Virtual youth: non-heterosexual young people's use of the internet to negotiate their identities and socio-sexual relations

Abstract

This article explores the ways that non-heterosexual young people are negotiating their identities and socio-sexual relations on the internet in the UK. Drawing on the key concepts of embodiment and performativity, and based on in-depth qualitative research with non-heterosexual youth and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) youth workers, this article investigates the use of social networking websites which have been specifically designed for LGBT users, and the connections between virtual and material spaces in young people's everyday lives. This research reveals that although the internet is an important medium through which new and existing socio-sexual trajectories are being negotiated, there is also a more complex and multi-dimensional relationship between young people's online and offline realities.

Keywords:

• sexuality
• identity
• internet
• social networking
• embodiment
• performativity

Acknowledgements

I thank all the young people and youth workers who shared their experiences during interviews and focus groups. Particular thanks must go to Lukasz Konieczka, Andrew Wilson and their respective youth groups for their invaluable support and enthusiasm for this investigation. I also thank Guy Pursey for guiding me through using the University of Reading ‘Blackboard Learn’ website as a tool for data collection. Finally, I thank Ruth Evans, Carl Stychin and the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on an earlier version of this article.

Notes

I employ the term ‘non-heterosexual’ to encompass the variety of ways that the participants defined their sexual-identities. This was not limited to LGBT, but also included queer, asexual and some who felt uncomfortable identifying with any one label due to the fluidity of their sexuality. Moreover, for many of the young people, discourses of heterosexuality were critical in the performance of their identities – being ‘not’ heterosexual. Although I acknowledge that this could be seen as a negative term, by highlighting the ongoing significance of heterosexuality I hope to continue to problematise this as a presumed ‘norm’ in society.

Pullen and Cooper (2010) use the term ‘online new media’ to emphasise the diverse uses of the internet, which are concerned with ‘identity, representation, production, consumption…[and] self-regulation’ (p. 1).

The University of Reading ‘Blackboard Learn’ website can be found at http://www.bb.reading.ac.uk.

Participants were given pseudonyms in order to protect their identities.

Although Robert mentioned his past negotiations with transgendered young people, he identified as male at the time of the interview.

This article conceptualises ‘community’ as a diverse term, which extends beyond bounded territories (Robins 2007). Although young people primarily equated notions of community with physical spaces such as gay scene venues, they felt that these were in small urban clusters. As a result, many participants considered LGBT networking websites virtual communities, which provided comparable socio-sexual opportunities and a similar sense of belonging to physical LGBT spaces (Valentine and Skelton 2008).