Digital Sex, Digital Self, Digital Cultures: Cultural Variability Amongst Dating Apps used by Queer Masculinities and Iterations of Non-Normative Identity

John, supervised by Professor Ben Light and Dr. Lisa Garwood-Cross

This thesis is an interdisciplinary study of sociology and humanities, analysing queer masculinities’ use of dating apps. Specifically, it will research the ways in which dating app users choose different dating apps to find intimacies and connect with each other. It uses a multimethod approach using the ‘walkthrough method’ (Light et al, 2018), profile analysis, semi-structured interviews and reflective ethnography as to enable users’ to elucidate their decision making on why they use particular apps, and how this influences the ways in which they present online. The first section of the PhD will begin by using participant data to distinguish dating apps as platforms with individual cultural expectations informed by both app interfaces and users own interpretations. The second section gives voice to unexpected participant identities online that resist platform interface expectations through self-presentation styles, namely anonymously and as [polyamorous] couples.