Free vs. paid, sub-cultures of sex, etc...

I'll tell you one thing, I'd take my chances with the crazies, murderers and sociopaths on Craigslist, rather than be subjected to the likes of those painfully annoying and air-head E-Harmony bimbos seen on the TV commercials. There's some pretty funny spoofs on YouTube if you have time to waste. One funny spoof still to be made would be a TV ad for CL Casual Encounters. Calling MAD TV!

In all seriousness, I think Tom Brady sums up the issue well in saying lot of people who use Casual Encounters "...have a narcissistic, sociopathic side where they don't have a lot of empathy for other people."

I also find it curious that Richmond does not mention the one glaring stat related to CL Casual Encounters -- anytime I browse through (for purely voyeuristic, of course), 95% of legit ads appear to be from gay men. This section of CL is but a virtual glory hole for gay men, a natural extension of the homosexual sub-cultural tradition of anon sex in parks traditionally indulged in by this demographic. Nothing wrong with this. In fact sometimes I lament not being gay, because if I was, I'd have an endless supply of wide-ranging opportunities to get anything/everything at anytime I wanted, sexually, for free, via CL. Drive-by blow-jobs, no questions asked? As a breeder who does not pay for sex, I can only fantasize.

This sexual orientation imbalance seen on CL also speaks to some feminist theoretical point about power imbalances in general. I share Russell's sociological interest in this issue, but it's not a social science study I'd like to engage in via the method of participatory observation.

Alive - if you are genuinely

Alive - if you are genuinely interested in meeting someone online for free with less creep factor than craigslist I suggest OKcupid - I know a lot of success stories from that website - it is too bad this article only talks about the ones that cost money and/or suck.

Also it should be noted craigslist has a regular personals section as well. I think the site is a bit of a creep magnet though.

Coyoteman

I too wonder if we've lost our way, aided by a medium that discourages real social contact, while encouraging anonymous, detached modes of meeting & greeting. The biggest lie of the information age is the promise of a closer, more connected global community. The problem with that promise, aside from it being false, is that in order to realize it, one must physically isolate behind a machine in order to make contact. Using a computer - I've never thought was a social activity at all. It's quite the opposite - an act of alienation on some key emotional, physical levels.

You may be right in a funny sort of way. Maybe examples like CL are manifestations of a Darwinian joke - a cleaning up of the gene pool.

The more I read and hear about the Internet as a meeting place for all sorts of purposes, the better all those much maligned nights in the singles bar from my youth are looking. At least back then, I had to communicate with all senses, even if they were dulled by alcohol most of the time. It's more than dating. People just seem increasingly disconnected from the lived social world. Whether it on a bus, at the cafe, even at the pub, faces are buried in mobile internet devices, ears are plugged with IPods, attention spans, if you do catch them in a free moment, are fleeting. Not very promising at all from a perspective of species evolution.

coyoteman

"For example, if the homosexuals and lesbians are all right, (to say nothing of the pedophiles)..."

Coyoteman - I find it very offensive that you compare queers to pedophiles. If you are not doing such, I would ask you to be more careful about how you phrase things - out of respect, if that is not too much to ask. I also find it disrespectful to suggest that queers are not "all right".

online dating is just fine...

The other thing I would like to mention is ... It is very sad that people assume that meeting partners via the internet is somehow a impending sign of doom or a breakdown of the social order.

I'm nearing thirty and I'm on my 4th relationship. The first 3 were all with people that I met "in real life" - each was either short-lived or abusive.

My current one is with an individual I met online. It has already outlasted two of my previous relationships and is more beautiful, fulfilling and loving than any other romantic partnership I have experienced.

I have every reason to believe this individual could be the love of my life.

Why should it matter where we met? We did meet briefly in person first, at a party - and we never had the chance to strike up a conversation.

We probably would have never ended up together without the internet. It simplifies things.

"You're single - I'm single - we are both interested - let's meet up!"

And then you meet. Either you hit it off, or you don't. If you do, why judge how you came to the initial date? Does it really matter that much?

Granted, that is a far cry from this sort of casual sex stuff, but the people engaged in that are a small minority - and as long as they are all consenting - I don't really trouble myself about it - why should I? It is none of my business. Not my scene, not my problem.

"...new puter pad things gret wch pron 2nit..."

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a twitter.

hmmmmm...

All things are possible under the sun...though I am not sure about homosexuality as "genetic and emotional mutation"...but if it were, there is some evidence to suggest that not reproducing may be the best evolutionary strategy at the moment...just a thought.

Yes, I concur with Moonbug, there is much gnashing of teeth over the means of connecting which is really beside the point - the connection is the point. There were (and are) sociopaths and creeps all over the bar scene (and anywhere else you might care to look) so why should anyone be surprised that they abound on Craigs List? For anyone who cares to investigate,social media really is about sociability. People who like to be social are social in myriad more ways - such as twitter and facebook - and there is research evidence that younger generations are considerably more social than boomers. Don Tapscott has written a couple of books about it, and I believe also has a website, for anyone seriously inclined to learn about the phenomena. As for the "deep and timely information" alluded to in a quoted twitter feed...how would one of your street corner conversations with a casual aquaintance play out in that regard? Much of our conversation is ritualized socialization, and if were to be transcribed might embarass us by its utter banality. And do tell, who here has not made a spelling mistake in their haste to post...as if spelling were the be all and end all of communication in writing...
Tapscott makes the point in one of his books that the generations after the boomers did not experience the freedom of neighbourhood play and casual socialization that happened ...yes, they were raised that way because of fear, and yet they reach out to communicate in every way possible. If the "promise of a closer, more connected global community" has not yet come to pass, I'd still bet on it...once the boomers are out of the way.

hmmmmm ...

Yes, you're quite right, and that is a good point.

Well, OK, but my point, not really very well made I admit, is that the trend in social networking seems to be a kind of intentional and willfull ignorance and illiteracy. And I find that disturbing. I mean, yes an occasional spelling or grammar mistake is human, of course. But when folks intentionally remove punctuation, grammar, spelling, and so on just because it's the thing to do? Bah. It's intellectual laziness, and when it comes to the mind, and our tools of communication, use it, and use it correctly, or lose it.

But in the end, I'll grant you that I am probably being overly critical about social networking media because it's just not for me. And so, with that grain of salt, I'll stop snarkin atcha'all.

VivianLeaDoubt

It's no so much a gnashing of teeth over social networking's negative impact on social relations. Actually, what it is, for me, is the almost religious, blind fervor with which social media is accepted as a necessary and good extension of our social being. Social interaction is more complex than typing 140-character banalities to someone on the other side of the world, or boasting that you have 536 Facebook 'friends.'

I think the social scientific jury hasn't even been selected yet on this question, much less convened and delivered a verdict.

And before extolling the virtues of online meeting, dating and socializing (which I don't consider real socializing at all), remember the darker forces that come with the medium. Child porn/sex slavery/human trafficking are experiencing a boom like no other time in our history, precisely because of the Internet medium. ID theft, fraud and related crime is also part of this wonderful social meeting place.

I really believe that the method of meeting is not beside the point, as you argue. It is very much a primary point in this type of discussion. That's the dangerous part of this debate - the fact most people seem to think this primary point is not a point at all.

What is beside the point is the kind of anecdotal evidence provided by moonbug: I met 3 great guys online and one abusive creep in person, therefore Internet meeting works.

snark?

I didn't think you were snarking, John Greg. But "intentional and willful ignorance and illiteracy" - might it not also be construed as a clever adaptation to the medium? With 140 characters, shorthand is required, and an entire texting shorthand has developed.(Did I spell 'illiteracy' correctly?)
Barney, two points. First, the research I was referring to shows that 'real', face to face socialization is increasing as a result of social media.So 'social media' really is a facilitator of the kind of meaningful interactions we bemoan the lack of...Naturally, it can also facilitate the dangerous, the obscene, the criminal by virtue of the people using it.I have no wish to speak for Moonbug, but what you dismiss as "anecdotal evidence" is, I believe, a personal account. Now, it seems to me that whether we interact online, or face to face, it is refreshing to hear people speak of their own experiences forthrightly...this is, after all, what brings meaning to our social encounters. This may well not be true of 'academic' or 'business' encounters...one can read a fair bit into how people choose to engage online.

Viv-doubt

Citing a book by a business and marketing expert (not a social scientist), whose thesis rests on the absurd notion that Generation-Y (or N, as he refers to them) is some sort of misunderstood super generation... well, I don't think any significant conclusions can be drawn from this. What Tapscott is doing is perpetuating the pop culture myth that all Gen-Y kids are great, wonderful and deserve a steady diet of self-esteem. If you want to balance out your understanding of this issue, I highly recommend you read Dr. Jean Twenge's "Generation Me: Why Today's Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled--and More Miserable Than Ever Before", and her recently published followup book, "The Narcissism Epidemic: Living in the Age of Entitlement" -- http://www.generationme.org/ Unlike Tapscott, Twenge is a trained social scientist and psychologist, who has tracked a lot of the few data we have to this point. Her work is not a direct reference to the Internet age, but it dovetails in nicely via her work.

I suspect it will be full generation of longitudinal studies before we really know more about the impact of social media on our social relations. In the meantime, I side with my own experience, healthy skepticism and with the precautionary principle. Your claim that social media encourages more real face-to-face interaction is not stat-significant, peer-reviewed data; it is wishful thinking. And even if this were data, it would require careful analysis; what is the quality/content/nature of that interaction, compared to the type we all needed to engage in before the Internet? Again, social interaction is not a simple reduction.

I actually had the misfortune of attending a social event recently made up of friends of mine and their Twitter clique. Guess what, there was little discussion, because most people were too busy checking their tweets, some of which were being sent from across the table. Any interesting discussion was interrupted throughout the evening by, "oh, hold on sec, gotta check this..." or a version of this which had the person pretending to hear what I just said, but didn't because s/he was too busy glancing down at their mobile device.

To Snark or Not To Snark

barney said:

For me too.

VivianLea Doubt said:

Yes, it can, But I don't accept the argument comprehensivley. What I mean by that is that I feel your argument holds water in only a small number of instances, but as for the rest, I feel intellectual laziness, that might even lead to an increase in general illiteracy, is the dominant norm.

I base my non-acceptance of your argument in part on the growing presence of such truncated/illiterate writing on such places as commentors posts here and at other online blogs and sites, as well as emails received from friends who are gradually adopting the illiterate form as the norm for all non-formal written communication. And frankly, I think that's a travesty.

Now, it must be said that I am highly biased in this area. I've been a tech writer for the last decade and that, combined with my somewhat intolerant personal character, leads me to be overly subjective and critical about any form of what I perceive to be intellectual laziness -- rightly or wrongly.

breathing in and out

The problem, to me at least, lies less with the technology of twitter, facebook etc. and more with how we are using it....

There is a growing "social" instinct to self-consciously "record" experience for effect now....rather than to just simply feel it.

We are becoming absorbed and solidified into the technology...so that as we manipulate so we are manipulated....and as we watch...so we are being watched.

That wonderful carefree insouciance of just living, when one is not aware of one's self, (and free of the imprisoning weight of an ever-watching, ever-recording, self-conscious self).... is being lost forever.

And in that regard, and at risk of being pilloried, I would add that socialization, too, is vastly over-rated for that very reason.

"That wonderful carefree insouciance of just living..."

What a beautiful phrase, Lynn!I suspect that for some, the last remembrance of that kind of living was childhood. But the point I think I made inadequately is that this is the world that we (metaphorically speaking, as I don't have children) have passed on to the next generations, and I think they are doing more to manipulate the technology - in ways that suit their human needs - than the boomers as a generation ever did. One need only compare the passiveness of watching television with the interaction of the internet. Superficial comparison perhaps, but I am composing on the fly without editing - in any event, just as some would watch anything and everything on TV, some would embrace anything and everything to do with social media without any real engagement.
Barney, I have read Generation Me, but I find more to critique in that work than I do in Tapscott's. Though Tapscott irritates me with his rather sophomoric cheerleading, I sense an imagination at work there. And you see, I believe that imagination,not "peer-reviewed" studies or articles, is what might enable us to rebuild our political and economic institutions and our relationship with nature and each other, paraphrasing coyoteman.What constitutes intellectual rigour is often, in my view, simply following the parade of properly-accredited scientists, professors, and others...
I know you will forgive those lazy ellipses.
What I really started out to say a couple of days ago is that I come to this site to engage in a conversation, and as with all conversations,I don't compose and edit my posts beforehand. (Though I am often compelled, therefore, to retract my errors and mistakes). I rarely cite research or anything else, because I am not here to persuade anyone to my viewpoint...I am simply trying to express myself, and trying to hear, in the largest sense of the word, what others are trying to say.I have enjoyed this conversation.
I know you will understand, Barney, when I tell you that my name is VivianLea, not Viv :)

imagination

Viveana said:

I believe that imagination,not "peer-reviewed" studies or articles, is what might enable us to rebuild our political and economic institutions and our relationship with nature and each other...

Scientists tend to be among the most imaginative in our human history, which is precisely why their imaginings, which are usually mocked, laughed at and dismissed, require peer-review, repeated research. I don't find Tapscott neither scientific or very imaginative. He sounds like hockey dad cheering on his kid whilst checking his stock prices via Blackberry. I think we need to really transcend mere imagination, cheerleading, marketing and "superficial comparisons" in order to grasp the root issues at play here. Which takes me to Lynn's comments, specifically these excerpts:

The problem, to me at least, lies with.. how we are using it... We are becoming absorbed and solidified into the technology...so that as we manipulate so we are manipulated....and as we watch...so we are being watched...."

This is some of most imaginative observation on the technology I've read on this site, certainly more imaginative than those of a marketing person like Tapscott.

I think the reasons marketing, business and PR people are tickled to glee in their love of this medium is obvious: marketing potential. As consumers of this technology, we have become extensions of the technology, which makes us extensions of both the commodity and that commodity's power as a marketing conduit. We even submit to, and allow this technology to dictate to us how to communicate - right down to the limited number of characters (Twitter). Who is really communicating here? The lines between autonomous being-in-the-world and the Internet technology-dependent version have become blurred. Part of the real struggle is that there is some genuine good potential in this technology for human interaction and progress, but that potential is so dominated right now by corporate branding, commodity fetishism and making us feel really cool and part of something big and cutting edge for using it, which has us walking around like zombies typing 140-character banalities to our 536 'friends' - 520 of whom we've never actually met, and likely never will meet.

Barney...

Your inventive and creative play with all those variations on my name shows real imagination, though :)

Great discussion

Have enjoyed reading your thoughtful comments on this thread, VivianLea. We may differ somewhat in our perceptions of the evolving path ahead but that is what, I think at least, has made this such an interesting discussion.

Barney, you ask a pivotal question here:

"We even submit to, and allow this technology to dictate to us how to communicate...Who is really communicating here? The lines between autonomous being-in-the-world and the Internet technology-dependent version have become blurred."

Well said.