“It was not my intent to cause distress,” another user explained. When confronted, they simply became defensive. In my study, many of the respondents seemed to have never really thought twice about the source of their preferences. Preferences may appear natural or inherent, but they’re actually shaped by larger structural forces – the media we consume, the people we know and the experiences we have. Sociologists have long been interested in the concept of preferences, whether they’re favorite foods or people we’re attracted to. (During the 2020 #BLM protests in response to the murder of George Floyd, Grindr eliminated the ethnicity filter.) His image of his ideal partner was so fixed that he would rather – as he put it – “be celibate” than be with a Black or Latino man. That user went on to explain that he had even purchased a paid version of the app that allowed him to filter out Latinos and Black men. A Grindr profile used in the study specifies interest in certain races.
