“Must Be Clean, Safe and Discreet”
The Lexicon of Discretion in Men's Same-Sex Online Hook-Ups
in Journal of Bodies, Sexualities, and MasculinitiesSearch for other papers by Joseph De Lappe in
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Abstract
On digital hook-up apps for same-sex attracted men, it is common to read requests for “discretion” from “discreet” men expecting others be the same. Such discretionary language is not new but has evolved and shifted as it became coded into the affordances of hook-up apps. We argue to be discreet is not necessarily to be “closeted” or to be a “MSM” (man who has sex with men). Drawing on our research of men who engage with online same-sex hook-ups, we consider the context of discretionary language used. We discuss how this illustrates the paradox of discretionary language, where requests for discretion typically imply the requester is seeking to act indiscreetly in some fashion.
Contributor Notes
Joseph De Lappe is a visiting academic in the Faculty of Wellbeing, Education & Language Studies (WELS) at the Open University. He works across a range of health and social care knowledge exchange, public engagement, and research projects within WELS. His own research looks at health and social care inequalities for LGBTQ+ communities with a focus on emergent sexual identities. Recent work has been published in Sport Sciences for Health and the British Journal of Community Justice. Email: joseph.de-lappe@open.ac.uk; ORCID:
Gavin Brown is chief executive of Trade Sexual Health, an LGBT health charity based in Leicester, England. He was professor of political geography and sexualities at the University of Leicester until 2021. He currently holds visiting professor positions at University College Dublin and The University of Sheffield. His research spans LGBTQ+ lives and sexual politics, especially as experienced in smaller cities, as well as a long-standing interest in the historical geographies and geopolitics of the international anti-apartheid movement. Email: gavin.brown@sheffield.ac.uk; ORCID:
Cesare Di Feliciantonio is senior lecturer in human geography at Manchester Metropolitan University. His research concerns living with HIV, sexualities, and housing. He is one of the editors of Social & Cultural Geography and, together with Valerie De Craene, is the guest editor of the special issue “Remapping Desire: Bringing Back Sex within Geographies of Sexualities” published in Gender, Place & Culture (2023). His work has been published in, among others, Antipode; Dialogues in Human Geography; Geoforum; International Journal of Urban and Regional Research; Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers. Email: c.di.feliciantonio@mmu.ac.uk; ORCID: