Cruising is a strategic act rooted in waiting patiently, not in speed, so although Grindr holds a connection to cruising, it is undoubtedly of a different kind. The twenty-first century is about lightning-fast connections and exchanges of goods and information, and this is the what Grindr responds to. It enables a form of social and sexual interaction, in which the tap of a button displays a grid of men any time, anywhere, many of which might be looking for fast, effortless instant gratification. But cruising, firstly, gives a pivotal importance to the act of looking and being looked at
in a public space.36 Whether while walking or standing at a particular location, the act involves the cruiser to wait for another man to act—or gaze—in a responsive manner. Cruising is heavily reliant on eye-contact, with a pivotal need of being aware of one’s environment and those around. According to Turner:
As I interpret it, cruising is the movement of visual exchange that occurs on the streets and in other places in the city, which constitutes an act of mutual recognition amid the otherwise alienating effects of the anonymous crowd. It is a practice that exploits the fluidity and multiplicity of the modern city to its advantage. 37
Turner refers to these acts of recognition as the ‘backward glance’—the moment where a man walks past another man, looks at him, sees something that piques his intrigue and curiously looks back to see if he is still being watched. This brings out another characteristic of cruising: it involves the a set of performed codes and signs by bodies in movement and bodies which are stationed in a particular place. In this way, the idea of ‘connecting’ with a gay man while cruising is more uncertain, embellished and time-consuming than the cruising provided by an app like Grindr.
Turner states, “The combination of an understanding of a specific place with an understanding of a specific urban practice allows for—in fact, enables—cruising to take place.” Where cruising entails 38 a particular knowledge of secret codes for queer performance in the city, Grindr disrupts these signifiers while adding new ones. Queer signs and symbols—often displayed in the form of articles of clothing such as handkerchiefs and bandanas—were of key importance prior to the arrival of technologies such as Grindr. For this reason, Turner’s interest in urban cruising practices lies in “the uncertainty of it all—the difficulty we now have in locating them, in recognizing them, in seeing them in our own backward glance at the past.” But if this was once a difficulty, it is one that is 39 very close to be overcome—in cities like London, at least—because of the technology that is now available.
Though Simkhai proclaims that Grindr is a tool for men to meet men, it remains an app mostly used by queer men who are unaware that the app is not a ‘gay, cruising app’. For many of
Eye-contact is considered a marker of one gay person’s percep9on of another person’s gay iden9ty, and it can
36
be enhanced by other body signals such as gestures and smiles. See James Chesebro (Ed) Gayspeak: Gay male and lesbian communicaHon (1981), Ken Plummer “Symbolic Interac9onism and the Forms of Homosexuality” in Steven Seidman (Ed) Queer Theory/Sociology (1996), Paul Baker Polari—The Lost Language of Gay Men (2002) and Cheryl L. Nicholas “Gaydar: Eye-gaze as iden9ty recogni9on among gay men and lesbians” in Sexuality and Culture Vol.8 (2004).
these users, homosexuality is the norm, and anyone who appears on their grid is stamped with a preconceived idea of sexual orientation. On Grindr, each user is boxed into the category of ‘gay’ or
‘bisexual’ due to association. Erving Goffman, in his book Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity (1963), discusses ‘stigmatised’ identities by association.
Goffman’s definition of stigmatised identity is wide, ranging from a person with a physical deformity to someone with a stammer, but it is certainly one which can be grouped to subjective or embodied difference. He states, “The issue is that in certain circumstances, the social identity of those an individual is with can be used as a source of information concerning his own social identity, the assumption being that he is what the others are.” Difference on Grindr is reverted—40 those who are not queer are seen as different. As a spatial phenomenon, this differs to the queer or gay zones in the city, where heterosexual men and women who visit a gay club, for instance, are not necessarily labeled as according to the identity of those around them. However, whenever someone turns on Grindr, the users displayed on the grid automatically challenge and reverse heteronormativity in a way that a gay club cannot—in turn, they become marked, or ‘stigmatised’.
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-Does using Grindr make you feel more connected to the city?
G1G3: Yeah. We’re told that 10% of the population is gay, probably higher in London. It’s assumed that most people are straight, so straight people have an assumption that they can flirt with someone of the opposite gender, and there’s a possibility of talking in a flirtatious way. I think, for gay men, it’s harder to do that in public, in this coffee shop, for example. I can’t just walk up to him, sit next to him and start to flirt, because the likelihood is that he’s straight. So I think Grindr provides gay people in any location that same opportunity, in a different way.
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Why do you use Grindr?
G0G2: [...] It’s an easy way to talk to people. Everyone’s there for a reason, and there’s nothing wrong with saying ‘hi’ to somebody. While if you’re on the street, you don’t know who’s gay and who isn’t gay. It’s always awkward saying ‘hi’ to somebody.
In effect, Grindr helps identify—and at times misidentify—other queer men without the awkwardness associated to verbal affirmation. Both G1G3 and G0G2, in the above narration, are 41
Goffman, Erving. SHgma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled IdenHty. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Pren9ce-Hall,
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1963. 64.
SuPer, John D.. "CNN." With new GPS daHng apps, it's love the one you're near. 6 Aug 2010. Web. 23 Jul 2012.
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<hPp://edi9on.cnn.com/2010/TECH/innova9on/08/06/gps.da9ng.apps/
speaking about Grindr being a solution to the difficulties in interpreting confusing markers of sexual orientation and identity in London. The differences in cruising and in Grindr-use are not meant to despatialise the former but rather to provide clarity that both practices are related, but should not be equated. If anything, the spatiality of Grindr—more than the sexualised aspect of it—is what links the two together. Cruising is a geo-localised practice, as is Grindr. The strategic aspect of communicating with other men on Grindr does not rely on wearing a particular a bandana or standing on front of a storefront window, like in past cruising practices. Precisely because there are many other men being displayed, the strategy of being a valued commodity lies in the digital portrayal of the self. The glance is unidirectional on Grindr; you can look at a guy on the grid, but it would be impossible to lock eyes with them in the way that Turner’s backward glances suggest. Therefore, on Grindr, the importance of the visual, as a consumable product and as an advertisement, is key.