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Unicorns on the Digital Range: Bisexual Persons’ Experiences of Geo-Social

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Article  in  Journal of Bisexuality · September 2022

DOI: 10.1080/15299716.2022.2124214

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Unicorns on the Digital Range: Bisexual Persons’

Experiences of Geo-Social Networking Application
Use

Eric Filice, Corey W. Johnson & Diana C. Parry

To cite this article: Eric Filice, Corey W. Johnson & Diana C. Parry (2022): Unicorns on the Digital
Range: Bisexual Persons’ Experiences of Geo-Social Networking Application Use, Journal of
Bisexuality, DOI: 10.1080/15299716.2022.2124214

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Journal of Bisexuality
https://doi.org/10.1080/15299716.2022.2124214

Unicorns on the Digital Range: Bisexual Persons’

Experiences of Geo-Social Networking Application
Use
Eric Filice, Corey W. Johnson and Diana C. Parry
Department of Recreation and Leisure Studies, University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada

ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
Geo-social networking applications (GSNAs) like Tinder and Bisexuality; binegativity;
Grindr are popular tools for connecting with people for dating apps; digital
romance, sex, and other purposes, particularly among sexual media; mobile dating
minorities. This paper draws on narrative interviews with 13
bisexual persons (5 cisgender men, 6 cisgender women, 2
trans/nonbinary persons) to explore their GSNA use, including
motives and gratifications, relational dynamics, and implications
for individual identities and cultural understandings of bisex-
uality. Participants presented complex and ambivalent accounts
of their GSNA use, revealing a variety of relational aspirations
and experiences. Whatever users’ goals, cultural meanings asso-
ciated with bisexuality shaped online interactions in ways that
impeded their fulfillment, with binegativity routinely preventing
relationship formation in the first instance or precipitating rela-
tionship dissolution. Despite these challenges, bisexual persons
regularly have successful digitally-mediated encounters which
can reshape private and collective understandings of bisexu-
ality. GSNAs expose users to new experiences and discourses
that help them make sense of their erotic predilections, includ-
ing partner sex/gender sexuality. They may also play a role in
the broader sea change in attitudes toward bisexuality by
facilitating the formation of mixed orientation relationships
wherein stereotypes are gradually replaced by direct personal
experience.

The widespread adoption of digital media and information technologies

for social-relational purposes is one of the most defining communication
trends of the 21st century. Between 2000 and 2021, the proportion of US
adults who reported using an Internet-enabled device skyrocketed from
52% to 93%, and while significant disparities persist within and between
nations, the “digital divide” overall continues to narrow (Pew Research
Centre, 2021). One way in which these technologies are increasingly being
used is to forge new relationships of various kinds, including those that
are romantic and/or sexual.

CONTACT Eric Filice [email protected] 200 University Ave W, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
© 2022 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
2 E. FILICE ET AL.

Once widely stigmatized as the domain of the desperate and socially

inept, online dating has recently exploded in popularity (Rosenfeld &
Thomas, 2012), owing largely to the rapid diffusion of geo-social network-
ing applications (GSNAs), like Tinder and Grindr (Finkel et  al., 2012).
GSNAs are used by individuals of all social backgrounds, but occupy a
special niche among sexual minorities including gay men, lesbians, and
bisexual persons (Anderson et  al., 2020; Gudelunas, 2012). However, these
groups have not received equal attention in the literature. Specifically,
there is scant dedicated coverage of bisexual persons’1 experiences of GSNA
use, a gap which we seek to address in the current paper.

GSNAs: an overview
GSNAs are smartphone software that leverage user location data via Wi-Fi,
cellular signal, and GPS to create and maintain an infrastructure of social
ties based on proximity (Haythornthwaite, 2002; Miles, 2018). They are
designed to facilitate interpersonal connection between previously unac-
quainted persons who are physically nearby to one another for all manner
of purposes, including dating, casual sex, friendship, and professional net-
working (Grindr, 2021; Tinder, 2021). The myriad current GSNAs come
in two major interface types (Cousineau et  al., 2021). The first is a matrix-
based landing page or “cascade” where users are displayed a curated col-
lection of profile thumbnails which can be clicked through to reveal
additional details and options for interacting, such as instant messaging
and “tapping” (Brubaker et  al., 2016). This format is used by apps such
as Grindr, SCRUFF, and Jack’d. The second, which has been referred to as
the “discovery” format (ProfileHelper, 2020), consists of full-screen profiles
which users must navigate through one at a time, such as via the now-
iconic “swipe” gesture pioneered by Tinder. When users mutually indicate
interest or “match,” they are then granted the ability to interact (Ward,
2017). Besides Tinder, other popular apps that use this interface include
Bumble and HER. There are a plethora of GSNAs targeted toward specific
population subgroups, sexual or romantic proclivities, and other interests.
GSNAs have become remarkably popular in recent years. Tinder boasts
being the highest grossing non-gaming app globally, having been down-
loaded over 430 million times since launch and brokering 1.5 million
dates per week (Tinder Newsroom, 2021). Grindr, meanwhile, was reported
to have 13 million gay, bisexual, trans and queer monthly users in late
2020 (Grindr, 2020). The figures are similarly impressive in relative terms:
in 2019, 30% of US adults reported previously using an online dating
website or mobile dating app, up from 11% in 2013 (Anderson et  al.,
2020). There is considerable demographic variation in online dating
 Journal of Bisexuality 3

technology use, with the most pronounced disparities across dimensions

of age and sexuality. Indeed, same-gender-attracted persons, including
lesbians, gay men and bisexual persons (LGBs), display some of the highest
rates of adoption. In one survey, a staggering 55% of LGBs reported pre-
vious dating website or app use – over one in two – compared to 28%
of heterosexuals (Anderson et  al., 2020). Similarly, Rosenfeld and Thomas
(2012) found that LGB adults are three times as likely as heterosexual
couples to have met online.
LGBs’ exceedingly high rates of relational technology adoption make
sense when placed in social and historical context. Since the Internet
became widely commercially available in the 1990s, it has been eagerly
appropriated by sexual minorities for interpersonal purposes. Gay and
bisexual men gravitated to chat rooms, email services, and websites such
as gay.com and planetout.com to discuss issues or ‘cruise’ for sex partners
anonymously in the privacy of their homes (Grov et  al., 2014; Mills, 1998;
Tikkanen & Ross, 2000). Prior to the Internet, the primary ways through
which LGBs socialized were gay bars and clubs, community groups/centres,
and public sex venues, such as adult bookstores, bathhouses, cruising
parks, and bathrooms (Frankis & Flowers, 2009; Grov et  al., 2014). There
were several drawbacks to having to rely on such public spaces, including
the forcing of individuals who were not “out” or who were still exploring
their sexual identities to openly claim a same-sex sexuality, the attendant
potential for physical harm (e.g., assault, rape, robbery) and police arrest,
and their inaccessibility to those living in non-urban environments. In
contrast, the Internet allowed users to connect with one another anytime,
anywhere, and without revealing their full identity, thereby (at least par-
tially) mitigating potential negative consequences (Grov et  al., 2014;
Weinrich, 1997). Evidence suggests the Internet was indeed instrumental
in the proliferation of social ties between sexual minorities: census data
indicate a significant increase in the number of same-gender couples in
the United States, with especially strong growth between 1990 and 2000
(145,130 vs. 341,014, an over two-fold increase), coincident with the emer-
gence of the Internet era, while heterosexual partnership rates have been
flat (Rosenfeld & Thomas, 2012).
The ubiquity of GSNAs has spurred research on their many different
social implications, including changes to intimate practices and relation-
ships (Filice et  al., 2021; Hobbs et  al., 2017), self-presentation behavior
(Blackwell et  al., 2015; Ranzini & Lutz, 2017; Ward, 2017), and community
structure and dynamics (Miles, 2017; Petrychyn et  al., 2020; Race 2015).
Other research has focused on app uses and gratifications (Gudelunas,
2012; Miller, 2015; Van De Wiele & Tong, 2014), “risky” sexual behaviors
and infectious disease transmission (Goedel & Duncan, 2016; Landovitz
et  al., 2013), sexual and dating-based violence (Choi et  al., 2018; Gillett,
4 E. FILICE ET AL.

2018), and psychological impacts, including body image (Filice et  al., 2019;
Tran et  al., 2019; Tran et  al., 2020). Much of this work was appropriately
conducted with LGBs, although as with research on other topics concerning
sexual minorities there is a marked tendency to recruit comparatively
small numbers of bisexual persons, subsume their descriptive accounts
under those of gay men and lesbians in analyses, and/or overlook the
ways in which their accounts diverge from gay men and lesbians (Barker
et  al., 2012; Sell, 1997). As a consequence, there is a dearth of research
into the specificities of bisexual persons’ experiences with digital media
in general and online dating in particular – how they use digital media
and to what effect(s) as compared to lesbians and gay men remains largely
unknown. This is a critical oversight, as bisexuality is loaded with cultural
meanings distinct from homo and heterosexuality that bear on individuals’
social experiences both physically co-located as well as, presumably, dig-
itally mediated. Below we detail some of these meanings and experiences.

Bisexual subjectivities
As Rodriguez-Rust (2012) noted, bisexuality occupies a paradoxical position
within contemporary Western culture, in that the concepts of homosexu-
ality and heterosexuality as forms of sexuality based on attraction to
individuals of the same or a different sex/gender, respectively, make it
possible to conceive of the combination of both such impulses (i.e., bi-sex-
uality), yet the construction of binary sex/gender – of man as not woman
and vice-versa – gives rise to the assumption that attractions toward men
and women must be opposite attractions that cannot coexist simultaneously
within a single individual. The ideology of mutual exclusivity between
same- and different-gender sexuality has been referred to as monosexism
(Roberts et  al., 2015). At the level of social practice, monosexism manifests
as binegativity, or the “specific ways in which bisexual identities are
tabooed, marginalized, attacked, discouraged or stigmatized” (Klesse, 2011,
pp. 233-234). Binegativity operates through a broad set of oppressive
practices, including forms of violence and discrimination, both interper-
sonal and institutional, as well as epistemic erasure and denigration through
negative representation. Stereotyping is part and parcel to these practices,
and it includes such beliefs as: bisexuality simply does not exist (Eisner,
2013; Ochs, 1996); self-proclaimed bisexual persons are really lesbians or
gay men who are in the process of transition or are in denial about their
“true” sexual orientation (Esterburg, 1997; Rust, 1993a); bisexual persons
hold onto the potential of heterosexuality in order to maintain heterosexual
privilege and thus are not fully committed to lesbian and gay communities
and politics (Israel & Mohr, 2004); and that bisexual persons “are slutty,
 Journal of Bisexuality 5

promiscuous, unfaithful, hypersexual; and that they are carriers or vectors

for HIV and other STDs” (Eisner, 2013, p. 43).
When left unchallenged, the abovementioned misunderstandings and
misrepresentations of bisexuality translate into negative social experiences
for bisexual individuals who face a constant struggle to find belonging and
acceptance (Bradford, 2004). Indeed, even among stigmatized social groups,
bisexual persons have historically been especially marginalized: in a rep-
resentative survey of US heterosexuals, bisexual individuals were viewed
less favorably than all other groups assessed – including religious groups,
people of color, and lesbians and gay men – except injection drug users
(Herek, 2002). Despite some shifts in attitudes in the past couple decades,
and historically unprecedented levels of bisexual self-identification (Jones,
2022), binegativity persists in the present. Findings from a recent survey
of US adults suggest that anti-bisexual attitudes are still commonplace in
the general population, with 34% of respondents at least somewhat in
agreement that bisexual men are confused about their personality (32% for
bisexual women), 43.5% that people should be afraid to have sex with
bisexual men because of HIV/STD risks (30.9% for bisexual women), 21.5%
that bisexual men are incapable of being faithful in a relationship (18.3%
for bisexual women), and 16% that bisexuality is just a phase for men
(16.8% for bisexual women) (Dodge et  al., 2016). Importantly, binegativity
does not originate exclusively from the majority heterosexual community.
Bisexual persons’ situation has been described as one of “double discrim-
ination” insofar as they often experience denigration from both same- and
different-gender sexuality communities (Ochs, 1996). Research comparing
binegative attitudes between other non-dominant sexualities and hetero-
sexuals has produced mixed findings, with some studies showing that
lesbians and gay men espouse slightly less binegativity than heterosexuals
(Dodge et  al., 2016; Feinstein et  al., 2016; Mulick & Wright, 2002) while
others show roughly similar levels (Roberts et  al., 2015).
The stigmatization of bisexuality creates challenges for bisexual-identi-
fying individuals in building and maintaining emotionally safe, stable, and
satisfying relationships. Stereotypes strongly influence people’s willingness
to make connections, and binegative attitudes lead many people (who are
primarily, though not exclusively non-bisexual identifying; Feinstein et  al.,
2016) to rule out bisexual persons as potential sexual or intimate partners
(Klesse, 2011). In a 2001 survey of heterosexual US college students, over
three-quarters of respondents felt it was “very” or “somewhat” unlikely
that they would ever have a sexual relationship with someone who is
bisexual. A more recent study found that heterosexual women, heterosexual
men, and lesbians were all less willing to engage in romantic or sexual
activities with bisexual persons than other bisexual persons (Feinstein
et  al., 2016). The omnipresent risk of rejection introduces pressure to
6 E. FILICE ET AL.

conceal one’s bisexual identity at various stages of relationship formation

(Barker et  al., 2014; Bradford, 2004; Weiss, 2003), though this can impede
development and maintenance of a healthy, well-adjusted bisexual identity
(McLean, 2001; Ross et  al., 2010) and further contribute to the cultural
invisibility of bisexuality (McLean, 2008).
Prima facie, there is little reason to doubt that the cultural attitudes
that affect bisexual persons’ ability to form relationships offline also apply
to online interaction. Researchers have suggested that bisexual individuals’
unique circumstances would lead them to use and experience the Internet
differently from their monosexual counterparts (Crowley, 2010; Daneback
et  al., 2008; George, 2011a; 2011b). However, there is still little scholarship
on this phenomenon, and even less on emerging relational technologies
like GSNAs. To the best of our knowledge, there is only one study spe-
cifically addressing bisexual GSNA use, which focused only on young
bisexual women’s use of Tinder (Pond & Farvid, 2017), thereby limiting
the demographic and artifactual transferability of the findings (Eamonn
& David, 1999). Hence, the purpose of this study is to explore bisexual
persons’ experiences of general geo-social networking application use,
including motives and gratifications; relational dynamics; and implications
for individual identities and cultural understandings of bisexuality.

Methodology

This paper’s analysis is part of a larger project focused on GSNA use and
its impacts on identities, relationships, communities, and quality of life. Using
a form of narrative inquiry called appnography (Cousineau et  al., 2018), 50
current and former GSNA users were interviewed about the role of these
applications in their daily lives. Narrative inquiry endeavors to understand
human experience through the telling of stories. Rich and multi-dimensional
experiential data are obtained by (a) attending to place, temporality, and
sociality; (b) situating stories within larger cultural, social, and institutional
narratives; and (c) emphasizing relational engagement between researcher
and participants (Clandinin & Caine, 2008). Moreover, animated by a social
justice orientation, narrative inquiry empowers participants through the use
of personal thoughts and layers of recollection, granting them the autonomy
to set the pace and direction of the interview so that their experiences and
viewpoints are most authentically represented (Costa, 2005; Duffy, 2007).
Individuals were allowed to participate if they were 18 or older and
used any combination of GSNAs to an extent they personally considered
significant. Participants were selected purposefully via maximum variation
sampling in order to document and identify sources of potential empirical
heterogeneity (Patton, 2002). Specifically, we sought to attain diversity
across axes of sex/gender (e.g., woman, man, trans, cis, nonbinary), sexual
 Journal of Bisexuality 7

identity (e.g., gay, heterosexual, bisexual, asexual), and race/ethnicity (e.g.,

Black, White, South Asian, East Asian).
Consistent with previous works (Blackwell et al., 2015; Bonner-Thompson,
2017; Fitzpatrick & Birnholtz, 2018), participants were recruited directly
through GSNAs. A team of eight researchers created accounts on various
apps, including Grindr, HER, and OkCupid, and stipulated in their profile
descriptions that they were seeking to recruit participants (e.g., “I am a
researcher looking to recruit participants for a study about…”). Similarly
to Bonner-Thompson (2017), we opted to have team members display
themselves in their profile picture rather than use a generic image,
University logo, or leaving the field blank, reasoning that this may encour-
age other users, especially those of diverse sexual and gender identities,
to recognize us as “insiders” rather than detached institutional operatives,
thereby incentivizing participation (Cuomo & Massaro, 2016). Cognizant
of GSNAs’ normative modes of use and the attendant potential for our
intentions to be misconstrued, a deliberate effort was made by the research-
ers to present themselves in ways that would disambiguate their “off-label
use” (Duguay, 2020), such as using pictures featuring “professional” dress
and posing. So as to limit disruption to other users in the process, team
members refrained from interacting with other users unless they messaged
first to express their interest in participating.
When conducting the interviews, the researchers were matched as closely
as possible to participants according to their gender and sexual identity
to promote feelings of mutual trust and safety as well as play off each
other’s common situated experiences to obtain deeper “emic” insights.2
Prior to interviewing, research team members were given group training
on the project’s epistemological approach and the methods of conducting
narrative interviews, which were generally free-form but structured around
three central questions: (1) How are GSNAs influencing gender and sexual
identities?; (2) What impact (positive or negative) are GSNAs having on
sexual relationships and overall quality of life?; and (3) How do GSNAs
shape and reconfigure public space? Between June 2017 and October 2021,
interviews were conducted either in person, by phone or through video-
conference software (e.g., Zoom, Skype, FaceTime) and lasted between 1
and 3.5 hours (mean 90 minutes). To cover any travel expenses and in
appreciation of their time, participants were given $20 CAD in cash.
Interview quality was monitored through periodic checking of recordings
and debriefing with interviewers.
This paper focuses on the data from 13 interviews of individuals who
identified as bisexual, pansexual, queer or otherwise non-monosexual; were
attracted to multiple sexes/genders; or for whom gender was not an organizing
feature of their sexuality (van Anders, 2015). After meeting our initial quota
of 8 bisexual participants, we conducted additional interviews until theoretical
8 E. FILICE ET AL.

saturation was reached (5 additional participants). All participants were current

or former users of any combination of GSNAs and were located either in
Canada or the United States. See Table 1 for participant characteristics.
Data were analyzed using semantic inductive thematic analysis (Braun &
Clarke, 2021). Often labeled a “generic” qualitative methodology, thematic
analysis is the systematic looking within and across items in a dataset to
identify patterns of meaning so as to elucidate generic processes, properties,
relationships, and mechanisms. The word semantic in this context means
that the search for themes was restricted to the explicit or surface meanings
of the data – we undertook only to examine the content of what was actu-
ally said by participants and not the underlying ideas, unspoken assumptions,
or animating ideologies of their descriptions. By inductive, we mean that
themes were constructed “bottom-up” through close inspection of the data
and later compared against or articulated through existing theory, as appli-
cable, rather than the reverse, in order to maintain “groundedness” in par-
ticipants’ narratives (Charmaz, 2014). Analysis proceeded recursively through
the following stages: 1) immersion in the data; (2) line-by-line coding; (3)
integrating codes into broader candidate themes; (4) refining candidate
themes and developing a thematic map of connections between themes; and
(5) concretely defining themes and supplementing with participant quotations
and sensitizing concepts from extant literature. Written informed consent
was obtained from all participants to use their anonymized data. Pseudonyms
are used in presentation of the findings. This study received clearance from
the University of Waterloo Office of Research Ethics.

Findings and discussion

Participants presented complex and ambivalent accounts of their GSNA

use, including motives, modes, methods, experiences, and outcomes. In
reference to the study aims, four major themes emerged which we detail

Table 1.  Participant characteristics.

Pseudonym Sex/gender Sexual identity Race/ethnicity Age GSNAs used
Jaime Man Bisexual Black 24 Tinder, Bumble, Grindr, Hinge
Kelvin Man Bisexual Black 24 Grindr, Jack’d
Charles Man Bisexual Black 30 Tinder, Grindr, Jack’d
Jeremiah Man Pansexual Black 28 Grindr, Jack’d
Emmett Man Bisexual White 42 Tinder, Grindr, OkCupid
Rina Female Queer Middle Eastern 20’s Bumble, OkCupid, Plenty of Fish
Ishita Trans Bisexual South Asian 20’s Tinder, OkCupid
Kim Woman Queer White 20’s Tinder, OkCupid
Crystal Woman Queer-pansexual White 30’s HER, OkCupid
Amanda Woman Bisexual White 20’s Tinder, HER, OkCupid
Stacy Woman Bisexual Mixed race 28 Tinder, HER
Catherine Female Bisexual Chinese 34 Tinder, Bumble, HER
Morgan Nonbinary Queer-pansexual Filipino 40 Tinder, Bumble, HER
All categories are taken verbatim from participants’ self-description.
 Journal of Bisexuality 9

in turn: bisexual uses and gratifications of GSNAs; binegativity and digital

relationship formation; digital disclosure of bisexual identity; and digital
influences on identities and cultural constructions of bisexuality.

Bisexual uses and gratifications of GSNAs

First, we sought to uncover how bisexual participants wield GSNAs and
to what ends. As the social construction of technology perspective assumes,
technologies like digital media can acquire different uses and values accord-
ing to the social contexts where they are embedded. People, as autonomous
agents, appropriate technologies to fulfill their needs and desires in ways
often inconsistent with the technologies’ inherent logics or developers’
intentions, which can lead to unpredictable outcomes (Pinch & Bijker,
1984). The bisexual participants in this study were found to be no different
in this regard from other social groups, at least with respect to their use
of GSNAs. As with the public by and large, there was a diffuse assumption
among participants that the primary purpose of many of the most popular
GSNAs, including Tinder and Grindr, is to function as casual sex
intermediaries:
Jeremiah: Jack’d and Grindr are not dating apps, those are hookup apps. There’s a
difference.

Interviewer: Who said it’s a hookup app?

Jeremiah: Well, I guess it’s just the unspoken thing.

Despite this, there appeared to be a sizeable contingent of users for whom

hooking up was not their exclusive or even primary motive. Participants
noted using GSNAs to fulfill a manifold of needs and desires, several of
which are distinct from and in some cases may even be seen as inimical
to procuring casual sex. These include making friends, finding community,
dating, forming long-term romantic relationships, locating nearby nonhet-
erosexuals, validating self-worth, and deriving vague amusement, or “killing
time.” While most motives can be reduced to social tie formation, these
ties run the gamut in terms of involvement, duration, and closeness:
Charles: People are actually using these apps to find love, and I don’t think there’s
anything wrong with that … even on Jack’d or Grindr, I have found genuine
people. It ranges from a quick hookup to somebody who’s cooking dinner, paying
for my Uber rides home. So … it’s a balance there. I’d be lying to say that I only
met people I just went to pound town with. There’s been genuine people that I’ve
actually hung out with and sex wasn’t always on the menu.

Furthermore, participants’ descriptions suggested motives are sometimes

multiple, nebulously defined, and apt to change over time. Participants
often took up online dating without having determined in advance the
10 E. FILICE ET AL.

type(s) of relationship(s) they were looking for, or they went in with an

open mind and willingness to accommodate the desires of prospective
partners. Indeed, for many the overriding goal was not to find the right
type of relationship, but rather to find the right person:
Charles: I feel like as I’m getting older, I realize that I need to be open to more
things. So I feel like, hey, if I’m on this app and I meet somebody, and we’re really
cool and we connect, and it goes to that next level, I feel like I should just be
open to that experience, and not just close off, like, because I met you on such
and such app that there could never be nothing serious here … because honestly,
truly, love at first sight is kind of true.

Overall, bisexual participants appeared to use GSNAs for largely the

same reasons as heterosexuals (Sumter et  al., 2017; Timmermans & De
Caluwé, 2017) and gay men (Gudelunas, 2012; Landovitz et  al., 2013;
Miller, 2015; Rice et  al., 2012; Van De Wiele & Tong, 2014). This is as
expected, given that bisexuality is commonly defined in terms of the sex/
gender of those to whom one is attracted (Flanders et  al., 2017), and that
other sexual parameters that might reasonably be expected to influence
the relationship structure one seeks through GSNAs, like partner number,
type of sexual activity, and intensity, are at most only correlated with sex/
gender sexuality (van Anders, 2015).
Much like other users, and echoing Baym’s (2010) description of one
of the primary affordances of networked media, bisexual participants
perceived GSNAs’ utility primarily in terms of expanded opportunity for
connection by eliminating shared location as a prerequisite for first meet-
ing. Participants lauded the convenience of logging into an app on their
smartphone at any time and instantly being connected to hundreds, even
thousands of others who are similarly looking to chat, date, have sex, and
more. GSNAs help circumvent common barriers to relationship initiation
and maintenance, including geographical isolation, lack of dedicated venues,
and busy schedules, enabling users to cultivate relationships they otherwise
would not:
Rina: If it wasn’t for the apps, there was no way I could meet my current partner
… It would have been so hard. And for me, you know, when I come home, I
don’t go out very much. And if I do go out, it’s mostly to sporting events. And
for her it was – she works long hours and she never was in touch with any of the
queer community that I was always in … so for me there was no way I would
have met her.

In addition to easing temporal and spatial constraints, GSNAs were also

found to reduce participants’ uncertainty as to prospective partners’ roman-
tic intentions. This was especially appreciated by participants when pur-
suing same-gender intimate relations. Because cultural homonegativity adds
a layer of risk (e.g., of verbal censure or physical assault) to courtship,
 Journal of Bisexuality 11

ascertaining others’ same-sex orientation prior to making overtures is a

critical precautionary measure. As participants suggested, GSNAs often
obviate the need to directly ask someone about their sexual identity or
infer from subtle behavioral cues, as their presence on nonheterosexu-
al-targeted apps (e.g., Grindr, LEX) or visibility through sorting algorithms
(e.g., if they appear in one’s Tinder “card stack” after setting filters to only
display men seeking men) are generally reliable indicators. One participant
explained,
Amanda: I feel like you at least know that if someone’s approaching you on a
dating site, you figure they probably want to have sex with you at some point …
whereas when I meet someone in real life, it’s hard to tell if they are interested in
me or not because you don’t have that immediate, like, “Oh, this is where I met
them, so this is what it is.” Especially if I’m interested in a woman, I don’t know
if she is even into girls or if I should say anything. I don’t want to creep her out,
but guys I guess I can kind of assume that they are likely to be straight and so if
they are talking to me and I’m a woman, maybe they are interested in me, but it’s
harder to tell with girls … I’m probably more confident [online] than meeting a girl
in real life, where maybe she just wants to be friends and doesn’t even like girls.

These observations point to a more fundamental aspect about bisexual

participants’ use of GSNAs: that they were generally seen as more useful
for finding same-gender potential partners than different gender. Participants
perceived themselves as experiencing fewer barriers to initiating and cul-
tivating different-gender relationships through “traditional” means, such
as in bars, clubs and coffee shops, at school, or in the workplace. This
difference was attributed mostly to the heteronormative structuring of
society, such that there are a greater number of institutions dedicated to
brokering intimate connections between men and women and said con-
nections are more culturally sanctioned:
Kim: I had recently broken up with a person and I had this very clear intention in
my mind that I was not going to date dudes. Then I encountered someone who’s
like a 99 percent match and really cute … and then I ended up on a date with
him. That kind of happens a lot when you’re a woman who is not exclusively gay
– the dating pool is just another social pressure, and the scripts of dating really
push you towards men in a lot of ways.

Charles: Finding girls on apps, no … Meeting girls in person is the easiest way for
me … I never had an issue with that … approaching girls, approaching women
in the street, or women approaching me in public was never … even though I’m
straight passing. It’ll be more accepted for me to be on the train and chatting it
up with a woman more so than a guy.

GSNAs thereby serve to redress this disparity by providing a space to

explicitly facilitate same-gender intimate connections. Consequently, bisexual
participants appeared to adapt their dating strategy depending on the gender
presently sought in a potential partner, relying more on digital means like
12 E. FILICE ET AL.

GSNAs when seeking same-gender partners and traditional, face-to-face

means when seeking different-gender partners. Underscoring this point, a
recurrent “origin story” of participants’ GSNA use involved a sense of
dissatisfaction with their generally unmediated heterosexual relationships
and seeking easier means of locating same-gender-attracted persons:
Interviewer: Did you ever have a BGCLive account?

Charles: Yes, I did.

Interviewer: How old were you?

Charles: I was, I want to say, a senior in high school. And I feel like that was my
first encounter with online dating. Because for the most part, I just dated girls, and I
just hooked up with girls. But I also knew, I said to them girls, I’m like, "Something
is missing." I just knew this is not … I mean, it’s fun. I’m enjoying it, I like it, I love
it, but I’m just like, something else … so then I got on BGC. That was an experience.

Binegativity and digital relationship formation

While bisexual participants appeared to make similar use of GSNAs as
previous research has demonstrated of monosexuals (e.g., Miller, 2015;
Sumter et  al., 2017), they experienced some unique challenges to actually
attaining their relational goals. Specifically, participants described a pre-
ponderance of discriminatory, anti-social or improper behavior on the
part of other users, fueled largely by binegative stereotypes, which stymie
relationship development at various points of the process. Among other
things, participants recalled being accused of promiscuity, sexual insatia-
bility, disloyalty, indecisiveness, and inauthenticity, often directly in refer-
ence to their sexuality:
Emmett: I think there is that expectation, or that assumption, that at some point
it’s not going to work out because I’m lying to myself or not being true to who I
am. That this identity is just a placeholder for something else … That if you are
bisexual, monogamy is not going to be enough. You’re never going to be satisfied
in a relationship with just one gender … that if you are bi, an exclusive monoga-
mous relationship, it’s just not compatible, like you’re going to need some sort of
outlet … either you’re going to cheat or you’re going to need an open relationship
in order to be satisfied.

As has been demonstrated in offline contexts (Roberts et  al., 2015),

participants reported GSNA-mediated experiences with binegativity not
only from heterosexuals, but also from lesbians and gay men:
Stacy: I had lesbians that said to me, like, “Oh well, bisexuality is … they really
want the other, but they haven’t decided yet.” It comes from heterosexuals, but it
can also come from the LGBTQ side … whether consciously or not, I kind of keep
away from profiles that, sometimes depending on the person, that strictly define
 Journal of Bisexuality 13

themselves as lesbian, because I’m like” Am I going to be a good enough lesbian,

or is my bisexuality going to be a hurdle for you?” … There’s always somebody who
on there like, “If you’ve never had this, then you’re not a lesbian. If you’ve never
done this, then you’re not gay.” There’s always that somebody who has decided that
that person is not being gay enough or lesbian enough or bisexual enough because
they’ve done this, this or that.

Even nonheterosexual-targeted GSNAs thus cannot be assumed to offer

a refuge from sexuality-based stigma for bisexual persons. Granted, partic-
ipants who were long-term users reported experiencing a waning of bine-
gativity over the past several years, possibly reflecting larger offline trends
(Dodge et  al., 2016), but stigma seems to persist to such a degree that the
potential for relationship development is still significantly infringed.
Participants spoke to two major ways in which binegativity adversely
impacts GSNA-mediated relationships: (1) by preventing their formation
in the first instance, and (2) by precipitating their dissolution. Regarding
the first, participants noted that intolerance of bisexuality sometimes leads
to their automatic disqualification as dating prospects. For some people,
simply knowing that another person is bisexual is enough to dissuade
them from ever engaging. One participant demonstrated this point by
recounting an “experiment” in which she compared the volume of messages
she received with and without her bisexual identity stated in her profile,
the latter strategy proving considerably more effective:
Catherine: I identify myself as a bisexual. However, I actually did a little experiment
… if I don’t mention that in my profile, I get more hits. One day I was just like,
you know what? Because originally I had it in there … but the ratio is actually
quite dramatically low. And then as soon as I took it off, it almost … I want to
say my responses exponentially increased. They definitely doubled or tripled.

Such categorical dismissals may be more prominent in digital dating con-

texts due to users having access to an increased “supply” of potential partners
as well as the technological means to sort and filter through them based on
discrete characteristics, which engenders a “shopping” mentality with respect
to partner selection (D’Angelo & Toma, 2017; Fiore & Donath, 2004; Heino
et  al., 2010). As participants noted, this kind of decision-making is markedly
different from offline dating situations. Whereas in person, compatibility is
determined more holistically and to a greater degree based on factors like
“chemistry”, online there is a tendency to reduce potential partners to the
sum of their parts, more intensely scrutinize the smaller number of identity
cues that translate across the medium (Ellison et  al., 2006), and dismiss
individuals for failing to embody one’s ideal constellation of traits:
Emmett: I feel like there’s this sense of … when we use technology to conjure
something into existence … Like, if I need something, I know I can go on Amazon
and buy it, and it’ll be at my door in a couple days, and that’s pretty amazing. I
14 E. FILICE ET AL.

mean, that’s like a modern marvel, all the ethics of it aside. I feel like some of
that expectation has crept into dating apps and personals ads … my experience
has been that when I meet someone and they don’t live up to my expectations, or
vice versa … there’s just a lot of people on there. And a lot of people who want
immediate gratification or immediate connection.

Hence, the choice architecture of online dating creates a context in

which bisexuality is more often singled out as a “deal-breaker.” Moreover,
likely due to some combination of anonymity-fueled disinhibition (Suler,
2004), reduced pressure to observe norms of reciprocity and mutual obli-
gation (Davis et  al., 2016), and embedded values of efficiency and imme-
diacy (Miles, 2018), these dismissals, as participants explained, are made
with a curtness that is less often seen in offline interaction:
Kim: I think you have a little bit more control over how you’re seen and how you
interact with people. You can curate the collection of people that’s presented to you
or choose to respond or not respond to people. Someone can try to contact you
and you can just ignore them, but that you can’t do in real life.

Jaime: They be so damn picky. I’m picky, but I’m not rude about it. Motherfuckers
on Grindr are rude.

Regarding the second point, there were cases where participants’ bisex-
uality posed a liability even after clearing the “first hurdle” of digital
relationship initiation. Holders of binegative attitudes may still enter into
relationships with bisexual persons, either wittingly or unwittingly, depend-
ing on whether their partner has chosen to conceal their sexual identity.
In the former scenario, they may terminate the relationship due to having
misgaged their own tolerance level. In the latter, their opinion of their
partner might simply change upon learning of their sexual identity. One
such example of GSNA-brokered relationship breakdown upon revelation
of bisexuality can be found in the following participant account:
Emmett: Coming out to my partner was a very negative experience … when I was
dating in high school, she had serious concerns that I was going to leave her for
a man, and she ended up ending the relationship over those fears. Another female
partner [whom I met online] also had a negative reaction to it. I don’t know
that she was necessarily afraid that I was going to leave her. I think she found it
distasteful. She was turned off by it. That was pretty much the end of that, too.

These possibilities weighed heavily on participants’ decision to disclose

their bisexual identity online, as we discuss in the following section. A
central takeaway is that binegativity can disrupt relationship development,
digitally mediated or otherwise, at any stage of the process, thus restricting
bisexual participants from realizing GSNAs’ full potential.
Participants also experienced what might be termed benevolent bineg-
ativity, borrowing from benevolent prejudice, or “feelings of sympathy,
pity, sadness, amusement, and guilt toward out-groups … [which] are not
 Journal of Bisexuality 15

blatantly contemptuous, [but] can be just as hurtful, offensive, and inap-

propriate as hostile prejudice.” (Ramasubramanian & Oliver, 2007, p. 630)
On GSNAs, this commonly manifested in the form of (usually mixed-gen-
der) couples propositioning participants for threesomes. Indeed, this phe-
nomenon is so widespread as to have acquired its own colloquialism:
unicorn hunting (see Johnson & Grove, 2017).
Rina: I found that the women on there were looking for a term which I had to educate
myself on. It’s called unicorn. I had no idea what a unicorn is … So I was talking to
a friend of mine, and I’m like, “What’s up with people asking if I’m a unicorn?” And
she said a unicorn stands for a third person that comes into a threesome … especially
when I put bisexual [in my profile], I had a lot of requests for being a third.

While not overtly hostile like epithet use, participants still took unkindly
to unicorn hunting. Some viewed it as fetishistic and objectifying, reducing
bisexual persons to a tool for satisfying one’s own sexual whims. Others
felt the practice was driven by problematic assumptions, like the conflating
of bisexuality with polyamory. Participants believed one of the most central
problems is that it marginalizes bisexual individuals’ desires and relegates
them to an accessory role in the relations of others:
Emmett: I’ve come to understand that couples who are looking for that specific
thing on dating apps are kind of, it’s considered, was it unicorn hunting? I don’t
know. It’s considered kind of rude. It minimizes the feelings of the third person –
puts them into this other category.

At best, unicorn hunting was seen as an annoying hindrance to achieving

one’s relational goals; at worst, it is a mundane mechanism of normalizing
and reinforcing binegativity.

Digital disclosure of bisexual identity

Because bisexuality is a stigmatizing attribute – i.e., one which is associated
with negative stereotypes and therefore reduces the social status of its
possessors (Goffman, 1963) – online dating success will hinge to some
extent on strategic presentation of its signifiers. Participants discussed
employing a variety of means of telegraphing their sexual identity, including
indirectly through visual cues in one’s profile picture(s) (e.g., dress, setting,
posing) and directly through verbal self-identification in one’s profile
description or through close-ended categories. In any case, the choice of
whether and how to disclose was usually a conscious and deliberate one,
and was determined by multiple counterpoising priorities, expectancies,
and contingencies. Some were driven to disclose primarily by a desire to
represent themselves honestly and authentically, come whatever issues may:
Crystal: I never exclude it [my bisexual identity] from my profile because I wanted
to be open and honest about everything.
16 E. FILICE ET AL.

Several of these individuals saw open expression of one’s sexual identity

as crucial to achieving full self-acceptance. For them, whatever interper-
sonal gains are to be made from concealment fail to justify the costs to
their self-esteem:
Emmett: It’s [my bisexuality] part of who I am, and I’m never going to hide that
… If anyone asked or if an opportunity arose, I would come out. I would make
that clear.

Disclosure was also sometimes viewed as a political act – rendering

oneself visible in day-to-day life is a way of contesting monosexist ideology
that erases bisexual subjectivity (see also Yoshino, 2000). In this sense, to
conceal one’s bisexuality in order to generate a positive impression with
potential partners would be to capitulate to and reinforce monosexism at
the micro level:
Emmett: I’ve started thinking a little bit more about visibility as a bi man … I just
look for opportunities where I could be a little bit more visible. Not to necessarily
draw attention to myself, but to just say, "Hey, there are bisexual men in the world.
Not all of them present in a certain way that meets with social expectations or assump-
tions.” … On some level, I just want to acknowledge that it’s okay to be a bi man.

Other, more instrumental reasons for forthrightly signaling one’s bisex-

uality were mentioned. In particular, it was said to provide a useful way
of “screening” against bi-antagonistic persons. By foregrounding their
sexuality in their profiles or in the early stages of interaction, participants
expected to discourage most unsympathetic parties from initiating contact
in the first place or allowing the relationship to progress too far, helping
minimize the possibility of relationship problems related to one’s bisexuality
down the line:
Interviewer: Do you feel like if you did mention right off the bat, in your bio or
in the first couple messages on the apps, about you being bi or pan, that would …

Jaime: Affect my chances of matching with somebody? Yeah, I do. With specific
people. It would turn off a lot of people, but it would also turn a small, specific
group of people onto me a lot faster.

Other marginalized groups have reported employing similar strategies

on GSNAs, like trans people, for whom concerns of safety, self-fulfillment,
and relational stability override the desire to attain an idealized self-pre-
sentation in their decision to “proactively disclose” their trans status
(Fernandez & Birnholtz, 2019).
The above motivations for disclosure existed in tension with concerns about
certain anticipated negative consequences, which for some were so salient as
to push them toward concealment. One such concern was that openly dis-
playing one’s bisexuality would expose them to greater harassment, discrim-
ination, and objectification than if they were simply to omit mention of it:
 Journal of Bisexuality 17

Rina: When I put bisexual [in my profile], I had a lot of requests for being a third
… and I had to change that because the minute I knew there was this discrimination
toward bisexuals, where they’re basically thirds to everything, I was like, oh my
god, I need to delete that or put something different, queer or lesbian, something
that will keep people from contacting me for that.

Another concern stemmed from what could be seen as the inevitable

flipside of binegativity screening, which is that it nevertheless reduces
overall opportunities for relationship formation, as Catherine’s abovemen-
tioned “experiment” aptly demonstrates.
Notwithstanding these conflicting concerns, participants noted generally
feeling more comfortable expressing their bisexual identity on GSNAs than
on other platforms within their social media ecosystem, like Facebook or
Instagram. This difference is mostly related to audience composition.
Compared to GSNAs, a greater proportion of one’s connections on Facebook
are likely to be close friends, family members and coworkers, whose
judgments typically have more serious repercussions than those of strangers:
Rina: So in social media like Facebook or Instagram, which I’m a user of, I have
my family on there, so I do not disclose my sexuality. So it’s that little bit more
conservative. But if you play on different social media like the apps, which I use,
I was completely myself. It’s a different world.

Thus, as has similarly been shown for gay men and lesbians, GSNAs
appear to serve as a “backstage” (Goffman, 1959) where people can openly
present their bisexual selves whilst maintaining a heterosexual “front” on
social media, allowing them to avoid the sanctions of heterosexist main-
stream society and still attain critical social support and relational fulfill-
ment (DeVito et  al., 2018; Duguay, 2016). That said, to the extent that
explicitly nonheterosexual-targeted GSNAs like Grindr and HER encourage
gay men and lesbians’ open display of their sexual identity by situating
them among sympathetic audiences, this is less the case for bisexual persons
due to the persistence of binegativity among sexual minorities. This under-
lines the potential utility in establishing platforms dedicated not only to
nonheterosexuals in general, but to bisexual persons specifically.

Digital influences on identities and cultural constructions of

bisexuality
The literature on sexual identity development is split between two major
competing perspectives: the stage sequential approach in psychology (e.g.,
Cass, 1979) and the social shaping approach in sociology (e.g., Cox &
Gallois, 1996; Eliason, 1996; Rust, 1993b). These perspectives differ in
many respects, including the degree to which they understand the devel-
opment process as linear or multidimensional, acknowledge individual
18 E. FILICE ET AL.

variation, frame the process as one of self-discovery versus self-construction,

and emphasize the social environment’s influence (Rodriguez-Rust, 2012).
Yet, they are generally in agreement that adoption of a culturally margin-
alized sexual identity relies to a considerable degree on exposure to certain
knowledges and attitudes through socio-sexual interaction. As Jackson and
Scott (2010, pp. 130-131) put it, “We may be, as Giddens says, individually
responsible for making sense of our experience, or as Beck would have it,
putting together a do-it-yourself biography, but in so doing we ‘still rely
on common cultural forms’ (Adams, 2003, p 229); how we construct a
sense of sexual self depends on the cultural scenarios available to us.”
In this respect, GSNAs appear to play an instrumental role in the fash-
ioning of a great many modern bisexual selves by mediating encounters that
supply the experiential and cultural resources on which they draw. Firstly,
as participants noted, GSNAs provide opportunities for experimentation with
new sexual and intimate repertoires that allow one to explore and refine
their grasp of their own erotic predilections. Through trial-and-error people
can get a better sense of what they do and do not like as regards sex.
Importantly, this is as much true of the “whats” of sex – actions, positions,
locations, body parts – as it is the “whos” – sex/gender, age, body type. In
other words, people will oftentimes make self-attributions, including of their
partner sex/gender sexuality (e.g., gay/lesbian, heterosexual, bisexual), based
on their sexual desires and behaviors that are situated within the digital
spaces of GSNAs. A series of Tinder-initiated hookups with other men may
lead a self-identified “occasionally gay” man to consider whether he is “actu-
ally” bisexual, for example. GSNA-mediated relationships are thus sometimes
the impetus for “discovering” or consolidating one’s bisexual identity:
Kelvin: Obviously, the first thing is giving me a space to explore my queerness …
I’ve met some dope people, actually, through the apps … I’m getting the chance
to foster some really cool relationships. Then, I’m discovering things about me and
things I want from the special parts of a relationship – having me conceptualize
what I want from relationships in the future.

Emmett: If anything, it [my GSNA use] just made me more certain in who I am
and what I’m looking for, I think. I don’t really have patience for anyone who’s
trying to tell me that I want something differently than I do, and yeah, not that
my bi identity needed more establishing or more solidification, but if anything it’s
become more solid and more established as a result. I definitely fit into that identity
very well – very comfortable, confident.

Besides brokering experiences that form the base of reflexive self-making,

queer sociality on GSNAs can also provide new discourses and cultural
resources with which to articulate one’s sexual desires, conduct, and selves:
Kim: It’s interesting to read through tons of different people’s profiles and see the wide
variety of things that people are interested in, or what people will state about their
 Journal of Bisexuality 19

needs and wants through relationships or their sexual identity or whatever people are
going to put out there in terms of dating and being like, “Oh, that resonates with me
or that doesn’t”. I didn’t realize that people would ask for that in a relationship … It
just broadens my knowledge of what relationship can look like, I guess.

In this sense, through GSNA-mediated interactions people not only

come to see bisexuality as a label that applies to them, but develop an
understanding of what bisexuality is in the first place.
It is worth emphasizing that there is no single trans-historical or geo-
graphical definition of bisexuality. The concept is suffused with different
meanings, positive and negative, depending on the context of its deploy-
ment (Rust, 2000). Bisexual persons who uncritically accept definitions
that are associated with various negative stereotypes, or in other words
have internalized binegativity (Knous, 2006), are prone to low self-esteem
and mental health issues (Lambe et  al., 2017). In addition to fostering
cultural awareness, GSNA-mediated interactions can contribute to individ-
uals’ adopting a positive, affirming view of their bisexuality by exposing
them to greater social support than they would otherwise encounter in
their marginalizing, heterosexist physical milieu. By seeing other nonhet-
erosexuals lead happy, fulfilling lives and receiving positive encouragement
from them, individuals may come to replace their feelings of shame or
mere tolerance regarding their sexual self-image with pride, or even develop
a sense of belonging, solidarity, or group identity (see also Harper et  al.,
2016). One participant explained:
Crystal: I would say that… It [using GSNAs] clarifies me as being queer, but also
it clarifies me as bi or pan or whatever … I have been in three relationships …
and now, I have more supporting friends. I think that I have just become more
comfortable with the fact that my queer identity is worth it, and that I am proud
of it, and that it is a part of me.

Again, networked technologies like GSNAs, with their ability to compress

spatial and temporal distances (Harvey, 1990), are particularly helpful in
this regard for people who are geographically isolated from physical venues
where openly nonheterosexual-identifying persons frequent.
Finally, GSNAs and the larger assemblage of networked technologies
could play a significant role in the restructuring of societal discourses of
bisexuality, leading to greater acceptance among monosexuals both gay/
lesbian and straight. Evidence suggests online dating is driving an increase
in exogamous relationships, or those that cross social boundaries like race
and class (Hergovich & Ortega, 2018; Potarca, 2017; Thomas, 2019). This
is due to several structural particularities of digital relationship formation,
including the expanding of opportunities for connection, the weakening
of “third party interference” (i.e., the involvement of family and friends
in the vetting and approval of partners), and the transcending of various
20 E. FILICE ET AL.

mechanisms of spatial segregation (e.g., ethnic, economic, religious, and

sexual enclaves; national borders) (Thomas, 2019). Of particular interest
here are “mixed orientation” relationships, such as between bisexual persons
and monosexuals, which are increasingly being documented in the liter-
ature (Vencill & Wiljamaa, 2016). Participants argued that such relation-
ships provide opportunities to dispel partners’ preconceptions about
bisexual individuals – to demonstrate firsthand that there is nothing that
makes them a priori less trustworthy, self-assured or discerning than
monosexuals. Once-apprehensive individuals can find their outlook on
bisexuality transformed by a series of satisfying relationships. In an accu-
mulative manner, presumably, binegative stereotypes will continue to lose
their cultural purchase as they are replaced in individuals’ minds by direct
personal experience, of which an ever-greater share is facilitated by digital
media like GSNAs:
Emmett: You can put whatever you’re interested in, your darkest desires onto your
dating app profile and it’s either for someone else or it’s not. There doesn’t seem to
be a lot of shame or judgment, and to the extent that that normalizes bisexuality,
I hope that’s an outcome.

As with most broad-scale social change, however, digital media are

unlikely to be the principle cause of shifts in attitudes toward bisexuality.
Such changes have been underway for decades, well preceding the mass
adoption of mobile dating technologies, and likely have more to do with
civil rights legislation (including same-sex marriage legalization), repre-
sentation in mass media, and demographic change (Ayoub & Garretson,
2017; Loftus, 2001). Nevertheless, it can be said with some confidence
that digital media, by multiplying social ties and interactions, are at least
accelerating existing trends.

Conclusion

To address a lack of dedicated focus in the existing literature, this paper

explored multiple aspects of bisexual persons’ use of GSNAs, including
motives and gratifications, challenges in relationship formation and main-
tenance, sexual identity disclosure and concealment, and impacts on iden-
tities and cultural understandings of bisexuality. Irrespective of their
reputation as predominantly casual sex intermediaries, bisexual participants
wielded GSNAs in service of a multitude of relational goals. Some did
indeed use them to arrange hookups, but others sought friendship, romance,
community, and even simply to kill time, much in the same way as gay
men, lesbians and heterosexuals. Participants perceived several facets of
GSNAs that make them more useful toward these ends than conventional
means, the most notable being their ability to compress spatial and
 Journal of Bisexuality 21

temporal distances, thus expanding opportunities for tie formation.

Importantly, participants were more reliant on GSNAs for cultivating
same-gender rather than different-gender relationships due to the greater
social and infrastructural barriers associated with the former.
Nevertheless, the distinct cultural meanings associated with bisexuality
shaped online interactions in ways that routinely impinged on participants’
ability to achieve their relational goals. Binegativity can foreclose on the
possibility of relationship formation outright or cause relationships’ pre-
mature dissolution. Moreover, GSNAs’ information architecture promotes
the singling out of bisexuality as a categorical disqualifier by fragmenting
users and “commodifying” the dating experience. Participants sometimes
encountered more “benevolent” forms of binegativity, such as through
propositions for threesomes, also known as unicorn hunting, but these
practices can be offensive and dehumanizing in a similar manner to more
hostile forms of prejudice. The prospect of binegative discrimination
weighed on many users’ decision to disclose their bisexual identity in their
profile or through conversation, though these concerns were balanced by
a desire to represent oneself authentically and deter bi-antagonistic persons.
Despite these challenges, bisexual participants still regularly had suc-
cessful digitally-mediated encounters which have the potential to reshape
private and collective understandings of bisexuality. GSNAs appear to
expose users to new experiences and discourses that help them make sense
of their erotic predilections, including partner sex/gender sexuality, as well
as foster positive views toward one’s own bisexual identity through mod-
eling and affirming feedback. Finally, GSNAs may play a role in the broader
sea change in attitudes toward bisexuality by facilitating the formation of
mixed orientation relationships wherein stereotypes are gradually replaced
by direct personal experience.
This study, as with any other, has its share of limitations that invite
refinement in future work. While interviewing is well suited to digital
social research by probing actors’ motivations, rationales, values, and lived
experiences (Lindgren, 2017), it is less helpful for examining the infor-
mation architecture of technologies. To obtain a better understanding of
how developer choices shape user decisions and experiences, interview
data could be triangulated with observation or content analyses of user
profiles and interfaces, such as through appnographic (Cousineau et  al.,
2018) and digital walkthrough (Light et  al., 2018) methods. Furthermore,
the transferability of the present findings may be limited by the lack of
participants whose motivations for GSNA use can be described as “off-la-
bel,” i.e., not prescribed or sanctioned by the technology (Duguay, 2020),
including sex work, selling drugs, promoting social campaigns, and having
phone/cybersex. Finally, this study does not systematically examine dif-
ferences in GSNA experiences between identity groups that fall under the
22 E. FILICE ET AL.

umbrella of bi- or plurisexual. For instance, attitudes toward pansexual

persons might diverge from those toward (binary) bisexual persons, occa-
sioning different digital self-presentation strategies. While disentangling
bisexual experiences from those of monosexual gay men and lesbians
represents an important first step, future researchers would do well to
further disaggregate bi- or plurisexual as an analytic category.
The practical implications of this study are manifold. As several par-
ticipants reported being mistreated and discriminated against specifically
on the basis of their bisexuality, app developers, providers, and stakeholders
interested in promoting digital equity and user wellbeing should consider
monosexism alongside other axes of oppression, such as (hetero)sexism,
racism, and ableism. Design constituencies, while continuing to implement
and refine general anti-harassment mechanisms within interfaces (e.g., user
authentication, automated inflammatory language detection) and bolster
platform governance (e.g., through augmenting manual and automated
content moderation), might also modify their terms of service to expressly
prohibit hateful comments directed toward bisexuality. For their part,
health promoters and practitioners endeavoring to ameliorate bisexual
health inequalities must be cognizant of both the potential salutary and
deleterious effects of digital media, including GSNAs. As the current study
illustrates, the potential harms associated with GSNAs are counterbalanced
by several important uses and gratifications, making “cold turkey”
approaches to digital disengagement impractical and difficult to sustain
in the long term (Kuntsman & Miyake, 2019).
When taken as a whole, the present findings lend credence to notions
of the convergence or hybridization of digitally mediated and physically
co-situated sociality (Miles, 2017). In digital media studies, the metaphor
of cyberspace as a discrete realm where denizens create new, disembodied
selves out of whole cloth and play by different sets of rules or without rules
entirely has gradually been eschewed in favor of approaches that emphasize
the contiguity between digital and physical spheres of activity. This has led
to the acknowledgment that artifacts like Internet-enabled information and
communication technologies are not neutral, but rather are embedded in
specific social and cultural contexts that irrevocably shape their design,
development, and use (Pinch & Bijker, 1984). As such, they can reproduce
or reinforce all manner of existing social norms, divisions, and (in)equalities,
such as with respect to race, gender, and sexuality (Wajcman, 2004). Bisexual
persons’ experiences of GSNA use have been shown to be just such a case
in point: participants’ descriptions stand in stark contrast to utopian accounts
of technology that augur the flattening of hierarchies and extinguishing of
prejudice. The persistence of monosexism and binegativity online underscores
the inherently social nature of many of the problems of technology use – as
well as their potential solutions. And indeed, the present findings suggest
 Journal of Bisexuality 23

there is still much room for improvement. For as much potential as GSNAs
offer to bisexual individuals, this is often mitigated by unsatisfying and
alienating encounters. While it is unlikely that purely technological fixes
such as to algorithms and interfaces will drastically improve bisexual persons’
lot, the extensive interpenetration of the social and digital in the modern
era offers hope that transformations in one sphere will alter the pace or
direction of change in the other.

Declaration of interest statement

The authors report there are no competing interests to declare.

Notes
1. In keeping with current theorizing (Flanders, 2017), we adopt an inclusive and nonbi-
naristic definition of bisexuality as synonymous with pluri-, poly-, or multisexuality
– umbrella terms that encompass individuals whose sexual behaviours, desires, and
attractions involve people of multiple (i.e., more than one, but not necessarily only
two) sexes/genders, and who may self-identify as bisexual, pansexual, queer, or
otherwise non-monosexual (Flanders et  al., 2017; Galupo et  al., 2015).
2. We acknowledge, however, that shared positionality for many reasons does not necessar-
ily translate to greater empathetic understanding between researchers and participants
(Rasmussen, 2006).

Notes on contributors
Dr. Eric Filice is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Faculty of Health at the University of
Waterloo. An interdisciplinary scholar at heart, his research interests span digital media,
subjectivity, sexuality, embodiment, and public health. His current work focuses on the
social and psychological changes accompanying the profusion of networked technologies,
including social media and dating apps. His research has been published in Body Image,
Sex Roles, and the Journal of Gay & Lesbian Mental Health, among other international,
peer-reviewed journals. He is also coauthor of Health Promotion in Canada: Theory and
Practice in Context (Oxford University Press; releasing October 2022).
Dr. Corey W. Johnson is the Karla A. Henderson Distinguished Professor of Social Justice
at the North Carolina State University. His inquiry focuses on power relations between
dominant (white, male, etc.) and non-dominant populations in the cultural contexts of
leisure and is also a qualitative research methodologist. He has coauthored seminal texts
such as Fostering Social Justice for Qualitative Inquiry: A Methodological Guide,
Promiscuous Perspectives: Sex and Leisure, and Contemporary Issues in Leisure, among
others. His current funded projects focus on technologically mediated social relations,
including decreasing gender-based violence on dating apps like Tinder, Bumble and Grindr.
He enjoys hiking, camping, cooking, yoga, meditation, travel, and spending time with his
husband of more than 20 years and Frenchie Sedgwick.
Dr. Diana Parry is a Professor at the University of Waterloo. Her research explores
women’s health and wellbeing with a particular focus on addressing gendered inequities
24 E. FILICE ET AL.

and advancing social justice. Grounded in feminist theories, her research utilizes a variety
of methodological and representational approaches.

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