ABSTRACT

Most large-scale capitalist enterprises promote stereotyped gender positions and heteronormative relationships. eBay is no exception, and it does so through its site design and business strategies, but some sellers resist eBay’s limited representations and address. By using the term “gay interest” in their listings, sellers render alternative positions and garner better prices. Gay interest listings appear in such varied categories as “DVDs & Movies,” “Books,” “Men’s Clothing” (mostly thongs and briefs), “Women’s Clothing” (leather and PVC pants and Winnie the Pooh T-shirts), “Home & Garden” (bookends depicting attractive men), “Sporting Goods” (mostly socks and briefs), “Toys & Hobbies” (Teletubbies’ Tinky Winky and Bat Girl), “Coins” (medals with images of men), and “eBay Motors” (chaps and other leather items). 1 These gay interest listings, and the ways that they address the company and consumer, are a reminder of the ongoing conflicts among eBay, buyers, and sellers over desires to articulate traditional gender roles, to imagine different sorts of identity formations, to represent marriages and nuclear families at the expense of other social and cultural experiences, to describe gay and queer desire in detail, and to make a profit from eBay activities.