The queer affective dimensions of gay dating platform-enabled victimisation in India

This paper discusses a range of affective responses of queer people after experiencing victimisation through gay dating platforms in India. In a queerphobic socio-legal backdrop that mediated these forms of victimisation, queer individuals’ feelings and responses in the aftermath can be studied through the lens of queer affect. Drawing from semi-structured interviews with people who experienced such victimisation, we highlight the spectrum of queer precarity in relation to the social sites and actors of the family, the neighbourhood, and the police, who played a key role in such incidents. In addition, we show how queer resilience emerges as a collective relational affect through aspects of story-sharing in the absence of institutional support. By focusing on the specific socio-cultural contexts undergirding the affective experiences of gay dating app users located in India, this paper offers empirical perspectives from the global South and contributes to a decolonisation of queer criminology and affect studies.