I canceled Tinder because I’m tired of being fetishized

July 6, 2021

I used Tinder for the first time in my life a few years ago, when I was living in Italy. I had just arrived there for a job and didn’t know many people in the city where I had settled.

I wanted to meet people, certainly to fish, but also to go out, discover things, chat a bit … And that’s how I started. My first appointments on the app were also quite interesting.

My beginnings on Tinder, Italian style

I had light and funny moments, and also unpleasant ones, in particular the time when I ran into a very racist guy, who had put a bust of Mussolini in his apartment … I might as well tell you that I went to the British.

But in Italy, my interactions and dates were tinged with a lightness I did not know in France. First of all because being abroad and above all trying to have fun, I had a perspective on the situation that I would not have had at home. But also for a deeper reason: my interlocutors identified me above all as French, before identifying me as North African.

When I said I was of Algerian origin, the weight of the French colonial past did not weigh on our discussions. And then, being Italy a relatively religious country, when i said i was muslim, they left me alone : my faith was understandable and acceptable.

Despite some “surprising” encounters, therefore, my Italian experience of Tinder remained a pleasant memory. After a few years of sunshine, I returned to France, with the flame app still installed on my phone.

Return to France, between discoveries and disappointments

When I resumed the swipe on my return to France, the fall began.

My first meeting was with a guy my age. Everything in the photos suggested he was tall and very muscular, which I didn’t mind. But most of all, he was very talkative online. You talked a lot, especially about sex. I went to see him thinking I was having some fun. Except that when I got to his house, I came across the exact opposite of the person I had met online: this guy was small, very shy and didn’t dare say anything in person …

Some time later, I met a guy on this same app who looked super funny. In front of me at the bar table, it was boring to death. Why impersonate someone else for such a result? These meetings were obviously very disappointing for me, while others might have liked them …

And then there was the trap of having a tendency to say I came this far, maybe I owe him something “.. How do you tell someone you don’t like them after all, but without upsetting them? How do you tell someone Your photo was fantastic, but everything else sucks ” ? I was quickly disappointed with what the app had to offer.

But above all, above all, there was this weight that I know well that weighed on these meetings: that of the projections of others, when they learned who are of North African and Muslim descent.

Being a North African and Muslim woman in the love market

Since I have a name that reflects my origins, conversations started in much the same way – on Tinder, as in real life for that matter – with this eternal question:

” What are you from? “

On a date, online, however we meet, this the request almost always arrives, from the very first minutes conversation. Then follow the remarks which have the gift of making me extremely uncomfortable.

From ” I only go out with the Arabs “ to ” I don’t like Arabs, but I like you. ” Passing through ” I still have problems with North Africans, but I’m not a racist “, I am only seen through the prism of my social race. And this prism, in France, is extremely narrow.

These romantic encounters crystallize a very precise picture of what a North African woman should be in France, without intermediate possibilities.

Since I’m on Tinder and having sex, people think I’m “liberated” (liberated from what? Big question), that I no longer speak to my parents who could not stand my way of life, that I go to hookah. Obviously this term also expresses sexual expectations, and my practices must correspond to a certain category of pornography. Because, let’s remember, the racist and sexist term “Beurette” was one of the most searched in France on Pornhub, in 2019.

When I say it I am a Muslim, it is the exact opposite that is expected on me. People imagine that I live my religion in a fundamentalist way, people ask me why I don’t wear the veil, if I accept sexual intercourse, if I don’t have five brothers trying to control me … all the racist imagination that revolves around the my faith, in short.

It is as if the complexity of who I am as a personthe diversity of what I like, the nuance of what I believe has no right to exist: it is a privilege reserved for others, perceived as neutral.

What is expected of me knowing that I am a North African and a Muslim

When my interlocutors realize that I don’t fit into either of these two imaginary categories, then it starts very intrusive interrogation. I find myself forced, after 15 minutes of meeting, to have to unravel my family history e justify why I don’t meet their expectations racists.

But of course that’s not all. During certain dates, this very embarrassing imagination unfolds into many other things besides my way of life: so let’s start to extrapolate my character.

“You North Africans have character”“VWe know how to cook “” You know how to manage a house “.

This is what is expected of me. These are not only cliches a thousand leagues from reality, but also expectations that are implied : for the men in front of me, the fact that I am of Algerian origin becomes a guarantee of what I could bring to them, in a patriarchal couple.

This speaks volumes about France’s relationship with Muslim women: we are seen as objects of submission. Am I a feminist? Nobody can imagine it.

I am equally afraid of those who tell me “JI love North Africans “ of those who tell me ” I hate them “. Either way, I will only be seen by my racial identity. I’m not that!

My family, the favorite conversation topic of the French

In life as well as in dating, there is another topic that keeps coming up: that of my family. We always try to understand the relationship I have with my parents (presumably determining the stereotype I have to fall into), the number of brothers and sisters I have …

When I give my profession as a flight attendant, the first question I am asked is: ” And your parents, what do they think? “. Has anyone ever asked a white woman this question? I doubt.

My parents have no say in the profession I have chosen. But my work is seen as a profession full of freedom, or focused on aesthetics, two things that are not perceived compatible with my identity.

Religion, unbearable to get close on date

Since my religion is an important part of my life, I talk about it when people ask me about me. And this leads to the same thoughts over and over again.

I’m asked because i’m on bait when i’m muslim. Because I speak to non-Muslims. If I am a virgin, indefinitely. I am asked very intrusive questions about the meaning of my religion, as if I were there to teach a lesson.

And these questions are not always sincere: often their goal is to make me understand that I have not understood anything about life … That I am too medieval, that I need to be educated and stop believing in God.

This is all fetishization

On a daily basis, these racist injunctions – under the cover of “curiosity and interest” – to transform my love life into a road full of pitfalls. Because it’s not just the conversations that are influenced by this very French view of Muslim and North African women. It is also the actions of others and how they interact with me.

The way men approach me is marked by these fantasies.

People perceive me as angrier, more capricious, people imagine that with me things will be fine ” hard. ”And when I get picked up, they don’t tell me I’m pretty, they tell me they love it “Algerians, Moroccans, Tunisians” …

I don’t go near it as a person, but as a people. And as a people, I have to be submissive or wild in bed, cook and keep a home, cut ties with my parents or be controlled by them, and a whole host of contradictory things that have nothing to do with my life.

And that, it is fetishization. Why say “I love brunettes because I find them beautiful it’s not like saying “I love North Africans because I associate racist clichés with them “. When I was told “I love North Africans “, I was told ” Love you the idea I have of them – and that idea is that they are uniform and subject to patriarchy. “

It is not a physical preference, “North Africans”. Our physique is varied, mixed, different in every region. And it’s not even a psychological preference, because we’re all different, and despite the duality imposed on us, we are complex and various.

I quit Tinder

Of course, these are all my feelings. I can’t prove it with A + B, I haven’t done stats on all my dates. But these are things we feel in our flesh: among the people concerned, we know that this is part of our daily life, even if this reality is denied to us when we talk about it.

By dint of seeing these same patterns repeat themselves, I began to get tired.

Because scrolling over a photo gives no indication of the person you will meet: a physical appearance is beautiful, but it does not say anything about the charisma, or the feeling you will feel … But also because I felt bad coming back. I thought “Once again, I was screwed because I was reubeu and that people imagined things about me, I was fetishized again. “

I have since deleted Tinder. That doesn’t mean that people don’t fetishize me anymore, or that people don’t make these kinds of remarks to me anymore (which sadly aren’t just about my love life), but at least I don’t feel the pressure of the swipe anymore!