All About Love Becomes Shorthand for Performative Males

bell hooks' influential book on love has attracted a certain type of male reader, raising questions about how the text is being interpreted.

Published on Feb. 13, 2026

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bell hooks' 1999 book All About Love has become a symbol for a particular type of performative male, often encountered in organizing spaces, who uses the book to signal a certain political orientation and understanding of relationships. However, the book's actual message and hooks' perspective on love, romance, and gender are more complex than how it is often portrayed by these readers.

Why it matters

The phenomenon of men using All About Love as a prop to project a certain image raises questions about how feminist texts can be co-opted and misinterpreted, particularly when it comes to discussions around love, relationships, and gender dynamics.

The details

All About Love has become shorthand for a certain kind of male dater who uses the book to signal a less blatant but arguably more noxious form of misogyny. The book appeals to men who frequently invoke concepts like boundaries, self-care, and restorative justice, but in a way that can come across as passive-aggressive. In the book, hooks presents a vision of love that is Romantic but not really romantic, chaste, and suspicious of hyperfeminine expression, which may resonate with emotionally stunted men. However, hooks' actual perspective is more complex, foregrounding the importance of studying Black romantic love and relationships, and critiquing the structural causes of abuse in heterosexual relationships.

  • All About Love was published in 1999 and has remained a bestseller for nearly 30 years.

The players

bell hooks

A renowned Black feminist scholar and author whose work, including All About Love, has become co-opted by a certain type of performative male reader.

Eric Adams

The former mayor of New York City, who was photographed holding a copy of All About Love, exemplifying the phenomenon of men using the book as a prop.

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What they’re saying

“What was your line on Hardcore, 'Take it up the butt'? Don't be funnin'. What do you think about that?”

— bell hooks, Author (Paper Magazine)

“I think romance has the totally different feeling of 'it's easy, it comes and goes.' So I think people would rather settle for a counterfeit of love than to actually do the work of love.”

— bell hooks, Author (Last Interview)

The takeaway

While All About Love has been co-opted by a certain type of performative male reader, the book's actual message and hooks' perspective on love, romance, and gender are more complex. Rereading and reconsidering the work of renowned Black feminist thinkers like bell hooks can offer valuable insights beyond the superficial ways their ideas are sometimes portrayed.