Negotiating racialized sexuality through online stancetaking in text-based communication

Abstract

Sexuality is a social construct, and one that has had increasing prominence in online contexts. Examining comments written in reply to an opinion column on “sexual racism” on gay dating apps, this chapter explores commenters’ evaluation of app users’ expressions of racial preferences. Using discourse markers, tokens of agreement for example, commenters take similar or different stances, thereby creating either a convergent or a divergent alignment that contributes to the negotiation of sexuality in computer-mediated communication (CMC). It adds to the literature of stancetaking in CMC and proposes a discursive approach to the research on racialized sexuality. The analysis draws on Du Bois’ (The stance triangle. In: Englebretson R Stancetaking in discourse: Subjectivity, evaluation, interaction. John Benjamins Publishing Company, Amsterdam, pp 139–182, 2007) concept of the stance triangle, in which stancetakers position themselves and align with others as they evaluate objects, and focuses on an ideological debate: whether it is a preference or racism to exclude potential partners based on race on gay dating apps. The analysis shows how two technological affordances, tagging and quoting, create connections for negotiating users’ sexual practices online. The study shows how digital affordances facilitate dialogic interaction that frames racialized desires as two diverging social realities.