Heteronormativity, Masculinity and Prejudice in Mobile Apps: The Case of Grindr in a Brazilian City

Abstract

In this study our goal was to examine the masculinity associated to heteronormativity in a gay app from the users' point of view, which was made through an inductive study based on semistructured interviews with app users. Main results suggest that Grindr is used as a contemporary form of sociability, mainly because it provides comfort and distance from segregated spaces. At the same time, it allows discretion in sexual encounters, which only happen between "equals": white, young, athletic, handsome, and not effeminate men, and all those who differ from this profile are repelled. Heteronormativity imposes a pattern of masculinity that has overwhelmed everyone indiscriminately. Those who do not fit this profile can only be resigned to a secondary role at virtual community. Thus, technologies like this can aggravate marginalization of those already on the society fringes if forms of sociability continue to reproduce the oppression of prevailing heteronormativity.

Jagged Love: Narratives of Romance on Dating Apps during COVID-19

“…Dating app academic literature focuses largely on health (Albury et al, 2020), sexting (Huang et al, 2016), the exponential growth of a hook-up culture (Albury et al, 2017), dating app infrastructure (Duguay, 2019), and, to a lesser degree, the reinforcement or subversion of heteronormativity via dating apps (Saraiva et al, 2020). However, currently, there is little analysis of the deep continuities in love and intimacy which dating apps produce and facilitate.…”

The Disputes Regarding Meanings of the Homosexual Male Body Characterized as Bear: An Example of Dialogic Analysis

“…Some body shapes are shoved in the shadows of homo-affective interactions. In the interactions in geolocated gay apps, for example Grindr, it was verified that real encounters, most of the time, only occurred between equals, or rather, between white, young, athletic, and not effeminate men (Saraiva;Santos;Pereira, 2020). This type of profile can, easily, be identified as an ideal of beauty underlying the idea of a body culturally taken as beautiful and desirablea white and lean/buff/healthy body.…”

“…On making this evaluation, commentary 1 expresses a reaction-response of agreement that is materialized verbally in commentary 2: "has a beard so he's bear." It is also worthy noting how the gay community has been using terms in the feminine genre to identify themselves, subverting the order of masculinity, so valued by some segments of the community, as pointed out by Saraiva, Santos and Pereira (2020). The terms "the (gendered inflection female) gay" (commentary 1), "ursah (gendered inflection female)" (commentary 2), "the gays" and "bears" (commentary 4 both gendered inflection female) demonstrate the use of this form of language as a positive valorization of femininity.…”

Grind Your Way Out: Hegemonic Homosexuality as an Alternative Conceptual Framework to Apply Homonormativity in Gay Cultural Politics

“…Scholars in Hong Kong also suggested that high mobility, close proximity, and immediacy are the key features of dating apps that allows users to accumulate social capital to resist heteronormativity (Chan, 2017;Chong, Zhang, Mak, & Pang, 2015). Despite the potential to be liberating and empowering, others argue that many mainstream dating apps preferred by gay men could create a form of homonormativity that assimilates and, thus, reproduces heteronormative ideals of intimacy (Bartone, 2018;Saraiva, Santos, & Pereira, 2020).…”

“…(Jason, 27)Kong (2004) uses Bourdieuan notion of embodied cultural capital to refer to the traits Hong Kong gay men possess to earn respects, including ' t' body and 'respectable' standard of living. Basing on homonormative literatures, derogative phrases that walk along the line of gender and race, and body shaming are prevalent in online dating spaces(Bartone, 2018;Niesen, 2016;Saraiva et al, 2020). Grindr users are likely to be subject to weight stigma and sexual objecti cation, where individual comparison is ubiquitous(Filice, Raffoul, Meyer, & Neiterman, 2019…”