An examination of dating app culture in China, across user demographics--straight women, straight men, queer women, and queer men. In this exploration of dating app culture in China, Lik Sam Chan argues that these popular mobile apps are not merely a platform for personal relationships but also an emerging arena for gender and queer politics. Chan examines the opportunities dating apps present for women's empowerment and men's performances of masculinity, and he links experiences of queer dating app users with their vulnerable position as sexual minorities. He finds that dating apps are both portals to an exciting virtual world of relational possibilities and sites of power dynamics that reflect the heteronormativity and patriarchy of Chinese society.
A raw and funny memoir about sex, dating, and relationships in the digital age, intertwined with a brilliant investigation into the challenges to love and intimacy wrought by dating apps, by firebrand New York Times–bestselling author Nancy Jo Sales At forty-nine, famed Vanity Fair writer Nancy Jo Sales was nursing a broken heart and wondering, “How did I wind up alone?” On the advice of a young friend, she downloaded Tinder, then a brand-new dating app. What followed was a raucous ride through the world of online dating. Sales, an award-winning journalist and single mom, became a leading critic of the online dating industry, reporting and writing articles and making her directorial debut with the HBO documentary Swiped: Hooking Up in the Digital Age. Meanwhile, she was dating a series of younger men, eventually falling in love with a man less than half her age. Nothing Personal is Sales’s memoir of coming-of-middle-age in the midst of a new dating revolution. She is unsparingly honest about her own experience of addiction to dating apps and hilarious in her musings about dick pics, sexting, dating FOMO, and more. Does Big Dating really want us to find love, she asks, or just keep on using its apps? Fiercely feminist, Nothing Personal investigates how Big Dating has overwhelmed the landscape of dating, cynically profiting off its users’ deepest needs and desires. Looking back through the history of modern courtship and her own relationships, Sales examines how sexism has always been a factor for women in dating, and asks what the future of courtship will bring, if left to the designs of Silicon Valley’s tech giants—especially in a time of social distancing and a global pandemic, when the rules of romance are once again changing.
Emily Witt is single and in her thirties. She has slept with most of her male friends. Most of her male friends have slept with most of her female friends. Sexual promiscuity is the norm. But up until a few years ago, she still envisioned her sexual experience achieving a sense of finality, 'like a monorail gliding to a stop at Epcot Center'. Like many people, she imagined herself disembarking, finding herself face-to-face with another human being, 'and there we would remain in our permanent station in life: the future'.But, as we all know, things are more complicated than that. Love is rare and frequently unreciprocated. Sexual acquisitiveness is risky and can be hurtful. And generalizing about what women want or don't want or should want or should do seems to lead nowhere. Don't our temperaments, our hang-ups, and our histories define our lives as much as our gender?In Future Sex, Witt captures the experiences of going to bars alone, online dating, and hooking up with strangers. After moving to San Francisco, she decides to say yes to everything and to find her own path. From public health clinics to cafe conversations about 'coregasms', she observes the subcultures she encounters with awry sense of humour, capturing them in all their strangeness, ridiculousness, and beauty. The result is an open-minded, honest account of the contemporary pursuit of connection and pleasure, and an inspiring new model of female sexuality - open, forgiving, and unafraid.
At the heart of our current moment lies a universal yearning, writes David Zahl, not to be happy or respected so much as enough--what religions call "righteous." To fill the void left by religion, we look to all sorts of everyday activities--from eating and parenting to dating and voting--for the identity, purpose, and meaning once provided on Sunday morning. In our striving, we are chasing a sense of enoughness. But it remains ever out of reach, and the effort and anxiety are burning us out. Seculosity takes a thoughtful yet entertaining tour of American "performancism" and its cousins, highlighting both their ingenuity and mercilessness, all while challenging the conventional narrative of religious decline. Zahl unmasks the competing pieties around which so much of our lives revolve, and he does so in a way that's at points playful, personal, and incisive. Ultimately he brings us to a fresh appreciation for the grace of God in all its countercultural wonder.
A “must-read” (The Washington Post) funny and practical guide to help you find, build, and keep the relationship of your dreams. Have you ever looked around and wondered, “Why has everyone found love except me?” You’re not the only one. Great relationships don’t just appear in our lives—they’re the culmination of a series of decisions, including whom to date, how to end it with the wrong person, and when to commit to the right one. But our brains often get in the way. We make poor decisions, which thwart us on our quest to find lasting love. Drawing from years of research, behavioral scientist turned dating coach Logan Ury reveals the hidden forces that cause those mistakes. But awareness on its own doesn’t lead to results. You have to actually change your behavior. Ury shows you how. This “simple-to-use guide” (Lori Gottlieb, New York Times bestselling author of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone) focuses on a different decision in each chapter, incorporating insights from behavioral science, original research, and real-life stories. You’ll learn: -What’s holding you back in dating (and how to break the pattern) -What really matters in a long-term partner (and what really doesn’t) -How to overcome the perils of online dating (and make the apps work for you) -How to meet more people in real life (while doing activities you love) -How to make dates fun again (so they stop feeling like job interviews) -Why “the spark” is a myth (but you’ll find love anyway) This “data-driven” (Time), step-by-step guide to relationships, complete with hands-on exercises, is designed to transform your life. How to Not Die Alone will help you find, build, and keep the relationship of your dreams.
The data behind a distinct form of racism in online dating The Dating Divide is the first comprehensive look at "digital-sexual racism," a distinct form of racism that is mediated and amplified through the impersonal and anonymous context of online dating. Drawing on large-scale behavioral data from a mainstream dating website, extensive archival research, and more than seventy-five in-depth interviews with daters of diverse racial backgrounds and sexual identities, Curington, Lundquist, and Lin illustrate how the seemingly open space of the internet interacts with the loss of social inhibition in cyberspace contexts, fostering openly expressed forms of sexual racism that are rarely exposed in face-to-face encounters. The Dating Divide is a fascinating look at how a contemporary conflux of individualization, consumerism, and the proliferation of digital technologies has given rise to a unique form of gendered racism in the era of swiping right—or left. The internet is often heralded as an equalizer, a seemingly level playing field, but the digital world also acts as an extension of and platform for the insidious prejudices and divisive impulses that affect social politics in the "real" world. Shedding light on how every click, swipe, or message can be linked to the history of racism and courtship in the United States, this compelling study uses data to show the racial biases at play in digital dating spaces.
"For those looking for a smart, no-bullshit, effective guide to finding love, look no further."—Esther Perel, author of Mating in Captivity "While I’m not sure what Carrie Bradshaw would have made of today’s new world of dating, I do know this: armed with Love Rules, she would have figured it all out in one season."—Sarah Jessica Parker Sheryl Sandberg empowered women to lean in. Arianna Huffington Encouraged them to thrive. Now, Joanna Coles guides them on their most important journey: finding love. Love Rules will enable you to identify what you want in a relationship, when you should pursue it, and how to find it. Just as there is junk food, there is junk love. And like junk food, junk love is fast, convenient, attractively packaged, widely available, superficially tasty—and leaves you hungering for more. And both junk food and junk love require enormous amounts of willpower to resist. Social media and online dating sites have become the supermarkets of our relationship lives. You have to wade through rows of cupcakes and potato chips to find the produce aisle, where those relationships grounded in intimacy and trust live—the ones worth your investment. A diet book for romantic relationships, Love Rules first asks women to re-assess the way they think about their relationships, and then helps them use that newfound awareness to navigate their love lives more successfully in this very modern, fast-paced—and often lonely—digital age. In these pages leading media exec and former Editor in Chief of Cosmopolitan and Marie Claire Joanna Coles provides a series of simple guidelines for finding worthwhile love: fifteen rules—love "hacks." She also explains how to use dating apps effectively to expand real world connections and how to avoid DADD—dating attention—deficit disorder, where the tantalizing promise of someone better appears to be only the next swipe away.
Conquering the dating market—from an economist’s point of view After more than twenty years, economist Paul Oyer found himself back on the dating scene—but what a difference a few years made. Dating was now dominated by sites like Match.com, eHarmony, and OkCupid. But Oyer had a secret weapon: economics. It turns out that dating sites are no different than the markets Oyer had spent a lifetime studying. Monster.com, eBay, and other sites where individuals come together to find a match gave Oyer startling insight into the modern dating scene. The arcane language of economics—search, signaling, adverse selection, cheap talk, statistical discrimination, thick markets, and network externalities—provides a useful guide to finding a mate. Using the ideas that are central to how markets and economics and dating work, Oyer shows how you can apply these ideas to take advantage of the economics in everyday life, all around you, all the time. For all online daters—and for anyone else swimming in the vast sea of the information economy—this book uses Oyer’s own experiences, and those of millions of others, to help you navigate the key economic concepts that drive the modern age.
“Will have you in hysterics over truly epic Tinder fails . . . it captures real life conversations potential couples have exchanged over the app.” —Spy Tinder Nightmares is a hilarious look at some of the most epic fails of the often racy, always ridiculous, “romantic” exchanges on Tinder. The Instagram account of the same name has skyrocketed to popularity for its captivating—and sometimes titillating—ability to capture the real-life conversations between people who are looking to connect with that special someone. Tinder Nightmares is organized by theme, with chapters such as Bad English, Broetry, Strange Requests, Sneak Attacks, and more. This book explores everything from pickup lines to breakups, and all the moments that come in between. It’s the perfect gift for anyone who has ever suffered through online dating. Praise for the Tinder Nightmares Instagram account “Taking submissions from womankind worldwide, the account posts the funniest and most tragic lines, which serve to make us simultaneously jubilant with comfort that others out there are enduring the same terror, and weepy at our complete loss of faith in humanity.” —Cosmopolitan “So, for anyone who has ever had a nightmarish experience on Tinder, Tinder Nightmares is here to remind you that you’re not alone. Because when life gives you innocuously bizarre Tinder messages, make jokes.” —HuffPost
