Abstract
Given the Internet's origins in the Department of Defense's research efforts, it may seem strange that the gay community has taken to the Internet as if the two had originally been designed for each other. But this partnership is not as odd as it first seems. In part, this is because there is an overrepresentation of lesbians and gay men in the computer industry. Most informants interviewed hypothesized that this results from the proximity of Silicon Valley to San Francisco's liberal attitudes toward homosexuality. Some also suggested that social introversion in adolescence tends to draw teens to computers and might have promoted this association. The Internet has functioned as a way for the gay minority to become a majority in a “virtual community” available to anyone, no matter how far away—a process accelerated by the freedom provided by gay Usenet newsgroups, especially net.motss in the early years. Finally, gay personals-ad contacts can take place on the Internet freed from many of the problems of disproportionate romantic supply and demand that plague many corresponding Internet sites for heterosexuals.