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The Digital Closet: How the Internet Became Straight
by Alexander Monea
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An exploration of how heteronormative bias is deeply
embedded in the internet, hidden in algorithms, keywords,
content moderation, and more. A Next Big Idea Club
nominee.
In The Digital Closet, Alexander Monea argues
provocatively that the internet became straight by
suppressing everything that is not, forcing LGBTQIA+
content into increasingly narrow channels rendering it
invisible through opaque algorithms, automated and human
content moderation, warped keywords, and other strategies
of digital overreach. Monea explains how the United
States' thirty-year war on porn has brought about the
over-regulation of sexual content, which, in turn, has
resulted in the censorship of much nonpornographic
content including material on sex education and LGBTQ+
activism. In this wide-ranging, enlightening account,
Monea examines the cultural, technological, and political
conditions that put LGBTQ+ content into the closet.
Monea looks at the anti-porn activism of the alt-right,
Christian conservatives, and anti-porn feminists, who
became strange bedfellows in the politics of pornography;
investigates the coders, code, and moderators whose work
serves to reify heteronormativity; and explores the
collateral damage in the ongoing war on porn the
censorship of LGBTQIA+ community resources, sex education
materials, art, literature, and other content that
engages with sexuality but would rarely be categorized as
pornography by today's community standards. Finally, he
examines the internet architectures responsible for the
heteronormalization of porn: Google Safe Search and the
data structures of tube sites and other porn platforms.
Monea reveals the porn industry's deepest, darkest
secret: porn is boring. Mainstream porn is stuck in a
heteronormative filter bubble, limited to the same
heteronormative tropes, tagged by the same
heteronormative keywords. This heteronormativity is
mirrored by the algorithms meant to filter pornographic
content, increasingly filtering out all LGBTQIA+ content.
Everyone suffers from this forced heteronormativity of
the internet suffering, Monea suggests, that could be
alleviated by queering straightness and introducing
feminism to dissipate the misogyny.
Date Published: 2024-11-21 03:27:40
Identifier: mit_press_book_9780262369138
Item Size: 156330924
Language: eng
Media Type: texts
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