Desi Heteronormative Culture
One summer night in 2015, somewhere between boredom and desperation, I had the imprudent sense to try a certain South Asian dating app that everyone was talking about: Dil Mil. I logged in through Facebook, filled out my preferences (Seriously? Caste is still a preference? Look, I get that people *weirdly* still care about this stuff but that shouldn’t be encouraged), and was immediately presented with eligible bachelors. Wait, bachelors? Did this app just assume I was looking for men? What if I wasn’t? I clicked around and even searched online to check if that was an option that I somehow missed. I thought it had to be a glitch. It wasn’t.
I emailed support as soon as I could. Two days later, they told me that they were planning to release it “soon,” and that it’s “not as easy as it sounds.” That was back in mid-to-late 2015. For reference, it finally showed up early 2019 (it’s still only two genders: men and women, and no preferred pronoun option for individuals, but I guess it’s a start). For due diligence, I consulted with coders and app developers anyway and the resounding conclusion is this: it’s not that hard, unless bad software practices make it hard to include such extensions. Let’s say that’s what happened (honestly, who are they hiring to code). That means that at best they released an unfinished product, because to make an app that caters to Millenials and Gen Z but NOT provide inclusive options is to release an unfinished product. If it excludes a huge group of people who are already massively overlooked, it is an unfinished product. Why bring matchmaking into the modern era but keep regressive patterns?
This isn’t to downplay the app’s effectiveness. Lots of hetero couples meet and have happy hetero weddings and live happy hetero lives! But why don’t LGBTQIA+ get that privilege?
The purpose of this post is not to call out an app most of us are using, but rather to shed light on how heteronormative South Asian culture is.
Ways desi culture is heteronormative:
Bollywood depictions of heterosexual romance
Expectations for arranged marriage
Porn: The ‘lesbian” section is catered to the male gaze
Colonial POV on sex: non-hetero sex is seen as ‘unnatural’
Accepting a gender binary and othering those who do not fit it
Not a single person I mentioned the lack of Dil Mil’s queer options to would have realized it otherwise. Of all the forums I searched, I was hard pressed to find more than a few comments advocating for this feature, and instead found hateful, homophobic comments. Worse, I found comments trying to justify it with the use of “percentages,” and “majority,” etc. Like, bruh. That’s because for most people, heterosexuality is the default. Even if an individual is accepting of LGBTQIA+ lifestyles it’s often an exception, and an afterthought. Equality is not a privilege, but rather a right. To think of this feature as an extension is in itself an act of “othering” a group of people who have been through enough, and who deserve equity - not just but ESPECIALLY in the world of online dating.
by Tanushree S.