TY - JOUR
T1 - Locked down queer love
T2 - intimate queer online relationships during the COVID-19 pandemic
AU - Labor, Jonalou S.
AU - Latosa, Augustus Ceasar
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
PY - 2022
Y1 - 2022
N2 - Gay couples who have been displaced by the COVID-19 pandemic had to work with communication platforms so that they could process and proceed with their relationships. Using the notion of romantic intimacy as mediated and socially processed information, interviews were analysed in order to describe twelve (12) gay couples’ enacted communication in order to approximate interpersonal romance. Results have shown that gay couples communicate affective, cognitive, and non-physical intimacies to establish commitment and mutuality. Affective intimacies include posting daily updates about daily routines, using words of affirmation through texts and app messages, and uploading short video clips. Cognitive intimacy is shown through discussions of health, social, and relationship issues. Non-physical intimacy includes viewing each other’s daily activities, dining together and engaging in online sex. Technological platforms have continued to enable relational intimacies not only to augment relationship sustenance but also to reinforce a nuanced yet global form of mobile affection. The time spent communicating with each other, coupled with the enacted intimacies, and the sense of commitment and mutuality, led to a well-spent locked down and long-distance romantic relationships.
AB - Gay couples who have been displaced by the COVID-19 pandemic had to work with communication platforms so that they could process and proceed with their relationships. Using the notion of romantic intimacy as mediated and socially processed information, interviews were analysed in order to describe twelve (12) gay couples’ enacted communication in order to approximate interpersonal romance. Results have shown that gay couples communicate affective, cognitive, and non-physical intimacies to establish commitment and mutuality. Affective intimacies include posting daily updates about daily routines, using words of affirmation through texts and app messages, and uploading short video clips. Cognitive intimacy is shown through discussions of health, social, and relationship issues. Non-physical intimacy includes viewing each other’s daily activities, dining together and engaging in online sex. Technological platforms have continued to enable relational intimacies not only to augment relationship sustenance but also to reinforce a nuanced yet global form of mobile affection. The time spent communicating with each other, coupled with the enacted intimacies, and the sense of commitment and mutuality, led to a well-spent locked down and long-distance romantic relationships.
KW - COVID 19
KW - LGBTQ
KW - mediation
KW - romantic intimacy
KW - social information processing
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85114878679&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/09589236.2021.1979482
DO - 10.1080/09589236.2021.1979482
M3 - Journal article
AN - SCOPUS:85114878679
SN - 0958-9236
VL - 31
SP - 770
EP - 781
JO - Journal of Gender Studies
JF - Journal of Gender Studies
IS - 6
ER -