A growing genre of online discourse portrays gay men as shallow, image-obsessed, and emotionally unavailable.

Research finds higher rates of body dissatisfaction among gay men, closely linked to minority stress.

Confirmation bias is when we notice what supports a belief we have while overlooking everything else.

You've probably heard that gay men are image-obsessed, promiscuous, and unable to sustain relationships.

Are we image-obsessed, or did this single story come first, repeated until we internalized it as how we see ourselves, and eventually how others see us, too?

I was recently interviewed by Pat Brothwell, a journalist who writes about identity and culture, for a Pride Month piece exploring this phenomenon in his journalism.

He'd come across an earlier article I wrote drawing on Chimamanda Adichie's talk “The Danger of a Single Story,” one of my favorite talks, where she describes the consequences of using one narrative to define a person or a group.

As she puts it, the problem with a stereotype isn't that it's untrue, but that it's incomplete. It takes one story and makes it the only story.

Pat told me he'd been watching a single story spread through a growing genre of online discourse, where people make sweeping claims about “the gay community” being shallow, image-obsessed, emotionally unavailable, or incapable of commitment.

So why are we, both........

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