How Sexual Racism and Other Discriminatory Behaviors are Rationalized in Online Dating Apps

ABSTRACT

Using a multi-sited, multiple methods, and qualitative research design (including participant-observation, in-depth interviews, and analysis of online dating profiles) I examine how users engage in and justify discriminatory actions in the gay dating app “Grindr.” This paper also explores how the app allows for new ways that members can engage in these practices by blocking, filtering, and ignoring users. My findings consider the way mobile dating apps are structured to promote evaluating, and stigmatize, other users and promote a sexual hierarchy rooted in heteronormative gender roles. I also argue, based on these findings, that users normalize this behavior by constructing a culture that tolerates this behavior. Users that I interviewed justify their discriminatory behaviors (including racism, sexism, fat shaming, and discrimination against users who are HIV+) by reframing them in a sense similar to those discussed by proponents of neutralization theory. This paper contributes to the established literature on digital communication technologies by arguing that, rather than decreasing discriminatory behaviors, applications like Grindr achieve the opposite. I conclude with a consideration of how my findings expand interactionist understandings of social life, sexual capital, and online experiences.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

¹ While some other apps now utilize this, Grindr is the first geo-location dating based app to incorporate this feature. Some web-based sites such as squirt.com use location but are more static than the dynamically updating geolocation-based feature introduced by the iPhone and then later for Android (see Woo 2013).

² In in-depth interviews I spoke to my participants about a variety of topic including Grindr, these interviews were not just limited to the app. When I began this study I was interested in broader social, historical, and structural changes happening in gay culture.

³ Lubet’s critique of ethnography and suggestion is for us to use better documentation – documentary photographs seem to lend well to resolving his critique.

⁴ I recognize that this term carries with it racial undertones. This alone could be an entire paper about the implications of the app creator’s decision to use this term and what this says about gay culture. However, to fully unpack the implications of this term is beyond the space allotted for this article. Future research should more fully examine this.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Knox College [N/A].