In this session we explore the ways in which our intimate selves and lives are inextricably bound up with digital mediation. From dating and ‘hook up’ platforms to sexual health information and further to internet connected sex toys, the digital is firmly embedded into the most intimate aspects and places of our lives.
This lecture addresses what might be considered an awkward issue. Sex can be profoundly personal and private. Yet, at the same time, many of our are sharing those intimate experiences online, attempting to meet others for sex using digital apps and platforms, and hence sharing details of our sexual selves, and many of the ways we learn about sex and sexual health are through online text and videos.
We will explore how the digital matters to sex in two ways. First, we will look at the ways some people use apps and platforms in order to meet others for sex and how this relates to city-spaces. Second, we will look at the ways in which our intimate moments are increasingly mediated with and through digital technologies.
1. Lecture
Lecture slides
2. Resources
I draw upon some videos and news coverage in the lecture that I have linked below:
Sex toy company admits to recording users’ remote sex sessions, calls it a ‘minor bug’ (The Verge)
Meet Henry the robot, the first sex robot for women (The Times – paywall)
Don’t Get Your Valentine an Internet-Connected Sex Toy
ReCap Recording
The ReCap recording will be accessible on the ELE page.
Reading
Please read with the following questions in mind:
- How do digital media affect the ways we understand sex?
- (How) Do digital media shape our imagination of sex and sexuality?
- (How) Are spaces of physical intimacy affected or shaped by digital mediation? Why might that matter?
- Miles, S. (2021) Let’s (not) Go Outside: Grindr, Hybrid Space, and Digital Queer Neighborhoods. In: Bitterman A., Hess D.B. (eds) The Life and Afterlife of Gay Neighborhoods. The Urban Book Series. Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-66073-4_9
- Wilkinson, E. (2011) ‘Extreme pornography’ and the contested spaces of virtual citizenship, Social & Cultural Geography, 12:5, 493-508, DOI: 10.1080/14649365.2011.589535