Slides for a talk on digital sexualities as the University of Sussex May 2017.

1. Ben Light / @doggyb
digital sexualities
where have we come from, where are we going?

2. talking sex
doing sex
commercial sex
minority sex
healthy sex
regulating sex
mediating sex
the construction and
enactment of sexualities

3. the making of digital sexualities
digital
sexualities
porn / hooking up / sex
work / sex talk / sexual
health / sexual harassment
domains
traditional / scraping /
visualisation / walkthrough /
digital ethnography / big
qual
data + methods
quant/qual-ified self /
automation / web 2.0 /
apps / geo-location /
mobile devices
technologies
critical actors / aggregation
effect / data + tech
owners / researcher
participation / participant
cover / data
ethics

4. facebook + nsfw
NSFW MAGAZINE is a quarterly
photography magazine that covers a
variety of topics that are Not Safe For
Work. We hope you enjoy the color,
humor, and sexiness within our pages
while also being educated by the
intriguing articles written by some of the
most interesting and creative minds at
work today.
8K Followers
NSFW Vids N Pics.
69K Followers
We Post Pictures and Videos of
Gorgeous Girls!
19K Followers

5. twitter + nsfw

6. twitter + nsfw

7. Lesbian
Cafe
- early 1990s
- EBB
(Correll 1995)
French
M
initel System
1982
-
(Livia
2002)
Gaydar - site
1999
/m
obile
2005
(Light 2007, M
ow
labocus
2007)
M
atch.com
- 1993
(Arvidsson
2006)
Internet Relay Chat - 1988
(Cam
pbell 2004)
Usenet - 1983
(O’Riordan
2005)
Grindr 2009
(Brubaker et. al. 2014)
Squirt site
1998/m
obile
2009
(Light 2016)
from type to swipe...
Tinder - 2012
(Duguay, Burgess
and
Light 2014)
Ashley M
adison
- 2002
(Light 2016)

8. apps and public sex
public sex can be a counter-public -
location data is a key ethical
consideration
• Does big data always provide cover
where sexualities are concerned?
• What do we do with sexual data
during its life?
• What are the potentials and
pitfalls of big data and digital
methods approaches to the
study of sexualities?
Currently, apps that contain adult material
are not allowed in the App Store or
Google Play. Squirt does not believe in
censorship. We are pro-sex, and we
celebrate sexuality. Having to offer Squirt
with no nudity in the pictures, or having to
police what members put on their profiles
for simple profanity or the frank talk about
the kinds of sex that we look for is not an
experience we want to bring to you.”

9. scruff + the quant/qual-ified self
writing the performance of sexuality
and responsiveness into being for
success + in-app economies

10. the ashley madison hack
bots are an element of the non-
human turn
• Is it okay to use hacked data?
• How do we account for what we
can’t predict in ethics?
• Is bot based ‘cybersex’
cheating?
• When does sexuality at/via
work become NSFW?

11. PORN HOOKING UP SEX WORK
SEX TALK
SEXUAL
HEALTH
SEXUAL
HARASSMENT
industry - access -
circulation - creation -
uses
at home - at work - in
public - clandestine
safety - support -
camming -
disintermediation
censorship -
surveillance - emojis -
sexting - activism
education - evaluation -
cultures + practices
dick pics -
cyberstalking - revenge
porn - hacking
domains

12. QUANT/QUAL-IFIED
SELF
AUTOMATION WEB 2.0
APPS GEO-LOCATION MOBILE
DEVICES
intimate connectivity
- reflective profiles
algorithms - bots -
recommendation
systems
social media - HTML
5 - tagging -
education
app stores -
operating models -
off label uses
search - surveillance
- impacts
privacy - publicness
- access
technologies

13. TRADITIONAL SCRAPING VISUALISATION
WALKTHROUGH
DIGITAL
ETHNOGRAPHY
BIG QUAL
interview - survey -
ethnography - focus
group
API access - API
mutability - off label
practices
geo-data - network
data - simulation +
prediction
operating models -
interfaces - off label
uses
screen capture - real
time observation
data mining - auto-
coding - post-
demographics
data + methods

14. it doesn’t take much

15. anyone 7,407
here 7,032
around 3,690
now 3,681
today 1,581
avg chars 39.2

16. On Commenting
• Anyone…
• Specifying time
• Asking a user to wait
• Lamenting a user is too
far away
• Specifying location of
user - ‘I’m close’
• Directions at a venue
• Venues close by
• Horny - not spunked for
’n’ days / use me
• Offer/requirements
• Warning - police,
security, walkers,
neighbours
• Safer sex + HIV
• Calling out users
• Venue traffic
• Critique of venue
• Reminiscing
• Asking for rematch
• Thanking
• Offers to host
• Sex for drugs
• Sex for money

17. CRITICAL
ACTORS
AGGREGATION
EFFECT
DATA + TECH
OWNERS
RESEARCHER
PARTICIPATION
PARTICIPANT
COVER
DATA
location - law -
devices -
intersectionality
pseudonymity -
anonymity - design
fallacy
expectations -
governance -
ownership
research strategy -
fringe benefit
big data - legal
expectations - non-
consent
collection - processing
- presentation -
archiving
Ethics

18. References
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