A bit too skinny for me
women’s homosocial constructions of heterosexual desire in online dating
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/genl.v9i3.17273Keywords:
Online dating, Homosociality, Desire, Heterosexuality, Stance takingAbstract
Using the notion of homosocial desire, this article explores how homosociality ties into heterosexual desire in an online dating context. During the past two decades, the number of users has increased rapidly and online dating today forms a key context for negotiating romantic relations. Thus, online dating prac-tices are rich fields for investigating the workings of desire. Based on audiovisual recordings of two Danish female friends engaging in online dating activities, this article demonstrates how participants, through joint stance-taking, co-construct shared desire and adjust individually-produced desire to create homosocial affiliation. Hence, in this case, heterosexual desire construction is a collabora-tive undertaking generated through homosocial bonding. The performed desire carries a strong physical focus, partly produced by the participants’ attention to bodily detail and partly through the dating site’s visual design. The article concludes by arguing for the incorporation of attention to homosocial aspects in research into heterosexual desire.
References
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Bucholtz, M. and Hall, K. (2005) Identity and interaction: a sociocultural linguistic approach. Discourse Studies 7(4–5): 585–614. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1461445605054407
Cameron, D. and Kulick, D. (2003a) Language and Sexuality. New York: Cambridge University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511791178
Cameron, D. and Kulick, D. (2003b) Introduction: language and desire in theory and practice. Language and Communication 23(2): 93–105. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0271-5309(02)00047-2
Campbell-Kibler, K., Podesva, R. J., Roberts, S. J. and Wong, A. (eds) (2002) Language and Sexuality: Contesting Meaning in Theory and Practice. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.
Canakis, C. (2010) Eroticing male homo-subjectivities in online personals. In C. Canakis, V. Kantsa and K. Yiannakopoulos (eds) Language and Sexuality (Through And) Beyond Gender 143–70. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholar Publishing.
Coupland, J. (1996) Dating advertisements: discourses of the commodified self. Discourse and Society 7(2): 187–207. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0957926596007002003
Danske Medier (2012) Danskernes brug af internettet. Copenhagen: Danske Medier.
Del-Teso-Craviotto, M. (2008) Gender and sexual identity authentication in language use: the case of chat rooms. Discourse Studies 10(2): 251–270. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1461445607087011
Du Bois, J. (2007) The stance triangle. In R. Englebretson (ed.) Stancetaking in Discourse: Subjectivity, Evaluation, Interaction 139–82. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/pbns.164.07du
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Eckert, P. (2011) Language and power in the preadolescent heterosexual market. American Speech 86(1): 85–97. http://dx.doi.org/10.1215/00031283-1277528
Eder, D. (1993) ‘Go get ya a French!’ Romantic and sexual teasing among adolescent girls. In D. Tannen (ed.) Gender and Conversational Interaction 17–31. New York: Oxford University Press.
Ellison, N. B., Heino, R. D. and Gibbs, J. L. (2006) Managing impressions online: self-presentation processes in the online dating environment. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 11(2): 415–41. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1083-6101.2006.00020.x
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Frohlick, S. and Migliardi, P. (2011) Heterosexual profiling. Australian Feminist Studies 26(67): 73–88. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08164649.2010.546329
Gartner, A. and Joe, T. (1987) Introduction. In A. Gartner and T. Joe (eds) Images of the Disabled, Disabling Images 1–7. New York: Praeger Publishers.
Georgakopoulou, A. (2007) Positioning in style: men in women’s jointly produced stories. In P. Auer (ed.) Style and Social Identities: Alternative Approaches to Linguistic Heterogeneity 393–418. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Goodwin, C. and Goodwin, M. H. (1992) Assessment and the construction of context. In A. Duranti and C. Goodwin (eds) Rethinking Context: Language as an Interactive Phenomenon 147–90. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Goodwin, M. H. (2006) The Hidden Life of Girls: Games of Stance, Status, and Exclusion. Malden, MA: Blackwell. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/9780470773567
Haller, B. (2000) If they limp, they lead? News representations and the hierarchy of disability images. In D. O. Braithwaite and T. L. Thompson (eds) Handbook of Communication and People with Disabilities: Research and Application 273–88. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Harvey, K. and Shalom, C. (1997) Language and Desire: Encoding Sex, Romance and Intimacy. London: Routledge.
Heritage, J. and Raymond, G. (2005) The terms of agreement: indexing epistemic authority and subordination in talk-in-interaction. Social Psychology Quarterly 68(1): 15–38. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/019027250506800103
Jacobs, K. (2010) Lizzy Kinsey and the adult friendfinders: an ethnographic study of internet sex and pornographic self-display in Hong Kong. Culture, Health and Sexuality 12(6): 691–703. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13691058.2010.481332
Jones, G. M., Schieffelin, B. B. and Smith, R. E. (2011) When friends who talk together stalk together: online gossip as metacommunication. In Thurlow and Mroczek (2011): 26–47. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199795437.003.0002
Jones, R. H. (2005) ‘You show me yours, I’ll show you mine’: the negotiation of shifts from textual to visual modes in computer-mediated interaction among gay men. Visual Communication 4(1): 69–92. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1470357205048938
Jones, R. (2012) Constructing and consuming ‘displays’ in online environments. In S. Norris (ed.) Multimodality in Practice: Investigating Theory in Practice through Methodology 82–96. Abingdon: Routledge.
Kang, M. A. and Chen, K. H. Y. (2014) Stancetaking and the Hong Kong girl in a shifting heterosexual marketplace. Discourse and Society 25(2): 205–20. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0957926513515587
Kiesling, S. F. (2002) Playing the straight man: displaying and maintaining male heterosexuality in discourse. In Campbell-Kibler et al. (2002): 249–66.
Kiesling, S. F. (2005) Homosocial desire in men’s talk: balancing and re-creating cultural discourses of masculinity. Language in Society 34(5): 695–726. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0047404505050268
Kiesling, S. F. (2011) The interactional construction of desire as gender. Gender and Language 5(2): 213–39. http://dx.doi.org/10.1558/genl.v5i2.213
King, B. W. (2011) Language, sexuality and place: the view from cyberspace. Gender and Language 5(1): 1–30. http://dx.doi.org/10.1558/genl.v5i1.1
Kotthoff, H. (2008) Konversationelle Verhandlungen Des Romantischen Marktes: Adoleszente Freundinnen Am Telefon. Jugendsprache 42: 39–78.
Milani, T. M. (2013)Are ‘queers’ really ‘queer’? Language, identity and same-sex desire in a South African online community. Discourse and Society 24(5): 615–33. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0957926513486168
Milani, T. M., and Jonsson, R. (2011) Incomprehensible language? Language, ethnicity and heterosexual masculinity in a Swedish school. Gender and Language 5(2): 241–69. ttp://dx.doi.org/10.1558/genl.v5i2.241
Mortensen, K. K. (2010) ‘Kan I Kende Dem Drenge?’: Sexistisk Sprogbrug Og Kønsidentitet Bland Fire Unge, Danske Kvinder. Københavnerstudier i Tosprogethed 56: 61–81.
Mortensen, K. K. (2015) Informed consent in the field of language and sexuality: the case of online dating research. Journal of Language and Sexuality 4(1): 1–29. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/jls.4.1.01mor
Pomerantz, A. (1984) Agreeing and disagreeing with assessments: some features of preferred/dispreferred turn shapes. In J. M. Atkinson and J. Heritage (eds) Structures of Social Action 57–101. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Raudaskoski, P. (2003) User’s interpretations of a computer tutorial: detecting (causes) of misunderstandings. In C. L. Prevignano and P. J. Thibault (eds) Discussing Conversation Analysis: The Work of Emmanuel A. Schegloff 109–40. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/z.118.07rau
Robertson, S. (2004) Men and disability. In J. Swain, S. French, C. Barnes and C. Thomas (eds) Disabling Barriers – Enabling Environments (2nd edn) 75–80. London: Sage Publications.
Sedgwick, E. K. (1985) Between Men: English Literature and Male Homosocial Desire. New York: Columbia University Press.
Stæhr, A. (2014) Metapragmatic activities on Facebook: enregisterment across written and spoken language practices. Working Papers in Urban Language and Literacies 124. Retrieved on 12 October 2015 from www.academia.edu/6172932/WP124.
Stivers, T. (2008) Stance, alignment and affiliation during story telling: when nodding is a token of preliminary affiliation. Research on Language in Social Interaction 41(1): 31–57. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08351810701691123
Thurlow, C. and Jarworski, A. (2011) Banal globalization? Embodied actions and mediated practices in tourists’ online photo sharing. In Thurlow and Mroczek (2011): 220–50. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199795437.003.0011
Thurlow, C. and Mroczek, K. (eds) (2011) Digital Discourse: Language in the New Media. Oxford: Oxford University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199795437.001.0001
Walton, S. and Jaffe, A. (2011) ‘Stuff white people like’: stance, class, race, and internet commentary. In Thurlow and Mroczek (2011): 199–219. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199795437.003.0010
Baron, N. S. (2008) Always on: Language in an Online and Mobile World. Oxford: Oxford University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195313055.001.0001
Barton, D., and Lee, C. (2013) Language Online: Investigating Digital Texts and Practices. Abingdon: Routledge.
Bogeti?, K. (2013) Normal straight gays: lexical collocations and ideologies of masculinity in personal ads of Serbian gay teenagers. Gender and Language 7(3): 333–67. http://dx.doi.org/10.1558/genl.v7i3.333
Bucholtz, M. (2009) From stance to style: gender, interaction, and indexicality in Mexican immigrant youth slang. In A. Jaffe (ed.) Stance: Sociolinguistic Perspectives 146–70. Oxford: Oxford University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195331646.003.0007
Bucholtz, M. and Hall, K. (2004) Theorizing identity in language and sexuality research. Language in Society 33(4): 469–515. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0047404504334020
Bucholtz, M. and Hall, K. (2005) Identity and interaction: a sociocultural linguistic approach. Discourse Studies 7(4–5): 585–614. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1461445605054407
Cameron, D. and Kulick, D. (2003a) Language and Sexuality. New York: Cambridge University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511791178
Cameron, D. and Kulick, D. (2003b) Introduction: language and desire in theory and practice. Language and Communication 23(2): 93–105. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0271-5309(02)00047-2
Campbell-Kibler, K., Podesva, R. J., Roberts, S. J. and Wong, A. (eds) (2002) Language and Sexuality: Contesting Meaning in Theory and Practice. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.
Canakis, C. (2010) Eroticing male homo-subjectivities in online personals. In C. Canakis, V. Kantsa and K. Yiannakopoulos (eds) Language and Sexuality (Through And) Beyond Gender 143–70. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholar Publishing.
Coupland, J. (1996) Dating advertisements: discourses of the commodified self. Discourse and Society 7(2): 187–207. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0957926596007002003
Danske Medier (2012) Danskernes brug af internettet. Copenhagen: Danske Medier.
Del-Teso-Craviotto, M. (2008) Gender and sexual identity authentication in language use: the case of chat rooms. Discourse Studies 10(2): 251–270. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1461445607087011
Du Bois, J. (2007) The stance triangle. In R. Englebretson (ed.) Stancetaking in Discourse: Subjectivity, Evaluation, Interaction 139–82. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/pbns.164.07du
Eckert, P. (2002) Demystifying sexuality and desire. In Campbell-Kibler et al. (2002): 99–110.
Eckert, P. (2011) Language and power in the preadolescent heterosexual market. American Speech 86(1): 85–97. http://dx.doi.org/10.1215/00031283-1277528
Eder, D. (1993) ‘Go get ya a French!’ Romantic and sexual teasing among adolescent girls. In D. Tannen (ed.) Gender and Conversational Interaction 17–31. New York: Oxford University Press.
Ellison, N. B., Heino, R. D. and Gibbs, J. L. (2006) Managing impressions online: self-presentation processes in the online dating environment. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 11(2): 415–41. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1083-6101.2006.00020.x
Ellison, N., Steinfield C. and Lampe, C. (2006) Spatially bounded online social networks and social capital: the role of Facebook. Retrieved on 14 May 2012 from www.ucalgary.ca/files/stas341/Facebook_ICA_2006.pdf
Frohlick, S. and Migliardi, P. (2011) Heterosexual profiling. Australian Feminist Studies 26(67): 73–88. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08164649.2010.546329
Gartner, A. and Joe, T. (1987) Introduction. In A. Gartner and T. Joe (eds) Images of the Disabled, Disabling Images 1–7. New York: Praeger Publishers.
Georgakopoulou, A. (2007) Positioning in style: men in women’s jointly produced stories. In P. Auer (ed.) Style and Social Identities: Alternative Approaches to Linguistic Heterogeneity 393–418. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Goodwin, C. and Goodwin, M. H. (1992) Assessment and the construction of context. In A. Duranti and C. Goodwin (eds) Rethinking Context: Language as an Interactive Phenomenon 147–90. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Goodwin, M. H. (2006) The Hidden Life of Girls: Games of Stance, Status, and Exclusion. Malden, MA: Blackwell. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/9780470773567
Haller, B. (2000) If they limp, they lead? News representations and the hierarchy of disability images. In D. O. Braithwaite and T. L. Thompson (eds) Handbook of Communication and People with Disabilities: Research and Application 273–88. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Harvey, K. and Shalom, C. (1997) Language and Desire: Encoding Sex, Romance and Intimacy. London: Routledge.
Heritage, J. and Raymond, G. (2005) The terms of agreement: indexing epistemic authority and subordination in talk-in-interaction. Social Psychology Quarterly 68(1): 15–38. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/019027250506800103
Jacobs, K. (2010) Lizzy Kinsey and the adult friendfinders: an ethnographic study of internet sex and pornographic self-display in Hong Kong. Culture, Health and Sexuality 12(6): 691–703. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13691058.2010.481332
Jones, G. M., Schieffelin, B. B. and Smith, R. E. (2011) When friends who talk together stalk together: online gossip as metacommunication. In Thurlow and Mroczek (2011): 26–47. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199795437.003.0002
Jones, R. H. (2005) ‘You show me yours, I’ll show you mine’: the negotiation of shifts from textual to visual modes in computer-mediated interaction among gay men. Visual Communication 4(1): 69–92. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1470357205048938
Jones, R. (2012) Constructing and consuming ‘displays’ in online environments. In S. Norris (ed.) Multimodality in Practice: Investigating Theory in Practice through Methodology 82–96. Abingdon: Routledge.
Kang, M. A. and Chen, K. H. Y. (2014) Stancetaking and the Hong Kong girl in a shifting heterosexual marketplace. Discourse and Society 25(2): 205–20. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0957926513515587
Kiesling, S. F. (2002) Playing the straight man: displaying and maintaining male heterosexuality in discourse. In Campbell-Kibler et al. (2002): 249–66.
Kiesling, S. F. (2005) Homosocial desire in men’s talk: balancing and re-creating cultural discourses of masculinity. Language in Society 34(5): 695–726. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0047404505050268
Kiesling, S. F. (2011) The interactional construction of desire as gender. Gender and Language 5(2): 213–39. http://dx.doi.org/10.1558/genl.v5i2.213
King, B. W. (2011) Language, sexuality and place: the view from cyberspace. Gender and Language 5(1): 1–30. http://dx.doi.org/10.1558/genl.v5i1.1
Kotthoff, H. (2008) Konversationelle Verhandlungen Des Romantischen Marktes: Adoleszente Freundinnen Am Telefon. Jugendsprache 42: 39–78.
Milani, T. M. (2013)Are ‘queers’ really ‘queer’? Language, identity and same-sex desire in a South African online community. Discourse and Society 24(5): 615–33. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0957926513486168
Milani, T. M., and Jonsson, R. (2011) Incomprehensible language? Language, ethnicity and heterosexual masculinity in a Swedish school. Gender and Language 5(2): 241–69. ttp://dx.doi.org/10.1558/genl.v5i2.241
Mortensen, K. K. (2010) ‘Kan I Kende Dem Drenge?’: Sexistisk Sprogbrug Og Kønsidentitet Bland Fire Unge, Danske Kvinder. Københavnerstudier i Tosprogethed 56: 61–81.
Mortensen, K. K. (2015) Informed consent in the field of language and sexuality: the case of online dating research. Journal of Language and Sexuality 4(1): 1–29. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/jls.4.1.01mor
Pomerantz, A. (1984) Agreeing and disagreeing with assessments: some features of preferred/dispreferred turn shapes. In J. M. Atkinson and J. Heritage (eds) Structures of Social Action 57–101. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Raudaskoski, P. (2003) User’s interpretations of a computer tutorial: detecting (causes) of misunderstandings. In C. L. Prevignano and P. J. Thibault (eds) Discussing Conversation Analysis: The Work of Emmanuel A. Schegloff 109–40. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/z.118.07rau
Robertson, S. (2004) Men and disability. In J. Swain, S. French, C. Barnes and C. Thomas (eds) Disabling Barriers – Enabling Environments (2nd edn) 75–80. London: Sage Publications.
Sedgwick, E. K. (1985) Between Men: English Literature and Male Homosocial Desire. New York: Columbia University Press.
Stæhr, A. (2014) Metapragmatic activities on Facebook: enregisterment across written and spoken language practices. Working Papers in Urban Language and Literacies 124. Retrieved on 12 October 2015 from www.academia.edu/6172932/WP124.
Stivers, T. (2008) Stance, alignment and affiliation during story telling: when nodding is a token of preliminary affiliation. Research on Language in Social Interaction 41(1): 31–57. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08351810701691123
Thurlow, C. and Jarworski, A. (2011) Banal globalization? Embodied actions and mediated practices in tourists’ online photo sharing. In Thurlow and Mroczek (2011): 220–50. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199795437.003.0011
Thurlow, C. and Mroczek, K. (eds) (2011) Digital Discourse: Language in the New Media. Oxford: Oxford University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199795437.001.0001
Walton, S. and Jaffe, A. (2011) ‘Stuff white people like’: stance, class, race, and internet commentary. In Thurlow and Mroczek (2011): 199–219. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199795437.003.0010
Published
2015-12-01
Issue
Section
Articles
How to Cite
Køhler Mortensen, K. (2015). A bit too skinny for me: women’s homosocial constructions of heterosexual desire in online dating. Gender and Language, 9(3), 461-488. https://doi.org/10.1558/genl.v9i3.17273
