Untapped Potential: Understanding How LGBQ Students Use Dating Applications to Explore, Develop, and Learn about Their Sexual Identities

Abstract

LGBQ college students are at a distinct disadvantage when it comes to sexual education. An early lack of information has negative implications for LGBQ college students’ sexual identity development, sexual exploration, and mental and physical health. Similarly, heterosexist stigmatization of queer sexualities makes it difficult for students to openly explore their sexualities. Many LGBQ students may need a compensatory sex ed experience and better access to healthcare and the information their heterosexual peers have. This qualitative, narrative-based study examines how LGBQ college students explore their sexualities, develop their sexual identities, and learn about their communities through internet-based dating and sex applications. These apps serve as virtually mediated environments that make other queer people easier to find, communicate with, and learn from; institutions of higher education can learn from the kinship networks these students find and create online.