The Erasure of Intellect: Why Black Men Are Desired for Bodies, But Sidelined for Minds
Meta description: In queer dating spaces, Black men often face a painful reality: their bodies are treated as currency, while their intellect is erased as a marker of status. This op-ed explores the “fun vs. serious” binary, internal community pressures, and how to reclaim depth.
Focus keyphrase: Erasure of intellect Black men
Secondary keywords: Intracommunity stigma, Black queer masculinity, dating app hierarchy, emotional intimacy.
Malik’s phone lit up with messages the way it always did—fire emojis, asking for stats, the shorthand of the meat market. He had recently posted a photo from a poetry reading with a caption about the book he loved. The replies he got, however, ignored the book entirely, circling back to his chest, his size, and his role.
“It felt like I was advertising a product,” he told me. “So I learned to hide the library.”
That sentence—I learned to hide the library—reveals a specific, deep-seated harm in modern queer culture. It is not just that people are “shallow.” It is that intellect is effectively erased as a legitimate marker of status for Black men.
While this erasure happens in interracial dynamics, it also plays out painfully internally—among Black gay men themselves. In spaces like Jack’d or Twitter communities, the body and the performance of hyper-masculinity are frequently privileged over the mind. This creates a rigid ceiling: you are valued for the “fun” of your body, but often disqualified from the “serious” status of the mind.
The “Fun” vs. “Serious” Binary
This erasure of intellect creates a damaging binary in how relationships are framed:
- The “Fun” Category: This is where Black men are frequently placed. It implies sexual utility, hookups, and physical gratification. It relies on the assumption of the “BBC,” the “thug,” or the “aggressive top.”
- The “Serious” Category: This is reserved for partners viewed as intellectually compatible, emotionally safe, and “relationship material.”
The harm lies in the segregation of these two worlds. When Black men are typecast exclusively as “fun”—by white men or by other Black men—their intellect is treated as an anomaly or a threat to the fantasy.
The Call Coming From Inside the House: Internal Stigma
We cannot talk about this without addressing the dynamic within Black queer circles.
In many Black gay spaces, there is a heavy cultural premium placed on “Trade”—a performance of masculinity that mimics heterosexual, “street,” or hyper-masculine aesthetics. In this specific economy, intellect and vulnerability are often penalised.
- The Authenticity Trap: A Black man who leads with his intellect, speaks with a certain vocabulary, or enjoys “high brow” culture may be accused of “acting white” or being “bougie.” His Blackness is questioned because it doesn’t fit the “hard” archetype.
- Femmephobia and Anti-Intellectualism: Research on “bottom-shaming” and intracommunity stigma reveals that Black men often police each other’s masculinity. Being “soft”—whether emotionally, intellectually, or physically—is frequently conflated with weakness (Winder, 2023).
Consequently, a Black man with a PhD, a deep love for cinema, or a gentle emotional nature often finds that these traits do not “count” toward his desirability on an app like Jack’d. To be desired by his own community, he feels pressured to perform a “hood” aesthetic that may not align with his actual personality.
Why We “Hide the Library” (Protective Adaptation)
When a Black man realises that leading with his mind yields no rewards—or worse, results in community rejection—he adapts.
- The Profile Edit: Biographies become shorter. Mention of careers, arts, or politics gets deleted to avoid looking “pretentious.”
- The Code-Switch: Men may adopt a harder persona in photos and chats to align with what the market demands.
- The Silence: In chats, they hold back their wit or vocabulary because they’ve learned that “smart” isn’t what the other person—even another Black man—bought a ticket for.
This isn’t shallowness; it is a survival strategy in a marketplace that refuses to grant status to Black intellect. However, the cost is high. Being forced to amputate parts of your personality to be seen leads to a profound sense of isolation and depressive symptoms (Wade & Harper, 2022).
Confronting the Bias: How to Shift the Status Quo
To stop the erasure of intellect, we have to change what we treat as valuable. This requires a shift in how we engage on apps like Grindr, Scruff, and Jack’d.
1. Challenge the “Trade” Obsession
We must ask ourselves why we devalue “soft” or intellectual Black men. Are we replicating the same toxic masculinity that hurts us?
- The Action: Recognise that a Black man discussing politics or art is just as “authentic” as a Black man performing street masculinity.
2. Value Curiosity as Masculine
We need to decouple masculinity from silence and stoicism. A man who asks questions, challenges ideas, and shares knowledge is displaying a form of power.
- The Action: Compliment a man’s mind as often as his muscles. “I love how you think” should be as common as “Nice chest.”
3. Stop the “Acting White” Myth
Intellect is not the property of whiteness. When we embrace the “nerdy,” “quirky,” or “academic” Black man, we expand the definition of what it means to be Black and queer.
- The Action: We must allow each other to be soft, nerdy, and weird, without stripping away “Black card” status.
Conclusion: Reclaiming the Whole Self
The goal isn’t to stop finding bodies attractive. It is to stop pretending that the body is the only thing a Black man brings to the table.
True intimacy requires the collision of minds. By refusing to engage with a Black man’s intellect, we aren’t just being “superficial”—we are participating in the same historical injustice that robbed people of their humanity.
It is time to put the library back in the profile, and more importantly, it is time for the community to recognise the value of what is on those shelves.
References
- Collins, P. H. (2004). Black sexual politics: African Americans, gender, and the new racism. Routledge. https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/mono/10.4324/9780203309506/black-sexual-politics-patricia-hill-collins
- Green, A. I. (2014). The sexual fields of interracial dating. The Sociological Quarterly, 55(3), 479-502. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/tsq.12061
- Han, C. W. (2021). Racial erotics: Gay men of color, sexual racism, and the politics of desire. University of Washington Press. https://uwapress.uw.edu/book/9780295749099/racial-erotics/
- Wade, R. M., & Harper, G. W. (2022). A good app is hard to find: Examining differences in racialized sexual discrimination across online intimate partner-seeking venues.1 Archives of Sexual Behavior, 51(8), 3965–3982. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9316549/
- Winder, T. J. A. (2023). The discursive work of “bottom-shaming”: Sexual positioning discourse in the construction of black masculinity. Gender & Society, 37(5), 735–763. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/08912432231186999
