Swiping left or right on Tinder and other dating apps is much more culturally informed and inured than one may think. There is a belief that not all app users read the pieces of information or bios of the people they seek through – this is not however inaccurate but rather that they do have a disposition, an inclination to swipe left or right.
The actions and predispositions a person has are rather socio-culturally built over time. To psychoanalytically concentrate on the reasons why a person does not connect with some users over others would be a waste of time. Time that could be better used to understand the bigger picture of society
Dating is an act and it is a notion of behaviours, but it’s also a ‘Social Institution’ in its own sense. An industry that relies on the people within society, that choose to engage within it. “Intersectionality is an analytic framework that addresses and identifies how interlocking systems of power impact those who are most marginalized in society. Taking an intersectional approach means looking beyond a person’s individual identities and focusing on the points of intersection that their multiple identities create.
The term was coined by Black feminist and legal scholar, Kimberle Crenshaw, to describe how individuals with multiple marginalized identities can experience multiple and unique forms of discrimination that cannot be conceptualised separately.”
Human lives are nuanced; that is, complex beings who have experienced a variety of advantages and disadvantages. This writing will proceed to look more into dating and bodily autonomy and will inspect some of the disadvantages.
A profile on Tinder could be a cisgender woman, who is a person of colour, identifies as non-binary and states to being fluidly sexual in choosing their partners, for example. This individual invariably had and has different forms of advantages and disadvantages. The most blunt example that could be hypothesised; an observer views and receives this profile, examines it with hostility to individuals who don’t choose one sexual preference, and then inclines to make a judgement based on that specific profile’s gender.
This does not echo the meanings of liberal endeavour in a contemporary context so well, but this is where Intersectionality comes in. It renders visible, the ‘unique disadvantage’ that the profile has thus received. Of course, this ‘made up’ profile, is not so quite make-believe and is relatively a real-life person that exists in this world.
Not all observers are going to be as narrow with their dating choices, as far as the above example goes. But Social Constructionism points out that the above is based on society’s conformity and socio-cultural perspectives.
Body autonomy is regularly discussed in most dating-specific situations; it’s about sexual attraction at the end of the day. We are inclined (as this is socio-culturally instructed) to notice the gestures and attributes of a particular subject (I.e. in a photo or film). “There is a specific vocabulary of gestures and attitudes of sexual expression available for women in relation to men that does not exist for men in relation to women. Erotically speaking, it is especially the female body that does appeal more so to sexual expression and erotica,” as Angela Carter once interpreted.**
This is why individuals who somewhat recognise and problematise the prejudices, and the latter, choose not engage with a social institution, I.e. online dating apps. So, when an observer swipes left, the action of condemning that person with acne on their skin, bad hairstyles, things on their bio that don’t make much sense (to the personal context) to the viewer, the rules of online dating apps are essentially crass and then far from being justified.
The consequences of this as stated earlier are that some people refuse to be a part of online dating or online platforms altogether. It’s then reasonable to think that a time like 1999, when face-to-face conversations and dates over brunch at local restaurants, seem much more convenient.
Sources:
* http://www.lgbtiqintersect.org.au/learning-modules/intersectionality/
** Carter. (1982). A well-hung hang-up. In Nothing sacred : selected writings (pp. 100–105)