5 Matching Annotations
  1. Oct 2024
    1. The internet was able to act as host to online spaces of fluidity and alterity, and the potential that this unlocked for users in terms of sex and sexuality helped to kick-start liberatory techno-queer explorations. These flourished on the idea of cyberspace and cyberculture as disembodied entities, freed from the confines of geographical parameters and temporal fixity.

      Internet access for queer men gave freedom to learn and understand themselves and where they belonged, ultimately helping them feel less alone. It did not matter where they lived, the internet was a safe place they could go to not worry about the confines imposed on them in the real world. Without such opportunities and freedom gay men would have otherwise succumbed to the loneliness and rampant homophobia of the 90s

    1. This explains the stigma associated with Chinese woman-white man marriages. Popular stereotypes of the Chinese woman-white man couple depict an ‘old, divorced and wealthy’ white man with a ‘young, pretty and greedy’ Chinese woman

      When people see a couple who fit this description in the community I often overhear conversations and comments which reinforce this stereotype. It is a stigma based around an assumption that both are trying to get one thing off the other. Moreover, wealth from the older white man, or youth and beauty from the Asian woman. It is less likely people will believe they are truly in a loving interracial relationship.

    2. While the majority of our female participants, such as Hannah, experienced some difficulties in adapting to the local culture and dating white Australian men, all of their male counterparts reported being ignored by white female users of online dating service(s)

      Asian women are more sexualized as they are often depicted as a male fantasy in the West, however the same does not go from Asian men. This may explain the contrast in interest between the participants as although Hannah needed to adapt she was not outright avoided like her male Chinese counterparts.

  2. Sep 2024
    1. Because sexual orientation is an unseen identity category, bisexual people often “pass” as heterosexual. “Passing” as a term and a concept is potentially problematic, as it positions the person as deceptive and duplicitous; a person falsely claiming membership to a socially privileged identity

      Although there is social privilege that comes with being bisexual this is only granted to those who choose a partner of the opposite sex and appear like a heterosexual couple, but this privilege disappears when they date someone of the same gender. Being bisexual can also lead to discrimination from other queer individuals who don't see them as genuinely queer and this is a turn off for individuals wanting to date them. Terms like gold star lesbian demonstrate this as it refers to a lesbian who have never slept with a man; therefore, hey are superior to women who have.

    2. Bisexual women are stigmatized as greedy and are assumed to eventually choose men over women (Taylor, Citation2016), a stereotype that often makes them unwelcome and yet fetishized among monosexual gay and lesbian circles as well as by heterosexual people

      This stigma leaves Bisexual women feeling unwelcome in either queer or heterosexual spaces, an experience that would be alienating. It is a dilemma that highlights the pressure or expectation to fit one place rather than be fluid or not fit in a specific box. There is an assumption once a bisexual woman chooses a partner of either gender the are no longer bisexual, they are straight if they have a boyfriend or gay if they have girlfriend. Their Bisexuality "disappears" once they choose a particular gender to date.