The mediation of gay men's lives: A review on gay dating app studies

Wu, Shangwei; Ward, Janelle

doi:10.1111/soc4.12560

Cited by 62 publications

(43 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…Operating through mobile devices means that encounters can be untethered from fixed spaces or times; for sexual minorities in particular this brings the potential of queering spaces and providing routes to encounter that might otherwise be dangerous or impossible. Many gay and bisexual men have seen these technologies become central not only to how sex and dating are arranged, but as part of wider socialities of friendship, local networking and information gathering (Miles, 2019;Wu and Ward, 2018). However, these technologies have also been hugely influential to mainstream, heterosexual audiences too.…”

Section: Sex and Dating Appsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Inviting the stranger in: Intimacy, digital technology and new geographies of encounter

Koch

Miles

2020

Progress in Human Geography

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Digital technologies are profoundly reshaping how people relate to unknown others, yet urban studies and geographies of encounter have yet to adequately incorporate these changes into theory and research. Building on a longstanding concern with stranger encounters in social and urban theory, this paper explores how digital technology brings new possibilities and challenges to urban life. With examples ranging from GPS-enabled apps for sex and dating to sharing economy platforms that facilitate the peer-to-peer exchange of services, new practices mediated by digital technology are making many stranger encounters a matter of choice rather than chance, and they are often private as much as they are public. This paper examines these changes to develop a conceptualisation of stranger intimacy as a potentially generative form of encounter involving conditional relations of openness among the unacquainted, through which affective structures of knowing, providing, befriending or even loving are built. We offer an agenda for researching stranger intimacies to better understand their role in generating new kinds of social and economic opportunity, overcoming constraints of space and place, as well as generating dynamics of inclusion and exclusion, privilege and disadvantage. The paper concludes by considering what critical attention to these encounters can offer geographical scholarship and how an emphasis on digital mediation can push research in productive directions.

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Section: Sex and Dating Appsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Inviting the stranger in: Intimacy, digital technology and new geographies of encounter

Koch

Miles

2020

Progress in Human Geography

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“…As the International Journal of Sexuality and Gender Studies (2002) clarifies, geographers are among the contributors to two decades of work concerned with the ways in which the internet supports queer sex, friendships, and relationships whilst aiding politicisation and a shared cultural experience (Wu & Ward, ). Mowlabocus () exposed a market emerging in queer new media.…”

Section: Potentialities In—and Of—the Digital Agementioning

confidence: 99%

Queer geographies of spatial media

Mearns

2019

Geography Compass

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Digital media scholarship is burgeoning. However, there remains a paucity of queer geographies accounting for hybridity and multi‐directionality of coexisting, variegated and embodied spaces produced through spatial media nor the technologies that enable these media (smartphones, tablet computers, and self‐tracking devices). Bringing together literatures on sexuality and the first and second iterations of the internet, this article extends debate about the uneven and paradoxical queer geographies of location‐aware applications (Tinder and Grindr) and other spatial media now often taken as “composite” of queer cultures globally. The article encourages those with interest in the interrelationships between sexualities and space to emphasise further the historical, cultural, and political specificities of the places in which these diverse media are designed, developed, and consumed. The purpose of doing so, I contend, is to deepen knowledge of heightened commercialisation whilst unravelling complex questions of data ownership, privacy and cultural norms that could exacerbate disparities in sexual citizenship.

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“…In turn, these constraints shape sexual conduct and contribute to such places as being risky, primarily because of the threat of homophobic violence and the concomitant risks of social exposure within a hetero-normative social world. Similarly, there are profound differences between the social organization of collective sex in the past and the present (Berlant & Warner, 1998;Prior & Hubbard, 2017;Wu & Ward, 2018). Historically, the social organization of sexual opportunities between men also shaped their sexual interactions, driving men to anonymous sex environments and limiting the social repercussions of such sexual interactions, for example, curtailing easy access to the development of longer-term relationships and romantic intimacy.…”

Section: Paradigms and Pathology: Transgression And Deviancementioning

confidence: 99%

“…For us, this epistemological limitation is central to explaining the lack of critical mass identified within the review that is concerned with what could be called the democratization of collective sex. We would suggest that the recent trends in democratizing collective sex have materialized through the world of social media and the proliferation of dating/sexual hookup smartphone apps, and their associated Web sites (Davis, Flowers, Lorimer, Oakland, & Frankis, 2016 ; Wu & Ward, 2018 ). Wider innovations within sexual health also shake the simple sedimentation of transferable knowledge across the period of time encompassed by the review.…”

Section: Looking Backwards Not Looking Forwardsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Imagining Interventions for Collective Sex Environments

Flowers

Frankis

2018

Arch Sex Behav

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Frank's (2018) article provides an excellent summary of transdisciplinary research concerned with collective sex environments, synthesizing highly diverse studies spanning five decades. The contributing papers utilize a broad range of methods and reflect many key sexual health risks across several diverse and distinct populations. For many readers, such as ourselves, with a particular interest in a single population, Frank's synthesis provides a much needed and entirely fascinating wider perspective. This overarching vantage point can teach us about similarities and differences across populations, while simultaneously illuminating the populations and research we know so well through a different lens. As such, the paper provides an essential contribution to the literature. However, rather than champion the paper's many strengths, within this Commentary we wish to grapple with what could be seen as its potential shortcomings. Our aim here is not be critical for the sake of it, but to somewhat playfully push debates further about many issues addressed within the paper. In this way, we wish to initiate more dialogue concerning collective sex, concomitant risks, and imaginative ways to ameliorate such risks. Looking Backwards Not Looking ForwardsFirst and foremost among the "shortcomings" of Frank's (2018) article is the retrospective gaze of the review methodology. Of course, this limitation is not unique to this article and represents a potential failing for all review work. However, the necessary retrospective focus of a review, the demands of synthesis, and the need to build cumulative knowledge though layering new information upon what has gone before brings multiple challenges.Critically, review epistemology in general fails to accommodate recent and contemporary changes and cannot address the anticipation of the future. Adopting a retrograde and consolidating gaze also tends to focus upon the common denominators across previous research. This drags the focus of cumulative knowledge retrospectively and is ill-equipped to grapple with major and more recent change.For us, this epistemological limitation is central to explaining the lack of critical mass identified within the review that is concerned with what could be called the democratization of collective sex. We would suggest that the recent trends in democratizing collective sex have materialized through the world of social media and the proliferation of dating

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The mediation of gay men's lives: A review on gay dating app studies

Cited by 62 publications

References 31 publications

Inviting the stranger in: Intimacy, digital technology and new geographies of encounter

Inviting the stranger in: Intimacy, digital technology and new geographies of encounter

Queer geographies of spatial media

Imagining Interventions for Collective Sex Environments

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