Queer theory, cyber-ethnographies and researching online sex environments

Abstract

Both the act and the commission of the act of sex have been transformed by technology. This has in turn led to emerging research that seeks to consider online research methods and methodologies that take account of the new medium, with a number of studies examining specific groups and the behaviour of those groups from a socio-legal perspective. This paper will seek to consider the application of queer theory to researching so-called ‘virtual’ or online sex groups. It will examine how the virtual spaces, and the researchers who survey them, are constituted. The ethical and practical issues that emerge in surveying these groups from a queer theory perspective will also be explored.

Keywords:

• queer
• ethnography
• research methods
• Internet
• sex

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to Karen Hadley and the two anonymous referees for comments on earlier drafts. I would also like to express my thanks to participants at the Socio-Legal Studies Association Annual Conference at De Montfort University, Leicester in April 2009 for their comments on an earlier paper. All errors and omissions remain my own.