A regulação do sexo e gênero na era digital: uma contribuição da bibliografia brasileira a respeito de aplicativos de relacionamento

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to carry out a bibliographical review on relationship apps, for this, it is considered the centrality of Eva Illouz's work, which investigates affective relationships crossing themes such as love, capitalism and mobile technologies. Together, the Brazilian bibliography dedicated to the subject will be analyzed, the works of Richard Miskolci (2017), Larissa Pelúcio (2017) and Lígia Baruch de Figueiredo (2016) were selected to comparatively analyze the social transformations in the affective field. The selected works stand out for their affinity with the theme and for establishing a dialogue with each other, using discussions about the digital already consolidated in the field. Technological advances and the emergence of the internet impacted the construction of affective relationships, Illouz (2011) states that from the eighties onwards, a specialized language for affective relationships began to be produced that was incorporated into commercial segments such as self-help books, programs aimed at solving love problems, magazines that taught tips to build affective relationships, among others. The emergence of this niche of products made investment in this sector extremely profitable over the years, the author perceives affectivity as a field of disputes between commercial, academic, health, pharmacology and pornography sectors. With the rise of dating sites and apps, affective relationships have changed and started to incorporate a market perspective, resulting in what Illouz (2011) calls affective capitalism. The new economy of desire is a concept developed by Richard Miskolci (2014) that exposes the changes in the construction of relationships where sex, affection and love are related to sociotechnical transformations that establish a new geography for affective and sexual encounters, marked by the Anonymous, no-strings-attached sex. When analyzing the construction of affective relationships, aspects that define the sexual search stand out, making it possible to visualize the construction of a dominant sexual capital, where users who are closer to this ideal are more desired within this segment, on the other hand, the subjects who Those who distance themselves from this model face scarcity and frustration in the constitution of online relationships, which exposes how unequal the affection market is.