Yahoo Lifestyle ‘Like Doechii, I’ll only date men if they’re queer’
A little while (too soon, if I’m honest) after my first long-term queer relationship ended, I found myself on one of the apps, contemplating an introspective question: who do I want to be seen by? And do I want to include straight men in my dating pool? Given that I’ve always identified as bisexual, I shrugged my shoulders and decided to see what would happen if I cast my net as wide as possible.
The result was a date with a cisgender heterosexual man a week or so later where I paid for his dinner, he insulted my personality, and I stormed back to the tube alone, vowing to only date other queer people from now on. That was nearly five years ago, and I haven’t looked back since.
I later learnt that my decision was not an uncommon one; lots of bisexual, pansexual, and queer people — who in theory might be open to dating cishet people — choose only to date other queer people. For many of us, it’s a safety precaution: other queer people are less likely to hold unchallenged queerphobic beliefs, and are more likely to allow you to express your identity openly and freely. This can feel extra important, given that bi and pan women face disproportionately high rates of intimate partner violence and stalking, partly due to fetishising stereotypes.
So, I was surprised to see so many people up in arms about this topic last week, after Doechii’s appearance on Hot Ones Versus. In the episode, she tells DJ Milan that her red flag is ‘straight men’. “Like, I mean, strike one, you’re a man,” she said, “and you’re heterosexual.”
Straight men took this as an opportunity to reflect on why a woman might entirely reject them from her dating pool and… haha, just kidding! A bunch of them blew up on social media, accusing Doechii of having an ‘anti-man’ agenda or blaming her for contributing to the so-called male loneliness epidemic.
Like Doechii, who has always been open about her bisexuality, I have chosen to strike straight men off my dating menu in part because of my bisexuality. Having mostly dated women and non-binary people in my adult life, I’m still open to dating men — but only if they’re queer. With women I can easily develop deep emotional bonds, with non-binary people I can connect over our shared gender identity, and queer men, who I have the least in common with, I can at least empathise with about our experiences of queerness. But what do I have in common with a straight man? What would we even talk about? Sports? Crypto? Lynx Africa? I have no idea.
Doechii reveals ‘being a straight man’ is the biggest red flag when dating
🎥: @firstwefeast pic.twitter.com/l29TBCcr5O— Glock Topickz (@Glock_Topickz) March 7, 2025
“Dating bi/queer men means we already have a base level of understanding,” agrees Katie, a journalist from London, who is pansexual and has been dating her bisexual, non-binary partner for six years. “Unfortunately we’ll both probably have experienced homophobia, and come out to friends and family, so it means I don’t have to exhaust myself explaining those situations and how they affected me.”
My choice not to date cishet men is also a political one. I’m a Bi Feminist, a branch of feminism that aims to address monosexism — the belief that everyone is or should be only attracted to one gender. To do this, Bi Feminism encourages all women to hold our partners to a set of standards independent of their gender. In reality, that usually means being aware of how we’re socialised to be more forgiving and lenient with men. Plus, I would never date a man who fetishised my attraction to women, just like I wouldn’t date a woman who was uncomfortable with my attraction to men.
Lou, a queer non-binary person from London, has similar feelings, preferring to date queer men as they believe they’re less likely to default to traditional, heteropatriarchal dating roles. “[Queer men] tend to be less likely to conform to traditional dating expectations, and also don’t typically expect me to perform a feminine gender role,” they explain, adding that as they’re very active in the queer community, not dating straight men means they don’t have to navigate a situation where they feel they have to exclude their partner from a large part of their life.
But it isn’t just bi people who want to date queer men. Straight (cis) women also want a piece of the action. Memes abound of women claiming they don’t want a boyfriend unless he’s ‘a little bit fruity’; and we all remember the reaction to Challengers. For some straight women, the assumption is that bi men will bring less toxic masculinity to the relationship than straight men, and may be better partners because they also experience marginalisation.
But Vaneet Mehta, the author of Bi Men Exist, isn’t sold. “There’s this idea that straight men don’t do a lot of internal work on themselves, but bi men have had to do some sort of internal work to realise and be comfortable with coming out as bi,” Vaneet explains, adding that this doesn’t necessary mean bi men will be better or safer partners. “Bi men are still men, and still have a level of privilege because of that.”
He also isn’t sure whether straight women have done enough to address their own homophobia and biphobia. “How fruity is fruity? There always seems to be a limit,” continues Vaneet. “A lot of them don’t actually want effeminate men, they want men who can still be straight passing.”
With more and more women turning away from straight men — or just men in general — as interest in celibacy and the 4B movement continues to grow, queer4queer or bi4bi dating may offer some of us a way out, but it doesn’t address the underlying problem: men are becoming more right-wing and anti-feminist, and the ideology gap between young men and women is ever-widening. So is dating queer men the answer? Or is denial just a river?
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