Virtual youth: non-heterosexual young people's use of the internet to negotiate their identities and socio-sexual relations

This article explores the ways that non-heterosexual young people are negotiating their identities and socio-sexual relations on the internet in the UK. Drawing on the key concepts of embodiment and performativity, and based on in-depth qualitative research with nonheterosexual youth and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) youth workers, this article investigates the use of social networking websites which have been specifically designed for LGBT users, and the connections between virtual and material spaces in young people’s everyday lives. This research reveals that although the internet is an important medium through which new and existing socio-sexual trajectories are being negotiated, there is also a more complex and multi-dimensional relationship between young people’s online and offline realities.

"New online media platforms are altering the ways in which young people are making increasingly individualised socio-sexual transitions. These take place within a UK context in which non-heterosexual young people grow up in a predominantly heterosexual peer culture, and where gay scene venues tend to be located in urban areas. The internet affords non-heterosexual young people access to information regarding different sexual identities, peer/ professional support and a variety of communication platforms. LGBT social networking websites were considered particularly important, as they enabled users to interact with each other in relative safety and anonymity. Participants recognised and embraced the diversity and temporal fluidity within these online contexts, and had different expectations and nuanced ways of behaving as they negotiated a number of LGBT networking platforms simultaneously. Although each website had its own fixed design features, commercial aims and membership rules, young people often resisted these structures. The participants also understood LGBT networking websites as online ‘communities’, which were primarily used to establish friendships and support networks. Young people were more hesitant about using virtual spaces to develop relationships, which continue to be measured against romantic heterosexual discourses. Furthermore, the socio-sexual interactions which took place online were embodied. This was demonstrated by young people’s online performance of their bodies using webcams and profile photography, and through a range of normative corporeal classifications (re)produced within the design of LGBT networking websites. The significance that non-heterosexual youth attached to performing the body during virtual interactions also suggests that online and offline realities are mutually constitutive. Normative discourses of being body beautiful were significant to the socio-sexual relations and processes of exclusion within both LGBT online and offline contexts. LGBT youth groups are also using the internet to supplement the peer/professional support which is provided during face-to-face meetings, and LGBT networking websites are frequently used to manage offline socio-political events." (Downing, 2016: 55)