Jones, R. (2008) Internet. In J.T. Sears (ed.) The Greenwood encyclopedia of love, courtship and sexuality through history, Vol. 6. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 130-133. Internet Rodney Jones From its beginnings in the late eighties, the internet has served as a means for people to establish sexual contacts, explore different forms of sexuality and sexual fantasy, and distribute and acquire information about sex. In technologically advanced societies, it has fundamentally changed the way people learn and communicate abut sex, playing a major role in educating young people about the subject and in providing social support for sexual minorities and other marginalized groups. It has also changed the way people establish and maintain sexual and romantic relationships. In many places, however, concerns about pornographic materials on the internet has given rise to attempts to censor on-line content which has affected access to important information on sexual health and the prevention of sexually transmitted diseases and stifled open discussion of such issues as homosexuality. The most common sexual use of the internet is the distribution of pornographic materials. Much of the sexually explicit material available on the internet, however, is not pornographic, but educational. In fact, the internet has played a significant part in educating young people about sex, disseminating information about safe sex and HIV/AIDS prevention and promoting open discussion of alternative sexualities and sexual identities. Recent studies indicate that more that 70% of 15-17 year olds in the U.S. have used the internet to access information about sexual health. Formal and institutional sex education sites make up only a small part of this phenomenon. Serious discussions about sex and sexuality also take place on private websites, on electronic bulletin boards, and in web logs (‘blogs’) and virtual communities. Many argue that access to sexual content on the internet has facilitated sexual health through providing people opportunities to explore sexual preferences and feelings and encouraging more candid discussions of sex. This explosion of sexual content on-line has had a significant impact on the ways societies communicate about and understand sexuality, especially more traditional or conservative societies. In China, for example, the internet, especially web logs and bulletin boards, contributed heavily to the sexual revolution of the nineties, sparking spirited public discussions about both sexuality and gender roles, and in India, chat rooms and on-line dating services have fundamentally changed the way many people approach finding a husband or wife. The influence of on-line sexual materials and activities has been particularly profound in the lives of socially disenfranchised individuals such as sexual minorities (gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgendered people), and the disabled. For members of sexual minorities it has made available a wide range of information and emotional support, aided in the “coming-out” process, helped individuals to combat shame and discrimination, find friends and sexual partners and discuss issues like HIV status. The internet is particularly more important for members of sexual minorities living in rural areas or in societies in which alternative forms of sexual expression is severely stigmatized. For example, the internet has been an important factor in the growth of gay and lesbian communities and the promotion of GLBT human rights in places like China, Singapore, India and the Middle East. The internet also provides new avenues to sexual expression for many disabled individuals, allowing them to overcome physical limitations in their search for sexual partners. The internet has also had an impact on the sexual lives of women, especially in societies in which their “real world” expressions of sexuality are limited or subject to a “double standard.” In fact, early ‘cyber feminists like Donna Haraway, suggested that the internet provides women with a significant tool for overcoming sexism. The potential of the internet to allow individuals to transcend their gender is evident in the apparently common practice of on-line “gender swapping,” the assuming of a gender different from ones physical gender in on-line interactions. For many, sexual experiences on the internet go far beyond accessing and distributing sexually explicit information, to the establishment of sexual and romantic relationships with others either close by or far away. Such relationships are formed in chat rooms, through email or instant messaging, through on-line dating services and match makers, and even in on-line gaming clans. One of the paradoxes of the Internet is that it is, on the one hand, a totally “disembodied” medium, and, on the other hand, one that seems to lend itself to representations and celebrations of the body and the establishment of an oddly embodied kind of intimacy. One example of this can be seen in the rise to a new form of sexual interaction known as “cybersex”. In its most basic form, cybersex consist of two or more individuals exchanging erotic messages via email, chat or instant t messaging programs. More and more common, however, are multimodal forms such as televideo cybersex, in which individuals perform sexually for each other in front of webcams, and even the use of devices with which people can stimulate one another’s sexual organs from a distance through appliances connected to their computers.. The later form is known as “teledildonics,” and, as with earlier on-line sexual pursuits, it is helping to spur technological innovation, particularly in the development of virtual reality (VR). Many people use the internet not just for cybersex, but for seeking partners for face to face meetings and even serious, long-term relationships. On-line dating services and personal ad sites like Match.com and Frendster.com are among the most popular sites on the web. Nearly all large web portals, like Yahoo.com, include spaces for users to look for sexual or romantic partners, and makers of instant messaging programs like ICQ heavily market their applications for finding potential mates. Initially a source or stigma or shame, finding partners through the internet has become increasingly accepted, especially in the U.S. and Europe. In 2002, Match.com, the world’s largest internet dating service, had an overall membership of over eight million, and it has been estimated that as many as a quarter of adults in the United States have used on-line dating services and personal ads. Though many of the large American on-line dating sites have gone international, there are also a large number of local sites all over the world, each geared towards the specific cultural environments in which they operate. In India on-line services like Shaadi.com are beginning to replace the small matchmakers who have traditionally helped families find suitable spouses for their children. In China, the on-line dating service of the nation’s largest web-portal, Sina.com, called “Club Love” is one of the country’s more popular sites. Muslim specific sites like Arab2Love.com, Zawaj.com and SingleMuslim.com, tend to focus more on helping customers find potential husbands or wives rather than fun dates or quick sex, and they often have a more religious tone, with information about customers’ height and weight supplemented with statistics on how many times a day they pray or statements about their “relationship with Allah.” Such services are particularly useful to those whose physical circumstances make it difficult for them to meet potential partners. They also significantly broaden the selection of potential partners, magnifying users’ chances of finding someone compatible. In some urban centers, on-line matchmaking has profoundly changed the way people socialize, giving rise to such phenomena as “hyperdating”, arranging dates with many different partners in quick succession. It has also significantly facilitated the formation of international and intercultural romantic relationships. The importance of computers and the internet in sexual and romantic interaction is not limited to that which begins on-line. With the pervasiveness of electronic communication—emailing, chatting, instant messing and texting—in everyday life, online communication now plays an important part in helping people to manage and maintain their off-line relationships. Despite its potential benefits, there is a “darker side” to sexual interaction on the internet. In many ways it has facilitated sexual exploitation, sexual harassment and stalking. “Cyber-infidelity” has become and increasingly common threat to marriages and other committed relationships, and there are ample examples of adults using internet tools like chat rooms and instant messaging programs to lure children and teenagers into sexual relationships. While the internet has provided opportunities for gays, lesbians and transgendered people to access social support and fight for equal rights, it has also provided increased opportunities for the dissemination of hate speech directed at sexual minorities. As the amount of sexually explicit content available on the web has increased, so have attempts by governments and institutions to restrict its availability, especially to children, either through legislative means or though the technological methods such as filtering software. Different counties have approached such attempts at control in different ways. In the United States, the government has taken a role in attempting to criminalize on-line “obscenity”, passing the Communications Decency Act in 1996, which was later struck down by the Supreme Court, and later in 1998 the Child Online Protection Act, which, among other things, mandates that schools and libraries install software to block access to sexually explicit material. In places like China, which has the second largest population of web consumers after the United States, and Singapore, as well as in Middle Eastern countries like Saudi Arabia, Syria and Libya, governments have adopted costly technological solutions in attempts to prevent internet users in their countries from accessing sites with materials their governments find objectionable. Censorship of sexual material on the internet, however, is rarely effective. As fast as governments have developed technologies of censorship, internet savvy publics in places like China and the Middle East have learned to confound these technologies, accessing restricted materials, for example, through mirror sites or proxy servers, and many children and teens, often more computer literate that their parents and teachers, have found ways to crack the codes of filtering software. At the same time, attempts to restrict access to pornography can result in more limited access to legitimate educational materials. The use of filtering software at libraries and schools, for example, can prevent both adults and teenagers from getting valuable information on issues like sex education, HIV/AIDS prevention, breast cancer, abuse recovery, and lesbian and gay issues. A 2002 study by the Kaiser foundation in the U.S. found that most schools which employ internet filtering software configure the software with settings that are so restrictive as to adversely impact students’ access to health related information. While such restrictions are often unintentional, in some cases they can be seen as part of efforts by certain political and religious groups to restrict young people’s access to sex education in general. In other situations, government policies on restricting sexual content on-line have been used as an excuse to censor unpopular political speech. In the academic world, the internet has become an increasingly important tool for researching sexual behavior. On-line tools provide researchers with ways of contacting a large, diverse population and research participants with ways of responding more anonymously. Research on “cybersex’ and other virtual ways of interacting is providing valuable insights into sexual interaction in general which can be applied to such areas as HIV/AIDS prevention. The future of on-line sexuality involves fundamental questions about freedom of speech and censorship, social values, interpersonal relationships, law, and morality. It also raises new questions about the nature of sex itself, as people explore new ways of merging their bodies with machines for the purposes of sexual expression. Berry, Chris, and Fran Martin, eds. 2003. Mobile Cultures: New Media in Queer Asia. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Cooper, Al., ed. 2000. Cybersex: The Dark Side of the Force. Philadelphia: Taylor and Francis. Dawson, Jeff. 1997. Gay and Lesbian On-line. Berkeley: Peachpit Press. Orr, Andrea. 2004. Meeting , Mating and Cheating: Sex, Love and the New World of Online Dating. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Reuters Prentice Hall. Turkle, Sherry. 1995. Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet . New York: Simon and Schuster. Rheingold, Harold. 1991. Virtual Reality. New YorkL Touchstone. Rideout, Victoria, Caroline Richardson, and Paul Resnick 2002. See No Evil: How Internet Filters Affect the Search for Online Health Information. Kaiser Family Foundation. Waskul, Dennis. 2003. Self-Games and Body Play: Personhood in Online Chat and Cybersex. New York: Peter Lang. Waskul, Dennis, ed.. 2004. net.seXXX :Readings on Sex, Pornography and the Internet . New York: Peter Lang. Web Sites Match.com. Accessed February 1, 2006. <http://www.match.com> The world’s largest on-line dating service with local sites in over twenty countries. Single Muslim.com. Accessed February 1, 2006. < http://singlemuslim.com/> The most popular on-line dating site for Muslim, forcing on marriage and religious oriented personal ads. Queer Resources Directory. Accessed February 1, 2006. <http://www.qrd.org/qrd.> One of the largest and most comprehensive Internet gateways for gay men and lesbians, providing links to pages on queer culture, activism, history, health, and other issues. Teenwire.com Accessed July 17, 2006 <http://www.teenwire.com> Sex education site for teens run by Planned Parenthood Electronic Frontier Foundation. Accessed February 1, 2006 http://www.eff.org/> An organization that advocates for on-line freedom of speech.