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Thursday, February 8, 2007

We Have the Internet to Rebuild Us: Why Our Generation Does it Better in Public

filed under: Dating 2.0, We Are The Sex Media by Melissa Gira | 3 Comments

There’s so much to return to and do a (as my favorite sex profs said in University) deep reading of in this feature from this week’s New York magazine, Kids, the Internet, and the End of Privacy — which so touches (in all the right ways) on the sex & the internet zeitgeist we’ve been trying to track here…

on how the Internet drives Dating 2.0:

Go through your first big breakup and you may need to change your status on Facebook from “In a relationship” to “Single.” Everyone will see it on your “feed,” including your ex, and that’s part of the point.

on the Future of Sexual Privacy when it comes to confessional blogging and perhaps the final death blow to the “cult of true womanhood”:

For someone like me, who grew up sealing my diary with a literal lock, this may be tough to accept. But under current circumstances, a defiant belief in holding things close to your chest might not be high-minded. It might be an artifact - quaint and naive, like a determined faith that virginity keeps ladies pure. Or at least that might be true for someone who has grown up “putting themselves out there” and found that the benefits of being transparent make the risks worth it.

on the crumbling of the Pink Ghetto in the increasing no-big-deal of Internet nakedness (but still I gotta go, “so, what does doing ‘it’ for your boyfriend have to do with it?”):

[… Xiyin muses,] “So I am a sexual person and I shouldn’t have to hide my sexuality. I did this for my boyfriend just like you probably do this for your boyfriend, just that yours is not published. But to me, it’s all the same. It’s either documented online for other people to see or it’s not, but either way you’re still doing it. So my philosophy is, why hide it?”

and on possibly the most promising of Sex Hacks when it comes to how we communicate, how we feel, and by extension, how we (can, do, will) fuck:

[Clay] Shirky describes this generational shift in terms of pidgin versus Creole. “Do you know that distinction? Pidgin is what gets spoken when people patch things together from different languages, so it serves well enough to communicate. But Creole is what the children speak, the children of pidgin speakers. They impose rules and structure, which makes the Creole language completely coherent and expressive, on par with any language. What we are witnessing is the Creolization of media.”

That’s a cool metaphor, I respond. “I actually don’t think it’s a metaphor,” he says. “I think there may actually be real neurological changes involved.”

Be still my theory heart.

Wednesday, February 7, 2007

Bubble Hotties: Sexual Hubs

filed under: Dating 2.0, Web Sex Index, Bubble Hotties by Lux Nightmare | 3 Comments

The bubble — (blogging about) it’s so hot right now. As the bubble (or, hopefully, not-a-bubble) grows, so too, does the collective hotness of the web and its makers. Here Sexerati tracks the ways web development and erotic development complement and complicate one another for those profiting from the web, and for those who fuck them.

A few months ago, I was out in Park Slope picking up some candy from a friend’s house. My friend was out running errands, but standing in her kitchen was a cute, vaguely familiar looking girl.

We introduced ourselves. “You look familiar,” she said. I admitted to having a LiveJournal, and we exchanged screennames.

Her name struck a chord: I felt fairly certain I’d seen it somewhere, perhaps commenting on a friend’s post. I asked if she knew one of my friends, one who tends to know a lot of people.

“Oh yes,” she said, and from the tone of her voice I could tell there was a certain subtext to her reply.

“Oh, I know him too,” I said.

Social network theory categorizes some people as hubs: the kind of people who seem to know everyone, who are able to connect seemingly disparate groups, making new connections everywhere they come and go. Hubs are the glue that binds social circles, hubs make the wheels of social networking turn.

Hubs exist in all different social spheres: your professional life, your social life, and, yes, even your sex life. During my time out in the field, so to speak, I’ve known (and known) more than a few hubs: Audacia Ray and I became acquainted because of a mutual ex-boyfriend — the same ex-boyfriend whose interest in the ladies introduced to me to a prominent sex columnist, one of New York City’s finest burlesque stars, and more than a handful of other women I now consider close friends.

The idea of sex as a social networking force may seem counterintuitive to some: how can sex — a private act — be the basis of something as public as a social network? But sex is, fundamentally, about making social connections (seriously: just look at the bonobos) — and what are social networks, if not a web of social connections?

I rode the subway home with the cute girl from my friend’s kitchen. We Internet-friended each other, and later went out for brunch. The hub that linked us may not have been the reason for our ultimate friendship, but our shared carnal knowledge certainly provided enough material for the initial conversation that led us there. And really: isn’t that what hubs are for? At the end of the day, they’re all about providing the tenuous connection between person A and person B. And whether that connection exists because of job experience, a common alma mater, or a shared fuck, the end result is usually the same. Whether it’s Friendster or Fuckster, LinkedIn or LovedOn: a sexual connection is a social connection, as legitimate a part of your social network as any other.

Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Bubble Hotties: Scheduling Life and Love While Holding a Blackberry

filed under: Dating 2.0, Web Sex Index, Bubble Hotties by Lux Nightmare | Leave a Comment

The bubble — (blogging about) it’s so hot right now. As the bubble (or, hopefully, not-a-bubble) grows, so too, does the collective hotness of the web and its makers. Here Sexerati tracks the ways web development and erotic development complement and complicate one another for those profiting from the web, and for those who fuck them.

I’m a busy person.

Most days I wake up, go to my computer, check my email, write or code or fix something that has broken, go to my real job (where I sometimes do work on other projects, in my downtime or on my lunch break), then go home and do more work.

My “free time” is often devoted to whatever work I can squeeze in. Or going to networking events, or (occasionally) attempting to have a social life.

I’m a busy person, and I’m attracted to busy people. It’s only natural. Unfortunately, busy + busy doesn’t always make for the easiest of scheduling — and it can sometimes get in the way of getting to know someone (even someone you really like).

The whole dot-com revolution, the whole tech age, is built on the back of things like email, cell phones, laptops: things that allow us to do to be in touch anywhere, at any time. Things that heighten our productivity by increasing our availability, by making so many things a wherever, whenever, activity.

And of course, there are many ways in which is this is a boon to a budding relationship. The ability to IM, to text, to cam chat — to be together even when you’re not — can provide a much needed sense of closeness.

But on the other hand, an increasing ability to do work whenever, wherever, leads to an increasing expectation that we’ll be working all the time. The end of “office hours” is partly a freeing thing (we can work whenever we want!) but also a new kind of prison (we have to work all the time!).

I’ve had dates end prematurely because someone’s Blackberry alerted them to a crisis that needed to be addressed right that minute. I’ve had boyfriends pull out their laptops while lying in my bed, because a pager alerted them that a server was having issues. And on the one hand, I love this: love that I get access to people who are this driven, this needed; that these people are willing to give me their time.

But on the other hand, there’s a small part of me that knows that this is how it is, that this is how it will always be: that the price we pay for success in a world of instant, constant access is the sacrifice of some privacy, some time for ourselves, some intimacy.

And I love my techonology: but every step forward necessitates some kind of loss, and sometimes I pine a little for the things we ultimately give up.

Wednesday, January 24, 2007

The Sexerati Guide to Unpersonals: Last.fm & Vox

filed under: Dating 2.0, Web Sex Index, Unpersonals by Lux Nightmare | 5 Comments

Unpersonals. You know them. You probably even have an account on one of them, complete with sassy photos, lots of comments, and a multipage friends list. And of course, you’d never, ever use that kind of site to meet someone. Or stalk someone. Right?

Of course right.

This week in Unpersonals: Ideas That Almost Worked:

Site Name: Last.fm

Ostensible Purpose: Jumpstarting the social music revolution: allowing people to share their music, discover new music, and tag the shit out of everything in listening range.

What It’s Really Used For: Posting a list of your recently played tracks on your website (or, more likely, MySpace) using the fancy Last.fm code. Finding new music through Last.fm radio.

[NB: That finding new music feature? Ultra useful when you’re going through a break up and desperate to fill your iPod with brand new music that doesn’t make you think of your ex. We’re just sayin’.]

Target Demographic: Anyone who likes music. That’s everyone, right? Everyone except Communists, maybe.

Who Really Uses It:

Nuff said.

Good For Meeting People? Spend a few weeks “scrobbling” your music to Last.fm, and it will generate a “neighborhood” of people with supposedly compatible musical tastes. If you, like Rob Fleming, believe that it’s “what you like, not what you’re like”: congratulations, you’ve just found your soul mates. Leave some witty comments in your new neighbors’ shoutboxes, send them a few messages, and you’ll be set for life.

If, on the other hand, you’re more like me, you may find yourself horrified by the people Last.fm has deemed your nearest and dearest. In that case, it’s best to back away slowly and forget that you ever considered Last.fm a social networking site.

Good For Stalking People? Only inasmuch as observing that someone spent the last six hours listening to Franz Ferdinand can be considered stalking.

Bottom Line: If music is your life, Last.fm is a damn good way for you to find new friends (and special friends!). Otherwise, you’re better off just using it for the scrobbling (which, no matter how dirty it sounds, is not a euphemism for doing it).

Site Name: Vox

Ostensible Purpose: To make blogging “fun again” (apparently, we’ve all been bored to tears by our blogging software for the past few years). To allow you to aggregate all your different accounts into a hideous beast of a one stop shop.

What It’s Really Used For: Cross posting to LiveJournal with posts that say “Read the rest at Vox!”

Target Demographic: Hip kids who are too “grown up” for LiveJournal.

Who Really Uses It: Hip kids who missed the LiveJournal boat and want to prove that they’re still with it and relevant. People with a desperate need to aggregate.

Good For Meeting People? Vox has a structure similar to LiveJournal, which allows for a sort of indirect, getting-to-know-you style of meeting people on the Internet. Chances are you’ll find someone whose Vox makes them look cool, add them to your “neighborhood,” and eventually feel like you totally know them – and one day (sooner, or possibly later), you’ll probably meet them in person.

The real question is this: would you actually want to meet someone who’s really into Vox?

Good For Stalking People? Because of the aggregation element, Vox allows you to observe a whole bunch of elements of your stalkee’s life, all in convenient digest form. Go to a Vox page, and witness someone’s latest writing, photos, books read, uploaded audio, uploaded video – all at once!

Bottom Line: Vox wants so very much to be cool, and we want it to be cool, but – in spite of its pedigree – it just isn’t. Consider it the Nicole Richie of the blogosphere: and consider whether or not you really want to spend time with people who really like Nicole Richie.

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