S EXUALITY ON THE I NTERNET :R OOTS AND C ONTROVERSIES

S EXUALITY ON THE I NTERNET :R OOTS AND C ONTROVERSIES

Sex has been a controversial topic on the Internet since before the imple- mentation of the fi rst alt.sex newsgroup on April 3, 1988. It was at that time that an alternative network was begun in response to the refusal of the Usenet hierarchy at the time to include a recreational sexuality group. Hardy (1993), who wrote that the early history of the Internet has yet to be adequately documented, described in his brief history the events that surrounded these early developments. He noted that the abdication of these early administrators in providing these types of forums, despite the expressed desire for them, established what might be called the coop- erative anarchy that largely characterized the newsgroups for many years. Clearly, they provided the impetus for other “alternative” communications, both inside and

5 The Psychology of Sex

outside the realm of sex, to fi nd their way to interested communities participating in the Usenet newsgroups.

In fact, according to Stefanac (1993), it is likely that the dissemination of sexually oriented materials began early on in the development of the Internet with the informal exchange of text (and later images) via email (the popularity of which, itself, had been unanticipated by the original designers, as noted by Hardy (1993), Moore (1994), and others). These communications probably included both suggestive and explicit erotica and pornography (if I may use a common linguistic distinction between those that are “good” and those that are “bad,” although many people use the terms interchangeably in the positive sense, given the subjective nature of such judgments). Later, private informal and early commercial bulletin board services (BBSs) allowed members to dial in directly to access computer-based pornography, although BBSs were technically on the fringe of what would be con- sidered the Internet since they were usually not connected to the global network and were merely accessed by modem. As such, the sexual content available via the Internet refl ects the wide range of such material in “adult” videos, magazines, and other media. What had become new by the mid-1990s was the extent of the com- mercialization of such materials, long established in other media, to this medium. It was especially the World Wide Web, the graphical environment of the Internet, that enabled explicit material to be more fully exploited for commerce and that continues to enjoy the most popularity after email. In addition, the Web contin- ues to offer—now more than ever, not only in the United States, but around the world—the means to provide much-needed sexuality information and services to underserved and inaccessible populations who may not otherwise have them avail- able locally, thus giving those groups the opportunity to realize their sexual poten- tial and to enhance the overall quality of their sexual lives (Francoeur & Noonan, 2004; Noonan, 1997b; Noonan & Britton, 1996).

Unfortunately, this availability of diverse sex information and entertainment is not without controversy in the United States, both on the Internet and outside it. In that regard, former U. S. Surgeon General David Satcher noted in his July 2005 address at the 17th World Congress of Sexology in Montréal, Canada, that the United States is a third-world country in the realm of sexuality in many ways, by which he meant we are far behind many other nations in how appropriately we deal with sexual health issues. His address provided a followup on efforts being made to fi nd “common ground” on these issues among Americans, which was at the heart of The Surgeon General’s Call to Action to Promote Sexual Health and Responsible Sexual Behavior 2001, released by the Offi ce of the Surgeon General (2001) in the fi rst year of the presidency of George W. Bush. The president and his team, for their part, rejected it. Certainly, no nation is perfect in its ways of address- ing sex and gender issues, but virtually all have some of the answers if we care to look (Noonan, 2005a). Add to that the role that sexuality plays as a motivator in how and why some fundamentalist Christian and Islamic factions seek to impose

96 Raymond J. Noonan

their beliefs and to infl uence local and world politics (Noonan, 2004d), and one can readily envision the clash of cultures that often surrounds sexuality on the Internet today. For additional insights into sexuality in the international arena, the reader is referred to Francoeur and Noonan (2004, 2006, 2007).