Social Science - Sociology assignment discussion week 12

Atienza2021IThinkIllBeMoreSlutty.pdf

Home >Social Science homework help >Sociology homework help >Social Science - Sociology assignment discussion week 12

“I Think I’ll Be More Slutty”

The Promise of Queer Pilipinx American Desire on Mobile Digital Apps in Los Angeles and Manila

I took Victor to one of Silverlake’s gay leather bars after we met for dinner at a Burmese restaurant.1 I met Victor as an undergrad from my previous life as a college academic advisor and agreed to be part of my multisited

ethnographic study focused on gay Filipinos and mobile digital media. He identifies as a second generation Pilipinx American gay cisgender man.2 He moved to Los Angeles, California, soon after he graduated college and ac- cepted a position with a nonprofit community service organization based in Koreatown. He is currently in an open relationship with his Asian Ameri- can partner, Damon.3 They met in college, and they have sustained their relationship even with an hour commute between the cities where they live. Victor and Damon negotiated their open relationship a few months after Victor’s move to Los Angeles. Damon shuffles between his full-time job and responsibilities with his parents’ business. Since Victor’s move, they would spend weekends together. This arrangement allowed Victor to explore Los Angeles’ app scene through Grindr and Jack’d.4 “I only had sex with a hand- ful of guys before I met Damon when I was nineteen. I couldn’t imagine having sex with one person for the rest of my life. I wanted to experience more of what the world has to offer.”

After ordering our drinks, Victor and I settled at the bar. We noticed two older Asian men across the room, perhaps in their late fifties or sixties, having an animated discussion. I leaned in to Victor and whispered, “Do you think we’d look like that when we get older?”

He said, “I think I’ll be more slutty.” This essay follows the choices and experiences of Victor, a gay Pilipinx

American, when finding sexual partners through geolocative dating apps. Even as virtual sites allow for more opportunities “to play [in the online] world” (Manalansan 2003), digital spaces are rife with the same offline so- cial stigmas that (re)create hierarchies of difference. I ask how these hierar- chies are experienced differently as people use the same platform in differ- ent places. I share some of Victor’s online and offline stories in Los Angeles and Metro Manila, the National Capital Region of the Philippines, as he

Paul Michael Leonardo Atienza

Q&a : Voices from Queer Asian North America, edited by Martin Manalansan, et al., Temple University Press, 2021. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/csueastbay/detail.action?docID=28684796. Created from csueastbay on 2022-10-31 05:16:51.

C op

yr ig

ht ©

2 02

1. T

em pl

e U

ni ve

rs ity

P re

ss . A

ll rig

ht s

re se

rv ed

238 / Paul Michael Leonardo Atienza

takes advantage of what I call the promise of intimacy—an investment in the idea that mobile digital media platforms will connect you to potential intimate partners quickly and with ease.

Victor’s expectations of being “his best cis-gender queer self” did not provide a bounty of potential sex partners through the dating apps. Instead, he had to contend with complex social formations among the diverse group of app users. He also had to learn various app norms of communication. During his six months of active dating app use prior to our interview, Victor shared the criticisms and the affirmations he received based on his offline observations and online communication practices. But how do social dis- criminations work on mobile digital media for mobile queer Filipinx sub- jects? For Victor, particular sets of social and communicative norms in Los Angeles and Manila generated specific anxieties that inform the shifting meanings of desirability among gay men on these platforms.

I am interested in how gay Filipinos make sense of who they are through digital sites in the homeland and in the diaspora. Gay men learn how to be desirable subjects through a process of critique and evaluation based on feedback and conversations among others on digital platforms. They also reaffirm, solidify, and contest these qualities through offline discourse. I investigate how these digital translations of gay Filipinos affect the ways Victor understands themselves in and between city spaces and among digi- tal media platforms, adding to rich scholarship that brings to life the mess- iness of the global gay figure (Benedicto 2014; Garcia 1996; Johnson 1997; Manalansan 2003). Through this brief analysis, my aim is to show how con- cepts of desirability shift as online and offline bodies move from place to place and also change through time. Thus, I invoke the charge to queer Asian studies in order to unmoor “queer studies” and “area studies” from their predictive sites and locations (Chiang and Wong 2017). I also extend a queer global Asias vantage invested in the pluralities of queerness and their unruly linkages around the world. Putting in conversation scholarship from Asian studies, Asian American studies, and queer of color critique strength- ens the study of Asian cultures with a nuanced perspective on unequal power relations across multiple institutions and scales of time and space.

Ethnographic data for this essay was part of a combined fifteen-month field research in Metro Manila and Los Angeles mostly between January 2017 and January 2018. The study includes forty-three individuals with thirty-five based in the Philippines. Participants were recruited directly through one-on-one communication on several mobile dating app plat- forms in addition to snowball referrals from friends and colleagues. Plat- form switching practices were integral for my research participants, and therefore semistructured interviews were performed both in person and through several digital media applications. These include geolocative dating

C op

yr ig

ht ©

2 02

1. T

em pl

e U

ni ve

rs ity

P re

ss . A

ll rig

ht s

re se

rv ed

“I Think I’ll Be More Slutty” / 239

apps targeting gay and bisexual men (e.g., Grindr, Growler, Blued), social media (e.g., Facebook, Instagram), and messaging platforms (e.g., WeChat, Viber).

Mobile Filipina/o/x: Moving Bodies, Technological Expertise, and Digitized Race As a highly mobile people with exceptional digital media skills, my trans- national analysis provides insight into the “social traffic” of digital media use and its ties to social and material hierarchies in and between the home- land and diaspora. With more than 10 percent of its population dispersed in over two hundred countries as migrant laborers, Filipinos find ways to connect with each other as they move elsewhere (Madianou and Miller 2012). Material infrastructures such as telecommunication systems keep widely dispersed Filipinos in contact with their homeland (Cabañes and Uy-Tioco 2020; Francisco-Menchavez 2018; Ignacio 2005; Padios 2013). In 1995, the introduction of text messaging to the Philippines as a cheap alter- native to telephone voice calls (Pertierra 2005), led to the proliferation of mobile phone use in the country, where it earned the title of texting capital of the world in the early 2000s (Ellwood-Clayton 2006). Despite having one of the slowest Internet speeds in Asia and one of the most expensive Internet services globally (Shahani 2015), many marketing studies designated the Philippines as the social media capital of the world (Revesencio 2015).

I situate Manila and Los Angeles as two important sites of diasporic connection for Filipinos. The cities are part of a transnational migration circuit supporting the movement of Filipinos around the world (Rodriguez 2010), but also as spaces where the exchange of ideas and beliefs about being Filipino are formed and questioned. I do not claim to provide a comparative study of Manila and Los Angeles, but I attempt to ethnographically trace associations with the disconnections and distinctions of social boundaries as gay Filipinos compose city life and their online selves in a seemingly hyperconnected world (Manalansan 2015).

I bring these formations in conversation with activist and scholar Daniel C. Tsang’s (1994) assertion in Notes on Queer ‘N Asian Virtual Sex that digital spaces are sites of reinvention for Asian American gay cisgender men. His qualitative analysis of online bulletin board systems demonstrated how vir- tual sites allowed people to take control of their sexual identities and forge new ways of understanding intimate relationships. But the acceleration and prolif- eration of new and different technologies since the mid-1990s have not changed the ways Asians and Asian Americans experience stereotypes and discrimina- tory practices, particularly while searching for intimate connections online.5

C op

yr ig

ht ©

2 02

1. T

em pl

e U

ni ve

rs ity

P re

ss . A

ll rig

ht s

re se

rv ed

240 / Paul Michael Leonardo Atienza

The works of Nguyen Tan Hoang (2014) and C. Winter Han (2015) highlight these experiences of sexual racism while providing alternate ways of thinking through the gendered, racialized, and a/sexualized stereotypes of gay Asian men in North American contexts.

Furthermore, I stress the importance of ethnographic studies about dig- ital life and race in order to examine how cultural representations and sub- jectivities are recreated, shared, and contested online.6 The work of media studies scholar Lisa Nakamura (2002, 2007) demonstrates that cyberspaces are not equally free and accessible to all. Nakamura argues that offline social differences such as race and gender are remapped and challenged online. Additionally, social differences such as race, class, and gender become quan- tified in simplistic statistical data (boyd and Crawford 2012). The digitization of race flattens out its complexities in order to make race easy to understand, store, move, and monetize in various forms online. Even as virtual sites allow for people to find others who share common interests and affiliations, they also recreate offline social hierarchies, stereotypes, and stigmas.7

“The Gays Be Judgy”: Victor’s App Experiences from LA to Manila and Back When Victor started using Grindr and Jack’d soon after he and his partner agreed to open their relationship, he did not receive the responses he had expected. “The gays be judgy,” he said. We laughed out loud together. His time on the apps made him feel empty. “I saw myself having the same script- ed dialogues with every dude. Like ‘Hey,’ ‘How are you,’ ‘You’re cute,’ or ‘What are you into?’” Victor said these situations were more stressful than sexually liberating. He added, “I’m exposing myself to judgment and rejec- tion, and being in LA I felt like everyone was a torso.”

As cultural theorist Senthorun Raj (2011) explains about online social networking technologies, this digital space provides new forms of sociality and intimacy for gay men but warns of its disciplining structures in user digital formation and representation. Raj writes of Grindr, that it

relies on normative categories of defining bodies (race, height, weight, age) in order to mediate sexual desire. Therefore, while new forms of social relations mediated by technology have the capacity to transform and (re)invent subjectivities, online social spaces such as Grindr recuperate sexual norms and aesthetical capital in the context of an online consumer space. (4)

He adds that investments in keeping up connections on these digital plat- forms require immense conversational and emotional labor. The generic

C op

yr ig

ht ©

2 02

1. T

em pl

e U

ni ve

rs ity

P re

ss . A

ll rig

ht s

re se

rv ed

statements and strict expectations of what type of bodies are found desirable affected Victor’s initial beliefs and practices in Los Angeles. He developed feelings of emptiness and found interactions more stressful than fulfilling.

In the red-lit dark room of the bar, Victor also shared his stories from a trip to Manila earlier in the year. Before his visit, Victor contacted me for recommendations on places to go. He spent two weeks in the city. His expe- rience on the apps and several of the gay bars in the Philippine capital re- minded him of West Hollywood nights, he said, when most of the crowd were straight women and gay men performing the hardest version of mas- culine. “I guess I expected more attention from guys when I was in Manila,” he said. “Do you follow the guys who write for TEAM Magazine on Insta- gram?8 You can definitely see a big class difference on the apps versus what you see in real spaces of the city. It’s like you have to be rich to be gay in Manila. Plus, everyone is so white. I thought that I would get more attention from guys.”

I focused on Victor’s comment about the whiteness of Manila’s gay scene both online and offline. He was not talking about the large population of white foreigners and ex-pats; he was referring to attitudes and mannerisms of Filipinos that index qualities of whiteness.9 Following how race and eth- nicity become read through digital platforms challenges and upholds social discriminations. But ethnicities and colorisms also index values of desir- ability both when evaluating offline self-presentation and text and images on social app profiles (Rondilla and Spickard 2007). Victor experienced this when he first starting using the apps in Los Angeles. But there seemed to be an expectation from Victor that among a more homogenous group of men in the homeland, sexual racism and fetishistic expectations fall away.

In a comparative ethnic studies framework, Wendy Hui Kyong Chun (2009, 39) elaborates how race is itself a technology that works not only in purely biological or cultural logics but a mixture of “science, art, and cul- ture.” Race online is not just mere representation, discourse, or data. Tech- nologies mediate ideologies and in turn uphold structures of social, politi- cal, and economic inequality. I hear this through Victor’s story, where desirability among gay men in Manila constitutes gender norms of mascu- linity, an aspiration for a particular upper-class performance, and the pref- erence for lighter skin tones. Victor experienced a new set of contextualized hierarchies familiar yet different from those he encountered in Los Angeles. The mention of TEAM Magazine and the social media platform Instagram confirmed the significance of these media in circulating contemporary gay Filipinx perspectives and images. In my own ethnographic observations the year before, these media generated content that introduced highly stylized depictions of youthful queer figures for consumption and reproduction in one of Manila’s gay scenes.10 Coming from the variety of ethnic differences

“I Think I’ll Be More Slutty” / 241

C op

yr ig

ht ©

2 02

1. T

em pl

e U

ni ve

rs ity

P re

ss . A

ll rig

ht s

re se

rv ed

242 / Paul Michael Leonardo Atienza

in Los Angeles, Victor did not expect to encounter the diverse ways of being gay and Filipino in the Philippines.11 Victor already experienced similar social dynamics in the United States. Filipinx America suspends its hetero- geneity to forge seemingly unified affiliations with larger Asian American and people of color formations. Among gay communities in the United States, these racial groupings reshape themselves accordingly depending on social, economic, and political context. They also deploy their own sets of hierarchies with various systems of inclusion and exclusion.

Victor began eating healthier and started a regular gym regiment soon after he returned from Manila. The change in routine led to Victor losing thirty pounds. The change of Victor’s offline body generated more attention from certain app users to his online profile. “Before I lost my weight, I would get messages from old white men. They were not what I was looking for. Or ‘FOB’-by Asian guys.”12 Now he’s receiving messages from muscular Asian guys and some younger white guys. “I guess when I lost my weight, my jawline became more prominent.” I took note of how his app experiences changed alongside his new diet and exercise regime. Victor did not explic- itly say that his experiences on the apps since the beginning of the year had influenced these recent life choices. He did note the stark difference in the frequency of response rates as well as the types of men that contacted him on digital media since his weight loss.

As we continued our conversation, Victor received a notification from Grindr. A handsome East Asian guy sent him a message. “Oh, my God. I’ve noticed this guy since I’ve moved in the neighborhood over a year ago. He never messaged me before.” Proud of what had just happened, Victor shift- ed the conversation to share a recent sexual experience he had arranged through Jack’d. “This attractive older Asian man messaged me. He is like the vice president of marketing at a popular cosmetics chain. He lived all the way in Santa Monica [the west side of Los Angeles], so I had to arrange that on a Sunday to avoid the traffic. He was super nice and into me. He had a lot to say after sex too. We were cuddling, and all of the sudden he started ask- ing me too many personal questions.” Victor did not want to engage emo- tionally with the guys he met on the apps. “I just want a physical connection, you know?”

Modifications: Changes in Victor’s App-Based Interactions Victor’s initial hope for a bounty of sexual encounters through digital app platforms are now starting to actualize with his new body. But the increase in attention Victor received brought out his own set of metrics in determining

C op

yr ig

ht ©

2 02

1. T

em pl

e U

ni ve

rs ity

P re

ss . A

ll rig

ht s

re se

rv ed

who is worth the consideration for a sexual encounter. Perhaps not intention- ally recognizing his comment about “FOBby Asians” or his excitement for attention from handsome and rich East Asian men, Victor applied similar discriminations he encountered in Manila after he became more desirable among a wider variety of digital app users.13

The change in Victor’s dating app experiences informed his modifica- tions of both online expectations of communication and offline practices of self-improvement. He initially wanted to take advantage of the ability to pursue other men for sexual encounters, but the pressures to conform to different dating app norms in Los Angeles and Manila left Victor more frus- trated than fulfilled. Whether or not these annoyances on mobile digital media influenced Victor’s choices to eat healthier and exercise more consis- tently, months of immersing himself in regimes of app social norms coin- cided with changes in his physical appearance. These changes in Victor generated more attention from a larger pool and more diverse group of po- tential sexual partners. It also allowed Victor to articulate his own set of preferred characteristics that filtered digital app users as desirable or not.

Mobile digital media are becoming further embedded in everyday life and will require more studies that will unpack and articulate the different ways people, machines, and computational programs inform each other (Albury et al. 2017; Berry, Martin, and Yue 2003). Victor allows us to read the complex negotiations that inform metrics of desirability among a situ- ated group of men on geolocative dating apps. What other forms of disci- pline may emerge in relation to the social traffic between places online and off? Victor’s stories from his experiences on digital apps may be similar to many gay Filipinx American cisgender men, but I want to acknowledge how human social differences such as race, class, gender, ethnicity, ability, and more, further complicate interactions on these platforms. His assumptions about gay men in Los Angeles did not transfer to his experiences in Manila, yet there were shared forms of evaluation and criticism practiced among gay men both online and offline. These (dis)connections and (dis)locations are part of the method of queer Asia as critique. Studies of Asian cultures must attend to the plurality of possibilities within situated structures of inequal- ity that loosely bind people, places, and institutions. Attending to the par- ticularities and thick descriptions of the everyday is a possible intervention against the drive of digital infrastructures in flattening out the complexities of the human.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Special thanks to Dr. Constancio Arnaldo, Dr. Douglas Ishii, Dr. Samantha Wettimuny, Khoi Nguyen, and Carleen Sacris for providing feedback in the expansion of this essay. My appreciation to Dr. Kale Fajardo for extending an invitation to submit work for this

“I Think I’ll Be More Slutty” / 243

C op

yr ig

ht ©

2 02

1. T

em pl

e U

ni ve

rs ity

P re

ss . A

ll rig

ht s

re se

rv ed

244 / Paul Michael Leonardo Atienza

anthology. And, to Victor and Damon who agreed to share their process of queer com- panionship—an ongoing collaboration.

NOTES

1. “Victor” is a pseudonym I chose for the research participant with their consent and approval. They have read this piece and provided feedback on how I wrote about their story. Damon is also a pseudonym for the participant’s partner. They also provided consent and approval.

2. I use “Filipino” when addressing the global Filipino diaspora, Filipinos in the Philippines, and referring to general studies about Filipino people. I also use “Filipinx” to acknowledge gender plurality when choosing how to identify the self. My study participants did not share the same categories and many shifted based on context and situation. I share the views of Professor Tuting Hernandez who beautifully writes about Filipinx in “Ekis: The Gigil Over Filipinx,” September 10, 2020, Subselfie.com, https://subselfie.com/2020/09/10/ekis-the-gigil-over-filipinx/. I use “Pilipinx” when referring specifically to Victor since that is how he identifies. See Benjamin Pimentel, “Why Filipino Americans Say Pilipino Not Filipino,” Philippine Inquirer, July 17, 2013, https://globalnation.inquirer.net/80871/why-filipino-americans-say-pilipino-not -filipino#ixzz5iuz1aagd. The use of Pilipinx instead of Pilipino or Filipino was Victor’s choice. He combines the decolonial choice of “Pilipino” with the gender-neutral suffix “x.” Debates whether or not to use “F” or “P” continue to animate decolonial movements in the United States. In the Philippines, “Pilipino” is used among the population. As comparative cultural studies scholar Theo Gonzalves explains, “When I started to learn about that larger frame of decolonization, I welcomed the switch from F to P, especially in writing. As for self-identification, I never made any hard rules. . . . I don’t begrudge anyone the way they choose to identify themselves, whether Pinay, Pinoy, Pin@y, Pilipino America, Filipino/American, American Filipino. . . . In writing, I just prefer the rather generic and boring, ‘Filipino American.’” in Benjamin Pimentel, “Why Filipino Americans Say Pilipino Not Filipino.” Victor also purposefully chose to identify as cis- gender to acknowledge his relation to his gender and how it raises awareness to a plu- rality of gender identities. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, cisgender is an adjective “designating a person whose sense of personal identity and gender corresponds to his or her sex at birth; of or relating to such persons. Contrasted with transgender.” Read more about the term “cisgender” through Avery Dame, “Tracing Terminology: Researching Early Uses of ‘Cisgender,’” Perspectives on History, May 22, 2017, https:// www.historians.org/publications-and-directories/perspectives-on-history/may-2017 /tracing-terminology-researching-early-uses-of-cisgender. Also see Oxford Dictionaries, “cisgender,” accessed November 1, 2018, http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/35015487.

3. An open relationship is an arrangement of non-monogamy. There are vary- ing forms based on agreements and negotiations among people involved. See David Blasband and Letitia Anne Peplau, “Sexual Exclusivity versus Openness in Gay Male Couples,” Archives of Sexual Behavior 14, no. 5 (1985): 395–412. Also see Nena O’Neill and George O’Neill, Open Marriage: A New Life Style for Couples (New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 1984). For a discussion on managing homonormative perceptions on dat- ing apps, see Jody Ahlm, “Respectable Promiscuity: Digital Cruising in an Era of Queer Liberalism,” Sexualities 20, no. 3 (2017): 364–379.

4. Grindr and Jack’d are two types of geolocative dating apps designed for gay men. Grindr was conceptualized in the United States and became available for down-

C op

yr ig

ht ©

2 02

1. T

em pl

e U

ni ve

rs ity

P re

ss . A

ll rig

ht s

re se

rv ed

load on mobile devices in 2009. In 2016, a 60 percent share of the company was pur- chased by Hong Kong–based tech firm Kunlun Group, which later purchased the remaining shares earlier this year. According to a market-based research group, in 2018, “Grindr reaches more than 196 countries and has more than 3 million daily active users. On average these users send 228 million messages and 20 million photos via the platform each day.” See https://www.datingsitesreviews.com/staticpages/index .php?page=grindr -statistics-facts-history. Jack’d started in Cornell University in 2011. Its website boasts of 1.2 million users in 180 countries. Many queer people of color in the United States claim that Jack’d is less hostile to ethnic minorities and there- fore a better platform to seek out potential partners. See Lisa Bonos, “What Is Jack’d? The Gay Dating App, Explained,” The Washington Post, June 15, 2016, https://www .washingtonpost.com /news/soloish/wp/2016/06/15/what-is-jackd-the-gay-dating-app -explained/; Michael D. Bartone, “Jack’d, a Mobile Social Networking Application: A Site of Exclusion Within a Site of Inclusion,” Journal of Homosexuality 65, no. 4 (2018): 501–523.

5. For a thorough overview on studies about gay digital life, see Andrew DJ Shield, Immigrants on Grindr: Race, Sexuality and Belonging Online (Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019).

6. For an exceptional ethnographic study of the concept of mobility, everyday survival tactics, and gay Asian men, see Dai Kojima, “Migrant Intimacies: Mobilities-in-Difference and Basue Tactics in Queer Asian Diasporas,” Anthropologica 56, no. 1 (2014): 33–44.

7. See also C. Winter Han, “They Don’t Want to Cruise Your Type: Gay Men of Color and Racial Politics of Exclusion,” Social Identities 13, no. 1 (2007): 51–67.

8. TEAM Magazine is a lifestyle gay publication founded in 2015. Its content addresses how gay Filipino men relate to social stereotypes in the country while provid- ing an avenue for new perspectives and voices pertaining to gay rights. See also James McDonald, “Discover TEAM, the Philippines’ New Gay Magazine,” Out.com, October 9, 2015, https://www.out.com/interviews/2015/10/09/discover-philippines-first-gay -magazine-titled-team.

9. For a discussion of whiteness in the context among Asians, see Dredge Byung’chu Kang, “Eastern Orientations: Thai Middle-Class Gay Desire for ‘White Asians,’” Culture, Theory and Critique 58, no. 2 (2017): 182–208.

10. For an analysis of dating app self-presentations in the Philippines, see Jonalou S. Labor, “Mobile Sexuality: Presentations of Young Filipinos in Dating Apps,” Plaridel 17, no. 1 (2020): 261–292.

11. See also Lik Sam Chan, “How Sociocultural Context Matters in Self-Presentation: A Comparison of US and Chinese Profiles on Jack’d, A Mobile Dating App for Men Who Have Sex With Men,” International Journal of Communication 10 (2016): 20.

12. FOB. refers to “fresh off the boat,” a derogatory designation for recent immigrants (often from Asia) who have yet to assimilate to cultural norms of the new homeland. See Karen Pyke and Tran Dang, “‘FOB’ and ‘Whitewashed’: Identity and Internalized Racism among Second Generation Asian Americans,” Qualitative Sociology 26, no. 2 (2003): 147–172.

13. See also Emerich Daroya, “Erotic Capital and the Psychic Life of Racism on Grindr,” in The Psychic Life of Racism in Gay Men’s Communities, ed. Damien W. Riggs (London: Lexington Books, 2018), 67–80, and C. Winter Han, “No Fats, Femmes, or Asians: The Utility of Critical Race Theory in Examining the Role of Gay Stock Stories in the Marginalization of Gay Asian Men,” Contemporary Justice Review 11, no. 2 (2008): 11–22.

“I Think I’ll Be More Slutty” / 245

C op

yr ig

ht ©

2 02

1. T

em pl

e U

ni ve

rs ity

P re

ss . A

ll rig

ht s

re se

rv ed

246 / Paul Michael Leonardo Atienza

REFERENCES

Albury, Kath, Jean Burgess, Ben Light, Kane Race, and Rowan Wilken. 2017. “Data Cultures of Mobile Dating and Hook-Up Apps: Emerging Issues for Critical Social Science Research.” Big Data & Society 4, no. 2: 1–11.

Benedicto, Bobby. 2014. Under Bright Lights: Gay Manila and the Global Scene. Min- neapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.

Berry, Chris, Fran Martin, and Audrey Yue. 2003. Mobile Cultures: New Media in Queer Asia. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

boyd, danah, and Kate Crawford. 2012. “Critical Questions for Big Data: Provocations for a Cultural, Technological, and Scholarly Phenomenon.” Information, Communi- cation, & Society 15, no 5: 662–679.

Cabañes, Jason Vincent A., and Cecilia S. Uy-Tioco. 2020. Mobile Media and Social Intimacies in Asia: Reconfiguring Local Ties and Enacting Global Relationships. Dordrecht, Netherlands: Springer.

Chiang, Howard, and Alvin Wong. 2017. “Asia Is Burning: Queer Asia as Critique.” Culture, Theory, and Critique 58, no. 2: 121–126.

Chun, Wendy Hui Kyong. 2009. “Race and/as Technology; or, How to Do Things to Race.” Camera Obscura 24, no. 1: 7–35.

Ellwood-Clayton, Bella. 2006. “All We Need Is Love—and a Mobile Phone: Texting in the Philippines.” Paper presented at Cultural Space and Public Sphere in Asia, Seoul.

Francisco-Menchavez, Valerie. 2018. The Labor of Care: Filipina Migrants and Transna- tional Families in the Digital Age. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press.

Garcia, J. Neil C. 1996. Philippine Gay Culture: Binabae to Bakla, Silahis to MSM. Hong Kong University Press.

Han, C. Winter. 2015. Geisha of a Different Kind: Race and Sexuality in Gaysian Amer- ica. New York: New York University Press.

Ignacio, Emily. 2005. Building Diaspora: Filipino Cultural Community Formation on the Internet. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

Johnson, Mark. 1997. Beauty and Power: Transgendering and Cultural Transformation in the Southern Philippines. London: Berg.

Madianou, Mirca, and Daniel Miller. 2012. Migration and New Media: Transnational Families and Polymedia. London: Routledge.

Manalansan, IV., Martin F. 2003. Global Divas: Filipino Gay Men in the Diaspora. Dur- ham, NC: Duke University Press.

———. 2015. “Queer Worldings: The Messy Art of Being Global in Manila and New York.” Antipode 47, no. 3: 566–579.

Nakamura, Lisa. 2002. Cybertypes: Race, Ethnicity and Identity on the Internet. London: Routledge.

———. 2007. Digitizing Race: Visual Cultures of the Internet. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Nguyen, Tan Hoang, 2014. A View from the Bottom: Asian American Masculinity and Sexual Representation. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Padios, Jan M. 2013. “Call Center Agent.” In Figures of Southeast Asian Modernity, ed- ited by Joshua Barker, Eric Harms, and Johan Lindquist, 38–40. Honolulu: Univer- sity of Hawaii Press.

Pertierra, Raul. 2005. “Mobile Phones, Identity and Discursive Intimacy.” Human Tech- nology: An Interdisciplinary Journal on Humans in ICT Environments 1, no. 1: 23–44.

C op

yr ig

ht ©

2 02

1. T

em pl

e U

ni ve

rs ity

P re

ss . A

ll rig

ht s

re se

rv ed

Raj, Senthorun. 2011. “Grindring Bodies: Racial and Affective Economies of Online Queer Desire.” Critical Race and Whiteness Studies. Special Issue: Future Stories/ Intimate Histories 7, no. 2: 55–67.

Revesencio, Jonha. 2015. “Philippines: A Digital Lifestyle Capital in the Making?” Huff- ington Post, May 4. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/jonha-revesencio/philippines -a-digital-lif_1_b_7199924.html.

Rondilla, Joanne, and Paul Spickard. 2007. Is Lighter Better? Skin-tone Discrimination among Asian Americans. Plymouth: Rowman and Littlefield.

Shahani, Lila Ramos. 2015. “Why Is Our Internet so Slow?” Philippine Star, August 23. https://www.philstar.com/opinion/2015/08/23/1491398/why-our-internet-so-slow.

Tsang, Daniel C. 1994. “Notes on Queer ’N Asian Virtual Sex.” Amerasia Journal 20, no. 1: 117–128.

“I Think I’ll Be More Slutty” / 247

C op

yr ig

ht ©

2 02

1. T

em pl

e U

ni ve

rs ity

P re

ss . A

ll rig

ht s

re se

rv ed