1887
Volume 6, Issue 2
  • ISSN 2211-3770
  • E-ISSN: 2211-3789
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Abstract

By analysing 200 posts on a Japanese gay dating Bulletin Board System ( BBS), I investigate how users strategically deploy language to construct desirable identities and “sell themselves” online. Drawing upon both quantitative and qualitative analysis, I demonstrate that users of the BBS creatively manipulate stereotypical identity categories known as Types () to construct highly nuanced yet specific discourses of the Self and the desired Other. Through a discursive analysis of the strategies users employ to construct their own identities, and the identities of their desired partners, I argue that identity categories marked as masculine and hunky () are privileged as more desirable than feminine and cute () identities. Through this analysis, I suggest that users of this particular forum appear to valorise heteronormative masculinity, which they link to being hunky. Furthermore, I argue that being cute is considered undesirable due to its perception as transgressing normative masculine gendered traits.

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2017-09-22
2025-04-22
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  • Article Type: Research Article
Keyword(s): desire; gay dating sites; heteronormativity; identity; Japan; masculinity
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