‘The meat market’: production and regulation of masculinities on the Grindr grid in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK

Abstract

This article explores the regulatory practices that shape the production of embodied masculinities in profile pictures in the online dating app, Grindr. Mobile dating applications are becoming increasingly enmeshed in everyday socio-sexual lives, providing 'new' spaces for construction, embodiment and performance of gender and sexuality. I draw on 31 semistructured interviews and four participant research diaries with men who use Grindr in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, a postindustrial city in North East England. Exploring the ways men display, expose and place their bodies in online profile pictures, revealed the production of two forms of masculinityhypersexualised masculinity and lifestyle masculinity. I argue that the regulatory practices that shape men's bodies in everyday spaces work to produce these masculinities. I take a visual approach that pays attention to the spatial practices that produce pictures, but that also pays attention to other senses, particularly touch. Paying attention to the visuality of the Grindr grid enables an understanding of the instability of online/offline dichotomies, as it is the interactions of online and offline spaces that enable the production of digital masculinities. 'The meat market': consuming digital masculinitiesJosh: I think any dating profile sort of thing is a place for advertising, it's selling yourself essentially, you obviously, you're using that profile with an aim in mind, so it's a market, it's a meat market essentially. You do have to advertise yourself to a certain extent, you do have to convince someone like that you are what they want and what they desire. So yeah, like Grindr is a place like that, I truly believe that. (Josh, 23, white British)Scholars in digital geographies and new media and digital cultural studies argue that digital spaces are deeply entangled with the fleshy corporeality of embodied

Limitations of existing cultural globalization perspectives: A case study of the influence of technology on sexualities

“…Homogenization can be found when comparing findings of previous studies between LBMDAs' usage in the United States (Chan, 2016;Fitzpatrick et al, 2015;Miller, 2015a;Rice et al, 2012), United Kingdom (Bonner- Thompson, 2017;Miles, 2017;Mowlabocus, 2016), and Brazil (Miskolci, 2015). For example, based on these studies These similarities suggest homogenization/Americanization of gay/MSM sexualities occurred in the United Kingdom and Brazil, due to strong global flows and weak local cultural barriers (Löfström, 1997;Parker, 2003).…”

“…Homogenization can be found when comparing findings of previous studies between LBMDAs' usage in the United States (Chan, ; Fitzpatrick et al, ; Miller, ; Rice et al, ), United Kingdom (Bonner‐Thompson, ; Miles, ; Mowlabocus, ), and Brazil (Miskolci, ). For example, based on these studies (a) LBMDAs such as Grindr became accessible in all of these nations around the same time, (b) users' main reasons for using these apps are similar, and (c) similar values and practices can be identified.…”

“…While in all three countries users know that posting a shirtless body picture typically implies they are looking for casual sex, users in the United States and the United Kingdom report another reason for doing so: to produce digital bodies embedded in their materiality while simultaneously masking their faces, which allows them to separate between their online activities and offline interactions (Bonner‐Thompson, ; Fitzpatrick et al, ; Miller, ). This distinct preference among U.S. and U.K. users compared to Brazilians also relates to the ongoing dispute among scholars regarding whether or not Brazilian culture and society showcase Western sexual ideologies and practices (Altman, ; Carrara & Simões, ; Parker, ).…”

“…To illustrate the above limitations, I focus on studies on gay/MSM LBMDAs in three countries-the United States (Chan, 2016;Fitzpatrick, Birnholtz, & Brubaker, 2015;Miller, 2015a;Rice et al, 2012), the United Kingdom (Bonner- Thompson, 2017;Miles, 2017;Mowlabocus, 2016), and Brazil (Miskolci, 2015). This example shows how a "real" situation can be simultaneously interpreted as homogenization and heterogenization/hybridization.…”

‘All Kinds of Everything’? Queer Visibility in Online and Offline Eurovision Fandom

“…The boundaries of gay space vary in their permeability and can be temporarily conditioned. Using Grindr on smartphone apps operates similarly since viewing its 'grid' in seeking a potential partner in a public space can be considered a shameful act (Bonner-Thompson, 2017). The ESC follows a similar discourse because of its struggle in 'fitting in' with wider popular culture, being as it is, highly critiqued, particularly within UK public consciousness.…”