Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Has the Internet normalised extreme sex and porn?

As Guido noted yestedray, tonight on More 4, Ben Cohen has a documentary on about Gaydar and the .com decade. Rather than take the mickey out of Chris Bryant though the part of the show I think will be interesting is looking at how the Internet has normalised some of the most extreme sexual behaviour.

Update: Have just read in a press release for the documentary some of the more extreme behaviour that has become popular. For example something known as "bugsharing" in the gay community where people try to deliberately get two strains of HIV. It beggars belief really that anyone would actively be willing to do that. It makes base jumping looking like a mild and tame sport.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm not sure "normalised" is the best word to use - brought it to a wider audience perhaps, but I'm sure a lot of it is still fairly repulsive to many people (from what I've heard....)

Anonymous said...

Don't you mean, "it buggers belief"?

silas said...

While I've not actually heard of the practice of "bugsharing", nor can find any obvious references to it on t'internet, the idea of it does sound plausible.

If you have contracted one strain of HIV and become positive from that, then getting a second form from someone else (who is also positive, so at no further risk from contamination) surely just double fucks you? You're dead either way.

I'm not a doctor, nor a specialist in the field, so perhaps I've not grasped the nuances of what HIV actually does.

Anonymous said...

Dizzy,
How did you come by "bugsharing"? Put it into Google and am none the wiser.

Anonymous said...

I don't think Gaydar has normalised these behaviours, rather that it's democratised them. You do't have to feel alone in your fantasy anymore, it's easier to find people who like the same thing as you. Two consenting adults and all that.

By the way, as a gayer, I'd say a very very high proportion of people on Gaydar, are looking for bog-standard gay sex leading to a relationship; it's rather disingenuous to link it to anything "extreme" in this way, notwithstanding the "bugsharing" issue you raise, which actually had a documentary of it's own on either BBC3 or 4, sometime ago (sorry can't find link.)

It's not hard to see that these bugsharing behaviours are in some way pathological in nature (probably related to an OCD-type illness and for that reason I'd say these people deserve our sympathy more than our revulsion.

Anonymous said...

More like cave diving I'd have said (& pardon the double-entendre). Very, very, dangerous & absolutely no escape route.

dizzy said...

The term was in the press release for the documentary.

Anonymous said...

Ah, Bugchasing is the actual term and here is a link to the documentary I mentioned in my previous post here.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4895012.stm

Just one more thing, for those not familiar with Gaydar, it's a bit like Guardian Soulmates, but with spunk (literally.)

Regards.