Cover image for How sex changed the internet and the internet changed sex : an unexpected history
How sex changed the internet and the internet changed sex : an unexpected history
Title:
How sex changed the internet and the internet changed sex : an unexpected history
Author:
Cole, Samantha, author.
ISBN:
9781523513840
Personal Author:
Physical Description:
x, 278 pages : colour illustrations ; 22 cm
Contents:
Part 1.0: The revolution will be digitized -- The internet was built on sex - Cyber-utopia, censorship, and tinysex -- Graphic images: the internet opens its eyes -- Webmasters of their own domains -- A brief history of online dating -- Part 2.0: dollars and sense -- Porn 2.0 and the camgirl revolution -- The digital fig leaf: sexual censorship online -- Sex sells: classified ads -- Plug and play: internet-connected sex toys -- Algorithms, monopolies, and mindgeek -- Part 3.0: The end of the beginning -- Consider the "cybersex addict:" a virtual sexual education -- rated M for mature: sex in online gaming -- Faking it: deepfakes, deep problems -- Fuck the system: crime and legislation -- The future of fucking online.
Abstract:
"From the moment there was an "online," there was sex online. The famous test image used by software engineers to develop formats like the jpeg was "Lena," taken from Playboy's November 1972 centerfold. Early bulletin boards and multi-user domains quickly came to serve their members sexual musings. Facebook started as a way to rate "hot or not" Harvard co-eds. In fact, virtually every significant development that defines the Internet we know and love (and hate) today--privacy issues, online payments and online banking, dating, social media, streaming technology, mass data collection--came out of the meeting of sexuality and technology. And the kicker is, not only did sexuality vastly influence the Internet, but the Internet arguably changed modern human sexuality by giving every imaginable non-hetereonormative community a place to explore, fantasize, thrive, and be accepted."-- Provided by publisher.