Tribe

One of the types gay men sort themselves into, like bear, otter, twink, jock or daddy: a shorthand for body, age and style that the apps turned into a menu.

A tribe is one of the types gay men use to sort ourselves and each other: bear, otter, twink, jock, daddy, leather, geek and so on. It is a shorthand for body, age, style and sometimes sexual taste all at once. Say "he's a cub" and another gay man immediately pictures the beard, the belly and probably the flannel.

A tribe is not an identity in any deep sense, and it is not a club with a membership card. It is a label you can wear, swap, combine or laugh at. Plenty of us belong to two or three, and plenty of us refuse all of them, which is its own tribe.

Where it comes from

The word itself is just ordinary English, borrowed with a wink from anthropology. The habit of sorting is much older than the word: bears, leathermen and clones already had their own bars, magazines and dress codes long before anyone called them tribes. What changed with the apps is that the sorting became a menu.

On the apps

Grindr made tribe an official word in 2013. In an update that autumn it let users pick from twelve tribes: Bear, Clean-Cut, Daddy, Discreet, Geek, Jock, Leather, Otter, Poz, Rugged, Trans and Twink. Free users could choose one, paying users up to three, and everyone could filter the grid by tribe. The founder, Joel Simkhai, explained it simply: with so many guys online, people wanted to find what they were really looking for faster.

The list became a kind of map of gay types, with its own odd choices. Discreet is not a body type but a way of living (see DL), Poz is an HIV status, and Trans is not a tribe at all but a gender, a fact that made the menu look stranger every year.

Love it or hate it

Tribes are useful: they help a chaser find what he chases and save everyone time. They can also turn into boxes. If you are a bit hairy but not quite an otter, a bit heavy but not quite a bear, the menu does not know where to put you, and some men end up dressing for the label instead of the other way round.

The healthiest attitude is the gay one: take the tribes seriously enough to flirt with them and lightly enough to switch when the beard grows out.

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