Marie Bergström - The New Laws of Love

8 Introduction Dominant discourses on online dating The privatization of dating Disembedded matchmaking The transformation of social life Dating under the microscope Empirical sources and methods Book outline

9 Part I The Privatization of Dating

10 1 The History of Matchmaking Marriage brokerage and personal ads The old commodification debate BBS and Minitel networks: praise and prejudice Old and new on the internet Notes

11 2 Dating Technicians Copy and paste Market segmentation A clean, well-lighted place Gender stereotyping It’s a man’s world Notes

12 3 The Keys to Success How big is online dating? Who seeks love and sex online? Juvenile use: generational and age effects A hookup culture? Tense thirties Back in the game: midlife dating Notes

13 4 Time for Sex and Love A sexual revolution or recession? The acceleration of dating No strings attached The new shapes of love Notes

14 Part II Unequal before the Laws of Love

15 5 Class at First Sight Online homogamy Segregation and algorithms Distinctive profiles: photos and wordplay Cultural prerequisites Codes of conduct Social bodies Notes

16 6 The Age of Singles Sex ratios and little white lies about age Waiting young men, pickup artists, and incels The new bachelors’ ball Gender inequalities in aging Social class and couple norms Notes

17 7 Digital Double Standards Female gaze and sexual objects The “bastard” and the “slut” Male initiative and female modesty Under the threat of sexual violence Terms of consent Notes

18 Conclusion: Private Matters The machinery of matching Private versus public A history of privatized life Dating as an island Domesticity and discretion Notes

19 Bibliography

20 End User License Agreement

1 Chapter 1 Figure 1.1. Front page of The Matrimonial News and Special Advertiser (February, 1877... Figure 1.2. Newspaper publicity for the “computer dating” agency Compatibility... Figure 1.3. Interface of the BBS Matchmaker Figure 1.4. Interface of the Minitel messaging system ULLA Figure 1.5. Interface of Match.com (year 2000) Figure 1.6. Interface of Tinder (year 2012)

2 Chapter 2Figure 2.1. Homogeneity in dating app interfaces: from left to right, Tinder, Bumble, Hinge,...Figure 2.2. Stereotypical branding between love and sex (Match and EasyFlirt)

3 Chapter 3Figure 3.1. Rate of use of online dating platforms in France, the United States, and Germany...Figure 3.2. Ranking of meeting venues in the United States in 2019 and in Germany in 2020 (%...

4 Chapter 4Figure 4.1. Time between initial contact and first sexual intercourse among couples in Franc...

5 Chapter 6Figure 6.1. Percentage, by age group, of the women and men in the United States who have use...Figure 6.2. Pyramid of ages, by gender, declared on four European dating platforms (%)

6 Chapter 7Figure 7.1. Share of female and male users initiating contact on dating platforms in six cou...

1 Cover

2 Table of Contents

3 Begin Reading

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To the Bergström family

Marie Bergström

polity

Published in association with INED Éditions

First published in French as Les nouvelles lois de l’amour: Sexualité, couple et rencontres au temps du numérique © Éditions La Découverte, 2019

This English edition © Marie Bergström 2022

Revised and adapted for the English language edition. This book has been through the normal scholarly process of anonymous peer review, carried out both by Polity and by the French Institute for Demographic Studies (INED). It is based on a book originally published in French in 2019 by Éditions La Découverte. The text was translated by Bernard Cohen and substantially rewritten by the author for the English language edition. The translation was funded by INED and CNRS, GIS GENRE. Quotations from original untranslated French sources have been translated by the author and by Bernard Cohen for this edition.

The right of Marie Bergström to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

First published in 2022 by Polity Press

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Cambridge CB2 1UR, UK

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All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-4351-9

ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-4352-6 (pb)

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.