Since the Internet's inception, sociologists have sought to understand the role digital spaces play in mediating communication, interaction, and its impact on the broader social world. Sociological literature at the intersection of sexuality and digital space presents a key area of inquiry, charting the generative, and sometimes utopian, aspects of sexuality's insertion into the virtual sphere, as well as the problems and drawbacks of this relationship. By drawing on select empirical studies, this article charts three dominant research strands on sexuality and digital space: (a) the influence of digital platforms in sexual selfhood projects; (b) macro‐level trends and micro‐level practices of desire, attraction, and dating online; and (c) the role of digital platforms in sustaining sexual subcultures. I propose additional approaches and lines of inquiry to further develop research in these areas.

Coming-out stories are important cultural texts wherein individuals articulate and interpret experiences of identifying as sexual minorities. Yet, much of the extant literature on coming-out stories examines narratives by white, middle-class gay men and lesbians. Critical inquiry into coming-out stories told by privileged queer subjects points to the formulaic and normative characteristics of their narratives, where sexual difference is downplayed or challenged. The goal of this article, then, is to ask whether and how coming-out narratives told by queer Black women conform to or depart from the “coming-out formula story.” Using an intersectional approach to narrative analysis, this article investigates the performative and discursive strategies that 50 women use in telling their coming-out stories on YouTube. Findings show that queer Black women’s use of intimate candor—the performative and discursive strategy of publicly revealing interior, often sexually explicit, aspects of the self—is a means through which women center desire and queerness; articulate a vision of queer Black womanhood; and complicate the coming-out formula.

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