Words by: Nash Peña
Graphic by: Shea Peña
Nope, the lines are still there. Four new lines on my bare ass. Either they developed overnight, or I haven’t taken the time to arch my back and peek over my shoulder in the past few months to notice new stretch marks that formed around the place that guys stare at while deciding where they want their climax to land.
Three weeks ago I made this observation while getting ready for a mundane Tuesday and found myself spiraling. It only consisted of a 4 minute investigation at the beginning of my day, pulling at the skin and desperately rubbing those marks as if they would come off like a Sharpie smudge. Yet, for whatever reason, I couldn’t help but be haunted by those four, red-dotted lines, and all the while there were two words that echoed in my head: twink death.
For those who didn’t grow up learning queer slang while desperately searching for an explanation to their sexual identity, a ‘twink’ is a label that provides a way for many guys to position themselves within the vast subcategories of gay physiques. Twink, a term used for those whose figures resemble a youthful, petite build, has become a deep-rooted trope amongst the gays. It provides a way to align with modern, model-esque beauty standards through physical versatility; to some it’s a way for internal femininity to coalesce into a masculine build, a means for muscularity and fragility to converge, and, ideally, attract the masses.
The more one looks into all that is associated with the twink paradigm, it becomes quite apparent that this concept is just another glorification of the impractical skin-and-bone while fit-and-healthy ideal… and I fell for it. At the age of fourteen, I made myself believe that this was how I could solidify my place in the community, and more importantly, the way to pique a guy’s interest. I strove to carve the perfect body, not realizing that these new habits couldn’t sculpt my body like some feature on FaceTune.
Soon after, I learned a new subsequent term: twink death. More intimidating than trying to attain the perfect build, I started to understand the terms and conditions that you blindly sign onto when claiming the twink label; it promised that, no matter how hard I tried, there would come a day in which all my efforts would go from seemingly rewarding to meaningless. The death of a twink is when a gay who conforms to this ideal has lost their ability to upkeep their physical juvenility. It begins with the inevitability of getting older; soon after, as you start to lose that dip in your waist, that voluminous hair, that sex appeal of your early adulthood, your twinkish features will have eventually faded, and all of a sudden this subidentity you had desperately leaned on for support gives way. You become a tween all over again, searching for some sort of identifier to confirm your physique’s place within the community. Yet this time you're not a tween; you’re an adult that hinged your confidence on something as delicate and dainty as the body you had spent years trying to perfect.
And at the age of fourteen I had already begun to construct this bodily image, but to me I was unbothered by the internal repercussions. Puberty hadn’t even finished its own construction of my body, so why think about future consequences of my anatomical obsessions?
From then on it had become a mission for me to maintain a body that would facilitate the most pleasurable night for the guy who had me sprawled on a bed. I made a routine for myself to ensure that the curve of my waist, the absence of body hair, the scent radiating from my skin, all of it could spike just enough pheromones to bring out some carnal desire from my mate. At the time, I truly believed these elfin features were necessary to attract someone else, sculpting my figure for a man who didn’t acknowledge the behind-the-scenes efforts of my dysmorphic love language. I was constantly correcting a new physicality to strengthen what I saw as self worth, when in reality there wasn’t an error that needed adjusting. In my eyes it was simply what was required of me to have any connection with someone, even if all it involved was a slap, a kiss, any form of corporeal attention.
Ever since that devotion became habitual, I couldn’t discern the difference between validation and copulation. I used to think that, when a guy didn’t end each interaction with one hand around my throat and the other around my waist, it must’ve meant the body in front of him wasn’t good enough to be used anymore. The sound of an asystole flatlining rang in my ears every time an interaction was left void of a sexual conclusion, and I would climb into the Uber as if I was being put into a body bag and shipped off to the coroner. I’d get home, undress until all that was left was the ID tag on my toe, and go through every little thing that I needed to stitch up for the next guy. My twink death must have begun, I’d think to myself.
But then, after half-heartedly embracing one sexual moment after the other, something shifted. I began to realize that no matter what the outcome of my interaction was, I was still left feeling like a part of me had deteriorated. I finally concluded that it wasn’t a physical trait that didn’t feel up to par; it was the person cowering behind the perfect posture, perfect versatility, perfect hip placement that didn’t live up to the bedroom’s standards.
There wasn’t an exact moment I realized that, when it came to my twink death, I was an accessory to my own murder. Yet, over time, I arrived at the epiphany that I had stopped seeing value in the words that came out of my mouth and more value into what I let a guy put in it. That was the cause of my twink death. When you give yourself the diagnosis of fuckable but not loveable, the condition is terminal. The moment I signed up to base my connections on the visibility of my ribcage, it should have been obvious that I was signing a DNR.
So as soon as I realized that each flaw I tried to stitch up left a gnarlier scar on my mind, the roles reversed. Now that I’ve accepted that my age and my beauty are fleeting, that time will not go into remission, I pray to find someone who won’t just use up the remains of my twink death, but someone who will cradle the skin and bones left behind and still see the same person.
Now it’s the intimacy of abstinence that I strive for. The rapport of interactions have started to spark more than watching a chain dangling over my face, getting high off the conversations in the kitchen instead of some degradation in the bedroom. I hadn’t been able to daydream about a future with someone for so long, and now that I can, even the most miniscule connections jump me back to life; with this, though, I’ve come to realize that when these connections don’t bloom into something more — I feel six feet under all over again. The acceptance of twink death brought back a longing for relations that weren’t hindered by my appearance’s looming expiration date. Yet, as I break down this physical fixation, I have to learn how to not let that spark cause a wildfire any time a guy can see more than just my body.
I am aware of how ridiculous this sounds coming from a college student. I can’t even legally sit down at a bar. I’m simply joining the long list of 20-something year old’s who are terrified of getting older. For me though, after wasting so many moments trying to avoid what comes after my youth, I’ve realized that instead of keeping a firm grip on it, I had cut off its oxygen the second I knew it was temporary. It’s not the extraordinary measures you're taking to keep you looking young; it’s forgetting the relationships that made you feel young that makes your pulse thready. I had my obituary written the moment I found out you can outlive the physical things that you once relied on for connection, but I think it’s time to finally climb out of that hearse.
I used to blame my internal pressure to stay young on the concept of twink death, but I had been keeping an eye on my body long before this term was on my radar, before I could categorize myself as a twink. Now I can confidently say that it doesn’t matter what type of gay you are, and it doesn’t even matter if you're gay. Every single one of us will get their very own twink death. You just have to hope people recognize what’s left behind, because skin, bone structure, beauty – they will all succumb to time, but the personal impression you leave beforehand won’t die as easily.