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Smart phone hook-up apps have dramatically redefined queer male sexual cultures in the United States. While fields like public health and sociology have examined this phenomenon (Wu & Ward, 2018), considerably less attention has emerged in educational studies. This gap persists despite the recognition of internet pornography as an influential source of sexuality education for young people in the US (Jones, 2018), as well as ongoing racial disparities in sexual health affecting Black queer youth (Pollitt & Mallory, 2021). With an attention to sexuality education as a powerful mediator of racial and educational justice (the 2024 Annual Meeting theme) for Black queer youth, this paper examines the pedagogical challenges and opportunities associated with hook-up apps in the lives of young Black queer males (YBQM).
Grounded in boyd’s (lower-cased by author) work on networked publics (2014), the study described in this paper employed semi-structured interviews and digital media elicitation to explore how 22 YBQM in the northeastern US maneuvered through pornographic video sites, hook-up apps, and other digital platforms to learn about sex and participate in sexual and community networks. Despite the marketing emphasis on hook-up apps as platforms for arranging casual, no-strings sexual encounters, emotionally intimate connections emerged as an important yet elusive outcome for study participants. The two themes summarized below capture this finding.
1. Navigation strategies: Participants developed strategies for reading other platform users’ profiles and steering conversations with those users to distinguish casual sexual hook-ups from opportunities for emotionally intimate connections. These included avoiding users with no profile pics or with self-descriptions as “down low,” as well as gauging others’ willingness to discuss non-sexual topics prior to meeting in person.
1. Risks, regrets, resentment: The search for emotional intimacy via hook-up apps was accompanied by sexual risks (including HIV seroconversion), emotional regrets (especially for those who bottomed during sexual encounters), and resentment toward other YBQM that compromised some participants’ sense of belonging in YBQM social networks. As one participant stated:
A man no longer has to flirt with you, or take you out on a date, or be creative to create conversation. All he has to do is message you and say “what’s up.” Some of them don’t even do that. Some of them just say “are you looking?” Or some of them just send you a random-ass dick picture and then you have to take it from there… So that’s my problem with these things. They serve a need, but in the span of serving a need they also erode so many things I think as black gay men that we need and that is self-worth, self-value.
While participants also reported positive outcomes like friendships and romantic relationships, their accounts of hook-up app usage illustrate the need for sexuality and healthy relationship education that attends strategically to YBQM’s quest for emotional intimacy in sex-centered virtual spaces. Thus, this paper concludes with suggestions for culturally responsive curricula that can help YBQM negotiate the types of relationships they desire—and to do so smartly, honestly, and unapologetically.