The Conundrum of Sexual Life in Today’s America
They’ve appeared in major metropolitan areas of America: bright ads in startling technicolor, featuring eely, long tongues and hairy chests, that promote the services of the dating app OkCupid. Each image serves as an entry in the taxonomy of modern romance: OkCupid is, apparently, for “every single pansexual,” “every single bookworm,” “every single vaxxer,” and so on. Encountering these ads during my morning subway commute, I’ve been struck by the trickiness of their cataloging act. OkCupid has cast a charmed circle of inclusion, from which some people must still inevitably be excluded. Its ads celebrate, for example, “every single feminist” but not, of course, the opposite ideological position; “every single tree hugger” is called upon to join OkCupid, but there’s no mention of those who want both lovers
