Sex and Tech: The Sexual Revolution

Whenever technology is discussed, it’s always done so coolly. Praises heaped onto the austere and clean interface, emphasis on functionality and crisp design. Always when we think of tech, we think of its ability to be tidy, clinical and efficient, qualities we somehow think of as antithetical to human nature.

More and more we bemoan how tech disconnects us, how the faces of our ever-thinner phones are becoming preferable to the human ones around us, the smooth design of apps more desirable than the textures and ragged chaos of offline life.

But when we think of tech as separate from the human experience, it undercuts the reality and possibility of technology as an expression of humanity. Our flaws, our values and even our aesthetic have all been grafted onto our creation.

Peel back the minimalist interface and you will find the teeming masses and our primary preoccupation: sex.

There have been few technological advancements made that haven’t been put to use in our endless pursuit of companionship and sex. Faster web speed has paved the way for more dating sites than I could list here. Smartphones have given birth to hook-up apps like Tindr and Jack’d. And it isn’t just that technology has become reflective of our base desires. It’s done far more than that.

There is another sexual revolution happening, and technology has facilitated it.

CC-BY Jamie Manktelow

The previously taboo, everything from hook ups to queer sex and kink, have become more accessible. From the safety of semi- and sometimes complete anonymity, those of sexually marginalized groups have taken the internet as their space to educate, explore and engage. Through social sites we can be connected to those like us and learn about who we are sexually, absent of the shame and judgment we fear from those closest to us.

I was no different. At 23, something snapped inside me. I was slowly accepting that my queer identity and desire for sex couldn’t be prayed away. On my 23rd birthday I decided sex was something even I, as unmarried as I was, deserved to enjoy. I went and got a VCH piercing. It only lasted 2 weeks but its importance for me cannot be understated. I was finally acknowledging my self as a sexual being.

Still, it was about another year before I really explored what that meant. That actually took Twitter.

I first joined Twitter because holding two ideas of myself: who I’d been taught I was supposed to be as a woman, and who I felt myself becoming were growing so large they couldn’t seem to reside in me peacefully any longer. Twitter, for me was a confessional. And strangely enough, while I didn’t set out to find people who were like me sexually I found myself surrounded, through followers and following, by people more like me than I realized.

In my usual fashion, I had arrived to Twitter late. I was older than most of my friends when I got a cell phone — within the last 5 years. My first laptop was gifted to me in college. I only joined MySpace and Blackplanet when it seems like I would no longer be able to keep up with my friends’ offline discussions without them. I missed Downlink completely and joined Facebook just before a school email was no longer required.

I joined Twitter long after the creation of the cultural force we now know as “Black Twitter”. People had already developed histories and relationships with each other. If someone went a few days without tweeting, it was noticed. The atmosphere was full of familiarity even while a distance remained. We joked with each other almost daily, shared bits of ourselves and talked.

And we talked about sex. A lot. The sex we weren’t having, the sex we enjoyed, its meaning for us, its meaning for society that we didn’t have hang ups about sex. It was in this safe space that I discovered there was a name for all parts of sexual myself, that I wasn’t some new deviant creation. I remember the first time I logged on to a discussion of submission and “collaring your sub”. I said nothing but read the tweets, flashing back to a failed experiment with a leash and collar I purchased in the pet section of Walmart for a partner and I to use.

CC-BY Tomi Lattu, filtered.

I had barely resolved to enjoy sex, before the collar and chain leash caught my eye. Nobody had exposed me to BDSM before, but there I was picking up the leash and collar, testing the leash’s weight in my hand and the collar’s ability to fit a human neck. They were never used for their intended purpose, and I eventually threw them away, hoping my desire could be discarded, too.

I never thought of them positively until I saw that discussion and later, an article a Twitter follower sent me on the positive impact of BDSM on mental health. Every day I logged onto Twitter to discussion of sex, parts of myself were affirmed. Twitter led me to further exploration of who I was. It offered the basic education I needed to learn more.

These online interactions offer a type of “public privateness” that allows people the space to explore and engage with sexual practices that they may not have been aware of otherwise. We can hide behind our screen names, yet still express ourselves fully because the stigma of our hidden selves is extinguished, and our willingness to be honest with who we are is encouraged. There is safety in the anonymity and in the knowledge we can always just log out and disengage.

This isn’t to say the internet is without its problems. As with any revolution there is pushback and while these platforms amplify the voices of the sexually (and otherwise) marginalized, they also give a platform to those who would shame us for our sexuality. Men often harass women on the same mobile apps that make their sexual exploration possible, bringing old sexist habits into fresh frontiers. Amatuer photographers may be threatened with having their nudes leaked to a wider audience. And thinly veiled subtweets zip around the cybersphere from one bitter lover to another.

And yet, despite user error, the positive spaces that are created outweigh the possible consequences. Audre Lorde eloquently spoke about the power of the erotic and what it means for us to own it: “The erotic is a resource within each of us…having experienced the fullness of this depth of feeling and recognizing its power, in honor and self-respect we can require no less of ourselves.”

There was a shift in me once I began to own, explore and celebrate my sexuality. That acceptance and celebration of self went beyond the sexual and the erotic. I began to demand more of my partners and learned what it was to be loved fully, castrating no parts of me for acceptance. I began to live more honestly and boldly once I lost the fear of myself.

There is power in a sexual revolution.

And it’s online now.