Sep 16, 2009

Discreetionary: ISO

ISO · abbreviation. in search of.

ISO was one of those terms that I encountered when I poked around the gay personals websites (i.e., the “old” social networking sites) back in the 90’s. It took me quite a long time to learn that it meant “in search of.” I wasn’t about to ask around lest people think that I was a newbie, and Google was non-existent back then. This term is usually followed by other acronyms like GWM (gay white male) or GAM (gay Asian male) to signify that the searchee is looking for such.

On hindsight, it appears that ISO, as a term, is not used very much, if at all, by the local PLU community. I barely see it in the chatrooms and even in the modern gay social networking sites like PlanetRomeo. What’s more common is “ASL,” right? :-)

4 comments:

Rygel wrote on September 16, 2009 at 11:04 PM:

I've never encountered that in the chat rooms. BTW :D

 
Tristan Tan wrote on September 17, 2009 at 1:53 AM:

Example:

GAM ISO MGWM HWP

This simply translates to:

"Gay Asian Male in search of a Married Gay White Male who is height and weight propotional".

There.

 
Vince (Discreet Manila) wrote on September 17, 2009 at 11:51 AM:

Rygel, I encountered it a few times. :-)

Tristan, hmmm, does that describe you? ;-)

 
Tristan Tan wrote on September 18, 2009 at 9:35 AM:

@Vince ha ha no, I don't usually go for married men. :)