I've been thinking a lot about dating, and sexual permissiveness, mostly as result of being friends with several women who have been using the dating/hook-up app Tinder.
I have found myself profoundly uncomfortable watching one of my friends in particular, as she goes through the suggested profiles of men, deciding against them in less than half a second. I laughed in shock as she went through hundreds of profiles so quickly, instantly dismissing so many men based solely on the impression given by one picture.
I asked "What if you would be perfectly matched with a man who wasn't Cleo-model good-looking, and you dismissed him because his nose is too big, or his eyebrows are too big?" And I can't remember her response precisely, but I got the feeling that she was comfortable in using Tinder in a very superficial manner.
Another friend of mine who dates men and women (I won't identify her as bisexual or pansexual or any other term because I've never asked which label she identifies as) is less instant in her use of the app, but the approach is a slightly more considered version of the same.
I suppose I'm being rather judgemental of my friends, who are using an app in the way it was intended to be used. This isn't a deep and meaningful consideration of who people are at their core... this is an app that is largely used for quick hook-ups. So of course, in a society that correlate looks and sex so highly, judgements based solely on appearances for this purpose should be expected.
Yet I feel somewhat disappointed. Not necessarily by my friends, but by the way this type of thing is so enthusiastically embraced, when I (perhaps naively) thought that "modern" people were more open to the idea that people should be valued for more than their bodies as objects of desire.
I suppose some of that is wrapped up in my friends, and the way I probably project my own values on to them; assuming that because I love these people, and I value these ideas, and therefore these beloved people must also value these ideas because how could I love people with contrary values? And I'll take that, and sit on that, and hope that I can accept that my friends for precisely who they are, and not what I see of myself in them.
As an avid reader/academic, I am also drawn to think about Tinder, and the modern dating world, through the lens of an anthropologist, and a feminist. I can't help but draw connections between the way in which Tinder is used and embraced, and the way in which we in modern Australian society view women, romantic and/or sexual relationships, bodies, sexuality and youth.
I also feel that the very quick fire methods used to click yes or no to the hundreds of produced profiles, might be an interesting way to reveal subconscious bias within users - if you are instantly saying yes or no to someone based only on their looks, then surely patterns must emerge that would shape an idea of what an individual looks for in an attractive partner.
I wonder what anthropologists/sociologists/feminists think about this phenomenon? And I wonder what kind of impact this app (and apps like it) has within societies that are different in terms of objectifying sexual bodies?
I am trying not to judge this as either a good or a bad thing, though I can't help but bring my own values to the table. I feel as though it is damaging to view people as objects, and to dismiss people based solely on a .5 second impression of their face, digitally represented. I feel that people are more than their faces, and their bodies, and while physical attraction is valued in romantic and sexual relationships, I thought that we had accepted as a society, that fulfilling relationships rely on non-physical elements of a person.
I do understand that the point, for a lot of people, of an app such as Tinder is probably not to find a lasting connection with someone with whom you could build and blend a life. But at the same time the idea remains for people that relationships build from casual, to dating, to serious, to committed, and I know of several people who bemoan the fact that casual relationships found through Tinder or similar, do not progress along those expectations.
There is a lot to think about here, and naturally a lot of this thinking is underdeveloped... and has sparked of some tangential thoughts which I'm going to list here, so I can refer back, and write another post along these lines later.
- policing women (women policing women) - sexuality, appearance, behaviour
- classist and racist connotations of slut-shaming terminology
- historical use of words that shame women who appear to be or are sexually permissive
- gendered assumptions of behaviour
- gendered conclusions of bio-behavioural analysis (men are active, women are passive) and the way these feed into social constructs (and have fed into the conclusions of the researchers)
- the line between critiquing sexual behaviour, and labelling someone a slut just for existing as a woman in a public sphere
- men as sluts: what are the negative terms that men fear being labelled in the dating/sexual realm?
- women in art as subject : "the female nude"
- 'classy' sexuality
- bogan sexuality vs. upper class sexuality
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