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The commodification of intimacy

By Millsom Henry-Waring - posted Monday, 9 July 2007


The increasing popularity of online dating is self-evident. We live in a global consumer-oriented world. We appear to be comfortable with the idea of effectively shopping online for love. Yet something remains missing.

Instead of offering radically new options for connecting, online dating merely reinforces traditional forms of intimacy, where “man still meets woman” according to explicit and implicit social criteria. Some innovative online dating technologies can offer us a real opportunity to reshape the ways in which we connect intimately, but so far, any developments have been curbed primarily by the commercial interests of the online dating and to a lesser extent, technology industries. And this is a real failing.

We all know someone who has dated someone they have met online. Yes, we do. It is OK to own up - really. Everybody’s doing it. Online dating 21st century style might create an occasional titter or a knowing look, but there is no longer a deep-rooted social stigma attached to finding a partner online.

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Unlike traditional forms of dating via newspaper ads, or introduction agencies, online dating is no longer viewed as an activity of sad, lonely, or desperate people. Such unflattering perceptions are firmly a thing of the past. More often than not, the image today is more likely to be a professional, mobile, technologically literate person who may be time and “intimate network” poor, but who has a thoroughly postmodern, consumer, criteria-driven idea of what to look for in a partner.

As a consequence, there has been an exponential rise in the number and type of online dating sites to meet and connect individuals with each other, both locally and globally. Today, most people meet and connect with someone through specific online dating sites such as RSVP, Matchmaker.com and LavaLife.

Many of these online dating sites charge an average monthly subscription of between $40-$50 for members. Members have to place a brief written profile (usually with a photo) of themselves online, based on a prescribed set criteria such as age, gender, “racial” heritage and occupational status. Members can then browse and search through the site to find likely matches. In addition, members can then contact each other via the sites’ many interactive communication tools such as email, chat and SMS services.

This is where online dating sites make money. It is big business. The online dating industry is a major global commercial enterprise. According to Jupiter Research in 2006, the online dating industry had a turnover over US$649 million.

As with most market-driven enterprises, the online dating industry has responded to demands from people with a diverse range of needs. There are now a plethora of niche or speciality sites, which attempt to cater for a wide range of preferences such as “race”, religion, sexuality and disability - such as Blacksingles.com, CatholicMatch.com, Gaydar.com.au, Planet Sappho or CupidCalls.

In addition, a number of online dating sites which claim to be more selective have emerged. These include sites such as eHarmony which aims to attract singles who are serious about finding a long-term partner based on highly selective and detailed compatibility measurements. And the True.com site which endeavours to ensure that members are bona fide single people of good repute, with warnings about being sued if they are not. And more recently, the rise of online dating sites like Meet People With Herpes (MPWH), or Prescription4Love for people facing the stigma of special conditions, such as HIV or Herpes.

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While all of these sites appear to be responding to demand and supply in the marketplace, they do raise more serious questions about the lack of any liberating or emancipatory vision for online dating. More on this in a moment.

Recently a number of economic commentators have claimed that the online dating industry has reached its financial peak. This is linked to the variable nature and quality of dating online and the unwillingness of singles to pay to remain online for the long-term. In addition, the emergence of social networking sites such as MySpace, Facebook, Udate, Club Intimate have enabled people to find, meet and connect, intimately or not, for free.

So what are the factors that have led to this change in perception and behaviour? They are many, but the key drivers are the developments in new technologies alongside fundamental global changes in our economy which are impacting not only on the ways we trade, but also more crucially on the ways in which we live. Sociologists such as Ulrich Beck, Elisabeth Beck-Gernsheim and Anthony Giddens, have pointed out that there are now many more risks and far less certainties, in both our public and personal lives.

We live in a time which sociologists describe as characteristic of the post-modern global society, where there is a decline in traditional norms and values that used to guide society and individuals - moving from one which was more collectivist in nature to a focus which is now more individualistic.

For those of us fortunate to live in a country like Australia, we know that we have greater prosperity than in the past and compared to some parts of the globe. We know that our standards of living and health are higher. And like other affluent countries, we also enjoy and demand the right to consume.

Yet, we also know that despite this material wealth, we are more likely to face uncertainties in our careers. We are more likely to move several times for work across towns, regions, the nation or the globe. We are also more likely to be in and out of intimate relationships. It should not be a surprise to find that people are actively seeking different ways to meet, to connect, to date and ultimately to form intimate and other relationships with.

While there are some positives to this social shift, such as more personal forms of freedoms and choices, there are also some negative consequences, particularly in the ways in which we connect intimately and otherwise.

Leading sociologist Zygmunt Bauman for example, laments the type of intimate relationships that now exist. Bauman talks negatively about love in postmodern societies - love has become so fluid that it is “liquid”, devoid of real shape and meaning.

Another prominent sociologist, Anthony Giddens takes a slightly modified view of relationships in the 21st century, by explaining how we now enter relationships no longer out of obligation or duty, but out of a demand for reciprocal partnership as an end in itself. Thus, if relationships do not work out, we simply leave. Both regard the rise of online dating sites as evidence of the commodification and ultimately, the disposability of intimacy.

This commodification of intimacy has been aided by the commercial nature of the online dating and technology industry, which inevitably regards dating as a type of commodity in which individuals can consume each other. The market is therefore a key influence shaping online dating. Unfortunately, this has meant that any liberating or radical changes to conventional forms of dating have been neglected. As a result, the online dating and technology industry has been a major obstacle to truly altering the ways in which people can connect intimately.

For example, most features of online dating sites tend to reinforce existing norms about dating, especially from a gendered or racialised perspective.

Often the act of dating online involves browsing and filtering the visual cues of photos, which tends to prize beauty and attractiveness through a largely exclusive western, Anglocentric lens. You do not have to go far to read from the front pages on, whom or what is rated as an attractive male or female.

Further, on some of the online dating sites, the assumption remains that men do most of the courting or chasing via “kisses” and “smiles”. In a collaborative study on online dating in Australia, a colleague (Dr Jo Barraket) and I found that while the possibilities offered by new technologies should enable individuals to meet others regardless of geography or conventional social criteria - people are still focused on finding people whom they would otherwise meet in a conventional sense.

Despite the opportunity to shop for love then, it appears we are still looking at the same labels or brands, with only a few of us willing to take the risk of trying on a new label.

The online dating industry at the moment reinforces the status quo of how “man meets woman” (or woman meets woman and man meets man). A key example can be found on almost all online dating sites as they focus on conventional forms of beauty, age and attractiveness - some are more explicit such as BeautifulPeople.net, GorgeousNetworks.com and MillionaireMatcher.com. Or sites like WildMatch.com or IwantU.com who draw a fine line between dating, sex and soft pornography. Even those which appeal to singles who want to meet others from different cultures are problematic, as they often stereotype groups of people as the exotic, submissive Other. These include sites such as InterracialSingles.net or InterracialMatch.com, AsianSinglesConnection and CherryBlossoms.

What I find disappointing and frustrating is that although there is a huge potential for technologies to connect people more innovatively, online dating sites have largely ignored any efforts to challenge the very ways in which we date. This neglect has been detrimental. So the status quo remains. Men still look in a certain way. Women still are objectified. Businesses make money as people consume.

Key questions remain - what about finding viable alternative ways of really connecting with people outside the square? Why don’t we demand more positive ways of connecting, intimately and otherwise?

Connecting to each other is a key human activity in the 21st century. We just all need to work much harder at connecting in the real world. It is too easy to shift tack and forget the real world in favour of alternative worlds offered by SecondLife and others. We know that humans desire and actually need to meet others physically to connect, especially in an intimate way. Despite all the promises of cybersex, there is something very false, alienating and artificial about it. Nothing can replace skin-skin contact. Anything else will always be second or third-best.

Online dating via deliberate or social networking sites looks set to continue to be a way in which people connect. Online technologies still have the potential to offer new ways of connecting. I believe that we just need to find much more radical and inspiring ways in which we can break free from traditional stereotypes about dating which particularly continue to place women and Others as objects and commodities rather than as equal, active partners.

In order to be viable in the long-term, the online dating (and the technology) industry will have no choice but find more innovative ways of encouraging us all to connect. Until then, maybe some of the answers lie firmly with all of us to find practical, creative and transformative ways of truly connecting with each other, intimately or otherwise.

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About the Author

Millsom Henry-Waring is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Melbourne. Millsom's research and teaching interests are based around notions of visibility, difference, otherness, blackness and whiteness, specifically in the areas of identity, intimacy, popular culture, new technologies, nationalism and multiculturalism.

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