Say I’m working with a client who’s looking to meet people to relate to, and they’re looking at, you know, OkCupid, and Craigslist ads, and what have you. They’re trying to figure out if anyone will accept them, and how they want to approach that. And a lot of people on these sites actually don’t want to decide if they’d like to have sex on the first date, but want to spend time getting to know someone, and getting connected. Which has actually almost become a hardship in modern society, people tend to fuck first, ask questions later, you know?

AK: Right.

DE: It’s a singles bar mentality. So people who want to actually get to know people, and have a strong connection before they enter into the full range of sex they may be exploring, can encounter a hardship. So I suggest they set up anonymous accounts for how they really see themselves, and what they really want — totally honest ads — and test the waters.

Obviously if they get responses they like, they can answer them. But it protects their anonymity while trying this stuff on, while they’re figuring out these descriptions. So the Internet has opened up a lot of doors for people to communicate with one another in a way that is safe. Because it’s still true for many folks, that if people find out they’re poly, or they’re kinky and they’re your what? They’re your child’s third grade teacher? They’re someone who just went through a contentious divorce? So then if they’re outed, do they lose their job, their children? It could be really dreadful. So that’s an important sort of safety valve. Of course, the anonymity could be used by people who want to do harm by predators, so there’s a problem in that sense but there’s been an enormous opening with the Internet, an opening in the discourse around sex. The other interesting thing about what the Internet has done, remember we were talking about how it’s such poor sexual language that we have?