a writer for a high-profile publicist. There were twinks who worked for charity, fought HIV, devoted themselves to family, and did all sorts of things beyond just being smooth and frothy.įor my subject, I landed on someone promoter/writer Justin Luke alerted me to. At first, the responses were nil, followed by a sardonic, “Crickets,” and a damning: “Good luck with that.” But then people actually started messaging me, giving some solid recommendations that put the “think” back in “twink.” They were people who claimed to know-or to be-well-rounded twinks who had that familiar cute look, but not the airheaded demeanor we too often associate with that genre of gay. Desperate to debunk a stereotype, I recently put out a Facebook post asking friends if they know of a gay twink who’s actually smart, not always giddy, and doesn’t only care about pop divas.