Covid intimacies: Resilience and viral safety among LGBT and heterosexual people using dating apps in the COVID-19 era

This project examines lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans (LGBT) and heterosexual people's use of online dating apps to negotiate intimacy (i.e. emotional and/or physical closeness) during and after COVID-19 social distance and lockdowns. It focuses on how diverse sexual and gendered cultures of intimacy are facilitated or constrained by dating apps during and after COVID-19, the implications of the existing and new intimate practices associated with dating apps for supporting personal resilience (i.e. people's ability to cope with difficult situations, such as those associated with COVID-19 lockdowns and social distance) , and how they encourage or discourage intimacy that is safe from COVID-19 and similar viral infections. It will generate knowledge about how internet-based services can be harnessed to support people's social and emotional needs, as well as safer intimacies, during and after the implementation of social distance measures.

The researchers will collaborate with service providers and community representatives throughout the project to identify virtual interventions as appropriate to diverse intimate cultures and to promote personal resilience and 'safer' intimacy in the context of social distance and heightened viral risk. The study will include an initial round of online workshops with an expert partner group to explore how they: view the intimate possibilities and risks associated with virtual dating during COVID-19; have developed support activities online; and responded to any increase to the level of service demand. The group will advise on the design, undertaking and analysis of the research, and will be composed by representatives from dating app businesses, service providers, community representatives and international research experts and scholars.

The project will combine a nationwide online survey (n= 600 approx.) with in-depth online qualitative interviews (n=60). Closed survey questions will enable the gathering of demographic data and the deployment of the Adult Resilience Measure (ARM-R), as developed by Resilience Research Centre, Dalhousie University, to provide data on resilience. Open survey questions will generate data on self-perceptions of the implications of dating app use for countering or enhancing a sense of social isolation and intimate disconnectedness during the COVID-19 era, as well as the implications for negotiating viral risk. Virtual semi-structured interviews will generate data about diverse cultures and practices of intimacy pre- and post COVID-19; the possibilities and challenges presented by social distance for maintaining existing and developing new practices and cultures of intimacy; the virtual interactions involved in the negotiation of viral risk; and the ebb and flow of personal resilience as it links to dating app use over time. The interviews will generate data on LGBT and heterosexual experiences of using dating apps before, during and in transitioning out of social distance and lockdowns. The rationale for this focus is that the existing research suggests that lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, trans and heterosexuals have different cultures of intimacy, dating norms, online/offline practices of intimacy, and can have distinctive perceptions of viral risks (e.g. gay men are likely to be more informed about HIV) that influence their intimate practices online and are linked in multi-dimensional ways to their negotiation of risks offline.

From the outset, the project will work with its expert partners group to determine what support services for intimate relations can be developed and/or transitioned to online service delivery during times of social distancing, with an emphasis of catering for diverse intimate cultures as they are shaped by gendered sexualities in interaction with socio-cultural positioning linked to geography, generation, racial and economic location.