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A Post Human Study of the Digital Sexual Practices of Men Who Have Sex with Men

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A Post Human Study of the Digital Sexual Practices of Men Who Have Sex with Men NETWORK-ASSEMBLAGES OF MEDIATED SEX: A POST HUMAN STUDY OF THE DIGITAL SEXUAL PRACTICES OF MEN WHO HAVE SEX WITH MEN IAN RICHARD THOMAS DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY JUNE 2016 CARDIFF UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF SOCIAL SCIENCES Declaration i Acknowledgements To my supervisors, Emma Renold and Matthew Williams, thank you for being a sounding board for my thoughts, my troubles, for spending time looking over my work, and most of all for contributing to the expletives when I recounted my many monthly calamities. I enjoyed and looked forward to our supervisions, and I will miss them. Thanks go out to my friends. To the members of Team Pod – Tim, Jo (and whenever he appears, man of mystery Meng Le) – I’m glad I was seated next to you in the first year. Five years later I get to count you as my friends, and amongst the handful of people I can tolerate in this world. Also amongst the chosen few are Jen and Ellie, as together we make The Three Musketeers. You have all, old friends and new, given me moments of happiness in what have been some of my most troubled days, and for that I am grateful. To all the people I have encountered during my various wanderings, and who have expressed interest in my work (my progress reviewer Bella Dicks included); your excitement and genuine curiosity with different ways of knowing and doing has sustained my interest in this topic. I will endeavour to keep up the good work. Last but by no means least, to my family; thank you for your continued and unquestioning support, and forgiveness at my consistent ability to forget important dates. ii Abstract This thesis explores the translation of post human ontologies into a relational epistemological approach, taking the case study of men who have sex with men’s (MSM’s) digital sexual practices. It reports the findings from a connective ethnography, utilising a mixture of digital observation and insider-ethnographic accounts, to explore the inter-relationship between media as MSM engage in digital sexual practices. The main aim driving this study was to explore how social practices – in this case MSM’s digital sexual practices – could be researched differently, and what a different perspective brings to the study of such practices, and to the practices themselves. Though the literature exploring MSM’s use of digital media to engage in sexual activities is diverse, to date it has been dominated by anthropocentric methodologies and analyses e.g. through a focus on human meaning making and representation. Taking the example of MSM’s digital sexual practices therefore provided a body of literature that formed a counterpoint from which to explore the knowledge produced by different methodologies. The choice of post humanism as a way of enacting this difference – specifically the conceptual frameworks of assemblages (Deleuze and Guattari 2000, 2005) and networks (Latour 2005), or what I term “network-assemblages” – was therefore strategic. It countered the anthropocentricism dominating the field of MSM’s digital sexuality research, and also afforded the materiality of these practices greater agency in the research process. The contribution of this thesis is twofold. Firstly, it adds methodologically to the social sciences through the application of a post human ontology/epistemology to empirical research. By mapping linkages between venues as they form a network- assemblage, and by examining a single venue within this as a relational web of concepts, words, and things, it demonstrates different ways through which post human relational ontologies can be actualised in the study of phenomenon. Secondly this thesis contributes original insight into MSM’s digital sexual practices themselves. Specifically however, it explores the influence of capitalism on emergent forms of digital sexual enunciations, taking the case study of MSM’s commercial sex activities. iii Furthermore, it highlights the different ways in which sexuality is actualised within digital materiality; as aesthetic values, as sets of systems, as flows of words and images, and finally as lived territories. iv Contents Declaration .................................................................................................................... i Acknowledgements ...................................................................................................... ii Abstract ....................................................................................................................... iii Contents ....................................................................................................................... v List of figures ............................................................................................................... xi List of tables ............................................................................................................... xv Chapter 1 – Introduction .............................................................................................. 1 1.1 Conceptual overview .......................................................................................... 2 1.2 The increasing digital mediatisation of sexuality ............................................... 5 1.3 Rationale for studying MSM’s digital sexual practices differently ..................... 7 1.4 Exploring digital sexual practices through post humanism ............................... 9 Post humanism: Beyond boundaries .............................................................. 11 1.5 Overview of study design ................................................................................. 13 1.6 Map of thesis .................................................................................................... 15 Chapter 2 – The digital sexuality of MSM, a primer .................................................. 21 2.1 Defining men online, and MSM: from identity to practice. ............................. 23 2.2 Theories of Internet sexuality: Internet effects ............................................... 25 2.3 Social theory and Internet sexuality ................................................................. 27 2.4 Situating MSM’s media usage within wider patterns of use ........................... 30 2.5 The study of MSM’s digital sexual practices within the literature ................... 33 2.5.1 What digital sexual practices do MSM engage in? .................................... 33 2.5.2 Internet chat and cybersex ........................................................................ 35 2.5.3 Sex-seeking profiles and websites ............................................................. 37 2.5.4 Sex-seeking venues from within the humanities....................................... 38 2.5.5 Mobile venues ........................................................................................... 40 2.5.6 Digital sex work .......................................................................................... 41 2.5.7 Porn 2.0 ...................................................................................................... 43 2.5.8 Alternative approaches to Porn 2.0 in the wider literature ...................... 46 2.6 Summary: Making the case to study MSM’s digital sexual practices differently ................................................................................................................................ 48 v Chapter 3 – Onto→epistemology: Translating DeleuzoGuattarian ontological concepts into epistemology ....................................................................................... 53 3.1 A brief introduction to post humanism............................................................ 54 3.2 Dichotomies of the digital ................................................................................ 55 3.3 Key DeleuzoGuattarian concepts ..................................................................... 57 3.3.1 Assemblages .............................................................................................. 57 Assemblages as becomings ............................................................................. 59 Assemblages as they relate to complexity theory .......................................... 60 The two dimensions of assemblages: matter ↔ expression, ↕ de- and re- territorialisation .............................................................................................. 62 Applying assemblages and territorialisation to digital sexual practices......... 65 3.3.2 The Body without Organs (BwO) ............................................................... 67 3.3.3 Desire, schizoanalysis, and capitalism ....................................................... 68 3.3.4 The aggregative and the singular; or the molar and molecular ................ 71 3.4 A DeleuzoGuattarian (social) science ............................................................... 73 3.4.1 Introducing the Royal and minor mode .................................................... 73 3.4.2 Defining the Royal and minor mode ......................................................... 74 3.5 The Royal and minor mode within the MSM’s digital sexuality literature ...... 76 3.6 Mapping as a minor mode within the current study ....................................... 82 3.7 Summary: Conducting digital sexuality research with/though post humanism ................................................................................................................................ 85 Research questions ........................................................................................
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