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Gay Nettersexuality: Grindr, Porn, and Non-being in Nick Comilla’s Candyass

Year 2021, Issue: 16, 33 - 58, 30.11.2021

Abstract

Since its appearance in 2009, Grindr has become (in)famous as the go-to app for anything from casual chat and casual sexual encounters to relationships and even finding a spouse. ‘Nettersexuality’ denotes how gay men’s sexuality is mediated by digital media such as dating apps, which allow users to create and circulate their own self-made gay porn. In this article, I analyse gay nettersexuality in Nick Comilla’s debut novel, Candyass (2016), arguing that the novel and its representations of gay pornography offer crucial insights for masculinities scholars into how gay men represent and articulate their experience of nettersexuality. Drawing on the existentialist tradition, I pinpoint the ways in which Candyass illustrates the concept of ‘non-being’ as a state of tedium, vacancy, and psychological disintegration shaped by gay men’s pornified use of gay dating apps. I argue that the nettersexual nature of their engagement with dating apps and gay porn causes the characters in Candyass to confront new experiential challenges related to their sexual behaviour.

References

  • Arroyo, B. (2016). Sexual affects and active pornographic space in the networked Gay Village. Porn Studies, 3(1), 77-88. https://doi.org/10.1080/23268743.2015.1100799.
  • Aunspach, C. (2020). Discrete and looking (to profit): homoconnectivity on Grindr. Critical Studies in Media Communication, 37(1), 43-57. https://doi.org/10.1080/15295036.2019.1690157.
  • Austin, T. (2018). Some distinctive features of narrative environments. Interiority, 1(2), 153-172. https://doi.org/10.7454/in.v1i2.20
  • Berdyaev, N. (1948). Trans. Oliver Fielding Clarke. Freedom and the Spirit. London: Geoffrey Bles.
  • Berdyaev, N. (1950). Trans. Katharine Lampert. Dream and Reality: An Essay in Autobiography. London: Geoffrey Bles.
  • Bettani, S. (2015). Straight Subjectivities in Homonormative Spaces: Moving Towards a New, ‘Dynamic’ Heteronormativity?. Gender, Place and Culture, 22(2), 239-254. https://doi-org.10.1080/0966369X.2013.855713.
  • Bloodworth, A. (2018, April 18). Do Grindr and Other Mental Health Apps Affect Mental Health?. Pink News. https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2018/04/18/does-grindr-affect-mental-health-dating-apps-and-mental-health/.
  • Brennan, J. (2017). Cruising for cash: Prostitution on Grindr. Context and Media, 17, 1-8. https://doi-org.10.1016/j.dcm.2017.02.004.
  • Callander, D. et al. (2015). Not Everyone’s Gonna like Me: Accounting for Race and Racism in Sex and Dating Web Services for Gay and Bisexual Men. Ethnicities 16(1), 3-21. https://doi.org/10.1177/1468796815581428
  • Campbell, J. (2004). Getting it on Online: Cyberspace, Gay Male Sexuality, and Embodied Identity. New York, NY: Harrington Park Press.
  • Cassidy, E. (2018). Gay Men, Identity and Social Media: A Culture of Participatory Reluctance. New York, NY: Routledge.
  • Chan, L. S. (2018). Ambivalence in networked intimacy: Observations from gay men using mobile dating apps. New Media and Society, 20(7), 2566-2581. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444817727156.
  • Comilla, N. (2016). Candyass. Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press.
  • Comilla, N. (2020). Sliding into Nick Comilla’s DM’s – Interview by Quentin Greif. Aptly. https://www.aptlyjournal.org/nick-comilla-interview/.
  • Conner, C. T. (2019). The Gay Gayze: Expressions of Inequality on Grindr. The Sociological Quarterly, 60(3), 397-419. https://doi-org.10.1080/00380253.2018.1533394.
  • Duggan, L. (2002). The New Homonormativity: The Sexual Politics of Neoliberalism. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
  • Eguchi, S. (2009). Negotiating Hegemonic Masculinity: The Rhetorical Strategy of ‘Straight-Acting’ among Gay Men. Journal of Intercultural Communication Research, 38(3), 193-209.
  • Enguix, B. and Gómez-Narváaez, E. (2018). Masculine Bodies, Selfies, and the (Re)configurations of Intimacy. Men and Masculinities, 21(1), 112-130. https://doi.org/10.1177/1097184X17696168.
  • Foucault, M. (1994). Sex, power, and the politics of identity. In P. Rabinow (Ed.), Ethics: Subjectivity and truth (pp. 163–174). New York, NY: New Press.
  • Ghaziani, A. (2014). There Goes the Gayborhood?. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
  • Hakim, J. (2018). ‘The Spornosexual’: The Affective Contradictions of Male Body-Work in Neoliberal Digital Culture. Journal of Gender Studies, 27(2), 231-241. https://doi.org/10.1080/09589236.2016.1217771.
  • Han, C-S. (2008). No Fats, Femmes, or Asians: The Utility of Critical Race Theory in Examining the Role of Gay Stock Stories in the Marginalization of Gay Asian Men. Contemporary Justice Review, 11(1): 11-12. https://doi.org/10.1080/10282580701850355.
  • Hoppe, T. (2011). Circuits of Power, Circuits of Pleasure: Sexual Scripting in Gay Men’s Bottom Narratives. Sexualities, 14(2), 193–217.
  • Jaspal, R. (2017). Gay Men’s Construction and Management of their Identity on Grindr. Sexuality and Culture, 21(1), 187-204. https://doi-org.10.1007/s12119-016-9389-3.
  • Lefebvre, H. (1991). The construction of space. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
  • McGill, C. M. and Collins, J. C. (2015). Creating Fugitive Knowledge Through Disorienting Dilemmas: The Issue of Bottom Identity Development. New Horizons in Adult Education and Human Resource Development, 27, 29-40.
  • Mercer, J. (2017). Gay Pornography: Representations of Sexuality and Masculinity. London: Bloomsbury. Michele, T., n.d. Grindr App Hinders LGBTQ Users’ Mental Health. Valley Patriot. <http://valleypatriot.com/grindr-app-hinders-lgbtq-users-mental-health/>.
  • Miles, S. (2017). Sex in the digital city: location-based dating apps and queer urban life. Gender, Place and Culture: A Journal of Feminist Geography, 24(11), 1595-1610. https://doi.org/10.1080/0966369X.2017.1340874.
  • Moskowitz, D. A. and Hart, T. A. (2011). The Influence of Physical Body Traits and Masculinity on Anal Sex Roles in Gay and Bisexual Men. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 40, 835–841.
  • Mowlabocus, S. (2010). Gaydar Culture: Gay Men, Technology and Embodiment in the Digital Age. Abingdon: Routledge.
  • Nash, C. J. (2013). The age of the ‘post-mo’? Toronto’s gay Village and a new generation. Geoforum, 49, 243-252. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2012.11.023.
  • Pavlou, A. (2017, October 30). Grindr and Gay Loneliness: How Grindr Culture is Hurting Our Mental Health. 34th Street. https://www.34st.com/article/2017/10/grindr-and-gay-loneliness.
  • Penney, T. (2014). Bodies under Glass: Gay Dating Apps and the Affect-Image. Media International Australia, 153(1), 107-117. https://doi.org/10.1177/1329878X1415300113.
  • Phillips, A. (1999). A Defence of Masochism. London: Faber and Faber.
  • Poole, J., and Milligan, R. (2018). Nettersexuality: The Impact of Internet Pornography on Gay Male Sexual Expression and Identity. Sexuality and Culture, 22(4), 1189-1204. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12119-018-9521-7.
  • Rodriguez, N. S., Huemmer, J., and Blummell, L. E. (2016). Mobile Masculinities: An Investigation of Networked Masculinities in Gay Dating Apps. Masculinities and Social Change, 5(3), 241-267. https://doi.org/10.1108/EJM-04-2016-0199.
  • Sahgal, K. (2019, December 4). How Grindr, the Dating App is Destroying My Mental Health. Feminism in India. https://feminisminindia.com/2019/12/04/grindr-dating-app-destroying-mental-health/.
  • Shewey, D. (2018). The Paradox of Porn: Notes on Gay Male Sexual Culture. New York, NY: Joybody Books.
  • Simula, B. L. (2019). A “Different Economy of Bodies and Pleasures”?: Differentiating and Evaluating Sex and Sexual BDSM Experiences. Journal of Homosexuality, 66(2), 209-237. https://doi.org/10.1080/00918369.2017.1398017
  • Taywaditep, K. J. (2002). Marginalization Among the Marginalized. Journal of Homosexuality, 42(1), 1-28.
  • Turban, J. (2018, April 4). We need to talk about how Grindr is affecting gay men’s mental health. Vox. https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/4/4/17177058/grindr-gay-men-mental-health-psychiatrist.
  • Tziallas, E. (2015). Gamified Eroticism: Gay Male ‘Social Networking’ Applications and Self-Pornography. Sexuality and Culture, 19, 759-775. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12119-015-9288-z.
  • Tziallas, E. (2020, August 31). Grindr’s Cruel Optimism. Slate. https://slate.com/human-interest/2020/08/grindr-app-cruel-optimism.html.
  • Vytniorgu, R. (2019, August 2). A Tale of Two Twinks, or a Quest for Sustainable Models. Queer Voices. https://queer-voices.com/a-tale-of-two-twinks-or-a-quest-for-sustainable-models/.
  • Zervoulis, K. et al. (2020). Use of ‘gay dating apps’ and its relationship with individual well-being and sense of community in men who have sex with men. Psychology and Sexuality, 11(1-2), 88-102. https://doi.org/10.1080/19419899.2019.1684354.

Gey Netseksüellik: Nick Comilla’nın Candyass’inde Grindr, Porno ve Hiçlik

Year 2021, Issue: 16, 33 - 58, 30.11.2021

Abstract

2009’da ortaya çıkmasından bu yana Grindr, gündelik sohbet ve cinsel karşılaşmalardan ilişkilere kadar ve hatta bir eş bulmaya kadar pek çok şey için başvurulan bir uygulama olarak (kötü) şöhret elde etti. ‘Netseksüellik’, kullanıcıların kendi gey pornolarını yaratmalarına ve yaymalarına olanak tanıyan flört uygulamaları gibi uygulamalar içeren dijital medyanın, gey erkeklerin cinselliğini nasıl aracı ettiğini ifade etmektedir. Bu makalede, Nick Comilla’nın ilk romanı Candyass’te (2016) gey netseksüelliği analiz ediyorum. Romanın ve gey pornografisine ilişkin temsillerinin, erkeklik çalışan araştırmacılar için gey erkeklerin netseksüellik deneyimlerini nasıl temsil ettiği ve ifade ettiği konusunda önemli bilgiler sunduğunu savunuyorum. Varoluşçu gelenekten yararlanarak, Candyass’in ‘hiçlik’ kavramını, gey erkeklerin gey flört uygulamalarını pornoize edilmiş kullanımıyla şekillenen bir bezginlik, boşluk ve psikolojik parçalanma durumu olarak gösterme biçimlerini saptıyorum. Flört uygulamaları ve gey pornosu ile ilgilenmelerinin netseksüel doğasının, Candyass’teki karakterlerin cinsel davranışlarıyla ilgili yeni deneyimsel zorluklarla yüzleşmelerine neden olduğunu savunuyorum.

References

  • Arroyo, B. (2016). Sexual affects and active pornographic space in the networked Gay Village. Porn Studies, 3(1), 77-88. https://doi.org/10.1080/23268743.2015.1100799.
  • Aunspach, C. (2020). Discrete and looking (to profit): homoconnectivity on Grindr. Critical Studies in Media Communication, 37(1), 43-57. https://doi.org/10.1080/15295036.2019.1690157.
  • Austin, T. (2018). Some distinctive features of narrative environments. Interiority, 1(2), 153-172. https://doi.org/10.7454/in.v1i2.20
  • Berdyaev, N. (1948). Trans. Oliver Fielding Clarke. Freedom and the Spirit. London: Geoffrey Bles.
  • Berdyaev, N. (1950). Trans. Katharine Lampert. Dream and Reality: An Essay in Autobiography. London: Geoffrey Bles.
  • Bettani, S. (2015). Straight Subjectivities in Homonormative Spaces: Moving Towards a New, ‘Dynamic’ Heteronormativity?. Gender, Place and Culture, 22(2), 239-254. https://doi-org.10.1080/0966369X.2013.855713.
  • Bloodworth, A. (2018, April 18). Do Grindr and Other Mental Health Apps Affect Mental Health?. Pink News. https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2018/04/18/does-grindr-affect-mental-health-dating-apps-and-mental-health/.
  • Brennan, J. (2017). Cruising for cash: Prostitution on Grindr. Context and Media, 17, 1-8. https://doi-org.10.1016/j.dcm.2017.02.004.
  • Callander, D. et al. (2015). Not Everyone’s Gonna like Me: Accounting for Race and Racism in Sex and Dating Web Services for Gay and Bisexual Men. Ethnicities 16(1), 3-21. https://doi.org/10.1177/1468796815581428
  • Campbell, J. (2004). Getting it on Online: Cyberspace, Gay Male Sexuality, and Embodied Identity. New York, NY: Harrington Park Press.
  • Cassidy, E. (2018). Gay Men, Identity and Social Media: A Culture of Participatory Reluctance. New York, NY: Routledge.
  • Chan, L. S. (2018). Ambivalence in networked intimacy: Observations from gay men using mobile dating apps. New Media and Society, 20(7), 2566-2581. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444817727156.
  • Comilla, N. (2016). Candyass. Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press.
  • Comilla, N. (2020). Sliding into Nick Comilla’s DM’s – Interview by Quentin Greif. Aptly. https://www.aptlyjournal.org/nick-comilla-interview/.
  • Conner, C. T. (2019). The Gay Gayze: Expressions of Inequality on Grindr. The Sociological Quarterly, 60(3), 397-419. https://doi-org.10.1080/00380253.2018.1533394.
  • Duggan, L. (2002). The New Homonormativity: The Sexual Politics of Neoliberalism. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
  • Eguchi, S. (2009). Negotiating Hegemonic Masculinity: The Rhetorical Strategy of ‘Straight-Acting’ among Gay Men. Journal of Intercultural Communication Research, 38(3), 193-209.
  • Enguix, B. and Gómez-Narváaez, E. (2018). Masculine Bodies, Selfies, and the (Re)configurations of Intimacy. Men and Masculinities, 21(1), 112-130. https://doi.org/10.1177/1097184X17696168.
  • Foucault, M. (1994). Sex, power, and the politics of identity. In P. Rabinow (Ed.), Ethics: Subjectivity and truth (pp. 163–174). New York, NY: New Press.
  • Ghaziani, A. (2014). There Goes the Gayborhood?. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
  • Hakim, J. (2018). ‘The Spornosexual’: The Affective Contradictions of Male Body-Work in Neoliberal Digital Culture. Journal of Gender Studies, 27(2), 231-241. https://doi.org/10.1080/09589236.2016.1217771.
  • Han, C-S. (2008). No Fats, Femmes, or Asians: The Utility of Critical Race Theory in Examining the Role of Gay Stock Stories in the Marginalization of Gay Asian Men. Contemporary Justice Review, 11(1): 11-12. https://doi.org/10.1080/10282580701850355.
  • Hoppe, T. (2011). Circuits of Power, Circuits of Pleasure: Sexual Scripting in Gay Men’s Bottom Narratives. Sexualities, 14(2), 193–217.
  • Jaspal, R. (2017). Gay Men’s Construction and Management of their Identity on Grindr. Sexuality and Culture, 21(1), 187-204. https://doi-org.10.1007/s12119-016-9389-3.
  • Lefebvre, H. (1991). The construction of space. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
  • McGill, C. M. and Collins, J. C. (2015). Creating Fugitive Knowledge Through Disorienting Dilemmas: The Issue of Bottom Identity Development. New Horizons in Adult Education and Human Resource Development, 27, 29-40.
  • Mercer, J. (2017). Gay Pornography: Representations of Sexuality and Masculinity. London: Bloomsbury. Michele, T., n.d. Grindr App Hinders LGBTQ Users’ Mental Health. Valley Patriot. <http://valleypatriot.com/grindr-app-hinders-lgbtq-users-mental-health/>.
  • Miles, S. (2017). Sex in the digital city: location-based dating apps and queer urban life. Gender, Place and Culture: A Journal of Feminist Geography, 24(11), 1595-1610. https://doi.org/10.1080/0966369X.2017.1340874.
  • Moskowitz, D. A. and Hart, T. A. (2011). The Influence of Physical Body Traits and Masculinity on Anal Sex Roles in Gay and Bisexual Men. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 40, 835–841.
  • Mowlabocus, S. (2010). Gaydar Culture: Gay Men, Technology and Embodiment in the Digital Age. Abingdon: Routledge.
  • Nash, C. J. (2013). The age of the ‘post-mo’? Toronto’s gay Village and a new generation. Geoforum, 49, 243-252. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2012.11.023.
  • Pavlou, A. (2017, October 30). Grindr and Gay Loneliness: How Grindr Culture is Hurting Our Mental Health. 34th Street. https://www.34st.com/article/2017/10/grindr-and-gay-loneliness.
  • Penney, T. (2014). Bodies under Glass: Gay Dating Apps and the Affect-Image. Media International Australia, 153(1), 107-117. https://doi.org/10.1177/1329878X1415300113.
  • Phillips, A. (1999). A Defence of Masochism. London: Faber and Faber.
  • Poole, J., and Milligan, R. (2018). Nettersexuality: The Impact of Internet Pornography on Gay Male Sexual Expression and Identity. Sexuality and Culture, 22(4), 1189-1204. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12119-018-9521-7.
  • Rodriguez, N. S., Huemmer, J., and Blummell, L. E. (2016). Mobile Masculinities: An Investigation of Networked Masculinities in Gay Dating Apps. Masculinities and Social Change, 5(3), 241-267. https://doi.org/10.1108/EJM-04-2016-0199.
  • Sahgal, K. (2019, December 4). How Grindr, the Dating App is Destroying My Mental Health. Feminism in India. https://feminisminindia.com/2019/12/04/grindr-dating-app-destroying-mental-health/.
  • Shewey, D. (2018). The Paradox of Porn: Notes on Gay Male Sexual Culture. New York, NY: Joybody Books.
  • Simula, B. L. (2019). A “Different Economy of Bodies and Pleasures”?: Differentiating and Evaluating Sex and Sexual BDSM Experiences. Journal of Homosexuality, 66(2), 209-237. https://doi.org/10.1080/00918369.2017.1398017
  • Taywaditep, K. J. (2002). Marginalization Among the Marginalized. Journal of Homosexuality, 42(1), 1-28.
  • Turban, J. (2018, April 4). We need to talk about how Grindr is affecting gay men’s mental health. Vox. https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/4/4/17177058/grindr-gay-men-mental-health-psychiatrist.
  • Tziallas, E. (2015). Gamified Eroticism: Gay Male ‘Social Networking’ Applications and Self-Pornography. Sexuality and Culture, 19, 759-775. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12119-015-9288-z.
  • Tziallas, E. (2020, August 31). Grindr’s Cruel Optimism. Slate. https://slate.com/human-interest/2020/08/grindr-app-cruel-optimism.html.
  • Vytniorgu, R. (2019, August 2). A Tale of Two Twinks, or a Quest for Sustainable Models. Queer Voices. https://queer-voices.com/a-tale-of-two-twinks-or-a-quest-for-sustainable-models/.
  • Zervoulis, K. et al. (2020). Use of ‘gay dating apps’ and its relationship with individual well-being and sense of community in men who have sex with men. Psychology and Sexuality, 11(1-2), 88-102. https://doi.org/10.1080/19419899.2019.1684354.
There are 45 citations in total.

Details

Primary Language English
Subjects Anthropology, Political Science, Sociology
Journal Section Articles
Authors

Richard Vytniorgu This is me 0000-0001-9322-3155

Publication Date November 30, 2021
Published in Issue Year 2021 Issue: 16

Cite

APA Vytniorgu, R. (2021). Gay Nettersexuality: Grindr, Porn, and Non-being in Nick Comilla’s Candyass. Masculinities: A Journal of Identity and Culture(16), 33-58.