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Friday, November 9, 2007

Online Dating: Still Pathetic?

filed under: Dating 2.0, Unpersonals by Melissa Gira | Leave a Comment

No, it doesn’t make you pathetic. Please. Even at our worst, Sexerati is just not that judgy.

But seriously, I cannot describe my identity (hint, actually, that can be a hard question) & desire with a series of pulldown menus:

And nor can I find satisfying answers even after a never-ending flood of questions. Scientific sluttery dictates that I will still try, but I will be secretly wishing for a better way.

Is the future of dating really going to be the online equivalent of a sidelong glance on the subway, whether or not it turns into lurv?

Until the day comes that you can fuck a textbox, what do we modern lovers do? (It’s the weekend. Go work it out in the comments.)

Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Breaking Up In 140 Characters Or Less

filed under: Dating 2.0 by Melissa Gira | Leave a Comment

Please, please, please, fortheloveofallthat’smodern, stop. Stop keeping us hanging on. Stop giving love a bad name. Stop kicking my heart around. And STOP USING TECHNO AS A PREFIX FOR ANYTHING. Today it arrives in the subtitle to the book (via our new internet girlfriends at Jezebel) The Joy of Text: Mating, Dating, and Techno-Relating, which aims to protect women’s fragile luddite souls from bad boys with Blackberries, basically.

Hunting more on this meme, we’ve got this London Times online feature (for women, of course) on (hey, wait a minute) “the joy of text”, with the wee scrap of a text sex diary, and you know we’ve got a weakness there, apparently to illustrate the pitfalls, but really, just poorly titillates:

Choice excerpt:

10am Amanda’s meeting is over. Just time to send an e-mail to her internet flirtation, ‘CyberMan’. She has never actually met him but believes him to be everything Giles is not. Actually, ‘CyberMan’ is a 20-stone trucker from Milwaukee

1pm Amanda has quick lunch at desk. She logs on to the nursery webcam to make sure the twins are working hard at their Mandarin

4pm Giles gets text from Amanda: “Go W8rose – chkn, crts, yogs”

4.05pm “Wht yogs?”

4.08pm “Rasp, strawb, pch. B hell, do I have do evrythng?”

10.30pm Giles is in the bath, playing with his Blackberry, when he gets an e-mail. It’s a picture of Amanda in a black basque and says: “I’m all yrs, Cyberman”. Giles leaps from the bath and races to the bedroom

10.32pm Amanda and Giles lie together exhausted. But something is bothering Giles. Suddenly it strikes him. “Hang on a minute,” he says. “Since when has she called me Cyberman?”

Hey, Cyberman. Oh noes, i txted u a hardon, but i already sexxx0red it!

Tuesday, March 27, 2007

We Are The Sex Media: Digital Intimacy and Teens

filed under: Dating 2.0, We Are The Sex Media by Lux Nightmare | 3 Comments

If you read this blog regularly, you’re probably well aware that we at Sexerati are pretty big fans of digital intimacy; of using all the latest tech and hacks to work your way into someone’s heart (or bed). But we’re consenting adults, (theoretically) able to make educated, informed choices about who we do (and don’t) want to fuck, about whether our online excursions accurately reflect our IRL feelings about the people we interact with.

I often wonder how I would have ended up if I’d been born a few years later — five, or even ten years — if the Unpersonals and text messages and IMs I now view as a boon to my dating life would have caused me to develop into a fundamentally different person if I’d had ready and immediate access to them at the age of twelve, or thirteen or fourteen.

And maybe I would have: a recent article in The Age suggests that digital intimacy — texts and IMs and, yes, MySpace — leads teenagers down a path of accelerated physical intimacy, that the rapid formation of relationships online (combined with media messages proclaiming that, yes, everyone is having sex and if you aren’t you’re a loser) can lead to risky decision making.

I’m split on the issue of teens and the Internet, particularly when it comes to sex. The Internet is wonderful because it offers so much opportunity, so much information, so much access. The Internet is terrible because it offers so much unfiltered information, so much access to harmful influences, so much opportunity for disaster.

So where do we go from here? How do we manage our changing social sphere, the changing social lives of teenagers? Do we banish teenagers from digital life, declaring them emotionally unready for the world of online intimacy (unlike, you know, all those adults who are so emotionally mature and ready to take on the world)? Or do we work to build a framework to manage this new world, these new intimacies — do we sit the teenagers in our lives down and try to have a talk with them, try to educate them about the world around them, give them the tools to filter through the available information and make their own decisions?

I am, not surprisingly, for the latter: though I fully admit I’m not one hundred percent sure what that conversation, what that dialogue, looks like. But maybe the most important thing is just opening the door: maybe that’s enough to set us on the path, to put us on the road to figuring out how to help teenagers manage digital intimacy as they navigate themselves towards adulthood.

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

We Are The Sex Media: Making Bank From Dating 2.0

filed under: Dating 2.0 by Lux Nightmare | 1 Comment

Remember when online dating was strictly the province of freaks, child molesters, and bleeding edge hipsters? When you had to make up a story to tell your family about how this handsome new stranger came into your life, because “We met online” just sounded too skeezy?

Yeah, I kinda miss those days.

In case you haven’t heard, online dating is now a totally legit way to meet people — and as a result, a whole bunch of related businesses have sprung up, offering services to daters who find themselves confused, lost, or just plain bored with the status quo. And the media is hot on their heels, ready to give you the full report on everything that’s out there.

TIME travels to Miami to meet up with vendors at iDate 2007 (get it? “i” like iPod! That means it has to do with computers!). Some of my favorites: OmniDate (Second Life meets your awkward first date), Mobilove (web2txt love!), and Venice Chronicles (Second Life meets your awkward first date at a masquerade in a Venetian ballroom?).

Over at the New York Times, it’s revealed that (say it ain’t so!) online daters are just as shallow and superficial as IRL daters (no, they won’t overlook your crappy picture or terrible social skills just because you’re hiding behind a computer). But never fear: the market has got your back, with sites like E-Cyrano and SingleShots offering services ranging from profile consultation to retouching (or retaking) your terrible profile photo.

Feeling bummed by the rampant commercialization of the online singles scene? Don’t worry: we all know you’re more of an Unpersonals user anyway… and ConsumatingHelper.com is still years and years away.