DISCOURSES OF DESIRE: THE NORMATIVE IN ONLINE SEX TALK Chrystie Layne Myketiak PhD Thesis School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science (Primary Affliation) School of Languages, Linguistics and Film (Secondary Affliation) Queen Mary, University of London 18 January 2011 1 DECLARATION I declare that the work in this thesis was carried out in accordance with the University of London regulations, and that the work in this thesis is my own. 2 ABSTRACT This thesis, grounded in feminist sociology and queer theory, examines sex, sexuality, and desire in naturally occurring synchronous conversations within a non-sexually themed online community. Although the community is rooted in computing culture (i.e., a multi-user domain) and is not sexual in scope or purpose, sex talk is prevalent and persistent in the corpus. Seventy-five conversational logs, each covering 24 hours of conversations, are analysed using qualitative sociolinguistic discourse analysis. The findings demonstrate that the participants engage in sexual conversations (e.g., automated sexual commands, joking, self-disclosure, cybersex) that make use of the spatial and technical resources available to them, and that there are clear boundaries in the language used for sexual conversations. Sexual conversations are found across virtual spaces in this community and are based on in-group talk, often to create social belonging and shared meaning between speakers. While participants sometimes challenge existing social discourses of sexuality when adopting group-specific norms and narrative styles, they often enact them, particularly in regards to heteronormative heterosexuality and gender. This thesis proposes that sex and sexuality can be seen in relation to the social comprehensive, which includes individual agency, social infrastructure, everyday experience, discourses, and shared meaning. The framework underscores the relevance of sex and its relationship to the larger social world in spontaneous and everyday conversations about sex and desire from an online community. It contributes to our limited scholarly knowledge of how people discuss sex, allowing for the examination of the discourses that emerge in and through speakers’ words, the stories that they tell, how they are told, and to whom. 3 For Harold and Betty Kennedy, and Elgin Myketiak 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 9 LIST OF EXAMPLES 10 LIST OF TABLES 12 LIST OF FIGURES 13 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS 14 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 15 1.0 INTRODUCTION 15 1.1 THEORY AND METHODOLOGY 17 1.1.1 COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE 18 1.2 THE STUDY 20 1.3 CHAPTER SUMMARIES 24 PART 1: SOCIAL THEORY 28 CHAPTER 2: SOCIOLOGICAL AND QUEER PERSPECTIVES OF SEXUALITY 29 2.0 INTRODUCTION 29 2.1 GENDER AND SEXUALITY 31 2.1.1 HEGEMONIC GENDER AND SEXUALITY 33 2.1.2 POWER AND POLITICS 35 2.2 SOCIOLOGICAL APPROACHES TO SEXUALITY 38 TH 2.2.1 CLASSICAL SOCIOLOGY (C. 19 CENTURY) 39 2.2.2 POST-WAR SOCIOLOGY (1945-ONWARDS) 42 2.2.3 SYMBOLIC INTERACTION 46 2.2.4 FEMINISM AND SEXUALITY 50 2.2.4.1 FEMINIST SOCIOLOGY 51 2.2.4.2 CRITICAL HETEROSEXUALITY 54 2.3 QUEER THEORY 57 2.3.1 QUEER THEORY AND THE POLITICS OF SEX 60 2.3.2 PRACTICING QUEER THEORY 62 2.4 QUEER SOCIOLOGY 65 2.5 CONCLUSION 68 5 CHAPTER 3: THEORISING SEXUALITY 70 3.0 INTRODUCTION 70 3.1 QUEERING THE SOCIAL WORLD 72 3.2 MAKING SENSE OF SEXUALITY 73 3.2.1 THE SOCIAL COMPREHENSIVE 76 3.2.2 QUEER SOCIOLOGY AND THE UN/MARKED 79 3.2.3 SOCIAL NORMS 81 3.2.4 LAWS AND NORMS 83 3.3 HETERONORMATIVITY 85 3.3.1 THE GOOD SEXUAL CITIZEN (AND MARRIAGE) 87 3.4 IDENTITY 94 3.4.1 ENABLING AND CONSTRAINING 94 3.4.2 SIGNIFICATION 97 3.5 TRANSGRESSION 101 3.6 CONCLUSION 104 PART 2: EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE 107 CHAPTER 4: SPEAKING AND TYPING DESIRE 108 4.0 INTRODUCTION 108 4.1 LANGUAGE AND SEXUALITY 110 4.1.1 NONNORMATIVE SEXUAL IDENTITY 111 4.1.2 SEXED BODIES 114 4.1.3 HETERONORMATIVITY IN CONVERSATION 115 4.1.4 DESIRE IN LANGUAGE 119 4.1.5 SEXUAL COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE IN ONLINE RESEARCH 121 4.2 ALTERNATIVE PERSPECTIVES OF ‘ONLINE SEXUAL ACTIVITIES’ 123 4.2.1 THE HISTORY OF SEX AND TECHNOLOGY 124 4.2.2 THE ONLINE SEX ECONOMY 125 4.2.3 CENTRALISING THE WEB 127 4.2.4 PARTICIPATION 128 4.2.5 ADDICTION AND COMPULSIVE USE 129 4.2.6 SEX ONLINE AND HIGH-RISK SEX OFFLINE 132 4.2.7 YOUTH 133 4.2.8 DEMARGINALISATION 134 4.2.9 CYBERPORN 137 4.2.10 SEX BLOGGING 139 4.3 CONCLUSION 141 CHAPTER 5: WALFORD 143 5.0 INTRODUCTION 143 5.1 SITUATING WALFORD 144 5.1.1 JOINING WALFORD 6 5.1.2 CONVERSING AND THE COMMAND SYSTEM 148 5.1.3 SETTINGS 149 5.1.3.1 DIRECT COMMUNICATION 151 5.1.3.1.1 FRIEND LISTS 151 5.1.3.1.2 NON-FRIEND LISTS 153 5.1.3.2 LOCAL COMMUNICATION 153 5.1.4 AUTOMATED COMMANDS 154 5.1.5 PRIVACY 155 5.2 METHODOLOGY 156 5.2.1 ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS 163 5.2.2 PROTECTIONS TAKEN 167 5.2.2.1 INFORMED CONSENT 167 5.2.2.2 SITE PSEUDONYM 168 5.2.2.3 USERNAMES 169 5.2.2.4 IDENTIFYING INFORMATION 171 5.3 CONCLUSION 172 CHAPTER 6: THE NORMS OF SEX TALK 174 6.0 INTRODUCTION 174 6.1 SEXUAL NORMS IN CONVERSATION 176 6.1.1 CONCRETE SEXUAL NORMS 176 6.1.2 POLICING NORMS 177 6.2 THE USES OF SEX TALK 182 6.2.1 AUTOMATED SEXUAL COMMANDS 183 6.2.1.1 KISSING BANDITS 184 6.2.1.2 AUTOMATED SHAGGING 188 6.2.1.3 FROM KISSING TO SEX 191 6.2.2 SEXUAL JOKING 193 6.2.3 SHARING SEX LINKS 197 6.2.4 WEBCAMS AND WEBCAMMING 201 6.2.4.1 GENDER ON DISPLAY 201 6.2.4.2 SEXUAL DISPLAY IN CAMMING 203 6.2.4.3 CAMWHORES 207 6.2.5 SEXUAL SELF-DISCLOSURE 210 6.3 CONCLUSION 211 CHAPTER 7: CYBERSEX 213 7.0 INTRODUCTION 213 7.1 CYBERSEX AS A COMMUNICATIVE ACT 215 7.1.1 POTENTIALS OF CYBERSEX 216 7.2 CYBERSEX NARRATIVES IN INTERACTION 218 7.2.1 NARRATIVES 219 7.2.2 DYADIC AND HETERONORMATIVE 223 7.2.3 SPACE 225 7.2.4 STYLE SHIFTS 231 7.2.5 MUTUALITY 234 7 7.2.6 INTIMACY 237 7.3 CONCLUSION 244 CHAPTER 8: HETERONORMATIVITY AND GEEK CULTURE 247 8.0 INTRODUCTION 247 8.1 MALE/FEMALE/NEUTER: INDEXING GENDER 248 8.2 ‘I’M NOT GAY’: INDEXING HETEROSEXUALITY 251 8.3 GEEKS AND NERDS 259 8.3.1 GEEKS AND NERDS IN WALFORD 262 8.3.2 WOMEN AND GEEKS 268 8.4 CONCLUSION 272 CHAPTER 9: CONCLUSION 274 9.0 INTRODUCTION 274 9.1 CHAPTER SUMMARIES 277 9.2 MAIN CONTRIBUTIONS 282 9.3 FUTURE WORK 284 APPENDIX: CONSENT FORM 286 GLOSSARY 288 REFERENCES 297 WEBSITES MENTIONED 321 8 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Completing this thesis was in no way a solo endeavour, and numerous people helped to shepherd me along. Dr Graham White and Dr Colleen Cotter were instrumental, seeing this project out from its earliest days through to completion. I am grateful for their continuous encouragement, suggestions, sage advice, and unwavering belief in my scholarship. They helped me to structure this work and to formulate my ideas in a more systematic manner. Prof Pat Healey, Dr Paul Curzon, Prof Norman Fenton, Dr Jennifer Jarman, and Prof Clive Parini offered additional encouragement, suggestions, and guidance for which I am indebted. My officemates (especially Stuart Battersby, Jonathan Black, Arash Eshgi, Colombine Gardair, Mary Lavelle, Greg Mills, and Rachel Oxley) provided a sounding board for many of my ideas, as did the IMC research group. I owe a great deal of thanks to my examiners, Dr Astrid Ensslin and Dr David Good for the comments and challenges they posed to my work. Their suggestions helped to shape the final thesis and improved the work considerably. I would also like to thank the superb staff in both the School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science (administrative and systems) and the Research Degrees Office. My research was generously funded through an ORSAS scholarship and scholarships from both EECS and the School of Languages, Linguistics and Film. When that funding ran its course, a number of people found ways to keep me on staff at QMUL in a combination of research, teaching, and administrative roles: thanks especially to Dr Paul Curzon, Prof Peter McOwan, Julie MacDonald, Prof Edmund Robinson, and Dr Colleen Cotter. As I wrote up this thesis, it was imperative that I did so from inside the UK – thanks to support from all levels in EECS during the visa appeal process and a determination in my favour by Immigration Judge Beach, I was able to do so. Finally, thank you to my friends, and above all else my family for your love, encouragement, patience, and understanding. 9 LIST OF EXAMPLES EXAMPLES IN CHAPTER 6 6.1 SOCIAL NORMS 1 178 6.2 SOCIAL NORMS 2 181 6.3 AUTOMATED SNOGGING 1 184 6.4 AUTOMATED SNOGGING 2 186 6.5 AUTOMATED SNOGGING 3 187 6.6 AUTOMATED SHAGGING 1 188 6.7 AUTOMATED SHAGGING 2 189 6.8 SNOGGING TO SHAGGING 191 6.9 SEXUAL JOKING 1 195 6.10 SEXUAL JOKING 2 195 6.11 SEX LINKS 197 6.12 CAMMING 1 204 6.13 CAMMING 2 205 6.14 CAMMING 3 206 6.15 CAMWHORES 207 EXAMPLES IN CHAPTER 7 7.1 CYBERSEX NARRATIVES 221 7.2 SPACE 1 226 7.3 SPACE 2 228 7.4 MUTUALITY 234 7.5 INTIMACY 1 237 7.6 INTIMACY 2 240 7.7 INTIMACY 3 243 EXAMPLES IN CHAPTER 8 8.1 INDEXING HETEROSEXUALITY 1 250 8.2 INDEXING HETEROSEXUALITY 2 254 8.3 INDEXING HETEROSEXUALITY 3 256 8.4 INDEXING HETEROSEXUALITY 4 257 8.5 INDEXING HETEROSEXUALITY 5 258 10 8.6 GEEKS AND NERDS 1 264 8.7 GEEKS AND NERDS 2 267 8.8 WOMEN AND GEEKS 270 11 LIST OF TABLES 5.1 BASIC COMMUNICATION COMMANDS 150 5.2 FRIEND LISTS 152 5.3 DECODING A CHATLOG TURN 161 12 LIST OF FIGURES 5.1 A LOCAL CONVERSATION TURN 160 5.2 A DIRECT CONVERSATION TURN 160 13 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AIDS – Acquired immune deficiency syndrome BBS – Bulletin board systems BDSM – Bondage and discipline, dominance and submission, sadism and masochism BTDT – Been there, done that DSM – Diagnostic Statistical Manual FLIST – Friend list HCI – Human-computer interaction HIV – Human immunodeficiency