‘Sober dating’ is the act of spending time with other people to pursue a romantic or sexual connection whilst not consuming alcohol. Sober dating has emerged as a constituent part of a broader trend of declining alcohol consumption—particularly among young adults—across high-income countries, including the UK, and a rise in popular engagement with Temporary Abstinence Challenges, online sobriety communities and ‘sober curiosity’. Emerging research seeks to understand why young people are drinking less or not at all, yet there is limited research that explores how young people ‘do’ sobriety—how they navigate daily activities and life stages without alcohol—including leisure and pleasure. This chapter offers an (auto-)ethnographic exploration that draws on the authors’ positionalities as intimate insider researchers, to understand how young women, who no longer consume alcohol, navigate dating practices: ‘sober dating’. First, we outline the contemporary context within which the phenomenon of sober dating has occurred and unpack a range of initial themes and questions regarding the practice. We consider the role of online dating applications, online sobriety communities, and no- and low-alcohol drinks in the emergence of sober dating. We subsequently explore interview data and auto-ethnographic reflections to understand women’s lived experiences of sober dating. The chapter concludes by discussing these experiences within current debates around neoliberal feminism and highlights some implications and considerations for future research and sobriety support initiatives.

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“I Always Joke that I Became a Bit of a Prude”: Exploring Young Women’s Lived Experiences of Sober Dating in the UK Using Sociological (Auto-)Ethnographic, Insider Research

  • Claire Davey,
  • Millie Gooch

摘要

‘Sober dating’ is the act of spending time with other people to pursue a romantic or sexual connection whilst not consuming alcohol. Sober dating has emerged as a constituent part of a broader trend of declining alcohol consumption—particularly among young adults—across high-income countries, including the UK, and a rise in popular engagement with Temporary Abstinence Challenges, online sobriety communities and ‘sober curiosity’. Emerging research seeks to understand why young people are drinking less or not at all, yet there is limited research that explores how young people ‘do’ sobriety—how they navigate daily activities and life stages without alcohol—including leisure and pleasure. This chapter offers an (auto-)ethnographic exploration that draws on the authors’ positionalities as intimate insider researchers, to understand how young women, who no longer consume alcohol, navigate dating practices: ‘sober dating’. First, we outline the contemporary context within which the phenomenon of sober dating has occurred and unpack a range of initial themes and questions regarding the practice. We consider the role of online dating applications, online sobriety communities, and no- and low-alcohol drinks in the emergence of sober dating. We subsequently explore interview data and auto-ethnographic reflections to understand women’s lived experiences of sober dating. The chapter concludes by discussing these experiences within current debates around neoliberal feminism and highlights some implications and considerations for future research and sobriety support initiatives.