Category: Culture

Thumb War:  Sexual Revolution in the Digital Age

So, is the sexual revolution over?  If so, who won?

To be honest, it is very difficult to get a fix on the state of both social and political dynamics regarding sex and relationships in the millennial generation, especially through the frenetic, hand-held lens of social media. The general consensus appears to be that millennials are all about about hooking up without any interest in even trying to have relationships, but this may not be so true as it is widely reported. At the same time, stories emanating from college campuses would have us believe that the grandsons of the Boomers are generally more prone to abusive behaviors, including rape, than their fathers and grandfathers, which is an extraordinary indictment if this is true. On the other hand, we may be hearing more about various types of dysfunctional or misogynistic male behaviors because millennial women feel more empowered than their mothers and grandmothers to openly confront these issues, and this in itself will change the dynamics of relationships.  Then again, we see some new and classic schisms among feminist voices whereby one woman’s personal empowerment is another’s treasonous surrender to sexism and “rape culture” itself.

Meanwhile, a whole industry has grown up around date-rape prevention, with products like nail polish that can detect narcotics slipped into drinks. And that phenomenon brings us full-circle back to the aforementioned, apparent, trend toward consensual, casual sex because it begs the question as to why there would be an increase in terrible subterfuges like sneaking drugs into cocktails, if all parties are more open than ever before to casual encounters?  Or does the new casualness, which has been both enhanced and defined by smart-phone hook-up apps, actually foster more bad behaviors among men because digital dating has so thoroughly turned sex into a cold, dissociative transaction? These and other questions abound that I could not hope to address in a single essay.

Suffice to say, we read a lot of disparate and often conflicting reports from the battlefield; and according to a recent exposé by Nancy Jo Sales, writing for Vanity Fair, now that the sexual revolution has gone digital, millennials are ushering in what she calls the “dating apocalypse.”  Her article, which is largely based on conversations with 20-something men and women, who are actively hooking up through platforms like Tinder, conveys a broad narrative that sounds about as bleak and dysfunctional as every complaint I’ve ever heard about the pre-digital dating scene. The major difference today, simply sounds more bleak and more depressing at twice the speed thanks to technology.

From Sales’s description, the characterization we get of apps like Tinder, Hinge, and OKCupid is that, although these services are marketed with images of dreamy couples canoodling in romantic settings, they are not being used as dating services akin to Match.com or eHarmony, but rather as straight-up transaction brokers — personal pimp-yentas if you will — solely for the purpose of arranging casual sex with complete strangers.  “Dates” might last maybe an hour from door-to-door and back again, depending on traffic conditions. And according to some reports, many of the people on Tinder are either married or in supposedly committed relationships.

Tinder itself balked at Sales’s portrayal in a series of tweets like the one which reads, “It’s disappointing that @VanityFair thought that the tiny number of people you found for your article represent our entire global userbase.”  But whether or not the young singles Sales interviewed in various locations are a fair representation of Tinder’s reported 50-million users worldwide, the company’s reactionary tweets have largely been mocked for their petulant defensiveness.  Because it doesn’t really matter how many of Tinder’s users are similar to the people Sales profiled inasmuch as her research into the state of dating today is no less in-depth than precedent articles of its kind.  And indeed the characters and narratives that emerge are not only familiar, but also sound exactly like the kinds of stories we might expect to come from digitally-enhanced dating techniques.

Not surprisingly, Sales’s article suggests that plenty of young men are as hardwired for relationship-free sex as ever, while young women are still trying to figure out how they feel about these encounters, still grappling with basic inequalities between the sexes with regard to expectations and behavioral norms.  Even some of the women profiled, who say they’re perfectly comfortable with casual sex via these apps, seem to have expectations of basic behaviors from the men — like don’t go right back onto Tinder immediately after having sex with someone — about which the men sound rather typically oblivious.  Several of the women featured indicate that even basic courtesies are the exception rather than the rule, as though the theme has gone from “Will he call?” to “Will he even say goodbye on his way out the door?” So, not so much a new story about dating as the same old story that’s gotten a little bit worse.  And how could it not if hooking up via apps like these only exacerbates certain fundamental flaws in many of us men to begin with?

Speaking as a former young man myself, I feel comfortable generalizing that we’re not inherently a bright bunch when it comes to this stuff, and we are somewhat programmed to lack empathy at exactly the same time that we become sexual creatures.  As a result, it often takes young men some measure of getting hurt, and even causing hurt, before we actually start to figure out how to behave at all, let alone how to one day be in a real relationship.  And I suspect basic truths still hold that intimacy is just plain different for women, casual or not, when it comes to behaviors associated with intimacy. And so, in the digital dating scene, more people may be acting cool on the surface than ever before; but people have always acted cool on the surface in pre-digital encounters, and it has almost never been true that sex is so emotionally unencumbered.

Perhaps the most telling details that emerge from Sales’s investigation are those which imply that a lot of the casual sex being had out there isn’t any better today than it was before the invention of the smart-phone wing-man. And it might even be worse.  In fact, according to comments from one group of young women, it sounds as though breaking down barriers to casual encounters through apps yields at least as many, if not more, complaints of erectile dysfunction and consistent failures to produce sexually satisfying experiences (i.e. orgasms) for the women.  Again, if these complaints are representative of the larger experience, this is not at all surprising.  As with empathy and other emotional connections to another human being, there is usually a learning curve when it comes to partners having good sex rather than just some sex. And so it stands to reason that good sex isn’t going to happen very often — and quite possibly never — among people who merely “Hit it and quit it,” as the contemporary saying goes, according to Sales.

Yet another aspect of apps like Tinder is that, as interactive media unto themselves, they are essentially hand-held games, which presumably breed addictive, game-like habits with the added bonus of scoring “points” that feel emotionally empowering.  Swipe images of men or women you find attractive, and it must be kind of a thrill each time there’s a reciprocal match, like playing concentration with little prizes along the way for your ego.  As such, I would not be surprised if the consummation of “winning” this game — at least for many women and possibly for more men than might admit it — is frequently less satisfying than playing the game itself.  If this is true, it really is a shame.  After all, the highs and lows of dating have always been something of a game, but one played through a broad range of human interactions like conversation, body language, humor, flirting, and so on — all stimulating a range of emotional experiences that give our lives color, depth, and meaning.  One can hardly consolidate all that down to a finger swipe across a glass screen and expect richer experiences to manifest as a result.

Admittedly, it is often difficult to compartmentalize the distinct but overlapping subjects of sex, sexism, sexualization, feminism, and even such extreme behaviors as sexual abuse.  One body of thought is that sexualization is borne exclusively of sexism, which can be the foundation for assault, or at least chronic callousness. My view has generally been that sexualization is unavoidable, but that as long as all parties are on equal terms, being open about sexualizing one another (in the right contexts) is probably healthier than sublimating these instincts.  This is because, generally speaking, in cultures where sex is shameful, women wind up as victims of abuse and scorn, sometimes quite horrifically.

And of course America — nation of rock-n-roll puritans that we are —  is unique in its brand of hypocrisies, which manifest in overt sexualization often filtered through the pretensions of religiously-based notions of decency.  Sexual double-standards are part of the American DNA, and these result both in hypocritical behaviors and hypocritical public policies about which we are still fighting nearly fifty years after the Summer of Love.  And so, on one level, one might expect the sexual frankness implicit in hook-up apps to be one means by which the next generation breaks down many of these longstanding hypocrisies, theoretically putting men and women on more equal footing than ever. In this sense, we would expect the millennials to be enjoying the freest “love” since the free-love movement itself.  But according to Nancy Jo Sales’s article, it doesn’t sound as though this is quite the case.  Instead, it sounds like these apps, with their astounding billion-dollar valuations, may be just another Silicon Valley swindle, conning a whole generation into trading meaningful experiences for a gluttony of meaningless ones.

Advocacy or PR from the EFF?

Two posts ago, I helped ruffle many feathers — and awaken a few trolls — when I accused the EFF in general, and attorney/blogger Mitch Stoltz in particular, of producing scare-mongering hyperbole by never passing up an opportunity to ring the pavlovian SOPA bell.  Regular readers of this blog know that I have often been critical of this organization because I believe its communications too often vacillate between public advocacy (its stated mission) and PR/policy work on behalf of the Internet industry.  And the apparent correspondence between these interests is admittedly a bit confusing from time to time. Because the Internet is so thoroughly integrated into most of our lives, it is easy to believe that, for instance, what’s good for Google or Twitter or Pandora, is inherently good for those of us who rely on the flow of digital data for business, entertainment, news, relationships, and even expressions of identity and purpose.  I’ve said it before.  No other industry — not medicine, not petroleum, not even food — has ever enjoyed so much latitude in the ability to associate its motives with the public’s defense of its civil liberties. This is a potent political cocktail, which is why I advocate vigilant skepticism.

So, two days ago, Mr. Stoltz posted an opinion piece written in a dispassionate, lawyerly tone that I had just recently accused the EFF of adopting only rarely.  In this article, Stoltz offers a frank analysis as to why he believes a pre-1972 public performance right, granted in the Flo & Eddie case and now being appealed, will “squelch competition in new music services” if upheld.   Music licensing can be mind-boggling for attorneys, so I won’t be the one to parse any of Stoltz’s legal statements, but will point readers, as usual, to Terry Hart’s historically contextualized summary of this same matter.

But regardless of the legal merits on either side of this issue, the main reason I’m bothering to cite Stoltz’s new post here is that I’m unclear as to why the EFF even views this case as relevant to the general public’s rights in the digital age.  This kind of legal/financial wrangling among business interests has been going on forever, and it is rare that the outcomes set precedents that have much to do with the rights of the rest of us citizens.  As such, this particular story about public performance rights and streaming and satellite services seems much more appropriately the purview of either business reporters or PR agents for one industry or the other.  (So, you see what I’m driving at.)

I like music streaming and hope it evolves into a model that works for both consumers and creators — because right now it does not — but I certainly don’t consider Pandora’s or Spotify’s financial interests as having anything to do with my civil liberties in the digital age.   So, why does the EFF?  I suppose the closest thing to a rights issue would be Stoltz’s thesis that this ruling is harmful to competition, but even that is a stretch vis a vis civil liberties.  Moreover, as I’ve said in the past, and as any observer can can see, the Internet, by its very nature, doesn’t tend to produce multiple competitors in spaces like music streaming.  To the contrary, the Web tends to foster monopsonies (e.g. Amazon, YouTube) that are able to dictate, rather than negotiate, terms with suppliers and creators.  And that’s not the fault of rights holders, that’s just the nature of the technology in its present form.

To be clear, I don’t think there’s anything automatically wrong with vested interests organizing around policy.  It’s how most policy gets done, whether we want to admit it or not.  And often, there are mutual interests and alliances between big and small, between a corporate interest and the everyday citizen or entrepreneur.  For instance, I strongly believe that independent film will not thrive in a market that fails to mitigate piracy, and so independent filmmakers share this common ground with the big studios, which are the only entities with the resources to address piracy in either policy or legal arenas.  By the same token, I guess it is not inconceivable that the interests of music streaming companies can’t be aligned with our civil rights, but it is not readily apparent as to how this might be the case.  Instead, it seems that what the EFF opposes most of all is any policy that looks like an expansion of rights for creators ever. And this is interesting in itself because it implies that the millions of creators in this country are not part of the “your” in the motto Defending your rights in the digital world.

No Borders Does Not Mean No Boundaries

Over this past weekend, it seems The New York Times Editorial Board got together, drank a little Googley Kool-Aid, and then wrote this Op-Ed provocatively titled Keep the Internet Free of Borders.  It is dismaying that, under the imprimatur of a respected name, an OpEd is published that succeeds in drawing such a typically blunt conclusion about an otherwise complex and nuanced issue of great importance.  Here’s what’s going on:

Historically, the U.S. International Trade Commission has the authority to block the importation of articles that infringe the intellectual property rights of American companies.  For instance, a U.S. based importer/wholesaler may not import counterfeits of consumer goods, and the ITC is empowered to enjoin such importation and enforce its authority through agencies like customs and border services.  But this past March, for the first time, the ITC concluded that articles under its purview may include the importation of digital files.  (Cue eerie violins.)

The case itself involves the Invisalign brand of dental aligners, which is a patented system owned by Align Technology.  A Texas-based company called ClearCorrect received data from an entity in Pakistan that contained digital models, design information, and treatment plans, which Align Technology argued can only be used “to infringe or induce the infringement” of its patents.  ClearCorrect argued that the ITC’s authority to restrict the importation of infringing articles does not extend to digital data, but the ITC ruled 5-1 in favor of Align after an administrative law judge concurred that the definition of “articles” in the statute does apply to digital imports, consistent with the ITC’s “legislative purpose to . . . prevent every type of unfair act in connection with imported articles . . . and to strengthen protection of intellectual property rights.”  This case has been appealed and was scheduled to be heard in federal court in Washington D.C. sometime today.

If the ITC’s broadening of the term articles under its purview is held to include digital data, this would certainly set a new precedent that will be attractive to owners of intellectual property.  And of course this prospect has not-surprisingly raised the hackles of digital rights proponents, who predict that granting the ITC this authority will “harm the free flow of information on the Internet.”  Unfortunately, this is the recurring narrative every time any entity, private or public, seeks to remedy any of the new forms of harm that are unavoidable byproducts of the new forms of communication, interaction, and data transmission that most of us enjoy.  Hence, editorials like the one from the Times perpetuate the frankly defeatist notion that our only options are either to accept the predations of bad actors or invite legal regimes that can only lead to censorship.

For a more detailed description of the Align case, I recommend this article written by my colleagues at the Center for the Protection of Intellectual Property.  In particular, I would draw your attention to the authors’ revelation that the usual suspects in Silicon Valley, who presently oppose upholding the ITC’s authority in this case were just a few years ago vociferously in favor of copyright owners using the ITC in precisely this manner. As part of that industry’s PR blitz against SOPA and PIPA, they widely supported the proposed OPEN Act, so named because it would “keep the Internet open.”  And as a component of this advocacy, OPEN’s corporate supporters recommended that the ITC was an ideal venue for rights holders to seek relief from entities committing infringement through digital data imports.

So, if nothing else, the Times editorial board might have done a little homework and recognized that if the Internet industry was once in favor of this type of ITC authority and is now opposed to it, this contradiction might awaken some dormant, journalistic instinct to a bit of skepticism.  Instead, the article concludes with an all-to-common statement that I would challenge anyone to define clearly.  It states, “The appeals court should strike down the commission’s ruling, which is bound to hamper the exchange of ideas and information on the Internet.”  I’ve encountered that hampering sentiment so many times, and it still doesn’t make any sense.  If the ITC blocks a shipment of counterfeit Nikes, and fair trade in sporting goods continues, why is it impossible to imagine that an equally narrow application of this same authority may apply to digital imports without harming the larger flow of information, let alone anything as esoteric as “ideas?”

At some point, this narrative has to change — the one that insists there is no way we will ever balance civil order and civil liberty in cyberspace — because every user has a stake in seeking balance, whether the concerns are privacy, personal security, or intellectual property that supports a business in any sector.  The Align case is about dental products, the Equustek case I wrote about involved systems communications hardware, and with advances in 3D printing technology, we can be sure there will be more and more trade in infringing trade secrets and  other intellectual property.  Hence, it should be clear that the growth in these unlawful and predatory practices, unique to the digital age, is already affecting interests far beyond the motion picture, music, and publishing industries.

Whatever the remedies may be, we should constantly demand specifics as to what it means to “harm the free flow of information on the Internet” because it’s not sufficient to accept that the definition is whatever the major internet companies say it is on any given day. (See above mentioned flip-flop on this very subject).  In fact, as Stephen Carlisle points out in this piece for Nova Southeastern University, in the last several months, site-blocking has been ordered in specific cases in the US, Canada, Germany, and Australia, yet here we are, using the Internet to exchange information and ideas.  What began as adolescent rationalizations for file sharing more than fifteen years ago has now metastasized into a social and corporate agenda that is attacking vital organs in our market-based economy.  We can do better.  Balancing civil order with civil liberty is what we’re supposed to be good at in this country.  We should not be afraid to try.