“It’s Inauthentic, but I Also Don’t Want to Get Responses from Men About Threesomes”: Bi + College Students’ Online Dating and the Campus Sexual Borderlands

Online dating is exceedingly common on college campuses, yet the experiences of bisexual+ (bi+) college students are comparatively understudied. This study examines the online dating experiences of bi + college students through a three-month digital ethnography. Imbedded in a combined framework of queer theory and the sexual borderlands, findings suggest that bi + students negotiate their position within online dating’s extension of campus culture. Namely, bi + students utilized strategies of both resistance and capitulation to the sexual borderlands of campus as they navigated profile creation, conversations with matches, and the role of their friends in the online dating process. Implications of this work focus on how higher education can center bi + students’ needs and experiences, as well as contend with exclusionary digital contexts like online dating.