"Twink" is gay slang for a man who is usually (but not always) in his late teens to twenties whose traits may include a slim to average physique, a youthful appearance, little or no body hair, flamboyancy, and general physical attractiveness.[1][2][3] Twink is used both as a neutral descriptor, which can be compared with bear,[4] and as a pejorative.[1][5]
The exact origins of the term twink are disputed. 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'".[6] Oxford Dictionaries claims twink has origins in the 1970s.[7][8]
Another possible origin of the term may be a derivation from the American snack cake Twinkie, commonly regarded as the quintessential junk food. The food is described as "little nutritional value, sweet to the taste, and creme-filled";[9][10][11] by comparison, the young men are described as "short, and blond, and full of creme",[10] with creme being a euphemism for semen.[10][12]
A 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".[13][14]
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,[15] 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."[16]
The term is often modified by various descriptors (e.g. femme twink, Euro twink, muscle twink) and is commonly used in the gay pornography industry.[3][17][18]
Essayist Zeb J. Tortorici notes that gay twink porn thrives on the production and performance of "consumable and visually/anally receptive masculinity."[19] A twink is "memorable for his outer packaging", not his "inner depth".[10] Twink can be seen as a popular subgenre in gay porn widely consumed across the globe.[20]
The term also serves to identify a subculture within gay culture for which members of the community may self-identify, but their stable assurance mostly comes from acceptance by other members. The subculture, as examined now, serves as a purely physical marker for attributes any one person may hold and/or acquire, highly dependent on normative society's take on beauty standards as a whole and what the community puts forth and prescribes to.[21]
Grindr, a popular dating app for gay men, lists the term as one of many "tribes" for users to "identify themselves with a niche group and filter their search to help find their type of guy."[22]
Susan Driver characterized the word twink as relying on "ageist and racist tropes of youth and white desirability".[20][6] In regards to the concept, Driver describes it as "a young, white, and performed masculinity that can be fetishized, consumed, ... clearly coded in terms of race and age",[20] 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.[20]
Jones, Ciardha, and Elliott observed that the use of twink pornography—depicting men in their late teens or early 20s who are typically of slim build—was mentioned by some users that are "exclusively attracted to children" as a legal outlet for sexual release.[23]
