The cruising proposal can be immediate in nature
Our analysis of the websites showed that e-dates generally have an immediate sense. One proposes a date at an actual place and at an actual time, and the time between the proposal and the encounter tends to be very short. Immediacy overlaps speed, which we explored in the previous section, thereby shaping a new concept of cruising. It’s about a new cruising format imbued with the same traits we recognize in the daily life of the Second Modernity: a fast life that demands fast responses: “Anybody now in the Tarongers Library?” (RolloXY site, accessed on 05/).
The author of this post is a young man studying in a university library, who launches a proposal for a cruising encounter in the very same place where he is at the moment. The way the proposal is addressed shows that the waiting time for possible candidates is superseded, as is chance intervention in materializing the practice, so that this technological mediation offers the satisfaction of sexual desire at any moment.
Although not all e-dates we extracted from the online sites show this characteristic, many of them do, leading us to considerer it an interesting change in cruising scenes.
“What does [the e-date] do? The minute you feel horny, bingo! You take your phone, and ring, ring, ring [imitates a cellphone ringtone] and here I have you, and not here… wherever it is, and wherever I catch you” (DG3).
Surprise plays a determinant role in traditional cruising, since the nature of the sexual encounter is agreed on and negotiated simultaneously with the practice itself
Non-immediate encounters are scheduled for tomorrow, Saturday, this evening, etc., expressions that show planning and anticipation in an activity traditionally conceived as chaotic and disordered.
Anticipation as a characteristic of the new online cruising
The previous section ended by mentioning projection in time as a characteristic of new cruising encounters. This next section will show how planning not only concerns this dimension, but impacts the format of the practice itself, modifying it.
The discussion groups defined face-to-face flirting as an interrelation mediated primarily by nonverbal communication, in which gestures, looks, and winks serve as signs to identify MSM proposing sexual relations with other MSM in public places. The expectations or desires involved in the relationship are implicit, ignored a priori.
E-dating reduces the unplanned to a minimum. Online cruising is expressed in written communication, involving an actual proposal for contact. The person that offers an experience does so explicitly, and the one that accepts knows what is offered ahead of time. This occurs in two ways: in the profiles found on the sites, and in the texts themselves. To participate in a cruising site one has to create a user, and if one wishes, a profile. The profile acts as an image of the identity by which the individual wishes to be recognized (active or passive, young or older, stocky or slim build, etc.). However, since the site targets sexual contacts, profiles also allow participants to have a prior idea of the person they will be contacting, plus the possibility of choosing among an entire “supply” of complexions, ages, appearances, tastes, etc. Anticipation is also expressed in the texts of the online proposals: most of the posts on these sites leave nothing to the imagination, but describe the demand explicitly: “Tomorrow I’m going to be in Heron City, anyone up for good sex with a young passive man?” (Rollo XY site, accessed on 02/).
As revealed in the fieldwork, occasionally what is offered on the Internet fails to play out in practice. However, there appears to be tacit agreement to avoid betraying the expectations created in the exercise of anticipation taking place on the web. When the opposite happens, the deal is usually broken off: “Once I met up with a guy who turned out to be an old man, so I said, ‘Look, let’s just be friends.’ So we had coffee . and we still see each other, yeah? But only as friends” (DG1).