Twink

Twink or twinkie is a gay slang term describing a young or young-looking gay man (in his late teens or early twenties) with a slender build, little or no body hair, and no facial hair. In some societies, the term chick or chicken is preferred. The related term twinkle-toes, which implies that a man is effeminate, tends to be used in a derogatory manner. The terms can be complimentary or pejorative.

Twink is an acronym for "teenaged, white, into no kink".

Origin

The term's namesake is the "golden-colored phallic-shaped snack cake" Hostess Twinkie, commonly regarded as the quintessential junk food: "little nutritional value, sweet to the taste and creme-filled." Cream is among the well-known food-related euphemistic terms for semen. In Queering Pornography: Desiring Youth, Race and Fantasy in Gay Porn, essayist Zeb J. Tortorici notes that gay twink porn thrives on the production and performance of "consumable and visually/anally receptive masculinity."

A twink is "memorable for his outer packaging", not his "inner depth". The golden color also alludes to those who are excessively sun tanned. The tanned, "blond California surfer" had been popularized in the mid-1970s before the onset of the AIDS pandemic in the early 1980s, which ushered in the notion of the gay male as physically muscular, clean-cut, and extremely healthy.

The junk food reference has a number of connotations, including a perceived lack of intelligence and being ideal only for a short term, but not having lasting qualities or being very healthy. Most of these concerns no longer apply, as the definition of twink has broadened, and qualifiers (such as muscle or femme) narrow the meaning to a more specific type of twink.

Twink code

Main article: Twink code

Similar to other "codes", like the bear code, the twink code is a set of symbols using letters, numbers, and other characters commonly found on modern, Western computer keyboards, and used for the describing and rating of twinks. These codes are used in email, Usenet, and Internet forum postings to identify the physical type and preferences of the poster but have mostly fallen out of usage. The code includes physical traits such as: