Uncertainty, Trust, and Sexual Responsibility
Hooking Up Amongst Men Who Have Sex with Men in Amsterdam
Harry French (12165131)
MSc Medical Anthropology and Sociology Universiteit van Amsterdam
Masters Thesis 2019 Supervisor: Dr. Eileen Moyer Second Reader: Dr. Rene Gerrets
I want the truth of things. But there’s nowhere to find it. William Golding, The Pyramid
None of us knows what might happen even the next minute, yet still we go forward. Because we trust.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Introduction 1
Problem Statement & Research Question 1
Literature Review 2
Theoretical Framework 7
Chapter Two: Research Methodology 12
Fieldwork Overview 12
Interview Method 13
Data Analysis 14
Notes on the Field 15
Ethical Considerations, Reflexivity, & Limitations 17
Chapter 3: Trust is Multiple 20
Uncertainty & Potential Negative Outcomes 20
Trust – An Emotionally Productive Capacity 26
Conclusion & Discussion 28
Chapter 4: Trust as Routine 30
Trusting 30
The Expectation to Trust 31
Trust at First Contact 32
Sexual Acts and “Levels” of Trust 34
Trust as a Basis for Trust 35
Conclusion & Discussion 38
Chapter 5: PrEP, Condoms, and Responsibility 41
PrEP 42
Condoms 47
Preventive Strategies and Sexual Responsibility to the Self 51
Conclusion & Discussion 53
Closing Remarks 57
Chapter 1: Introduction
Problem Statement & Research Question
Who is that man on the app? He might have sent his picture, told you his name, or said which neighbourhood he lives in. Maybe he spoke a little about his job or upbringing or shared his likes and dislikes. If you agree to meet him, will you come face to face with the same man? Will he have an older face or a heavier build? Will he be a different man altogether? What are his intentions? Does he want to get to know you or does he just want to have sex? Does he pose you any danger to you? Will physically harm you or rob you? Will he unknowingly endanger your sexual health or even do so knowingly? Will he respect your limits and boundaries? What can you do to ensure your safety? What measures can you take to do so? Can you ever be certain of your judgements?
According to Race (2015) ‘taking new forms, assuming new genres and proceeding through new avenues in their encounter with digital media’ (503). In the present day, one can find a new sexual partner simply by downloading an app onto one’s smartphone. Dating apps are commonly used by many men who have sex with men (MSM) around the world. Being GPS based, dating apps work by ‘co-situating users by transmitting their physical location and co-presence on the app’ (Duguay 2017, 352), which means the app matches or displays MSM located in close proximity to one another. Such apps facilitate nearby MSM to communicate with one another, whether that be for friendship, dates, and/or hooking up, in their own neighbourhood, town, or city. The possibility to hook up is therefore facilitated by this technology that connects strangers to each other with ease. But with these encounters comes uncertainty, risk, and even danger. As Frankis and Flowers (2002) found, MSM have been found to actively withhold information from sexual partners but we must also
recognise that there can never be full transparency between persons (Butler 2005). Despite the anxieties engendered by this technology, hook ups among MSM arranged via dating apps are increasingly common. Against this background I ask:
How is uncertainty in hook up scenarios amongst MSM in Amsterdam understood, dealt with, and overcome? What is trust in the context of hooking up? How do MSM trust when hooking up? What role do condoms and PrEP have in the process of hooking up? How are the meanings of human and non-human actors in hook ups constructed in practice?
Literature Review
Before the internet, life was very different for MSM wishing to meet one another. MSM have been shown to have met each other through newspaper advertisements (Bolding et al 2002; Hatala & Prehodka 1996; Laner & Kamel 1978) or public sex environments, such as parks or public toilets, where “cruising” rituals and practices were learnt and employed (Bolding et al 2002; Tewksbury 1995). However, the internet brought with it major changes.
MSM have increasingly begun to use the internet to meet each other. I fact, since 1993 there has been an increase in young MSM who find their first sexual partner through the internet, partnered with a decrease in those who met their first sexual partner at a gay venue, school, “public sex environment”, or through adverts in papers (Bolding et al 2007). MSM who used the internet to find sexual partners were found to have more sexual partners than other MSM (Ogilvie et al 2008) and they were also more likely than their heterosexual counterparts to meet sexual partners via the internet (Benotsch et al 2002). For MSM, the internet has come to reap ‘benefits related to finding and filtering partners, sexual facilitation, relationship development and maintenance, ending relationships, communication, and identity development’ (McKie et al 2015, 19). Therefore, it has fundamentally changed the way MSM relate to one another.
Dating apps are one of the more recent communication technologies that utlise the internet. MSM can access dating apps anywhere through a smartphone with an internet connection. Many dating apps for MSM are considered as sex apps. However, Birnholtz et al (2014) found that 70% of same-sex couples meet using dating apps. In a study of the gay dating app Grindr, an app designed to facilitate hook ups between MSM, was in fact found to be used simply to pass time, make friends, and find a person go on dates with in addition to finding sexual partners (Rice et al 2012) whilst Albury and Byron (2016) that dating apps can be sources of intimacy and sexual safety. It would seem that ‘Grindr supports multiple goals for its users within one single mobile platform’ (Corriero & Tong 2016, 125). From a science and technologies studies (STS) perspective, we would say the function of dating apps is “unstable” (Radder 1992).
Grindr, like all dating apps, creates a paradox between the public and the private. These online platforms allow MSM to meet each other privately, without the fear of their sexuality being exposed (Benotsch et al 2002; Campbell 2004; Jones 2005; Shaw 1997; Woodland 2000). Closeted MSM have been found to use such platforms to connect with other MSM, with their relationships either remaining online or leading to meeting in person, whilst being able to remain closeted within their own social circles (Lemke & Weber 2017). However, these platforms also render information public. Profiles usually contain ‘more sensitive information than profiles on other social media’ (Cobb & Kohno 2017, 1231) and the sharing of pictures via dating apps for MSM can in fact lead to being outed if the receiver breaches privacy (Albury & Byron 2016). Moreover, when apps ‘are location-sensitive… [users are] potentially exposed to the risk of being located’ (Hoang et al 2016, 852) by those who they engage with. The inherent instability of dating apps therefore results from them being used in multiple ways, but also in producing an interesting range of outcomes, both wanted and unwanted.
Commonly, risk is the theme that dating apps are approached with. A wealth of literature on same-sex hook ups frames it as a public health issue focussing on “risks”, HIV transmission, and sexual practices (see Bien et al 2015; Ems & Gonzales 2015; Holloway et al 2014). Several studies have found
that the use of online dating apps corresponds with higher risk of STI and/or HIV acquisition (McFarlane et al 2000; Ko et al 2012; Stahlman 2017; Tashima et al 2003) as well as an increase in higher risk sexual behavior (Liau et al 2006) such as intentional condomless anal intercourse (Carballo-Die´guez et al., 2009) and having multiple sexual partners (Grov et al, 2007; Mettey, 2003). However, other studies have found that sexual risk behavior does not increase when meeting a partner online (Hospers 2005; Mustanski et al 2011) and that numbers engaging in condomless anal sex does not change between dating app users and non-app users (Bien et al 2015; Heijman et al 2016). Grov et al (2014) found that MSM meeting partners online exhibited lower rates of condomless anal sex than those who met at sex parties. However, these unstable findings may also reflect the instability of the technologies themselves as they are used differently by different people.
Despite the focus on risk however, online dating apps are rarely researched through a lens of uncertainty. Using the approach, how dating app users overcome uncertainty becomes the central question. Considering that dating apps are the platform used at the start of many relationships, it is important to acknowledge that uncertainty is a central issue in the initiation of these relationships (Berger & Calabrese 1974). Corriero and Tong (2016) argue that ‘the introduction of mobile dating apps adds a new layer of complexity to interpersonal uncertainty’ (122) and that information seeking on these platforms attempts to reduce uncertainty. Gibbs et al (2011) argue that the fear of being deceived is one of the major reasons dating site users pursue the reduction of uncertainty. This can be done simply by asking about the lives, sensibilities, and backgrounds of fellow users or by requesting photographs. To make sure you are reliable they might ask you to send a picture of yourself holding an object, for example your house key, to know what you look like at the exact moment of the conversation, leaving little ability for you to use old, inaccurate photographs of yourself. Another strategy to reduce uncertainty is to increase the “intimacy” of communication channels by switching from the dating app to an instant messaging service linked to your mobile number or speaking over the phone (Warn 2016).
When hooking up, MSM employ different strategies to protect their sexual health. These strategies can involve different sexual practices. Two well documented practices are “serosorting” and “seropositioning”. Serosorting is the practice where individuals seek partners of the same HIV status or “serostatus” (Cassels & Katz 2013 ; Chen et al 2012; Khosropour et al 2016 ; Philip et al 2010; Rodriguez-Hart et al 2016) but it has only been shown to only be successful in populations where unidentified HIV infections are low and HIV treatment rates are high (Wilson et al 2010). HIV positive individuals who do not correctly know their HIV status provide a pathway by which transmission can easily occur (Halperlin 2007). Consistent condom use has proven to be a more effective protection method than serosorting (Van den Boom et al 2014). “Seropositioning” is ‘the act of taking a different sexual position depending on the serostatus of the sexual partner to prevent HIV acquisition or transmission’ (Dangerfield et al 2016, 878) wherein the HIV positive individual takes the receptive role in anal intercourse (Van de Ven et al 2012) to reduce risk of transmission1. The choice of position for anal sex
however has also been analysed in terms of power roles associated with each (Hoppe 2011, Johns et al 2012) or whether a sexual partner is “stable” or “casual” (Johns et al 2012), and therefore seropositioning is but one thread of a larger story.
Preventive strategies can also involve the use of preventive technologies. Arguably the most well-known preventive technology is the condom. In response to the HIV/AIDS crisis in the1980s, the use of condoms during sexual interaction became the norm amongst MSM in the (Junge 2002). This is what Halperin (2007) argues is ‘one of the most profound modifications of personal health-related behaviours ever recorded’ (18). However, the use of condoms has been shown to be dependent on a number of factors. As stated above, researchers have investigated the effects of dating apps on condom use with varying results. However, there are other factors. For example Sarno et al (2017) found that better daily mood increased the likelihood of condomless
1 For further research see Aung et al 2016, Campbell et al 2016, Grace et al 2014, Newcomb 2018, Phillip et al
anal sex and Van den Boom et al (2015) found that MSM’s perception that a partner would not use condoms led to their own reduction in the likelihood of using a condom.
A new pharmaceutical technology for protecting oneself against HIV, pre-exposure prophylaxis or PrEP, has more recently available to many MSM around the world. This new technology has emerged following roughly the same timeline as the massive uptake of dating apps. PrEP is a pill can be taken daily to prevent HIV or that can be used around the time of sex if this is known in advance (I Want PrEP Now 2018). Whilst PrEP is effective amongst all populations (Fonner et al 2016), in the Netherlands it is generally understood as a technology to be used predominantly by MSM. PrEP became legally available in the United States in 2008, but in the Netherlands only in 2016. It requires a doctor’s prescription, but Dutch health insurance companies do not cover the cost which is €54 for 30 pills. Despite being nearly 100% effective in preventing HIV, PrEP users are advised to utilise other health promotion strategies including the use of condoms, HIV status inquisition, and seroadaptive strategies such as seropositioning or selective oral sex (Hojilla et al 2015).
PrEP’s journey has not been smooth. The perception on PrEP has had significant effects on the first few years of its availability (Cairns 2016; Tripathi et al 2012). PrEP and its users have been stigmatised, notably with the “PrEP whore” trope (Spieldenner 2016). After the first PrEP trials in San Francisco, the trope was employed by much of the gay community, public health bodies, and HIV/AIDS foundations and organisations to criticise and draw doubt on the appropriateness of the drug (Spieldenner 2016). In a study of 398 HIV-negative MSM and transwomen, Ellorin et al (2017) found that 46% of participants had been the target of judgement regarding their PrEP usage and 23% had actually been called a “PrEP whore”. Jaspal and Daramilas (2016) found that stigma surrounding PrEP ignited concern amongst MSM in the UK debating the feasibility of the drug and that such representations of PrEP and PrEP users pervaded the British media. As shown through these studies, the effectiveness of the drug is distorted and inhibited through the
social meanings it is attributed through its manufacture, testing, distribution, and usage.
Both preventive technologies, condoms and PrEP, represent two different visible and invisible technologies respectively. PrEP is invisible (Jaspal & Daramilas 2016) because it is not identifiable to the naked eye once taken by its users. Unlike PrEP, condoms can be checked prior to, during, and after use. Condoms therefore do not rely on communication to convey effectiveness whilst PrEP does. Unless a person witnesses their sexual partner taking PrEP, they must trust their partner’s word that they have actually taken it and that they have done so correctly. Furthermore, they must also trust that their partner has taken it correctly and responsibly during other sexual encounters. The different requirements of use for these preventive technologies results in different practices between them and the users. In regard to trust, risk, and sexual responsibility, this generates different norms.
Theoretical Framework
My theoretical framework does not utilise a single theoretical project or tradition but instead draws on sociological and anthropological explorations of trust and actor-network theory (ANT). By doing this, the attempt to fit the data set to a certain theory was avoided, but instead understanding of the phenomena recorded was enriched by using existing theory whilst also recognising the gaps in such theories illuminated by the data set. What resulted is an imperfect project. Yet this imperfect project also demonstrates a comprehensive effort to highlight the fact that that social phenomena are contingent, shifting, and often spontaneous in their nature and therefore could never and should never be reduced to a single theoretical model.
Trust
Firstly, I locate myself within anthropological and sociological studies of trust. Trust is an incredibly complex and important phenomenon. Trust itself is a kind of ‘capacity we have… [that] must be taught, practiced, and nourished’
(Churchill 1989, 180). It is possible to find trust throughout all levels of life (Kee & Knox 1970; Möllering 2001). It plays such a crucial role in our societies that the dissolution, loss, or misuse of trust would threaten the moral order and durability of our societies (Jiménez 2011). There are many different theoretical categorisations of trust, but for the purpose of this research I was only interested in relational trust. Rousseau et al (1998) state the following on relational trust:
‘Relational trust derives from repeated interactions over time between trustor and trustee. In- formation available to the trustor from within the relationship itself forms the basis of relational trust. Reliability and dependability in previous interactions with the trustor give rise to positive expectations about the trustee's intentions. Emotion enters into the relationship between the parties, because frequent, longer- term interaction leads to the formation of attachments based upon reciprocated interpersonal care and concern’ (399) (emphasis in original).
Trust occurs in contexts of uncertainty (Brown 2009; Johnson-George & Swap 1982; Luhman 1979; Möllering 2001; Rousseau at al 1998), ‘trust begins where prediction ends’ (Lewis & Weigert 1985, 976), and ‘given total knowledge, there is no need to trust’ (McAllister 1995, 26). When there is uncertainty, a person is vulnerable. Being vulnerable means that there is something to lose (Boss 1978; Zand 1972) or that there is something at risk (Alwang et al 2001; Boholm 2003). Uncertainty, vulnerability, and risk are all found in scholarly explorations of trust. Porter et al (1975) state ‘where there is trust there is the feeling that others will not take advantage of me’ (497). Johnson-George and Swap (1982) state that ‘risks may be one of the few characteristics common to all trust situations’ (1306) and Rousseau et al (1998) similarly argue that trust appears in contexts of vulnerability and uncertainty where there is a willingness to rely on another. Mayer et al (1995) highlight how the trustor is vulnerable exactly because their fate lies in the actions and intentions of another person. Emphasis should be given to the fact that trust is a tool by which uncertainty can be overcome and action can be taken. However, trust does not eliminate uncertainty. Instead, trust makes it ‘liveable with’ (Poggi 1979, x) – it “brackets” it (Möllering 2001).
Secondly, one does not trust blindly. In Georg Simmel’s work on trust, he gives the label “interpretation” to the process by which ‘human experiencing of the life-world gives bases for trust’ (Möllering 2001, 417). The trustor must perceive that the person they are trusting feels responsible to fulfil their agreed obligations (Barber 1983; Cook & Wall 1980; Shapiro 1990). This is what Goffman (1959), Brown (2009), and Brown et al (2015) conceptualise as “esteem”. To Noddings (1984), the presence of care and the act of caring is integral to trust. To her, care becomes a practice by which knowledge of reliability, interest, and empathy can be established, knowledge that forms a basis for trust. Furthermore, knowledge can also be a basis not to trust (Harmon et al 2015; Khalfan et al 2007) whereby information gained discourages an individual from trusting another. However, there is no set threshold that must be reached in order to trust. When exploring the works of Baeir, Held, Okin, Code, Noddings, and Eisler that all investigate trust and distrust, Govier (1992) brings attention to the fact that some people can be willing to trust with very little reason to whilst others are willing to trust when levels of knowledge reach something that resembles near certainty of the future.
Thirdly, trust has been conceptualised as something that accompanies action. For example, Barbalet (1996) argues that trust is ‘essential for social action and for social relations and processes’ (82) and McEvily et al (2003) state that trust guides individuals to the most potentially beneficial behaviours. Trust, therefore, facilitates for ‘social interactions to proceed on a simple and confident basis where, in the absence of trust, the monstrous complexity posed by contingent futures would again return to paralyze action’ (Lewis & Weigert 1985, 969).
Actor-Network Theory
‘The word “fish” is not a label that points with an arrow to the swimming creature itself. Instead, it achieves sense through its contrast with “meat”, its associated with “gills” or scales” and its evocation of “water”. In ANT this semiotic understanding of relatedness has been shifted on from language to the rest of reality… A fish depends on, is constituted by, the water it swims in, the plankton or little fish that it eats, the right temperature and pH, and so on’ (Mol 2010, 257).
ANT is not a theory (Callon 1999, Law 2009; Mol 2010). Instead, it ‘is a disparate family of material-semiotic tools, sensibilities, and methods of analysis that treat everything in the social and natural worlds as a continuously generated effect of the webs of relations within which they are located’ (Law 2009, 141). It is concerned with the ‘social relations of individual human actors… but to do so it does not limit itself to human individual actors, but extends the word actor… to non-human, non-individual entities’ (Latour 1996, 369)(emphasis in original). ANT is rooted in the Deleuzian theory of becoming (Harvey 2012), the ‘operation of self-differentiation, the elaboration of a difference within a thing, a quality or a system that emerges or actualizes only in duration’ (Grosz 2005, 4). In this theoretical framework, ‘the question to be asked is not what something is, but rather what it is turning into, or might be capable of turning into’ (Jensen & Rodje 2010, 1). Therefore, ANT is not interested in laws of nature or the social world – ‘there is no attempt to hunt for causes, the aim is rather to trace effects’ (Mol 2010, 261). It is an ‘approach or orientation to things that highlights the importance of tracing connections and transformations, and that treats the ways in which things hold together, or facts appear solid, as accomplishments that require explanation’ (Harvey 2012, 116). ANT is not just interested in how actors ‘unfold their own differing cosmos’ (Latour 2005, 23) but specifically ‘“how” relations [between these actors] assemble or don’t’ (Law 2009, 142). It is ‘actors [that] associate with other actors, thus forming a network in which they are all made into “actors” as the associations allow each of them to act’ (Mol 2010, 260). Actors are only actors in the sense that their relation to other actors make them so. Therefore, as Sheehan (2011) states, ‘actor-networks should be thought of as a circulation of flows where particular configurations of relations give rise to different relations of power that create and structure the world’ (337).
ANT has proved a useful repertoire in anthropology, often focussing on its ‘larger order historic concerns with non-human agency, hybrids, sociotechnical borderlands or amodernity’ (Oppenheim 2007, 485). Helén (2004), for example, uses the approach understand how “life-enhancing” procedures or drugs ‘lead the person to problematise and modify what he or she is’ and conclude that ‘high-tech medicine has power to define and shape
the uniqueness of an individual, i.e. personal existence’ (10). Rose (2004), furthermore, considers the effects of rising psychiatric drug use on conceptions of the self, arguing that ‘the drugs themselves embody and incite particular forms of life in which the “real me” is both “natural” and to be produced’ (59). In both these cases, the procedures and drugs as well as the patients are both actors in a greater network of actors that each form new meanings of the other, generating new and contingent identities through their relations. Only by understanding these relations to each other can we understand the actors themselves and their social and cultural potentials beyond the biomedical processes involved. When new technologies are introduced, the structures of actor-networks change thereby shifting the relationships between actors which contributes to a more fundamental transformation in what actors are and how they might conceive of themselves and other actors.
Chapter Two: Research Methodology
Fieldwork OverviewThe direction of this research changed over the course of the project. Through preliminary conversations with MSM in my friendship circles, I identified what I saw as an interesting “paradox” – that several people stated they would rather have condomless anal sex with somebody who says they are HIV positive and undetectable than somebody who says they are HIV negative and on PrEP. The reasons they gave for this was that they were more willing to trust the disclosure of an HIV positive person than the claim of an HIV negative person taking PrEP.
Therefore, at the beginning of my research project I was searching for MSM to participate and those who lived permanently in Amsterdam, who spoke English fluently, who were single or in a consensually non-monogamous relationship, and who were HIV negative. When I reached out to several organisations for MSM in Amsterdam, for example gay sports clubs, nobody expressed interest in participating. After this, I began posting on several LGBTQ Facebook groups based around Amsterdam. On the posts I explained that I was interested in researching themes of trust and PrEP, and provided a link to an online form whereby people could express their interest and I could ask them about some basic information including age, nationality, relationship status, and history of PrEP use amongst other things. I also asked where they had found my online form. Thirty-two people replied to my form and every person said they had seen it on the Facebook page Gay Expats in Amsterdam. The pool of potential participants needed narrowing.
Of all 32 respondents, only seven were not taking PrEP daily. Furthermore, two men from my social circle who had expressed interest were not taking PrEP, neither daily nor event based, at the time of recruiting. Throughout my reading, I had recognised that men who were not taking PrEP were rarely researched in regard to their dissociation from PrEP and I therefore made the decision to select participants who were not taking PrEP on a daily basis at the time of recruitment. This meant that one participant, Sven, who sometimes took PrEP in an event-based manner, was included in the study
population. This was justified because it meant that he was never guaranteed the protection that PrEP offers.
Interview Method
When first considering how to investigate the notion of trust in sexual decision making, several difficult questions arose. Trust is a complicated, intangible concept and whilst from a psychological approach there have been many attempts to refine trust into the form of a scale (see Anderson & Dedrick 1990; Johnson & Swap 1982; Rotter 1967), and anthropological and STS approach recognises that trust is dynamic, shifting, and unstable. To investigate something of that nature is not straightforward.
Participant observation has long been considered the central methodology of anthropology (Kawulich 2005; Jorgensen 1989; Salmen 1987). It entails ‘observing and participating in social action as the action is happening’ (Lichterman 1998, 401) and by doing this it allows us to get a deeper understanding of social dynamics and the reasoning behind certain behaviours (Mackellar 2013). However, the method was unsuitable for this research. Not only was the fieldwork not long enough, but the process of hooking up via dating apps begins through online communication and ends in the privacy of sexual contact. Therefore, hook ups for this project could only be studied by analysing how people recollected the experience.
Therefore, like many modern anthropologists, the interview method was chosen to collect data. Although it does not garner the depth of participant observation, qualitative interviews do allow for the researcher to discover the subjective experience that positivist research denies (O’Connel Davidson & Layder 1994). Atkinson and Silverman (1997) even claim that ‘the open-ended interview offers the opportunity for an authentic gaze into the soul of another’ (305) . By choosing to interview participants twice, I attempted to deepen my relationship with them, build rapport, and encourage more open conversation about sensitive, personal, and private sexual and emotional experiences.
Nevertheless, the interview method does have significant drawbacks. The interview is ‘a highly unusual speech event’ (McCracken 1988, 12). To
say the least, interviews ‘generate situated accountings’ (Roulston 2010, 60) whereby the interview format co-constructs the data to be recorded (Gubruim & Holstein 2002; Holstein & Gubruim 2003; Holstein & Gubruim 1995). Within this timescale, there was little to do to combat the generated nature of the interview data collection method. Therefore, employing a reflexive mindset was key (see Ethical Considerations, Reflexivity, and Limitations).
Data Analysis
I used content analysis to analyse my data and obtain my results. Content analysis is ‘a method for systematically describing the meaning of qualitative data’ (Schreier 2014, 199), a ‘general set of techniques for analysing collections of communications’ (Saraisky 2015, 27). Unlike discourse analysis, for example, which aims to uncover the structuring processes of reality, content analysis is occupied with understanding ‘social reality as it exists’ (Hardy et al 2004, 19). The process ‘comprises a searching-out of underlying themes in the materials being analysed’ (Bryman 2004, 392). The coding process provided for the data to be broken down and rendered more manageable, thereby allowing for the tracing of thematic trends throughout the data set and the obtaining of meaning (Messingger 2012). The majority of the coding was done using an inductive approach, formulating codes from the contents of the data set. However, some open codes or axial codes were formulated using a deductive approach drawing from certain concepts or themes explored prior to the data analysis process or from the theoretical framework. All coding was done manually.
Content analysis particularly is suitable for use in conjunction with ANT for several reasons. Firstly, the ‘results [of content analysis] are described contents of the categories, i.e. the meanings of the categories’ (Elo & Kyngäs 2007, 112) present in the data set. Farias and Mutzel (2015) state how ANT ‘aims to describe the hybrid and translocal relations that constitute every technological artefact, scientific fact, and social actor’ (524) and that therefore ‘description becomes a methodological and theoretical device’ (526). When employing an ANT approach to my research during content analysis, I searched
for the categories of meaning generated by relationships, consisting of practices, between human and non-human actors. To describe these categories is both to present the results of content analysis and demonstrate the nature of relationships between actors in actor networks.
Notes on the Field
The Participants
Despite the fact that participants were selected because they all met the inclusion/exclusion criteria, all but one were expats who came from a variety of backgrounds. Two participants originated from Ireland, and the rest each came from the Netherlands, Germany, England, Brazil, Canada, and Taiwan. Apart from Dean who was Taiwanese and David who was Brazilian, all participants were Caucasian. The youngest participant was David who was 20. The second youngest was Alex who was 30. The eldest was 47-year-old Sven.
After the first round of interviews, it became clear that the majority of participants were highly educated with a considerable income level. Furthermore, four informed me that thay had responded to my online advert because they themselves had had to conduct fieldwork during their own master’s or PhD programs, and knew how difficult it was to find willing participants. This aspect was never investigated further. However, it is perhaps appropriate to suggest that the high importance of preventive technologies to all participants may be correlated to their education level and income level, relationships also found by D’Anna et al (2011) and Gutiérrez (2006) respectively. This, however, would require further research with participants.
Dating Apps
Dating apps are plentiful, but they do have a generic structure. One first creates a profile that contains a photo or photos of the user, a name or nickname, and age. There are also always sections where the user can write a description of themselves or provide more information on their motivations for using the dating app. There are two ways that dating apps facilitate communication
between users. Many apps, Tinder being the most popular one, contain a swiping function whereby one can view the profiles of nearby users and “swipe left” if they are not interested or “swipe right” if they are. If both users swipe right, they are able to chat. Other apps, such as Grindr, allow all users to chat to one another freely. The app displays a feed of the nearby users ranked by proximity and one can simply click on a profile and begin chatting. On apps such as Grindr, they usually provide the ability to add “labels” or “tags” to the user’s profile showing what the user is looking for, for example dates, a relationship, or casual sex, or with extra information about the users sexual preferences, for example “top”, “bottom”, or “versatile”. Users can then search using these tags to find appropriate matches more easily. Dating app companies are increasingly offering new features to differentiate themselves from competitors and many also offer premium paid accounts that unlock certain features, for example the ability to see who has viewed one’s profile. Whilst the apps are many, the principle underpinning each one remains the same across the board – that dating apps are a technology that allows MSM to connect with other, nearby MSM instantly. What the users wish to gain from these apps, regardless of the app’s intended function, varies and is unstable.
“Hooking Up”
Prior to this research project, I would have said to “hook up” with someone would be to have casual sex with them. By the end of this research project, my conceptualisation of the term had changed. Hooking up, when spoken about by the participants, involved a range of practices that could come under the umbrella of sexual intimacy. One might have anal sex with one partner and only engage in foreplay with another, but both would count as hooking up. Furthermore, hooking up may be a one-time thing or it may be done repeatedly with the same partner. In essence, the practice of hooking up itself is an unstable concept. Despite initial hesitance in choosing to use the term, there were two reasons to do so. Firstly, this is the terminology that most participants used themselves and therefore was an accurate reflection of their own thought processes. Secondly, I use it ironically. Through its repeated use here, the
instability of the practice of hooking up is highlighted by the varying forms it comes in.
Ethical Considerations, Reflexivity, & Limitations
Reflexivity can be defined as ‘both a distinctive mode of thinking and a strategy of writing that concerns itself with the process of inquiry as an integral part of the claims to knowledge that the inquiry might produce’ (Marcus 2015, 88). It refers both to the researcher’s understanding of their own positionality and the consequences of their own values, ideologies, and biases as well as a methodological consideration on the generation of data and knowledge (Grant et al 2012). Two main considerations arose from this in regard to this research project.
Firstly, I held a certain positionality to my research participants and the phenomena I intended to study. Whilst one common bias anthropologists are often charged with overcoming is being in the position of the outsider (Closser & Finley 2016), I faced taking into account my position as an insider. Foremost, I identity as a queer man which informed the angle at which I have approached this research. Certainly, in the initial stages of this research there was a great focus on PrEP. I have never taken nor considered taking PrEP, and I recognised that my prior hesitance to even engage in an internal dialogue about PrEP stemmed from the stigma against PrEP and PrEP users that I have come across in my life and subsequently internalised. Knowing that reflexivity can be carried out ‘through reflection on practice and self-examination throughout the life of a project’ (Roulston & Shelton 2015, 332), I used the medium of this project to introspectively question my assumptions and judgements as I came into contact with them and their objects prior to, during, and after the field. Thereby I did my best to identify and dispel the bias that I began with. As I shall explore, one of the participants named Sven recounted to me his initial disapproval of PrEP before reconsidering it, a process that led him to event-based use of the medication. This story actually proved to be a pivotal moment in my reflexive journey as a researcher as I saw in one of my participants the overcoming of barriers on a personal level that I needed to
overcome on a scholarly level. Furthermore, some of the participants spoke about fetish sexual practices and non-mainstream sexual practices that I had to approach in an objective manner. I found myself grappling with the heteronormative and homonormative notions of sexuality that I have internalised through my teenage years and young adulthood, and I first directly questioned these instincts rather than questioning the objects of analysis.
Secondly, my chosen methods had certain consequences. Anthropology, as a discipline, gets so much of its value from its roots in ethnographic investigation and concern with deep analysis (Closser & Finley 2016). Yet as explored above my chosen method of interviews have their shortcomings (see Interview Method). Of particular concern was how to approach the intangible concepts such as trust in the interview setting. By choosing to interview participants twice, it afforded participants the time to consider the themes of the first interview before returning to them. During the second interviews, many participants wanted to clarify, correct, or expand upon things spoken about before which led to more robust conversations about trust, risk, and sexual responsibility. This helped deepen and strengthen the data.
Informed verbal consent was obtained at the beginning of both interviews. Participants were informed about the intention of the research, the mode of data storage, and the way the data would be handled and analysed. Participants were given the opportunity to choose a pseudonym or for one to be chosen for them. Thereafter the pseudonyms were used in all relevant documents to maintain anonymity. Participants were told that they may request for other aspects of the information they disclose to be change in a suitable manner to maintain anonymity if necessary, for example their employers and/or job title and some of them did so.
The content of the interviews was of a sensitive nature. Sexual interaction can be a particularly personal, intimate, and complex subject. Whilst it can be the source of pleasure, enjoyment, fulfilment, and discovery, it can also be a source of conflict, distress, regret, and discomfort. There was the possibility that participants might disclose distressing information or experiences during the interview process. Therefore, participants were told at the beginning of the interviews that they may request to stop at any time. Had
participants disclosed information pertaining to crimes committed in the past or the possibility of crimes committed in the future, either by or to the participant, they were told that I would contact my supervisor to ask for further advice and if necessary that their anonymity would be broken to ensure the safety of the participant or others. At no point were either of these measures taken.
As English is my only fluent language, all participants had to speak it to a sufficient level. Five of the eight participants’ mother tongue was English. Careful attention was paid during the interviews with other participants to try to reduce as much as possible the loss of meaning in translation. The restriction on language could have led to otherwise suitable participants being excluded from the research however this was not actively employed when finding the participants. It is worth noting however that since the adverts placed were in English, this could have filtered potential participants due to English proficiency.
Chapter 3: Trust is Multiple
When participants were asked what trust was, everybody found the question difficult to answer. In an interview context where speech is the objective, silence sounded the loudest. Most participants seemed perplexed and humoured about the fact that they could not quickly give a definition of trust. With several, that then became the talking point for some minutes.
When asked about trust in the context of sexual decision making and hook ups, participants found it easier to explore anecdotally by recalling different instances where trust was or was not present or how trust when hooking up was built. Participants’ understanding of trust was therefore inherently entangled into the practices in which they built, sustained, and broken it.
From these anecdotes, it was possible to identify how trust was a capacity to bracket uncertainty and potential negative outcomes, something that stands in line with previous literature. However, this was not its only function. Two participants spoke about trust as a capacity that generated an emotional connection and closeness between sexual partners. Trust therefore did not have one function but multiple.
Uncertainty & Potential Negative Outcomes
Participants spoke about the different worries they had when hooking up, specifically exploring the potential negative outcomes that may come from hooking up with somebody they barely knew. Three themes (deception, harm to the body, and harm to the self) present in my data set have been summarised below. Whilst separated them into different sections, it is important to acknowledge that in reality the themes overlapped and interlinked. Separating them here has only been done to improve accessibility for the reader.
Deception
David, a 21-year-old student from Brazil, recounted a story to me. He was on a tram in Amsterdam with a fellow student who he had only met that day. The
tram was full, and it was difficult for him to move. He had forgotten to check in his OV chipkaart, a national travel card for the Netherlands, when he stepped onto the tram. He was too far away to do it, but if he passed his card to his new friend, she would be able to reach. He gave her his wallet from which to take his OV chipkaart so that she could scan it for him. At the same time the tram was stopping, and the doors opened. David said that he trusted that his friend would not run off with his wallet. The uncertainty to David was whether he would be deceived by his friend or not, and he trusted that he would not.
The trust that one would not be deceived was identifiable across all participants. For them, one meaning of trust was that they would be treated with honesty and that the stated intentions and beliefs of another person would in fact turn out to be true. Fred, a 39-year-old expat from Ireland, and Jack, a 34-year-old expat from England, both stated that to trust somebody meant that they believed that that person would ‘stay true to their word’, although neither specifically used the term ‘deception’.
Fred spoke about one instance where he specifically felt deceived and therefore, he could not trust his potential sexual partner anymore. We were first speaking about the kind of guys he liked to date. He typically went for younger men, non-Caucasian, and those who preferred to take a more submissive role in the bedroom both in regard to receiving anal sex but also the dynamic between the two of them. Whilst Fred clearly had a type, he also stated that this type was not fixed and that he was open to meeting men who didn’t necessarily have those characteristics. He did have two strong stipulations. The first, as mentioned above, was that he only took the role of a top. The second was that his sexual partner mustn’t have long hair. We laughed over the latter stipulation, Fred even saying he didn’t really know why he didn’t like long hair – he just didn’t.
Relevant here however is that once when Fred had been chatting with a guy online, he had invited him over to his place. When the man arrived, to Fred’s surprise, he had long hair tied back in a pony tail. Fred immediately sent the man away. Upon revisiting the pictures exchanged between the pair, Fred explained how the man’s hair had been pulled back in all the pictures and that at first glance it was not clear from them that he had long hair. Now that
Fred knew that, he could see it in the pictures. For Fred, the man had not clearly portrayed himself through the images he sent, and when the truth of his appearance became known to Fred, he no longer was a suitable partner. Critically, Fred said he not only sent the man away because he was not physically attracted to him because of his long hair, but also because he could not trust the man anymore due to the discord between his appearance in pictures and in person. Furthermore, Fred’s anecdote demonstrates how deception when hooking up, whether intentional or not can actually be entirely disconnected from the physical act of sex itself.
Harm to the Body
Trust in hook ups was furthermore conceptualised by some as faith that a person would not inflict harm on their body by deceiving them. Chris, a 36-year-old Canadian expat, and Alex, a 30-36-year-old Irish expat, spoke explicitly and at length about trusting that a sexual partner would not knowingly passing on a sexually transmitted infection (STI) to them. To do so was incomprehensibly immoral to the both of them. Whilst this topic was not covered as extensively by other participants, it was certainly identified as a general principle of trust in sexual relations, that neither partner would engage in sex if they knowingly had an STI.
However, deception leading to harm was not necessarily restricted to the passing on of an STI. In fact, when asking what the participants actually trusted when hooking up, the first answer given by most was the trust that they would not be physically harmed in the form of an assault. Because they met most of their partners through dating apps, and the first time that participants would meet their sexual partners in person would be when one of them went to the other’s house. That is an act of risk, inviting a stranger into the privacy of their home or entering the privacy of somebody else’s, and participants acknowledged this. In the initial moments of a hook up when the front door opens you are rather far from acquiring an STI. To do so you must engage with the person sexually, intimately. You are not however necessarily that far from becoming a victim of assault. After all, you are but strangers stood before each
other in a private, closed space. Participants were keenly aware of this. Therefore, to trust that somebody will not harm you when hooking up goes beyond the biomedical understanding of risk and sexual health – harm encompasses a much wider variety of possibilities.
Emotional Harm
In hook up scenarios it is possible to see how emotional harm is risked. One form of this is shame or being shamed by a sexual partner. Whilst I suspected greater data on the topic of shame in hook up encounters, only one participant really referenced the potential for shame in a hook up – Thomas.
Thomas was informing me about his preferred sexual practices. Usually he topped but he also enjoyed bottoming and did so somewhat often. Unlike Fred, who told me that he never bottomed anymore because he did not like the physical sensation of it and preferred the power role that he experienced being on top, Thomas spoke about how anal hygiene played a role in his preference to top. Thomas preferred to not take the role of a bottom because doing so risked ‘not being clean’2. However, he was more
inclined to do so if he trusted his sexual partner.
The reason why Thomas’ anecdote stood out do me from my data set is because anal hygiene is a common issue amongst MSM. Not only is the bottom often shamed along lines of emasculation, but they risk being shamed if they are “unclean” and blamed for it, being told that “it’s their fault”. Many MSM practice douching3, whereby an enema is used to rinse out the
anus, a strategy whereby you can regain a sense of certainty and assuredness in the outcome of receptive anal sex. To bottom therefore is to submit to the top’s requirements of anal hygiene wherein they may determine what is and
2 Not to be confused with casual use of the term “clean” to mean STI free or HIV negative.
3 In a literature review on anal douching, Carballo-Diéguez et al (2018) discussed that whilst several studies
show a correlation between douching and HIV and STI transmission, others show no such correlations. This combined with the fact that Thomas did not bring up the biomedical dimension of douching led to me decide that whilst acknowledging this was important, it was not necessary to fully explore in the main text.
what is not appropriate and to risk being ridiculed by the top if you breach these conditions, something which one may argue comes with the territory of anal sex. In Thomas’ case, to trust is to trust that he will be respected by the top if he is “unclean”, to trust that he will not be shamed by the outcome of a practice that both are engaging in4.
Sven never spoke directly about the potential for emotional harm; however, he did speak about the vulnerability and fragility of sexual encounters, particularly condomless anal sex. He said the following when talking about condomless anal sex:
‘Trust is then not related to whether the person tells you the right status or something. It’s just in connection feeling, this is the trust that I’m talking about. Feeling comfortable with someone and wanted to do this because it relates also to a very, yeah how can I say? It’s an act of closeness, of more closeness since there is not rubber between.’
In this excerpt, the vulnerability and fragility of a person engaging in condomless anal sex is apparent. Sven never specified whether this was in regard to topping or bottoming, but the core idea here is much simpler. To have anal sex without a condom is to lay yourself bare – literally. To do so is to engage in sexual intercourse without barriers. For Sven, this required the presence of a vulnerable emotional connection between two persons, and that itself carries risk and uncertainty. Trust here to is trust that in this delicate emotional state that accompanies condomless sex, one will not be harmed but instead respected.
4 It is worth noting here that anal hygiene was only referenced explicitly by one other participant, and that was
Fred. As well as protecting himself against acquisition of STIs, Fred’s choice to use condoms was also based on anal hygiene. However, he did not reference the notion of shame.
‘You Can Never Fully Trust Someone’ & Bracketing Potential Negative Outcomes
Several participants noted that they could never fully trust someone. This was often thrown is as a blanket statement, the presentation of a fact of life. In social situations wherein two people are negotiating a flow of knowledge, there could never be complete certainty of the truth of that knowledge and there could therefore never be complete trust in the face of that uncertainty. Jack spoke about this:
‘Can you ever fully trust someone? No. So, I've come to develop my thinking on this over the last couple of years to realise it's up to each person to look after their own sexual health because you can't fully trust someone else.’
David said something similar regarding when a person describes their sexual health, sexual history, and their STI statuses:
‘I don't know this person and even if I trust them enough to have sex with them it doesn't mean I trust what they're saying.’
A more concrete example of this was clearly shown in the way several participants recollected how a person’s sexual health status and last sexual health check-up may be communicated prior to hooking up, but that this should not be trusted. An excerpt from Jack’s interview summarises this perspective well:
‘For example, I see on people's profiles on Scruff5 profiles, we are now in March,
and people say oh I got tested in December. That really means nothing… I am
negative and got tested in December but that's the same as if I got tested last week and I'm negative. It means absolutely nothing about what this person has done in the intervening time and so I do look at that. Maybe that's based on my own suspicions or on my own prejudices, but I find it amusing that people put it [on their profiles] because they think it is some kind of guarantee but for me it is no kind of guarantee.’
Thomas spoke in a similar vein about not being able to trust completely by referencing the high rates of HIV transmission between male partners in committed, monogamous relationships wherein one of them cheated, contracted the virus, and passed it to his partner. He said:
‘I don’t know if its still like it but for a long-time people got HIV mostly because of partners that cheated on them… I find that staggering. Like you want to trust your partner more than anything else, the one person you need to be able to trust.’
Therefore, participants were aware that trust is not fool proof. They acknowledged that it was an imperfect capacity because it does not eliminate the uncertainty and risk present in a hook up scenario. Trust was therefore not able to solve the potential to be deceived, to suffer harm to the body, or to suffer emotional harm. However, trust was able to bracket these concerns, to diminish the realness of their presence, and to make it possible to pursue action in the presence of them.
Trust – An Emotionally Productive Capacity
Whilst trust can be a capacity to bracket uncertainty and potential negative outcomes, something that that expands upon existing scholarly work on trust, two participants spoke about trust in a distinctly different manner that challenges the existing body of literature on trust. Sven used PrEP in an event-based manner. Thomas had a history of using PrEP and by the time of the second interview was using it again daily. They both spoke about trust in terms of an emotional connection between two persons. To them, trust was not just
something that allowed themselves to act in circumstances of uncertainty. Trust was a productive force in the forging of an emotional connection and intimacy between them and their sexual partners.
Sven’s account of trust, sex, and intimacy was the most evident of this perspective. I shall quote the same excerpt of his first interview again:
‘Trust is then not related to whether the person tells you the right status or something. It’s just in connection feeling, this is the trust that I’m talking about. Feeling comfortable with someone and wanted to do this because it relates also to a very, yeah how can I say? It’s an act of closeness, of more closeness since there is not rubber between.’
Sven had been an adamant user of condoms for years. When PrEP became available, he initially felt quite negatively about it. Only after a long time of consideration did Sven become open to the idea of using PrEP. Through this excerpt from the interview however, Sven is not speaking about trust in terms of deception or harm but instead about trust in terms of sexual intimacy, as something that encompasses both the physicality of sexual intimacy and the emotional dimension of sexual intimacy, specifically condomless anal sex. This is a connection that he later labelled ‘sympathy’ in which trust was one of a variety of characteristics of the connection. To engage in penetrative anal sex without a condom was not simply a corporeal act to Sven. It was a social act that carried with it an entire spectrum of meanings – freedom, emotional closeness, and pleasure achievable only through two bodies together in condomless anal sex.
Thomas conceived of trust as an emotional connection in a similar manner but instead preferred the term ‘chemistry’. To Thomas, random hook ups were fine, but he much preferred to have a sexual partner wherein there was an ‘actual connection’. Thomas specifically spoke about how trust in this sense was not an isolated concept but instead was one thread in a wider combination of emotional concepts that could be collected under the umbrella term of ‘chemistry’. Chemistry is defined as a complex emotional interaction between people, and by referencing this concept rather than
talking explicitly and only about trust, Thomas clearly portrays the complexity of the relationship between him and another person hooking up within which trust is but one aspect.
Both of these examples exemplify the productive character of trust. To Sven and Thomas, to trust somebody is to bring themselves closer to their sexual partner, to create a relationship with them, and to become emotionally intimate with them at the point of physical intimacy. This shows that whilst trust can certainly be conceptualised as a capacity that helps people to deal with uncertainty, it must not be limited to this capacity. Trust had multiple meanings and effects to different participants. The concept itself was therefore inherently unstable.
Conclusion & Discussion
In this chapter I have identified three areas of uncertainty that participants spoke about when hooking up: the possibility of being deceived, the possibility of suffering harm to the body, and the possibility of suffering emotional harm. The applicability of trust to these uncertainties was twofold. Firstly, trust was a capacity that bracketed these uncertainties and allowed participants to act despite them. Secondly, however, trust was acknowledged as never fully reliable. This stands in line with previous academic work on trust positing that it brackets rather than eliminates uncertainty, because trust actually does nothing to the uncertainty itself but rather regulates the perception of this uncertainty.
The ground covered by participants in terms of the examples of uncertainties faced when hooking up is not and exhaustive list in any way. This to be particularly true for the possibility of emotional harm because the characteristics of the participants will have limited the kinds of potential emotional harm that may be risked. Six were Caucasian and therefore at little risk of being racially discriminated against. However, the whole group were HIV negative, and this will have therefore excluded from my research the common experiences of stigmatisation and discrimination that HIV positive people face when hooking up. Many studies have investigated HIV status
disclosure by MSM using the internet to find sexual partners (see Carballo-Diéguez et al 2006; Hart et al 2005; Marks & Crepaz 2001; Parsons et al 2005; White et al 2014). HIV positive men are often stigmatised by HIV negative persons when navigating online dating platforms (Burnham et al 2015) and disclosing HIV status commonly leads HIV positive MSM to fear that they will no longer be a suitable sexual partner for many HIV negative men (Horvath 2008). Trust, furthermore, has been found to be inherent to the disclosure process (Villar-Lounet 2013). For example, the person disclosing their HIV status may need to trust that the person they tell will not tell others (Gaskins et al 2011) or simply that disclosure demonstrates the presence of trust in a relationship (King et al 2008). HIV status, as well as other characteristics or identities such as religion, ethnicity, and class, are suitable exclusion/inclusion criteria to be utilised in further research to understand how these may influence the conceptualisation of trust amongst MSM who hook up. Lastly, trust was not simply something that allowed for action to occur during uncertainty, but also that it was a capacity in the formation of an emotional connection between sexual partners. In the presence of trust, Sven and Thomas could engage in deeper and more meaningful emotional relationships with sexual partners that enhanced their experience of hooking up. Therefore, trust is not singular. Trust is multiple. It is multiple not because it has different facets of use but because it has different capacities altogether to different persons. Even when trust is part of an emotional connection, its form is contingent on individual experiences of MSM hooking up. This can be seen by the different ways Sven and Thomas understood it. For Thomas trust was part of chemistry and for Sven trust was part of a sympathetic relationship between sexual partners. Even then, both accounts of trust became bound up in a greater set of meanings regarding condomless anal sex (see Chapter 5: PrEP, Condoms, and Responsibility). Whilst many scholars have theorised trust by trying to identify its stable characteristics, this data set shows that trust is unstable. It changes its form between people and between contexts. It is only by acknowledging this, by conceptualising trust as multiple, that perhaps its true forms can be recognised and understood.
Chapter 4: Trust as Routine
In the section prior I explored that how when participants hooked up, trust brackets uncertainty and that it can help foster a stronger emotional connection between sexual partners. In this section, I shall draw only on the former capacity of trust. This will be done by drawing specifically on the notion of trusting as put forward by Wright & Ehnert (2010). Beginning with their work, I argue that trust as a concept is the generated product of practices as well as the necessary context of the subsequent trusting practices. To do this, I show how trusting when hooking up is intertwined with different practices within a sequence that amounts to hooking up. By doing this I show that when the uncertainty of a practice bracketed by trust, this becomes the basis for trust which allows for the next practice of the sequence to be undertaken.
Trusting
Trust is temporal and procedural. It occurs over time and via processes of interaction between actors. Firstly, this means there is an anticipation of the future. For example, to trust is to have confidence in another’s future intentions (see Mellinger 1956; Read 1962). To trust is to be in ‘a state of favourable expectation regarding other people’s actions and intentions’ (Möllering 2001, 404). It is these expectations that are logically located in the future (Frederikson 2014). Similarly, Barbalet (2009) defines trust as ‘an anticipation of a future outcome that, if successful, it creates (369).
Secondly, attention should be drawn to the specific willingness in the present to trust in the future. Mayer et al (1995) highlight the requirement of a prior “willingness” to be vulnerable before the actual presence of trusting occurs, Johnson-George and Swap (1982) reference a prior willingness to take the risks innate to trust situations, and Luhman (1979) specifies that trust encompasses not only people’s beliefs about others but also their propensity to use that knowledge as the basis for action. Both the anticipation of a certain future and the willingness to trust in the present can be clearly seen in medical studies whereby the trust of health professionals becomes the basis for
pursuing particular medical treatments (see Benson & Britten 2002; Brown et al 2015; Trachtenberg 2005) or adhering to prescribed medications (see Piette et al 2005).
Trust therefore must not be understood as a static concept, but as a process. Wright and Ehnert (2010) conceptualise this as a process of trusting. Conceptualising it as a practice, trusting ‘expresses that the object of study is not just a measurable outcome… [and instead] acknowledges that the ‘product’ of trust is always unfinished and needs to be worked upon continuously’ (Möllering 2013, 286). Trust is unstable, contingent, and in constant flux.
Academic literature largely falls short in this approach when studying hook ups. It is difficult to find works that investigate exactly how MSM trust in these scenarios. This data set enriches such a subject area. As will be argued, trust is not a character of hooking up. Trusting is a part of the practices of hooking up that is essential if MSM wish to meet each other and engage sexually.
The Expectation to Trust
When first making contact with somebody online or in person, only two participants spoke explicitly in terms of expectation. David recalled what happened when he first began chatting online with a man online and they decided to meet. He said he preferred to meet in a public place first, that way he has the opportunity to evaluate the person in public space, not private. When asked if a good first impression was enough to trust the person to go to their place or invite them to his, and he said the following:
‘Yeah, that’s when I would make that decision. But it’s a little tricky because even when you meet someone [in public] you do that with the premise that you’re going to go to my house or his house after so then it’s kind of established that it’s already going to happen.’
