Friday, Jul 25, 2008
How the Web has changed access to sex information -- and the kind of advice people seek. Second of two parts.
Mar 15, 2001 | "We live in a culture obsessed with sex," says San Francisco sex authority Sandor Gardos, "but basic sexuality information often gets lost. It's difficult to assign meaningful blame. Sure, the government, parents, political conservatives and the media deserve some share of it, but we also have thousands of years of cultural history that got us to this point."
In Gardos' view, one hopeful development for increasing access to information about sexuality is the Web: "For the first time ever, people with Web access are only a few clicks away from at least some good sex information. Before the Web, if you were a teen in a small, conservative town, or gay, or a fetishist of some sort, it may have been very difficult to find the information you were looking for. [Now] you can ask your questions, find people like you. People submit questions to Thrive anonymously, but from the way they're written, I'd guess that about half come from teens. I think that's why I get so many questions asking: 'Could I be pregnant?'"
Gardos is painfully aware that the Web is no treasure-trove of authoritative sex information. Far from it: "When I got involved with About.com, one of the first things I did was survey the Web for sources of good sex information. I was surprised at how few I found. There are hundreds of thousands of porn sites, but I found only a few dozen sites with comprehensive sex information, and a few dozen more with good information about specific subject areas: contraception, sexually transmitted diseases, blow jobs. Still, if you have no other access to good sex information, the Web can provide it -- if you know where to look."
The Web has done something for sex advice columnists too -- it's changed the kinds of questions they get: "Questions that come in by e-mail tend to be more intelligent, more literate," says Rowe, who launched PlayboyAdvisor.com in 1997. The Web site now accounts for two-thirds of the letters he receives. "Most people with computers and Web access have a certain level of education -- even if they don't know much about sex."
Nationally syndicated sex columnist Isadora Alman agrees: "I get more intelligent questions on the Web site." Her site is unique in that she's not the sole expert. She invites site visitors to answer questions as well as ask them -- in part to provide perspectives other than her own and in part to have her site function as a kind of sexuality salon, an ongoing discussion group. She has found her approach something of an antidote to one occupational hazard of writing a sex advice column -- the feeling that the whole world is sexually out to lunch. "Many people write in wonderful answers," she says. And, in fact, Alman's latest book, "Doing It: Real People Having Really Good Sex," is a compilation of visitors' tips and experiences.
All the sex advice columnists interviewed for this article have noticed an increased interest in recent years in power-play sex like sadomasochism and bondage and discipline. If the volume of questions related to power-play sex is any indication, it appears to be on its way to becoming more widely practiced. "Whether or not people are actively involved in S/M and B&D, interest seems to be growing," Alman says. "People have heard of it. They're curious about it. So they ask. And when so many people ask, you have to figure that at least some of them are trying it."
For Alman, whose readers span a broad range of age and sexual experience, S/M and B&D have replaced previous sexual practices considered "edgy." "Twenty-five years ago, it was oral sex," she explains. "Ten years ago, it was anal. Now it's S/M and B&D." But Rowe's Playboy readers tend to be under 30, and despite Playboy's anything-goes image, they're generally not that sexually adventurous. "Based on the letters I receive," Rowe says, "I'd say anal is still on the edge for most of our readers."
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