Internet Sex

1. Internet Sex Sexuality and Society Week 7 2008-9

2. Outline • What is meant by ‘Internet sex’? • Is is a pleasurable, liberating sexual playground or a cesspit of danger? • How far do these discourses merely replicate already existing discourses and moral panics regarding the need to protect moral purity against sexual danger?

3. Futuristic Visions

4. Doing ‘It’ Online • Describing real world circumstances – ‘I’m taking my top off’ • Fantasy scenarios • ‘Tele-operated compu-sex – ‘Jim, I want you to slowly undress Susan’ (Branwyn, 2000)

5. A Broader Concept of ‘It’ • Participating in interactive sex chats and blogs - which may involve text, exchange of images, webcams, for example on MySpace, other networking sites, IRCs • Looking at sexual imagery – live video feed, still images. • Participating in sexual cultures and communities, including dating sites.

6. The Heterogeneity of Cyberspace • Be careful when reading about this topic! • What is the exact space being discussed • MUDs (Multi-User Domains/Dungeons)? • Forums? • Chat-rooms? • Public or private interaction? • Potential for anonymity? • Which were the technologies around when this article was written? Have technological or other changes in availability of online spaces changed the situation?

7. Discourses on Internet Sex The Internet as: • A ‘brave new frontier’ or ‘sexual playground’ • ‘A perilous vortex of danger and corruption (O’Brien and Shapiro, 2004: 116)

8. A New Sexual Frontier • Experiments in sex and gender. • Re-writing sexual scripts. • A haven for sexual minorities. • Safe(r) sex. • The availability of sexual information.

9. Experimenting with ‘Sex’ and Gender

10. Playing Offline • ‘For a man to play a woman on the streets of an American city, he would have to shave various parts of his body; wear makeup, perhaps a wig, a dress, high heels; perhaps change his voice, walk and mannerisms’ (Turkle, 1995: 212).

11. Playing Online • Invisibility of physical body could mean that the only limit is our imagination. • But our imaginations, as well as our techniques of interaction, are guided, limited and constrained by offline conventions and stereotypes (O’Brien, 1999; Turkle, 1995; Bassett, 1997). • Limited usefulness in seeing cyberspace as exemplar of postmodern space, or simplistically applying a ‘reading of Gender Trouble or The Epistemology of the Closet’ (Wakeford, 2000).

12. Online gender play is not easy nor necessarily progressive-- • It’s hard to ‘pass’ as another gender. • People often end up reinforcing gender binaries rather than challenging them. • Internet play is not really ‘disembodied’. Although two (or more) bodies may not be ‘co-present’- interacting online involves the body and embodied pleasures. • In chatting people are present to each other only through representations, but they have to be present (at their computers) (Slater 2002)

13. Exploring new desires or new sexual scripts ‘Prosuming’ Sex Research into CU-SeeMe interactive sex entertainment (Kibby and Costello, 1999; 2001).

14. Rewriting Sexual Scripts? • Codes for male erotic displays are not well developed. • Empowers women to direct encounters to suit own pleasures: <joe>: Pam, would you like to see my cock? <autodoc>: boy you’re a charmer <PamelaSue>: no I have seen enough cock tonight. • But does this transform sex offline? • Slater (2002). People operate with a consumerist model seeking fulfilment of already formed desires.

15. A Haven for Sexual Minorities • Embraced Internet to huge extent • Gaydar (www.gaydar.co.uk) the 5th most popular website in UK (GayTimes, 2004). • Sites used for a variety of reasons – though Gaydar seems to prioritise sex

16. Explaining Popularity • Analogy between gay online spaces (websites, chat-rooms, forums) and the ‘gay bar’ (Shaw, 1997). • ‘Queer havens’ (Campbell, 2004). • ‘Personally I can’t tell you how long it has been since I have been to a gay bar […] like numerous others, electronic cruising has replaced bar hopping’ (Tsang, 2000: 433).

17. Exploring Diversities • ‘Gay’ and ‘straight’ are not monolithic categories – people have different preferences, tastes, fetishes, and fantasies • ‘What’s the point in chatting to a man in a bar only to find out that he doesn’t want to be tied up?’ (McLelland, 2002: 393). • Different spaces have different norms of attractiveness (Campbell, 2004; Monaghan, 2005).

18. Safer Sex? • Internet sex as ‘The ultimate safe sex’ (Branwyn, 2000: 396). • But does it lead to risky encounters offline? • Or does it pre-empt the need for embarrassing negotiations about condom usage (Davis et al, 2006)?

19. Safe Sex Preferences

20. Dangerous and Corrupting • Cybersex as pathological sex • Sexual harassment • The sex industry • Children as victims.

21. Cybersex as Pathological • The public nature of online interaction, and its immateriality, is ‘antithetical to true intimacy’ (Bar-Lev 2008) • Internet sex addiction? • Some clinical literature tries to ‘explain’ why people would want to engage in cybersex – ‘an underlying assumption is that unless one is sexually ostracized or physically challenged in some way, there is no good reason for engaging in Internet sexual activities’ (O’Brien and Shapiro, 2004: 121) • Much regulatory discourse driven by heteronormative ideals • Is co-presence necessarily more authentic and genuine, or is it that online and offline intimacies are structured in different ways?

22. Sexual Harassment • Problems that plague offline interaction do not disappear online. • Dis-inhibiting effect of anonymity may make SH more prevalent online that offline (Baratz, 2005). • ‘[I]f you have a female screen name and you enter a general chat area, you’re gonna get hassled’ (Branwyn, 2000: 400).

23. The Sex Industry • Interconnection of Internet and sex industry. • Greater market for more extreme porn – such as rape (Gossett and Byrne, 2002). • Feminist debates about the effects of pornography on audience? • Important to look at realm of production, which is rarely ‘dematerialised’.

24. Children as Victims • Child pornography. • Predatory adults posing as youth in order to deceive children • ‘Grooming’ children for sex.

25. Unknown/Unknowability • The Internet ‘is the new unknown’ (Turkle, 1995: 227). • The Internet as ‘unknowable’ (Phoenix and Oerton, 2005). • Danger of seduction by slippery, elusive and unknowable ‘predators’ on the net.

26. Evidence from American survey (Wojak et al 2008) Sex crimes against children have actually decreased in the period since the Internet achieved widespread use. • Not a problem of deception by ‘paedophiles’. Minors affected are mainly 17-17 year olds involved in interactive chat, not releasing personal info on blogs. • Minors involved are sexually aware and are aware that the approach is sexual, and know it is an adult. These interactions resemble statutory rape (violation of age of consent legislation) in that they are consensual.

27. Moral purity in a new guise? • Cassell and Cramer (2008) - ‘moral panic’ about internet and children is version of moral purity discourse, revolving around • Fears about girls sexual agency • Fears about adult loss of control- internet is a metaphor for heightened mobilities in social life. Similar fears expressed around women/ girls and telegraph and telephone when these were new technologies. • If blame predators then can strengthen supervision, don’t have to blame child’s genetics or upbringing • Effect is to obscure abuse by known persons, family and friends • We almost never here the voices of the young people involved.

28. What should be done? • Much educational material targets parents to protect and supervise their children, especially about posting personal info. But instead should target adolescents, not their parents. Be frank about, rather than deny, teen-age sexual interests and desire for autonomy. (Wojak et al 2008) • Further regulation of internet. But closure of chat rooms mainly protects the communication giants’ reputations, as the traffic moves elsewhere. And underground. Proper moderation would be better-- and more expensive. • Legal recognition of new forms of sex, e.g. grooming, which does not involve physically co-present bodies. See Davidson, J. and E. Martellozzo (2008) (available soon)

29. Conclusions • Does high tech mean high risk? It may, but why are we so willing to assume this? What existing constructions does this play on? • What are best ways to deal with actual problems?

30. Additional sources Albright, J.M. (2008) ‘Sex in America Online: An Exploration of Sex, Marital Status, and Sexual Identity in Internet Sex Seeking and Its Impacts’ The Journal of Sex Research 45 (2): 175-186. [Available online through Library journals] Cassell, J. and M. Cramer (2008) ‘High Tech or High Risk: Moral Panics about Girls Online’ Youth, Identity and Digital Media, MacArthur Foundation, MIT Press http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/dmal.9780262633598.053 Davidson, J. and E. Martellozzo (2008) ‘Protecting Children Online: Towards a Safer Internet’ in G. Letherby, et al (eds) Sex as Crime? Ulfculme: Willan [Ordered for Library and will be available on excerpts asap] Mitchell, K.L. et al (2008) ‘Are blogs putting youth at risk for online sexual solicitation or harassment?’ Child Abuse and Neglect 32 (2): 277-294. [Available online through Library journals] Mitchell. K.L. (2009) ‘Social Networking Sites: Finding a Balance between their Risks and Benefits’ Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine 163 (1): 87-89.[Available online through Library journals]

31. Slater, D. (2002) ‘Making Things Real: Ethics and Order on the Internet’ Theory, Culture, Society 19: 227 ff. ’Wolak, J. et al (2008) ‘Online “Predators” and their Victims’ American Psychologist 63 (2):111-128.[Available online through Library journals] Lecture also quoted from more tangential sources:* Bar-Lev. S. (2008) ‘” We are here to give you emotional support”: Performing emotion in an HIV/ AIDS Support Group’ Qualitative Health Research 18 (4):509-521.