A Good App Is Hard to Find: Examining Differences in Racialized Sexual Discrimination across Online Intimate Partner-Seeking Venues

Whose Role is It Anyway? Sexual Racism and Sexual Positioning Among Young Sexual Minority Black Men

Racialized Sexual Discrimination (RSD), also referred to as "sexual racism," is widely reported among young sexual minority Black men (YSMBM). Though RSD is driven in part by sexual scripts and racial stereotypes, little is known about YSMBM's experiences with RSD with respect to their sexual positioning roles. Using data from a cross-sectional web-survey of YSMBM (N = 726), a multivariate Kruskal Wallis test was conducted comparing YSMBM who identified as mostly bottom, versatile, or mostly top, on the degree to which they were affected by four RSD experiences, as well as the frequency with which they encountered these experiences. Men identifying as mostly bottom reported significantly stronger negative reactions to same-race rejection and encountering sexual role assumptions than men identifying as mostly top. Men identifying as versatile encountered same-race rejection significantly more frequently than men identifying as mostly top. Men identifying as mostly bottom encountered White superiority significantly more frequently than men identifying as mostly top. RSD may impact YSMBM differentially based on sexual position. These findings may have implications for culturally competent clinical practice, as well as analytic implications (e.g., estimating more complex statistical models) for sexual racism research, which remains an important yet underexamined field in the health sciences.

Negative Sexual Experiences Among Gay, Bisexual, and Other Men Who Have Sex with Men Using GPS-Enabled Hook-Up Apps and Websites

Gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men (GBMSM) often use GPS-enabled dating apps and websites to facilitate in-person sexual encounters. Many of these encounters are positive and enjoyable. However, there is limited research on GBMSM's negative experiences with partners from hookup and dating apps/websites, especially those characterized by threats to GBMSM's sexual, physical, and/or psychological safety. In this report, we investigated this matter. We analyzed data from interviews with GBMSM (N = 60) and identified four categories of negative sexual experiences, each of which were comprised by sub-categories: 1) sexual violence (physical sexual assault, verbal sexual coercion, intoxicated assault/coercion), 2) sexual health risk behaviors (condom use resistance and coercion, deception related to HIV/STI status), 3) non-negotiated behaviors (undiscussed/unexpected sex acts, rough sex, sexualized racism, undesired substance use by the partner), and 4) threats to physical safety beyond sexual violence (being blocked from leaving, stalked, robbed, drugged). These results can inform future research and interventions that aim to promote safety on dating apps/websites within the GBMSM community.

Racial Preferences in the Intimate Sphere Elicit Negative Reactions in Heterosexual Racial Minority and Majority Group Members

Racial preferences are sometimes encountered in the sphere of dating, romance, and sex. Using an experimental design, 100 White American participants and 100 American participants of Color were exposed to a mock dating profile that either contained a disclosure of racial preference (i.e., "White guys/girls only") or did not. Owners of a profile disclosing a racial preference were perceived as more racist, less attractive, and were also rated less positively in a global sense than owners of a profile that did not disclose a preference. Participants were also less willing to connect with them. Additionally, participants who viewed a dating profile disclosing a racial preference reported greater negative affect and lower positive affect than participants who viewed a profile that did not disclose a preference. These effects were largely consistent across both White participants and participants of Color. These findings demonstrate that racial preferences in the intimate sphere are generally responded to unfavorably, both by people for whom rejection is implied by the preferences and by people who are personally unaffected by the preferences.