Because I’m both a perv and a nerd, the Internet has pretty much always been about sex for me. Unlike some of my geeky compatriots, I wasn’t glued to the green screen of a computer from a young age. My family got an Apple IIGS when it first came out in the mid-1980s, and I liked using the paint program to draw horses, but otherwise I could care less. I got my first hotmail account when I went to college at 18, but I didn’t really care about the internet, until I started working at the Museum of Sex in 2001.
But all of a sudden, I started to really care about the internet, and especially finding writings about and pictures of sexuality that were outside of my personal experience. I was totally captivated, and then, as now, I was getting paid to take it all in. Here’s an example of one of the sites that had me totally obsessed with the amount of esoteric information available on the Internet: the Sandow Museum, a website devoted to telling the story of nineteenth century strongman Eugen Sandow.
I’ve been very happily immersed in the world of sexuality on the internet -what my good pal Lux Nightmare dubbed on Sexerati as the “pink ghetto”- partly because I see sexuality as a lens for human behavior and culture. Also, I’m kind of naughty. Or maybe just drawn that way. I like my pink ghetto, it makes me think, gets me off, and employs me – what else could a girl ask for? But lately I’ve begun to read outside of the pink ghetto a bit, and it’s kind of weird. Whereas I used to just have one folder called “non sex blogs” in my RSS feed reader, I now have several folders of blogs I read that cover other topics. I realized that if I comment outside of my niche, or if I write about non-sex things (see my post on digital navigation), I am the anomaly, the NSFW link in a sea of well-behaved commentary. As I delve into this PEEQ stuff I’ll be writing and thinking more about social networking and social media, and I can’t help but wonder how these contributions will be viewed, dealt with, or reacted to in the blogosphere at large. Because, you know, the internet exists beyond smut, but I embrace the living fuck out of the smut.
11:51 am
Gotta admit, this is one of only two NSFW sites I visit on my daily rounds. I’m unemployed though, so that works out OK. You provide some great insights into sexual issues (and occasional pictures of teh boobies), but I’m certainly happy to read your thoughts on other matters as well.
11:51 am
I saw this Flickr tag, I Work on the Web, and thought of you:
http://tinyurl.com/2n8swy
8:36 pm
the pink ghetto definitely has safety and security. leaving it is kind of scary, huh?
12:48 pm
My own experience is that for the most part my commentary in areas outside of sex is taken at face value, with no special consideration of the films I make.
Very occasionally someone will be titaliated. This is both flattering and vaguely uncomfortable
Less frequently someone will try to dismiss my point of view on the basis of what they think I do. When this happens, more often than not, someone will rise to my defense. (“Have you ever seen one of his films? You don’t know what you’re talking about.” etc)
You’re smart, educated, and hardworking. That’s what most people are going to notice, in or out of the ghetto. (Unless you show them your boobies. Then they’ll notice you’re smart, educated, hardworking, and have a great rack.)