"There’s an argument to be made that subjecting straight men to the same objectification everyone else has long lived with is not only fair play, but in fact social progress..."

"... representing a new paradigm where no one identity group is overly centered. But in the Times 'twink' piece, it’s clear what the dangers involved are, too. Haramis writes of Sivan that there’s 'safety in his slimness,' and says his kind offers 'a new answer to the problem of what makes a man.' The implication is that skinniness comes with sensitivity, and maybe even—given the recent cultural accounting of male misbehavior—that it comes with a lower likelihood of being a creep. This is obviously nonsense: Small stature didn’t keep, say, Aziz Ansari from oafish behavior, according to his accuser. But the thinking echoes the way that physical appearance, when overemphasized, gets linked with moral virtue."

From "What 'The Age of the Twink' Actually Means/Are scrawny guys suddenly 'in'? Or are straight men just, finally, getting openly objectified like women and gay men long have been?" by Spencer Kornhaber (The Atlantic).

We talked about the Times "twink" piece yesterday, here.