I have certainly heard of chaser paradigms, of fetishizing. It must feel awful to experience being someone's fetish.

There's probably some blurriness around the edges of attraction and fetishization, though — especially when it comes to cisgender gay men and attractions that fall in and out of favor.

When I was a young man, I was generally regarded as a twink, though that was not common vocabulary yet. We used different words then to describe gay men and their appearances/presentations/attractions.

But we were pretty equal opportunity about it, and attractions were not generally judged harshly — like they can be today.

Many cisgender gay men today are a bit loathe to admit being attracted to men who are not muscled and hairy. It's not fashionable. There's a bit of internalized homophobia hiding in that attitude, I think — just like there is in a fairly (and increasingly) mainstream gay disdain for twinks.

Of course, gay men's attractions haven't actually changed, only public attitudes have. Telling vaguely mean-spirited twink jokes is in vogue, and indulging in that is sure to earn you a laugh in certain popular gay male circles.

But the thing is, plenty of gay men never stopped feeling quite strongly attracted to men who are not traditionally masculine. Many of us always have been so attracted, and I doubt that's going to change with the tides of fashion.

So, where I'm going with this is that a line exists somewhere as a cutoff between genuine attraction and fetishization. If a cis gay man is attracted to the smooth and youthful, to the effeminate, when does that stop being an attraction and start becoming a fetish?

Wouldn't a requirement for a certain amount of muscle and body hair equally count as a fetish?

I'm sure there's no easy way to answer that, and I'm sure that Grindr isn't a particularly good place to explore the boundaries. I'm just advising caution about looking for that line.

But I think it's a good question to ask.