Sentidos de masculinidades dissidentes através do uso do emoji de berinjela no Grindr

Abstract

Part of a master’s research in progress, this work aims to investigate the senses of dissident masculinities produced by gay subjects who use Grindr, a dating application aimed at men who seek to be sexually and/or emotionally involved with other men. This text focuses on how the eggplant emoji, constantly present on Grindr bio descriptions, act in the construction of dissident masculinities. For this matter, the research mainly dialogues with the concepts of masculinity, gender and sexuality from a post-structuralist perspective. We have been developing this study through the analysis of profiles and interactions with men on Grindr, as well as through online conversations on WhatsApp. The online conversation as a methodological procedure, aligned with the everyday life studies, recognizes the subjects who take part in the research as co-authors of the reflections made during the fieldwork. That said, we argue that the online conversation favors the constitution of a me-other relationship within a dimension of dialogic and otherness with the subjects. Although research participants experience dissident sexual experiences, the study has been pointing out that these Grindr users also maintain regulatory gender/sex norms to (de)value certain types of masculinity.