This document discusses how sexuality is performed online, specifically through gay social networking and video sharing sites. It describes how sites allow users to create profiles detailing their interests, fetishes and types of men they are attracted to. Users can also share amateur pornography videos of themselves which are then rated by other users. This illustrates Foucault's concepts of the body as an idea and sexuality as discourse, as users' bodies are constituted through performing sexual roles for others online. The document also briefly touches on homosexuality in Muslim countries and the colonial legacy's influence.

1. Performing the discourse
of sexuality online
Dr David Kreps
University of Salford, UK

2. Agenda

3. Research - Making LGBTQ Voices
Heard

4. Foucault’s Sexuality

5. Foucault in North Africa

6. Foucault and Iran

7. Foucault’s Orientalism

8. Homosexualities in pre-Islamic
MENA

9. Polarisation

10. Homosexuality and the
Law

11. Sexual Social Networking

12. Gaydar and Fitlads
Confessional sign-up
Multiple-choice likes/dislikes/fetishes
Photography and video - self marketing
“dominant cultural stereotypes
reproduced and reinforced through
technological design” (Light et al 2008)
Amateur Pornography
Fetishes: Armpits, Body Hair, Boots, Chaps, Cut,
Denim, Drag, Facial Hair, Feet, Frottage, Fur,
Hands, Hoods & Masks, Jocks, Kilts, Leather,
Lingerie, Lycra, Muscle, Nipples, Piercing,
Rubber/PVC, Smoking, Socks, Speedos,
Sportswear, Suits, Tattoos, Toys,
Trainers/Sneakers, Uncut, Underwear, Uniforms,
Waders.
Types I Like: Bears, Bikers, Builders, Chubbies,
Clubbers, Farmers, Firemen, Footballers, Geeks,
Labourers, Leather Men, Married Men, Medical
(Uniforms), Military (Uniforms), Muscle Men,
Older Guys, Policemen, Preppies, Punks, Rugby
Players, Short Guys, Skins, Tall Guys,
Transvestite/Transexual, Truck Drivers, Twinks
Sexual Activities: Anal, Bondage, Breath Control,
CBT, Cottaging/Tea Rooms/ Beats, Cybersex,
Electro, Exhibitionists, Fisting, Glory Holes,
Groups, Kissing, Masters & Dogs, Masters & Slaves,
Medical, Naturist, Oral, Outdoor, Phone Sex,
Rimming, Role Play, S&M, Sauna/Bath Houses,
Shaving, Spanking, Threesomes, Tickling, Vacuum
Pumping, Vanilla, Verbal/Gob, Voyeurs, Wanking,
Watersports, Wrestling

13. fitlads.net
Video sharing on Fitlads since 2008
Personal videos can be ‘rated’ 1->5 by their viewers
Competition to get personal masturbatory and coital videos
into the weekly Top Ten.
Pornographic content
Sexual social networking - once just text and a mugshot- has
changed as a result

14. Video Sharing/Porn
Classic pornography - both traditional cinema & more recent online version
‘ordinary’ individual gazes upon the (inaccessible – or at least costly)
‘extraordinary’ – the fit, classically good looking porn star
Video sharing is different
the ‘ordinary’ displaying themselves to each other
claiming to be ‘extraordinary’? / glorying in the accessibility of their ordinariness
if you like the video you can write to the individual and try to arrange a meeting.

15. Video Sharing
Illustrative of Foucault’s concepts of the body as Idea, of sexuality as
discourse, and exemplary of the inscriptive power of the confessional
discourse of sexual roles
the discourse of sexuality, bypassing professionals and undertaken
between ‘confessors’ through sharing videos of the body performing sexual
roles, constitutes the individual’s performative body image of self
the videoed body constituted through the performative and psychological
power of the body image of self, encourages exercise and dietary regimes
towards attaining physiological resemblance to pre-existing physical ideals
of desirability

17. Polarisation

18. Beyond the West…

19. Colonial
Legacy

20. Homosexuality in Muslim
Countries
Sharia Law

21. ‘Othered’ Gay
Palestinians
Majed Koka

22. Questions?
Salon
2014

23. Dr David Kreps
snipr.com/davidkreps
d.g.kreps@salford.ac.uk