Sex in an Increasingly Digital World
Presumably the internet was originally intended for noble purposes. Its potential for good is limitless. An information super-highway created to connect the world and amplify our opportunities to express knowledge, create friendships, and to generally better mankind as a species. But as is the case with other noteworthy inventions in human history, it was soon tainted. Tainted by the terrible, disgusting and decidedly necessary presence of sex. Before long, it had been completely overrun. No one is safe from the sleaze that inhabits the worldwide web. Only a few years ago this filth was largely a solitary process, involving a hurried selection followed by a vigorous anaerobic exercise and a shame shower. However, as the internet has evolved, so have the ways we choose to add sex to our digital experiences. Online matchmakers create ways for you to (supposedly) meet with strangers and explore your deepest, most revolting fantasies. Or, if you’re legit, Facebook and other social networking sites mean you barely have to leave your house to court a potential mate, and can get to know them entirely through your computer screen. In our modern sex-crazed world, getting your rocks off is easier than it’s ever been, regardless of what floats your boat. You can actively seek out porn and seedy relationships for one-off, purely sexual adventures, or you can use social networking sites and other forms of digital communication in an attempt to find some more meaningful poon-tang or dick.
As the Internet has evolved, so has its part in our greater sex culture. In its youngest form, the only presence of sex online was pages from Playboy and FHM, scanned into digital images and posted online. And for a good long while, that was it. Internet pornography was the only way a computer was going to help you achieve an orgasm. This solitary basement five knuckle shuffle was largely given the stigma (and perhaps rightly so, I won’t discuss that here) of being pathetic, lonely and desperate. And perhaps it was, but it spread quickly, in the kind of insidious way only sex can. As porn became a major part of the internet, making billions of dollars worldwide and shoving the idea of sexuality down our throats harder than anything ever had, it became less a solitary process, and more a tool to express people’s individual desires. With this expression of desire came an intrinsic want to see it satisfied. And as such, online sex sites began to crop up.
An online sex website works, in theory, similarly to a dating website. You sign up to said website, put in a collection of personal details and spend the afternoon trolling through lists of potential sex partners, or simply wait for them to come to you. In the good old days of quiet prudishness, the only thing you were actually likely to get out of joining one of these sites was a constant and vulgar collection of spam to clog your email address. However, whether or not this has changed with the digital sex revolution, is a mystery that requires more sleuthing and research than should be committed to a one thousand-word article. If you were visit to Adultfriendfinder.com, one of the most well-known sex sites, you would encounter a collection of pictures showing a range of unfeasibly beautiful and slutty women who are willing to have sex with you right fucking now. However, look closely and you’ll see that these images are only for illustrative purposes and do not depict the actual women you’re likely to meet. The long and short of it is, while it may be possible to find sex through sites like this, chances are it’ll be of a low standard and won’t be worth the junk mail.
However, random singular encounters for a purely sexual goal isn’t the only way to use the internet for your sexual gain. The ideals of digital sex have seemingly moved hand in hand with the idea of digital relationships, and their mainstream acceptance. Today, it is almost socially acceptable to admit to people that you met or dated someone as a result of a purely digital introduction, through a dating site or perhaps even an online game. Yet it is still seen as pathetic, shameful and embarrassing, to the point where couples who have met online will fabricate a fictional first encounter to avoid shame from their friends. It seems odd then, that it is completely acceptable, and even perhaps normal, for a person to meet someone in person once, and then proceed to get to know them almost entirely through social networking sites, online chat software and txting. Digital communications are speeding up the courting process, allowing people to judge a persons taste, intelligence, sense of humour and a range of other characteristics without the effort and potential awkwardness of ever leaving the home. Putting up a good first impression via txting and Facebook, through choosing your words carefully and sending out the right signals, is almost as important, in terms of the back and forth of dating, as the actual dates are, or so it seems. Once a relationship has begun, there’s a further digital expectation seemingly put in place; txting and keeping in touch on a daily or hourly basis with whomever you’re with is the norm. None of this is technically a bad thing; it just shows the technological presence we’ve come to expect in our daily lives.
The real question is; where do we go from here? The way we look at relationships is constantly evolving. People will always find different things acceptable as time goes on. The concept of stereotypical dating, as seen on Friends, is slowly being subsidised and replaced by digital chat and networking sites. Online dating sites are no longer totally unacceptable by social norms. Chat Roulette is pushing the boundaries in terms of the social use of webcams and of how many random penises you’re willing to see before vomiting in revulsion. In a society where technology dictates everything, how relationships change isn’t really up to us anymore. Probably best not to worry about. Just log on and enjoy the ride.
-Mike Mizanian
