Copyright by Brandon Andrew Robinson 2013 The Thesis committee for Brandon Andrew Robinson Certifies that this is the approved version of the following thesis: “The Gay Facebook”: Friendship, Desirability, and HIV in the Lives of the Gay Internet Generation APPROVED BY SUPERVISING COMMITTEE: Supervisor: ___________________________________________ Gloria González-López ___________________________________________ Christine L. Williams “The Gay Facebook”: Friendship, Desirability, and HIV in the Lives of the Gay Internet Generation by Brandon Andrew Robinson, BA Thesis Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts The University of Texas at Austin December 2013 Dedication To feminism, which gives me hope for a better tomorrow… Acknowledgments First and foremost, thank you Gloria González-López for your support, time, feedback, mentorship, and intellectual guidance. I am deeply grateful for all you have done for me and for pushing me to think more critically and compassionately in all that I do. Thank you Christine Williams for always challenging me and for wanting the best for me. I would also like to thank Simone Browne, Mary Kearney, and Peter Rehberg for their graduate seminars that sparked many of the ideas that are explored in this thesis. My friends, I do not think I could survive academia without you, and for that, I am truly thankful. Thank you Salvador Vidal-Ortiz for always believing in me. I would not be where I am today if it was not for your faith in me as an undergraduate student and for your continuing support. Lastly, thank you to the men whose voices I hope I did justice to in this thesis. I learned so much from you, and I hope others do too. v Abstract “The Gay Facebook”: Friendship, Desirability, and HIV in the Lives of the Gay Internet Generation Brandon Andrew Robinson, MA The University of Texas at Austin, 2013 Supervisor: Gloria González-López Why are men seeking other men online? And how does the Internet influence these men and their sexuality? These are the two underlying questions driving this thesis. To answer these general questions, I conducted a qualitative study, which used in-depth individual interviews with 15 men who have sex with other men who self-identified as gay, queer, or homosexual. Through employing a theoretical framework that is inspired in queer theory, I uncovered three main topics in these men’s lives that are intimately shaped by their use of the Internet: friendship, racial and bodily desire, and HIV. First, I show the creative ways gay men are using the Internet, and specifically a sexualized space, in order to build relations with other gay men, despite the larger obstacles a heteronormative society puts in these men’s way to forge these friendships. In using their gay identity to try to establish relationalities with other gay identified men, the informants in this study challenge the impersonable traits associated with modernity, while seeking to build new alliances that could potentially radically disrupt heteronormative society. Secondly, I highlight how the social exclusionary practices toward people of color and vi non-normal bodies on Adam4Adam.com reifies whiteness and masculinity, which in turn, reifies heteronormativity. Here, I unmask how the structure of Adam4Adam.com, especially its filtering system, normalizes these discriminatory practices in users’ lives. Thirdly, I examine the role and meaning of HIV and sexual health in the lives of my informants. I incorporate the term “doing sexual responsibility” to show how my gay informants manage their anxiety-ridden lives when navigating their sexuality and sexual health. I also show how the gay men in this study engage in online foreplay as a pleasurable way to manage this anxiety and how trust and hegemonic masculinity are unintended consequences of this danger discourse on sexuality. As these men’s narratives and this thesis illustrate, society is still structured through heteronormative standards, but the Internet provides a new space for gay men to navigate their marginalized status in society. vii Table of Contents Chapter 1: Introduction....................................................................................................................1 Relevance of the Study........................................................................................................5 Theoretical Frameworks and Previous Literatures..............................................................8 Toward a Critical Queer Examination of Gay Men’s Lives and the Internet..........8 Friendship in Gay Men’s Lives..............................................................................12 Race and the Body in Gay Men’s Lives................................................................15 HIV/AIDS in Gay Men’s Lives.............................................................................19 Methodology......................................................................................................................23 The Research Project.............................................................................................23 Qualitative Research and the Internet Generation: Lessons and Challenges.........28 Chapter 2: “Beyond Sex”: Cruising for Friendship on the “Gay Facebook”................................34 Section 1. “The Gay Facebook”.........................................................................................36 A. “Sort of trashy”: Adam4Adam.com as a Sexualized Space..............................36 B. “It didn’t just have to be sexual”: Desexualizing a Cruising Site.....................42 C. “Adam4Adam is like gay Facebook”: Adam4Adam.com in Everyday Life....48 Section 2. “To Have a Smorgasbord Right There”: Positive Aspects of Adam4Adam.com..................................................................................................54 A. “I Want to Save Myself the Gas and the Time”: Finances and Busy Lives.....55 B. “They Just Stand Around with Their Group”: Dislike of Gay Bars..................57 C. “Cast a Wider Net”: More Selection of Gay Men.............................................60 Section 3. “What You Make It”: Cruising for “Something More” on Adam4Adam.com..................................................................................................64 Conclusion.........................................................................................................................71 viii Chapter 3: “The Beauty of Online Dating”: Filtering Races & Quantifying Bodies.....................74 Section 1. “I usually just filter it down”: Cleansing Cyberspace.......................................76 Section 2. “Not like discriminating in a bad way”: Race & Sexual Stratification.............80 A. “People have their turn-ons and turn-offs”: Race as a Personal Preference.....81 B. “I’m so Aryan with my sexual preferences”: Desiring Whiteness....................88 Section 3. “Who doesn’t like a nice body?”: The Ideal (Gay) Body.................................93 A. “Height-weight proportionality”: Quantifying the Body..................................94 B. “Very lean and muscular”: Qualifying the Body.............................................98 C. “Rather be extremely overweight or sick with HIV?”: Abject Bodies..........100 Conclusion.......................................................................................................................102 Chapter 4: “A Potential Threat”: HIV, Internet Foreplay, & Trust.............................................106 Section 1. “I always look at HIV status”: Marking & Stigmatizing HIV........................109 A. “I check people if they are HIV positive”: Screening Profiles.......................110 B. “That just means that they are lying”: Signaling Danger................................116 C. “This puts the whole kibosh on the whole sex thing”: Desirability & HIV....120 Section 2. “It’s sort of like online foreplay”: Pleasure-Danger & Harm Reduction........128 Section 3. “A condom gets in the way of true intimacy”: Contradictions.......................134 A. “I had an army guy and a cowboy”: Hegemonic Masculinity & Crisis Tendencies...............................................................................................135 B. “I’m still having unprotected sex”: Trust and Non-Condom Use...................139 Conclusion.......................................................................................................................145 Chapter 5: Conclusion..................................................................................................................148 Limitations and Future Research.....................................................................................153 Study’s Contributions......................................................................................................155 ix Appendices...................................................................................................................................159 Appendix A – Required Demographics...........................................................................160 Appendix B – Profile Description...................................................................................161 Appendix C – Optional Demographics............................................................................162 Appendix D – Recruitment Profile..................................................................................163