Acquainted Strangers: Thwarted Interaction in Digitally Mediated Urban Gay Bars. (8th October 2020)
- Record Type:
- Journal Article
- Title:
- Acquainted Strangers: Thwarted Interaction in Digitally Mediated Urban Gay Bars. (8th October 2020)
- Main Title:
- Acquainted Strangers: Thwarted Interaction in Digitally Mediated Urban Gay Bars
- Authors:
- Baldor, Tyler
- Abstract:
- Abstract: While some situations in sexual contexts facilitate interaction, others can make overtures difficult to negotiate. Furthermore, social media creates new challenges as individuals navigate sexualized spaces in an increasingly digital world. Drawing on fieldwork in Philadelphia gay bars and supplemental interviews with young gay club-goers, I find that men experience unexpected challenges that inhibit their ability to socialize with gay others and enact positive gay identities. I show how the social organization of particular bars, as well as the popularity of mobile dating applications, undermines the interactional accomplishment of positive outcomes such as identity affirmation and "having fun": (1) men's embodied work to evade effeminacy constrains their facial expressions, comportment, and speech; (2) gay bars' multiple functions as sexual fields and community outposts render both social and sexual interaction difficult to initiate; (3) patrons struggle over whether and how to interact with other mobile dating app users, a novel social tie I conceptualize as acquainted strangers, in the bars. I discuss how these mechanisms—managing stigma corporeally, negotiating discrepant frames, and navigating ambiguous social ties—may thwart interactional achievements while reproducing inequalities in contexts beyond the gay bar.
- Is Part Of:
- Social problems. Volume 69:Number 1(2022)
- Journal:
- Social problems
- Issue:
- Volume 69:Number 1(2022)
- Issue Display:
- Volume 69, Issue 1 (2022)
- Year:
- 2022
- Volume:
- 69
- Issue:
- 1
- Issue Sort Value:
- 2022-0069-0001-0000
- Page Start:
- 58
- Page End:
- 73
- Publication Date:
- 2020-10-08
- Subjects:
- sexuality -- face-work -- ethnography -- social interaction -- social media
Social problems -- Periodicals
301 - Journal URLs:
- http://socpro.oxfordjournals.org/ ↗
http://www.oxfordjournals.org ↗ - DOI:
- 10.1093/socpro/spaa041 ↗
- Languages:
- English
- ISSNs:
- 0037-7791
- Deposit Type:
- Legaldeposit
- View Content:
- Available online (eLD content is only available in our Reading Rooms) ↗
- Physical Locations:
- British Library DSC - 8318.136000
British Library DSC - BLDSS-3PM
British Library HMNTS - ELD Digital store - Ingest File:
- 20698.xml