Glass Acts: The Queer Cybernetic Heartbeat of Modern Touch

         In our relentless pursuit to theorize contemporary desire, we repeatedly encounter a peculiar paradox: never have human bodies been simultaneously more connected and more isolated than in our current moment of digital intimacy. This paradox demands new theoretical frameworks that move beyond traditional binaries of presence/absence, touch/separation, real/virtual. The haptic interface – that omnipresent glass surface we caress countless times daily – requires us to reconceptualize not just the nature of touch itself, but the very ontology of intimate connection in the digital age. This essay proposes a new theoretical framework of “digital haptics” to understand how touch operates, transforms, and generates new modes of desire when mediated through technological interfaces.

        The ubiquitous smartphone screen serves as our primary site of investigation – not merely as a medium of communication but as what might be termed an intimate interface. This concept builds on but differs from traditional interface theory in crucial ways. Where interface theory typically emphasizes the screen as a point of translation between human and machine, the intimate interface functions as a site of affective production – generating new forms of tactile knowledge and embodied connection that exceed both human and technological boundaries. Through this interface emerges a sort of digital skin – a theoretical construct describing the responsive, meaning-laden surface that materializes between human touch and technological interface¹.

          Consider how the basic gesture of the “swipe” has evolved from simple interface interaction to become a complex signifier of desire itself. This transformation suggests a certain  performativity– the way repeated physical interactions with digital surfaces produce new forms of intimate meaning. Just as Butler’s theory of gender performativity suggests identity is produced through repeated acts, haptic performativity proposes that digital intimacy emerges through the repetition of tactile encounters with technological surfaces. Each swipe, tap, and scroll becomes part of what we might call a “choreography of desire” – movements that simultaneously express and produce intimate possibility².

        This framework becomes particularly evident when examining queer digital intimacies. Queer users of digital platforms often engage in a certain tactical touching – ways of interacting with digital interfaces that subvert their intended functions to create alternative spaces of intimate possibility. These practices suggest that digital haptics, far from being deterministic, contains within it the seeds of its own queering. The digital surface becomes not just a medium of connection but a site of resistance, reimagining, and reconfiguration³. Digital haptics produces what I term “tactile temporalities” – new rhythms of intimate contact that differ fundamentally from traditional temporal experiences of touch. Where physical touch typically occurs in what we might call a continuous time, digital touch introduces a quantized intimacy – intimate contact broken into discrete, countable, often asynchronous units. This quantization of touch produces new temporal experiences of desire, anticipation, and satisfaction that require theoretical frameworks beyond traditional phenomenology of time. The complex temporal architecture of a dating app interaction exemplifies this phenomenon: the initial swipe, the match notification, the message exchange, the potential meeting – each touch point creates a moment of potential intimate contact that exists simultaneously in the immediate present of the interface interaction and the projected future of possible connection. The asynchronous nature of digital touch also produces “tactile traces” – the persistent marks of intimate contact that remain in digital spaces long after the original touch has occurred. Unlike physical touch, which leaves no permanent record beyond memory or mark, digital touch creates lasting archives of intimate interaction. These archives suggest new forms of what Elizabeth Freeman calls “temporal drag,” but operating through tactile rather than purely cultural means. 

         The persistence of these traces raises crucial questions about the nature of intimate memory in digital spaces and the way technological interfaces reshape our experience of temporal continuity. The intersection of affect theory and algorithmic systems produces  forms of intimate connection that are simultaneously felt and calculated, experienced and processed. This hybrid form of intimacy requires us to develop new theoretical tools for understanding how affect operates when mediated through algorithmic systems. I propose the concept of “algorithmic affect” to describe how emotional and intimate experiences are shaped by computational processes while simultaneously exceeding them. Unlike traditional theories of affect that emphasize its autonomic and pre-cognitive nature, algorithmic affect examines how computational systems participate in the production and circulation of intimate feelings without fully determining them. This framework allows us to understand phenomena like the “dating app dopamine loop” not simply as behavioral conditioning but as the emergence of new forms of affective experience that are neither purely organic nor purely computational. The algorithm becomes an affective actor– not merely mediating but actively participating in the production of intimate feelings and desires. This understanding challenges traditional models of technological mediation that position digital interfaces as neutral conduits for pre-existing human affects. 

        Digital haptics further operates within what I term the “intimate economy” – a system of value production that commodifies not just desire but touch itself. This economy produces new forms of haptic capital – the ability to generate value through technological touch. Unlike traditional forms of emotional or erotic capital, haptic capital is specifically tied to the ability to effectively navigate and deploy digital interfaces for intimate purposes. This theoretical framework helps us understand phenomena like premium dating app features not simply as commodification of connection but as the emergence of new forms of haptic stratification. The ability to “super like,” to see who has liked you, to rewind swipes – these paid features create what I term “haptic hierarchies” that reflect and reinforce existing social inequalities while producing new forms of intimate privilege. These hierarchies operate not just at the level of individual users but structure entire platforms and ecosystems of digital intimacy. The political economy of digital touch thus becomes inseparable from broader questions of social justice and digital equity.

        As we move toward increasingly immersive digital technologies – virtual reality, haptic feedback systems, artificial intelligence – the theoretical frameworks proposed here will require further development. I suggest three key directions for future theoretical work: first, what I term “deep haptics” – the study of how increasingly sophisticated touch technologies produce new forms of intimate experience; second, “algorithmic erotics” – examination of how AI systems participate in the production of desire; and third, “quantum touch” – theoretical frameworks for understanding how quantum computing might transform our understanding of digital intimacy. This theoretical expansion must also account for what a haptic resistance must look like – ways in which users repurpose and reimagine digital touch technologies for purposes beyond their intended functions. As digital interfaces become increasingly central to intimate life, understanding how they can be queered, hacked, and repurposed becomes crucial to any comprehensive theory of digital haptics. This resistance takes many forms, from the development of alternative platforms to the creation of new gestural languages that subvert standard interface conventions. These collective forms of digital touch point, forms of haptic interaction that transcend individual user-interface relationships to create new forms of communal intimate experience – lean toward possibilities for reimagining not just individual intimate connections but entire ecosystems of digital intimacy. 

        As we advance deeper into what might be called the age of digital intimacy, the theoretical frameworks proposed here – digital haptics, intimate interfaces, haptic performativity, tactical touching, tactile temporalities, algorithmic affect, and haptic capital – do more than simply describe our current moment. They suggest something more profound: that we are witnessing not just the mediation of touch through digital interfaces, but the emergence of entirely new modalities of intimate experience that exceed our traditional understanding of both “digital” and “touch.” The glass surface of our devices, far from being a barrier to intimate connection, has become what we might call a “generative membrane” – a site where new forms of touch, new choreographies of desire, and new possibilities for intimate connection are constantly being produced. This production is neither purely technological nor purely human, but rather emerges from what Karen Barad might term the “intra-action” of bodies, interfaces, algorithms, and affects. What makes this particularly significant is how it challenges our fundamental assumptions about the relationship between technology and intimacy.

       Consider how the theoretical frameworks developed here suggest a radical rethinking of what constitutes “authentic” intimate connection. Rather than positioning digital touch as a poor simulation of “real” physical contact, we might understand it as producing its own forms of authenticity, its own modes of presence, its own kinds of intimate truth. This is not to deny the continued importance of physical touch, but rather to recognize that the binary opposition between “real” and “virtual” touch no longer adequately describes our intimate experience.

       The political economy of digital touch, with its haptic hierarchies and structures of algorithmic affect, reveals how intimacy in digital spaces is never purely personal but always already political. The way touch is commodified, stratified, and controlled through digital interfaces reflects and reproduces broader social inequalities while also, paradoxically, creating new possibilities for resistance and reconfiguration. This tension between control and possibility, between commodification and liberation, suggests that digital touch will be a crucial site of political struggle in the years to come.

        Looking forward, the frameworks proposed here open new questions about the future of intimate connection. As we move toward increasingly sophisticated haptic technologies, immersive virtual environments, and artificial intelligence systems capable of generating their own forms of touch, how will our understanding of intimate connection continue to evolve? What new forms of digital skin might emerge? What new choreographies of desire might become possible?

        Perhaps most significantly, this theoretical work suggests that we are only beginning to understand the full implications of our intimate engagement with digital interfaces. The quantum intimacies, algorithmic affects, and tactical touches described here may be just the beginning of what Donna Haraway might call a “cyborg intimacy” – forms of connection that fundamentally transform what it means to touch and be touched in the digital age.

       The task ahead, then, is not simply to theorize these transformations but to actively participate in shaping them. How can we develop more ethical, equitable, and liberatory forms of digital touch? How can we ensure that the future of intimate connection remains open to difference, to queerness, to the unexpected? These questions require not just theoretical sophistication but political commitment and imaginative vision.

        In the end, the theory of digital haptics proposed here suggests that we are all, in some sense, becoming virtuosos of virtual touch, developing new sensitivities and capabilities through our daily interactions with digital interfaces. The challenge is to ensure that this emerging expertise serves not just the interests of capital and control but the broader project of human intimacy and connection. For in the landscape of digital desire, touch remains both our most basic form of connection and our most profound possibility for transformation.

 End notes 

1. The concept of digital skin draws on but extends beyond Claudia Castañeda’s work on technological embodiment in “Figurations” (2002). Where Castañeda examines how bodies are figured through technological discourse, digital skin specifically theorizes the emergence of new forms of tactile surface through technological interaction.

2. Butler’s “Gender Trouble” (1990) provides a crucial theoretical foundation, but haptic performativity specifically examines how meaning emerges through physical interaction with technological surfaces, suggesting new ways of understanding both performativity and materiality.

3. This builds on José Esteban Muñoz’s concept of disidentification while extending it into the realm of tactile interaction. See Muñoz, “Disidentifications: Queers of Color and the Performance of Politics” (1999).