U SENET N EWSGROUPS AND THE P SYCHOLOGY OF S EX

Sexual expression takes many forms on the Internet. The most explicit open forums for various sexual practices and interests are to be found in the Usenet newsgroups, which one accesses with a newsreader, now often integrated with email programs, or directly on the Web. Because of their openness and avail- ability virtually worldwide, newsgroups provide the most explicit of the sexual offerings, with the highest proportion of erotic imagery on the Internet (other than the commercial sex sites on the Web)—and they are free. These offerings occur in both story form and digitized images. Considerable discussion can take place as well, either about particular postings or about issues that are generally relevant to some of the participants. Because nobody owns or, for the most part, controls the newsgroups, they are what their readers and those who post to them make them, although the spam messages have effectively rendered many sex- related newsgroups almost useless for their original purpose. By design, theoreti- cally, they most clearly refl ect the sexual interests of their users. However, many Internet Service Providers (ISPs) do not carry some or all of the most sexually explicit groups, or they require a specifi c request to gain access to some of the

5 The Psychology of Sex

groups. Therefore, the universal easy access to sexually explicit material that is often attributed to these groups is more myth than fact for millions of subscribers, although it can sometimes occur. As a result, various premium news services have arisen that allow subscribers to access more complete, uncensored newsgroups, with postings that do not “expire” (become unavailable and disappear) as quickly as normal because of space limitations on most ISPs’ news servers.

The names of sex-related newsgroups usually contain the strings “alt.sex,” “alt.binaries.pictures.erotica,” or variants of those themes, although others exist that typically discuss sex topics that are less recreational in nature (see Harley Hahn’s Master List of Usenet Newsgroups at http://www.harley.com/usenet/index.html for

a comprehensive general listing of newsgroups). Binaries, usually encoded to facili- tate transmission within text-based messages, are digital fi le formats that are typically programs, images, video clips, or sounds and so on, as opposed to text fi les, which contain only ordinary alphanumeric characters, such as those that make up plain-text email, newsgroup postings, or most Web pages. The keywords in these strings are mostly sex and erotic(a), and several searches for these terms in the names of newsgroups using an older newsreader on my uncensored ISP’s news (or groups) server over a six-month period in 1997 showed a fi gure that represented

a little over 4% of all newsgroups available. When the fi rst edition of this chapter (Noonan, 1998d) was being written from about mid-1997 to February 1998, 593 out of 24,704 newsgroups contained the word sex and 431 contained the word erotic, for a total of 1,024 (with about a dozen that contained both terms), a little over 4% of the total. Clearly, there had been a proliferation of alt.sex newsgroups in less than a decade from the single one started in 1988, although, for comparison, it should be noted that in 1997 there were 7,798 alt-hierarchy newsgroups in total, which began with just three (alt.drugs and alt.rock-n-roll being the other two) (Hardy, 1993).

It seems that it is no longer as easy to get a snapshot of the sex-related newsgroups as it was in 1997–1998, perhaps because they became unwieldy some years ago because of the spam as well as the changes in newsreaders, and so became more diffi cult for the occasional researcher in this area of the Internet. Around mid-2005, Google released its beta newsgroup site on the Web at http://groups.google.com/. Their intent is to provide an archive of most textual newsgroups from 1981 to the present (according to their FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions page) at http://www. google.com/googlegroups/help.html). Because it does not contain binary fi les (photos, etc.), one could arguably say that it is somewhat censored, although with its claim of archiving about 845 million (searchable) posts over the past 20-plus years, one can readily see that including binaries would take an enormous amount of storage space on the server, given that individual binary fi les are signifi cantly larger than text fi les. Thus, Google Groups reports that there are about 54,000 newsgroups archived at the site, as of November 2005. Going back to my own uncensored ISP used in the fi gures in the previous paragraph, I found there are about 1,900 newsgroups that contained

116 Raymond J. Noonan

the word sex, and about 400 that contained the word erotic—for a total almost double what it was in 1997—giving about 4% of the total again, as in 1997, although I cannot

be sure what the margin of error is, given that the calculations involve two different sets of data with no sure way to compare them. A serious limitation, of course, is that Google Groups does not have any of the binary listings. Another limitation is that the historical nature of the Google site means that it includes groups that no longer exist, as they die out in time if no one posts to them.

In addition, I did not delve deeply into the apparently relevant alt.binaries. erotica posts on my ISP, given the child-pornography stings reported to be scat- tered across the Internet in recent years. I did notice that the more obvious names for such material no longer existed on the news server of my ISP, perhaps refl ecting the reported efforts by law enforcement to take down such groups, although it has also been reported that some individuals would post them again under new names. I did not feel it prudent to “take one for science,” as it were, to ascertain its prevalence, nor did I have the time to sift through the maze of newsgroup per- mutations to ascertain what kind of content actually was there, although, as Weis (2004b) has noted, such material has always been an extremely small proportion of pornographic imagery (p. 1186). Nevertheless, I did decide to look into one

I thought might be a “safe” representative group (in case “they” were watching), alt.binaries.erotica.amateur.female, to try to get a sense of how a group purporting to be postings of real amateur (i.e., not staged) people might look today. It revealed about 221,000 postings from just the past two months or so; the preponderance of images were relatively high quality and clearly professionally produced and posted as advertisements for various commercial pornography sites on the Web (i.e., spam), much of it whole sets of images that seemed to be repetitively posted every so often. Almost all were on-topic, in that they were images of women (or in couples and groups) clearly aimed at heterosexual men (targeted marketing); it also included a handful of possibly “real” amateurs and a few of what would be classifi ed as child pornography in the United States. Still, my reluctance to take the risk to update this chapter points to a real problem that social scientists face when addressing ultracontroversial issues. It seems that we just do not really want to know how to solve these problems, if legitimate researchers cannot even ask the right questions nor be allowed to fi nd out and state what the real answers are (cf. Rind et al., 2000, 2001a; Rind & Tromovitch, 1997; Rind et al., 1998, 2001b).

With the foregoing in mind, it became just as apparent that the number of sex-related newsgroups is a small proportion of all groups that cater to different interests. This should not be surprising since sexuality, in one or more of its many manifestations, is one of those topics that are relevant to probably all populations. Further research uncovered additional Usenet statistics that showed that sex-related newsgroups are among the most popular (http://www.newsadmin.com/). For example, during one week (from November 12–18, 2005), when I was updating this section, I found that an average of 75 specifi c sites of the top 100 sites accessed

5 The Psychology of Sex

each day that week were obviously groups that had sexual images or videos posted, and they accounted for 53.9% of the total sites accessed that week. Nevertheless, the time it takes to download pictures (transfer the fi les from the news server to one’s own local computer), not to mention the far larger fi les that contain video data, can be considerable, although that has become much less often the case with cable and DSL connections becoming so widespread. Such a time investment generally can make it impractical for all but the most dedicated afi cionados. Besides, there are the countless CDs containing sexual material available for the computer, the contents of many of which were culled from newsgroups, that can probably still be purchased online or in stores, which eliminates the time involved in downloading them—not to mention the now ubiquitous use of DVDs for video and interactive content. In fact, as one report (Stefanac, 1993) noted, erotic multimedia CDs may have encouraged computer users to purchase CD-ROM drives, sound cards, and high-resolution displays in the same way that sex-oriented videotapes drove the VCR market in the 1980s, with the same more recently holding true for DVDs. Still, the Usenet appears to now have the highest proportion of sexually explicit material available of any area of the Internet, with the exception of commercial sites on the Web, as has been noted. Because listservs and blogs have increasingly taken over many of the original “democratic access” and announcement and discussion functions of the Usenet (Caslon Analytics, 2005), it is likely that its recreational-sex orientation will become stronger.

In accordance with the general premise of this chapter, then, taking the limitations already noted into account, the material available in the Usenet newsgroups still appears to be quite diverse, again refl ecting the breadth and depth of sexual expression. Even a cursory glance through just the names of the newsgroups dem- onstrates the vast diversity of human sexuality online. Sampling some of the pictures throughout these newsgroups would probably confi rm that this was still the case, although the overwhelming amount of spam certainly skews the true picture. When I did this in the past, I was immediately struck by what some individuals fi nd erotic. Some were limited in scope, to be sure; many might fi nd that most of it was not particularly sexually arousing. Yet, even in some of the subjects that did not correspond with one’s own lovemap, one might be surprised to fi nd stimulat- ing pictures. Among the spam used to be notices for sex tours to Thailand, Cuba, and elsewhere, and advertisements for phone sex, escort services, and videos and CD-ROMs of sexually oriented materials (which appears to have diminished), as well as advertisements and links to sex sites on the World Wide Web (which have defi nitely increased).

Otherwise, the quality of the visual material ranged from beautiful, artistic, high-quality scans and digital photographs (mostly commercial, often repetitively posted), to amateurish low-quality scans and less-than-cell-phone-quality digital photographs and video frame captures (at this point, it seems, mostly “professional amateurs”), to digital video clips of varying quality and length on every imaginable

118 Raymond J. Noonan

subject. They included traditional “glamour” shots and masturbatory exhibitions to straightforward heterosexual, homosexual, and bisexual activity—especially anal intercourse and “facials” (ejaculation on women’s faces) to many of the paraphilias and fetishes, especially bondage and discipline and sadomasochistic scenarios. Transsexualism (“she-males”) and heterosexually oriented lesbianism appear to be still well represented. Condoms appear to be used more often now than in the past. Fantasies as well as depictions of actual rape and sexual abuse also still seem to be available. Almost every racial and many ethnic groups in the world appear to be represented, with a heavy representation of Asian individuals, couples, and groups. Many of the individuals depicted appeared to be having fun while others were decidedly not—while still others appeared to be far away from the activity in which they were participating. Idyllic scenery and ordinary studio sets were used, as well as actual home sites. All body types were represented, as well as, though to a much lesser extent, women with stretch marks or pregnant, and people with obvious physical disabilities. Nevertheless, youth is still probably as greatly valued as it was a decade ago—as it is still in much of the “real” world—although it appears from the group names that elderly individuals are more represented than in the past, perhaps because more of the baby-boomer generation has become more comfortable with computers, at the same time as they have begun to retire. Certainly, the psychology of beauty is a realm that has not been studied, but could have revealing insights for normative development as well as for therapy if studied from the chaotic systems perspective previously noted.

Some of the materials were obviously likely to be sexually arousing to the typical person, women included. However, much of it would not be arousing beyond those whose specifi c lovemap incorporates that imagery. Some of the material was defi nitely obscene, if only because it was censored with masking blocks and other devices to cover the genitals. Misrepresented photos were there, such as fake celebrity and other adult nudes, as well as child pornography digi- tally created by superimposing parts of different nonsexual photos with sexual ones or by digital artistic manipulation. Of particular note, because it represents a different industrial society from that of the United States (which produces most of the world’s sex-oriented material, according to Rose, 1997), was that which originated in Japan, including numerous bondage and “Lolita” images. Among the oddities refl ecting local laws in Japan were pixelated digital distortions of the pubic areas of both men and women (and children) in what was, thereby, presum- ably legal material, although the law and customs have changed in Japan in the meantime. (For additional information on sex in Japanese and other international cultures, see Archive for Sexology (online), 2005; Francoeur, 1997; Francoeur & Noonan, 2001, 2004.)

In many of the sexually oriented newsgroups, established American, Japanese, and other international “porn” stars are often highlighted, as are a wealth of copyright violations from published magazines. Many of the people depicted are

5 The Psychology of Sex

stereotypically attractive, although many are not. Heterosexually oriented depictions of women are predominant, probably refl ecting the overall majority of het- erosexuals in the population and the early use of the Internet predominantly by men. Nevertheless, signifi cant libraries of lesbian and gay material exist, as well as bisexual and transgender/transsexual material and groups on bondage and other paraphilias across all sexual orientations. Pictures may, using the familiar fi lm-rating system for analogy, be R-rated, X-rated, or even G-rated, i.e., photos of mod- els from mainstream shopping catalogs for women and children, and can include celebrity nudes gleaned from various sources both private and public. There are also depictions of relatively atypical activities such as heterosexual fi sting, bestiality, pedophilia, and other less common paraphilias. At the same time that the supply of images appears limitless, the role that this saturation may play on its users as a result has yet to be elucidated, as is the role of satiation. Boredom is a likely result, which may trigger the search for variety, although it is unlikely that the search would extend beyond one’s lovemap into, say, the realm of child pornography.

An important question—and one that has not been addressed to any extent yet—arises in the event that someone comes across a photo, or even several photos, that he or she fi nds erotic, but which is not congruent with his or her identifi ed lovemap. For example, if a gay scene or a pedophilic scene causes unexpected sexual arousal, does that mean that one is gay—or worse, a pedophile or one who is likely to sexually molest children? Unfortunately, today such questions are rarely asked. But, combined with technophobic reactions to the once new, still evolving, and, in some senses, still largely unknown medium of the Internet, these issues provide the fuel for promoting fears—of pedophiles, stalkers, and other sexual predators—that are disproportionate to their actual occurrences online. A possible explanation of this phenomenon is what I have termed self-defi ned lovemap-inappro- priate sexual arousal (SDLISA). It may include pedophilic, sadomasochistic, homosexual, heterosexual, or whatever imagery or ideas are incongruent or confl ict with one’s perception of one’s own ideal sexual persona, yet which may be sexually arousing, often in a way that troubles the individual. A common manifestation of it may be seen in the adolescent—who may or may not be gay—who fears he may

be gay because a same-sex encounter, sexual or nonsexual, was arousing. The concept of SDLISA and its implications (as well as other psychological or behavioral mechanisms that may be involved) are poorly understood at this time and require further investigation.

With regard to child pornography, one might be surprised that children in shopping catalogues may be held to be erotic by some individuals. Some artistic photographs are clearly not pornographic, yet would be considered child pornography under current U. S. laws. One would have to wonder whether such draconian laws might not be merely guilt reactions to society’s general lack of help for many of our children in other domains, such as education, healthcare, and parenting skills (cf. Leach, 1994). Some depict obvious sexual abuse, but many appear not to be

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so, except by defi nition. In others, the children clearly appear to be aware of the power of their sexuality. The complexity of the various situations depicted makes it easy to understand why merely defi ning all of it as sexual abuse is such a common response—until we realize the many ways in which we are failing our children overall. Yet, many countries with more abysmal records of overall child neglect are adopting many of these arguably warped American standards of sexuality and nudity. I often view such a focus on sex as merely a powerful distraction to allow political and social leaders to avoid addressing effectively the root causes of the real injuries, inequities, and injustices in their societies, much as it is in the United States.

It is open to debate what may cause some observers to participate in such illegal newsgroups as those that display sexual activities of adults with children or of children with other children. However, the number of such photographs appears to be small and has tended to be material that has been available for decades, including much of it that was once legal in the United States and other countries. Also, the likelihood that children will meet pedophiles through the Internet is extremely low, although the media coverage of these events when they do occur very accurately exhibits the characteristics of moral panic described earlier. There has yet to be any research that truthfully examines the far greater likelihood that children will be abused, sexually or otherwise, in venues that have nothing to do with the online world, and that most sexual predators lurk offl ine. Instead, sensationalistic panaceas, such as the ubiquitous Megan’s Laws, help to give the public the illusion that politicians are doing something about sexual abuse by focusing on that initiated by strangers. In fact, most data indicate that the majority of sexual abuse is perpetrated by parents (56%, according to Laudan, 1994), with another signifi cant percentage committed by relatives and known friends. Still, I suspect that emotional abuse of children is far more common and far more damaging to more children than is otherwise acknowledged. Similarly, controversy arose over the publication of a meta-analytic research report of a study reanalyzing the data from 59 previous studies of college students that found that child sexual abuse may not be traumatizing to all individuals, and that it was different for girls than for boys, among other fi ndings (Rind et al., 2000, 2001a; Rind & Tromovitch, 1997; Rind et al., 1998, 2001b). The original study published in 1998 in Psychological Bulletin created a public furor that resulted in its offi cial condemnation by the U. S. Congress, and a call by the American Psychological Association (APA) for researchers to consider the public-policy ramifi cations of any future research.

With regard to online access to sexual imagery, little is typically said of the fact that young people, if they decide to do it, can often fi nd a way to acquire sexually explicit materials offl ine, despite the great efforts to prevent it. A New York Magazine article, for example, indicated that 65% of teenagers in four Manhattan high schools had watched an X-rated movie, while parents in the same demo- graphic as the teens had estimated that only 25% of their children had done so (Thiel, 2005). This gap between children’s sexual activities and their parents’ knowledge of what they were doing occurred to varying degrees across every one

5 The Psychology of Sex

of the 36 sexual activities mentioned without exception. It seems that many adults forget that they were able to fi nd such materials when they were younger, and that they appear to believe that they are unique in the fact that such materials did not cause them any apparent harm. In fact, in their review of the research literature over the previous two decades on the effects of exposure to such materials, Davis and Bauserman (1993) wrote:

We have seen that people exposed to [sexually explicit materials] can be infl uenced, but are not necessarily infl uenced, by that exposure. The effects are a complex, interactive function of the predispositions of the person being exposed and the various aspects of the exposure situation, including, especially, the nature of the stimuli and the amount of exposure. In the language of the attitude theorists used here, the effect will be a function of the motivational demands of the situation, the ability to respond to processing require- ments of the situation, the content characteristics of the stimuli, and the other persuasion cues in the situation. (p. 197)

Thus, with an implicit awareness of complex systems perspectives, Davis and Bauserman showed that a variety of circumstances tend to mediate the effects that pornography has on people. The most pronounced response is typically short-term sexual arousal and a tendency to accept a variety of normophilic sexual behaviors.

A predisposition to having stereotypical, callous, adversarial beliefs and myths with regard to women were more indicative of actual sexual aggression, and then usually only in certain instances in which the men were prone to violent behavior. They noted that men’s strong socialization (in Western countries) against sexual aggression toward women tends not to be countermanded by viewing even the relatively small percentage of pornography that depicted it. Further, Diamond and Uchiyama (1999) found that the legalization of sexually explicit materials in Japan was cor- related with a reduction of rapes and other sex crimes over a 20-year period, as had been the case in other countries.

Despite the fi ndings, moreover, that the vast majority of sexual crimes are not linked to sexual materials, a large number of people refuse to believe the data. This has resulted, in part, in the ongoing legal fad in the United States of equating even the most innocuous use of women’s photos in some situations with sexual harassment. Whether the fi ndings with regard to sexually explicit content in other media apply equally to the interactive multimedia erotica available on CDs, DVDs, or the World Wide Web has yet to be explored. Computer simulations, when enhanced to their fullest, such as in aerospace fl ight simulators, for example, are now regularly being used to train pilots and others to perform complex tasks, and the possibility that such interactive technologies used for erotic entertainment might foster antisocial behaviors must be considered. The element of directing or controlling the sexual actions of others in virtual environments, without regard to their desires, may have a detrimental effect on some users who are simultaneously not being shown how to consider the rights and feelings of others, itself a general trend in conservative American society that seems to be increasing in the nonsexual realm as well.

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Curiosity and the allure of what might be called “forbidden treasures” are also factors that have not been considered in the appeal of either illegal or more typical erotic newsgroups. Although it has been noted that an X or other adult rating can be detrimental to the economic success of some fi lms, similar ratings indicating explicit sexual content, say, of music or multimedia CDs, can signifi - cantly increase sales (Stefanac, 1993). The phenomenon that causes an attraction to such things as pornography, particularly child pornography, in the newsgroups may

be that, by forbidding them, the government sets up an interest in and compulsion for obtaining this material. Although they probably are not savvy enough to be intentionally manipulating this to provide jobs for law enforcement and the legal industry or to provide free advertising that helps to distinguish what may be otherwise nondescript products from others, the government, nevertheless, draws atten- tion to them. (Recall the marketing adage that even negative publicity can be good for a product or idea.) This can stimulate curiosity, which can simply encourage looking for it. Once there is the interest and the roadmap, as it were, there is also likely to be the intermittent reinforcement of fi nding treasures among the chaff, such as the occasional erotically appealing image among the advertisements in the newsgroups. Although we now have the concept of the lovemap to help us understand what makes something sexually appealing to a given individual, the etiology of what makes the lovemap more versus less encompassing in terms of the imagery that is attractive continues to be elusive, as is the role of restricting access to it. Still, sex on the newsgroups might be conceptualized as a metaphor for life: looking for love in all the wrong places or so many men/women, so little time.

U SENET N EWSGROUPS AND THE P SYCHOLOGY OF S EX