Title:
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Sexual networking : new media, identity and sexual citizenship
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Responding to a lack of empirical research on a new generation of websites which are
orientated towards interaction, this study aims to understand the ways in which
sexualised space is constructed through web 2.0.· It does this by analysing the
experiences of Turkish-German queers (TGQs) who use the Gayromeo and Delidivane
social networking websites. Utilising qualitative data from a web questionnaire survey
and both face-to-face and computer-mediated interviews, the study examines the
production and consumption of these virtual spaces in light of the difficulties many
TGQs are said to experience in their day-to-day lives. This includes racism within gay
spaces of consumption, fears of rejection from family and homophobia within a
conservative immigrant community. The study demonstrates how these problems are
not applicable to the lives of all TGQs and it rejects the emergence of a homogenised
'global gay' identity. It explains instead a multiplicity of identities and heterogeneity to
experience. It is argued that the production of personal profiles, usernames and personas
can both challenge and reproduce dominant stereotypes. Whilst for some, Gayromeo
and Delidivane are a means to assimilation or a pressure to conform; the websites are
also central to the formation of alternative spaces in which multiple strands of identity
can be expressed and a hybrid (queer) transnational culture celebrated. Furthermore, this
study also reveals an online-offline binary in the literature that positions the virtual as
being inauthentic against a so-called real. This research challenges this by explaining
how the virtual is increasingly being carried within material space on a growing range
of web-enabled devices and by describing how sexualised space is increasingly
dependent upon the virtual. Consequently, it is argued that there is a greater need to
examine how queers engage with web-enabled technologies locally.
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