review of Samantha Cole’s book How Sex Changed the Internet and the Internet Changed Sex

Given its title, and the opening chapter being called “The Internet Was Built on Sex”, I was expecting this book to do a lot more to establish that sex-related use cases shaped the evolution of the Internet. It does makes some arguments to that effect—like porn’s role in the rise of banner ads and user tracking—but in general I think a more accurate title would have been something like Sex Has Always Been One of the Things People Use The Internet For.

Regardless, I enjoyed the book (and the magazine-style design helps make it fun to read). Some tidbits:

• I didn’t realize how popular bulletin board systems were: “Some historians estimate that more than 106,400 individual BBSes ran at the peak of its popularity, with the biggest welcoming tens of thousands of callers.”
• Cole points the finger at a 1995 Time article for fueling a panic about children being exposed to porn online. The article was based on a shoddy study (“his data-collection efforts were highly suspect, since he didn’t make them transparent in the paper or in interviews after”).
• There were computer-based dating services as early as the 60s—though the computer’s main role was perhaps just to lend an air of authority. (Of one service: “They’d sort the cards by a few important criteria like location, religion, age, and height, and the rest were basically matched at random, Tarr said in a documentary.”)
• “Bounded authenticity” is a fascinating term:

Sociologist Elizabeth Bernstein coined the phrase “bounded authenticity” to describe the erotic exchange that takes place between in-person sex workers and clients: The “authentic” experience a sex worker delivers is bound within the confines of time and an agreement. Clients don’t just want to get off; they could do that at home with one hand. They want to feel a connection to another person, and they want to imagine that the other person feels satisfied, too—even though this is the model’s literal job, and they’re performing a service.

• The Chamberlain-Kahn Act is an infuriating bit of WW1 history I’d never heard of before.
• According to Cole, the FBI’s obsession with shutting down Backpage led them to suppress information that would have vindicated the site:

In private emails, the feds praised Backpage for years of helping them find trafficking victims. After an expansive investigation into Backpage in 2013, they traded emails saying that following interviews with more than a dozen witnesses and review of more than 100,000 documents, none of the “smoking gun admissions” to trafficking they hoped to find ever manifested.

One thing I would have liked more discussion (and citations) on: Cole says “the overwhelming majority of [porn] sets, will ensure that everything is aboveboard from the beginning.” I’d be curious what data is available to provide confidence in this.