B LOGGING :S EXUAL E MPOWERMENT VIA O NLINE C ONVERSATIONS

B LOGGING :S EXUAL E MPOWERMENT VIA O NLINE C ONVERSATIONS

Blogs are a recent form of online journaling, as noted earlier, which have become increasingly important in the online world and which are having an impact on the real world. Their importance as instant news reporting and

commentary forums really made their power known during the 2004 U. S. presi- dential national conventions, as word from the inside began to regularly scoop national television and other media coverage of signifi cant events at the grassroots level. Sexuality and other mental health professionals have been relatively slow

132 Raymond J. Noonan

at adopting this new technology, although that began to change in 2005. The value that blogging has for sexual health and expression lies in the empower- ment that is achieved by both individuals and communities on the Web. Another new technology that seems to have been necessitated by rapidly emerging posts on blogsites is that of RSS (Really Simple Syndication) newsfeeds, which work with programs called news aggregators to automatically go out on the Web and collect headlines from blogs (and websites so confi gured) soon after new articles or comments are posted. This empowers users to scan headlines as they scroll across their screen on their computer’s desktop or in customized lists of headlines and abstracts also accessible on the desktop or on the Web. As noted earlier in this section with respect to the political aspects of sex on the Internet, power dynamics can shift as information that is privileged to the select few can now

be published to interested communities on a global scale. Although blogs can

be similar to any other page on the Web, the power comes from the ability that is built into the technology for the community to publicly respond to the ideas and events made known in the posting, and to engage in multiple dialogues to maybe infl uence some outcome. In the sexuality arena, this can have multiple uses—in political advocacy and community building to education and counsel- ing to erotic stimulation. The following blogsites illustrate these personally and socially empowering uses that have the potential to provide “insignifi cant” input to the chaotic systems that comprise Internet sexuality by perhaps infl uencing the “extreme sensitivity to initial conditions” that drives sexual attitudes and behav- ior online and offl ine to different outcomes at various levels as noted earlier with respect to the butterfl y effect. These effects have the potential to be triggered by both experts and the educated lay public who have a specialized interest.

Yahoo’s health expert blogs include Real & Revealing (http://blogs.health. yahoo.com/experts/sexlevine), which deals with enhancing sexual well-being. It is written by Deborah Levine, a syndicated columnist on the Web who is the founder and director of Internet Sexuality Information Services, Inc. (ISIS),

a nonprofi t organization that focuses on online sexual health promotion and disease prevention using high-tech solutions (http://www.isis-inc.org/). Yahoo also offers Dr. Leonard DeRogatis’s Rx for Your Sexual Health (http://blogs.health. yahoo.com/experts/ sexderogatis), dealing with various medical issues. WebMD’s expert blog, Sexual Health: Sex Matters (http://blogs.webmd.com/sexual-health- sex-matters/) by Dr. Louanne Cole-Weston provides authoritative information along with commentary on many health aspects of sexuality for the general public, often linking to articles published at WebMD.com. WebMD also has a number of other sex-related blogs, including Terri Warren’s blog, Genital Herpes: Intimate Conversations (http://blogs.webmd.com/genital-herpes-intimate- conversations/) with information on all aspects of the disease, among others on men’s health, pregnancy, and other general health topics. The Sexual Health Network Experts’ blog, Sex and Meaning (http://sexualhealth.com/blog/) provides commentaries

5 The Psychology of Sex

on current issues focusing on media reports. One of their contributors, Dr. Marty Klein, also publishes a monthly electronic newsletter, Sexual Intelligence, which is also online (http://www.sexualintelligence.org/), providing news, media

critiques, social commentary, and political insight from a sex-positive point-of- view, although it is technically not a blog in that readers cannot directly comment on the postings. This author’s SexQuest Blog: International Trends, Chaotic Systems, and Alternative Futures in Sexuality (http://www.SexQuest.com/blog) began pub- lishing in mid 2006.

Daze Reader’s more erotically explicit blog (http://www.dazereader.com/weblog. htm) focuses on news and commentaries on sexual culture from various angles, includ- ing links to numerous sex-oriented blogs, many about personal erotic adventures and musings or pornographic websites and the sex industry. Rachyl’s Dating and Romance Blog (http://www.caije.com/dating-romance-blog/), dealing with mostly sexual issues for singles, is an example of a grassroots layperson’s blog offering advice related to these issues. Another is the Kiss & Blog (http://www.kissnblog.com/) site providing insights to issues related to singles with humorous banter between a man and a woman, both anonymous. C. D. Oldenburg’s blog (http://www.bycdoldenburg.com/) focuses on gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (GLBT) news and issues. Best Gay Blogs (http://www. bestgayblogs.net/) provides links to rated blogs of interest to the GLBT community, from the political to the personal. Similarly, Feminist Blogs: Independent Alternatives to the Malestream Media (http://feministblogs.org/) focuses on issues of interest to various stripes of feminists, including many sex-related issues.