When the hunter plays the hunted: heterosexual Chinese women’s negotiations with hegemonic sexual scripts on dating apps

ABSTRACT

Sexual scripts are the behavioral patterns in people’s performance of sexualities. As hegemonic patriarchal sexual scripts assign submissive roles to women in heterosexual intimacy, this study explores how heterosexual women can take a proactive role in online dating with the aid of dating app affordances. Based on interviews with 18 heterosexual women living in urban China, our findings show that women can strategically craft their user profiles to not only attract certain types of men they desire, but also filter out undesirable men. They can use the topics they extract from men’s profiles to take the initiative to start conversations with men when they are willing to. By switching media platforms and/or communication modalities, they can fuel relationship development. Meanwhile, they manage sexual risks through communication with their dates about sex and precautions against unexpected situations in hook-ups. They have also created positive meanings for casual sex: They regard women’s right to engage in hook-ups as a condition for gender equality, perceive casual sexual relations as a form of meaningful social connection, and endow such relations with romantic potential. They may also hold positive attitudes toward their dating app use, as they may have derived confidence and sociability from it.

KEYWORDS:

• Affordances
• casual sex
• dating apps
• online dating
• sexual scripts

Disclosure statement

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

Ethical declarations

This study was performed in line with the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Shangwei Wu

Shangwei Wu is an assistant professor in the School of Journalism and Communication at Jinan University. His current research considers social media use and internet censorship in China.

Siyi Liu

Siyi Liu is a postgraduate student from the Institute of Communication Studies, Communication University of China. Her current research interests include social media and gender issues.