UDTR — Radar mondial des droits de la Nature

Digital intimacy in lockdown: crisis re-domestication of dating apps among Chinese single gay men during COVID-19

Identification

Clé publique

radar:r-913f60f34cc1ded242fc1f2afe861eb4

Auteurs

Weishan Miao · Jiankun Gong

Année déclarée

2026

Langue déclarée

en

Type source

article

Première détection

2026-11-13T12:50:27.721357+00:00

Dernière observation des métadonnées

2026-11-13T12:50:27.721357+00:00

Dernière vérification HTTP

Non effectuée

Institutions déclarées par la source

Krirk University · Renmin University of China · University of Malaya

Pays d’affiliation déclarés

CN · MY · TH

Résumé documentaire — langue originale

The COVID-19 pandemic has profoundly reshaped everyday life, with long-term effects across multiple domains. While much existing scholarship has emphasised the negative consequences of the crisis, this article highlights its unexpected potentials by examining how single gay men in mainland China used Blued, the country's largest gay dating app, during lockdown. Grounded in domestication theory, we used in-depth interviews to explore how users appropriated these platforms under conditions of restricted mobility, and how such practices generated new understandings of digital intimacy and sexuality. Our findings reveal that dating apps, typically associated with casual hook-ups, were re-domesticated into three distinct functions during the pandemic: as a "sexual laboratory" for experimenting with desire; as an "emotional space" for coping with isolation and as a "community support network" for mutual help. These context-specific practices not only enrich the study of gay social media use but also prompt a broader reconsideration of how technology mediates sexual and affective life under conditions of crisis. Taken together, these findings suggest that inclusive pandemic preparedness must account for how everyday platforms can become informal infrastructures of care, information, and connection when mobility is restricted and offline services are disrupted.

Identifiants

OPENALEX

https://openalex.org/W7134952811

DOI

10.1080/13691058.2026.2637910

PMID

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41807265

Repères documentaires

Famille documentaire

article

Types déclarés par les sources

article

Éditeurs

Taylor & Francis

Les mentions d’entités ne constituent pas une preuve de reconnaissance juridique. La juridiction étudiée est distincte du pays d’affiliation des auteurs.

Sources

OpenAlex · Document 1

• Document · https://doi.org/10.1080/13691058.2026.2637910

Statut documentaire

Pertinence à examiner

Bibliothèque

Cette identité n’est pas encore intégrée à la Bibliothèque juridique.