Cell Phones, Coming Out Software, and the Politics of Pix: The Paradoxical Effects of Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) on Male Sexuality in Trinidad

This presentation sketches the trajectory of recent developments in information communication technologies (ICTs) in Trinidad and Tobago in relation to how they have impacted the self-understandings and sexual behavior of men, from cellular phones to the advent of the computer and Internet access, and from the phenomenon of chat rooms to Facebook and Adam4Adam, as well as new cell phone hookup apps such as Grindr, along the entire sociosexual continuum from heterosexuality to homosexuality. Such materials include use of separate cell phones, surreptitious chat, tactical cybercafé usage, Internet surfing and pornographic consumption, live camming, strategic use of Facebook, and so forth. I also consider the micropolitics of photographic imagery in terms of (in)visibility, exchange, self-presentation, ethnicity and race, and gender across all platforms. One of the more interesting findings concerns how ICTs have enabled bisexual, closeted, “down-low,” and married men to solicit and engage in more homosexual behavior than they might otherwise have experienced while remaining entirely anonymous and discreet. Thus I show how these technological developments are not inherently progressive or conservative, but in fact polymorphous forms of mediation with multiple, even paradoxical effects, and suggest that Thomas de Zengotita’s (2005) theory of optionalization in the digitalization of experience is useful for theorizing both the profound changes and ironic retrenchments in Caribbean sexual culture. Data for this analysis derive from ethnographic participant-observation both on- and offline since 1997 in conjunction with semi-structured interview materials collected since 2011.