"You know you spend way too much time looking at internet porn when you Google 'cream pies' and are surprised when the top results are all recipes for banana-and-chocolate cream pies," writes Audacia Ray, whose book Naked on the Internet: Hookups, Downloads and Cashing In on Internet Sexploration hits stores Friday.
Ray interviewed more than 80 women, a wide selection of bloggers, chatters, daters, models, geeks and non-geeks. What she found is perhaps not all that surprising but you won't hear it on the evening news: Women have wide-ranging sexual interests and are savvy enough to figure out how to harness technology to pursue our erotic desires -- and occasionally make some money doing it.
Naked on the Internet (Seal Press) is a serious look at how women are incorporating the internet into sex, and while the occasional wry comment and the deft use of individual stories leavens the academic tone, they don't undermine the gravity of the work.
Most interesting to me is how Ray includes sex workers as legitimate voices in the changing realm of female sexuality. The internet itself has changed sex work significantly, but it has also brought more women into the field, many of whom don't think of themselves as "sex workers." If you model fetishy outfits once or twice a year for cash to spend on a new tattoo, are you a sex worker? If you dance naked on webcam in an adult community but don't get paid for it, are you a sex worker, an erotic artist or both?
While most women explore sexuality online for personal reasons and have no intention of making it a side business, much less a career, we have much to learn from the professionals' stories. Ray's book gives women a collective voice, validating our experiences and exposing the whole range of how women -- real women, of various ages and backgrounds and moral codes -- are finding their sexual power online. I wouldn't be surprised if you find your story in here, if not your name, regardless of your gender.
I caught up with Ray by phone before she hopped a plane to Amsterdam, Netherlands, to speak at the Click Me internet pornography conference this weekend.
Wired News: Why did you write this book?
Audacia Ray: I wrote it to make people less afraid of the internet and what's going on, especially with women's sexuality. Many of the books written about sexuality and the internet are not very exciting and use a lot of scare tactics about technology and about sex. And I just found that sort of silly. I want to open up the discussion.
WN: I shouldn't still be surprised, but I am, at how the mainstream media treat sex tech. Tech is bad, sex is bad and anything that combines women and sex and tech is some sort of triple-whammy threat. Yet when it comes to specifics, the media are remarkably vague.
Ray: I did an appearance on the Geraldo at Large show in March. In the interview, they asked, "And how is this dangerous?" at least six different times. That's a question rooted in crazy technophobia that's all put off on the internet. My response is that meeting people is dangerous. But what's the definition of danger? Do you mean is it likely you'll get ax-murdered or raped? Probably not. But are you going to have a weird experience? Get an STD? Break your heart? Danger on that scale is realistic -- but not necessarily tied to the internet.
I think meeting people online is much safer than meeting in a bar. There's no alcohol involved (well, there can be). But when you meet a stranger in a bar, how much can you really know before you take them home?
The idea that meeting online is dangerous is sometimes helpful because it gets people to take steps to make things safer. What's funny is that sex workers, before and after the internet, have always had very elaborate check-in systems, with other workers, with friends, maybe an agency or escort service. Someone else knows where they are at all times. They tell someone where they are meeting, as much as they can about who they are meeting, and set a time to call. They also tell the person they're meeting that they have given this information to a friend and that they will check in.
The exact same advice is listed on a lot of dating sites -- the same safety tips go for online daters as for escorts!
WN: What surprised you while you were researching and writing this book?
Ray: Women still very much feel like their experiences online are private, even blogging, posting pictures, etc. You can of course use a fake name and different handles, but the rate of discovery is very high -- especially for women who do any kind of modeling online and women who do sex blogs.
The vast majority of the bloggers I talked to have had some sort of run-in with being outed to family, friends or employers, someone they didn't want to know about their activities. Those who hadn't been outed said it would be disastrous if someone found out. But they still believe that it won't happen to them, even though it's happened to friends or other bloggers.
I haven't quite cracked the code on this but I find it interesting.
WN: You don't spare yourself in the book, sharing your stories of how you segued from casual hookups to paid sex work to a master's degree. Do you think you will suffer for your candor, now that the book is out and reaching beyond the internet-savvy audience?
Ray: This sounds more negative than I want it to, but I think the damage is done. That stuff is already out there. I don't think the book ups that ante.
I own everything that I've done. I'm not denying what I've done and where I've been. That's a really powerful thing. No one can "unearth" stuff about me because I already wrote about it, and I 'fess up to it.
It remains to be seen what effect the book will have. I do a couple of other jobs outside of the sex industry, and recently at work my co-worker said she saw a cool event happening that she thought I'd be interested in. And I laughed and said, "Yeah, that's my book, I'm doing a reading that night."
WN: What would you like us to take away from the book?
Ray: I want people to see the individual stories, to see how all these issues are complex. To see that it can be risky to put your entire life and sexuality online, but it can also be very rewarding and very therapeutic.
I felt very seduced by sex blogging, and it was a very important part of my sexuality and exploration. Now, writing everything there was to write about my relationships was probably not a good idea, given how it changed the relationships for myself and for my partners. That said, I learned an immense amount from blogging.
Other women have had similar experiences, especially those who dip in as a temporary thing to work out an issue, then find it to be a much deeper experience that connects them with other women. That complexity is very important -- it's not just risk or reward. It's different things for the same woman at different times.
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See you next Friday,
Regina Lynn
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Regina Lynn regrets that she doesn't have enough tattoos to earn money as a fetish model -- so she can buy more tattoos.
Naughty, But Only on the Internet
The Uncomfortable Reality of Sex in Space
