Editorial

Welcome to this special issue curated by Rebecca Saunders and focused on the intersections between data cultures and contemporary sexual cultures. In this new era of data-driven devices, platforms, networks, and apps, online pornography and ‘sex tech’ are crucial to the rituals, practices, and sensations of sex. The connections between the physical body and datafication processes have become increasingly intimate, with devices underpinning some people’s sexual relationships and even being incorporated into their bodies. The analyses in this issue encompass various case studies, including platforms such as Pornhub, the AI RealDoll, the Lioness vibrator – a smart sex toy – and the soon-to-be-released i.con ‘condom’, as well as dating, intimacy, and sex tracking apps. Through these examples, and by critically analyzing the rhetoric, aesthetics, design, and affordances of data-driven technologies, as well as users’ engagement with the data, this issue examines the increasingly significant relationship between sex and data, highlighting data’s potential role in the formation of contemporary and future sexual cultures and pointing to some of the political questions raised by the biopolitics of digital interfaces and technologies.

Rebecca Saunders’ opening article ‘Sex Tech, Sexual Data and Materiality’ investigates how datafication is increasingly embedded within sexual culture, influencing norms, expectations, and conceptualizations of sexual behaviours and the body. In her examination, the concept of datafication refers to the production of numbers and statistics and their transformative effect on the conceptualization of social phenomena. Drawing on Kath Albury et al.’s notion of the ‘datafication of culture’ to capture how the logic of data science and algorithms permeates various forms of sociality, Saunders also considers the impact of datafication on cultural practices, with a focus on the imperatives of quantification, categorization, binary epistemologies, and users’ encounters with data in their everyday lives.

In ‘I Know it When I See it: The Heteronormativity of Google’s SafeSearch’ Alex Monea scrutinizes the heteronormativity of Google’s SafeSearch and its use of machine vision for automated censorship. Monea critically examines the political implications of SafeSearch’s algorithms and their embedded biases, particularly semantic biases, the biases of image makers and labellers within ImageNet, and the blurry instances where explicitness is misinterpreted – most particularly when it comes to resources used by marginalized LGBTQIA+ communities. Monea also analyzes the always-on SafeSearch model, its regulation of flows of content, and its reinforcement of mainstream heteroporn’s dominance online because:

Google has made sure that the flow of internet traffic to pornography is bottlenecked through a small set of keywords that it thinks indicate a user is intentionally searching for pornography, and because internet traffic is bottlenecked through these few key words it becomes very easy for the mainstream porn industry to maintain a financial lock on these search terms.

This article highlights issues which need much more thorough-going debate and generative discussion about the problems of online moderation; in concluding, Monae offers suggestions for resisting and challenging the biases and practices of opaque algorithms.

In the following article, ‘The Platformization of Gender and Sexual Identities: An Algorithmic Analysis of Pornhub’, Ilir Rama and their co-authors shift the focus somewhat to the platformization of gender and sexual identities within the realm of online pornography – as numerous policy documents have indicated, the consumer of online porn is assumed to be white, male, and heterosexual yet there is little research specifically examining how algorithms play a role ‘in reiterating heteronormative perspectives on gender, sexual interests and practices on digital platforms’. Rama et al. explore how users’ self-declarations impact what the recommendation system offers individual viewers – the categories and videos available on the homepage. Exploring the algorithmic infrastructures used by platforms to distribute and manage pornographic content and analyzing Pornhub’s user profiling and content recommendation systems underscores how the platform follows the logics of platformization (standardization of content according to popularity and predictability) which may foster heteronormative perspectives on sexual desire, sexuality, and gender identities.

Algorithms are also the focus of Lorena Caminhas’ ‘The Politics of Algorithmic Rank Systems in the Brazilian Erotic Webcam Industry’, raising important questions about the criteria used in automated ranking systems and their implications for performers’ working conditions. Once again the logics of popularity and predictability work towards standardization, and Caminhas’ interviews reveal that platform rankings often favour young white cisgender women, creating an unequal distribution of visibility and hindering performers who do not fit those patterns. The research highlights the impact of rankings on performers’ opportunities to thrive within the industry, as well as the homogenization of services and prices that further exacerbate inequalities within Brazilian webcam businesses.

Moving on to dating apps, Jessica Pidoux’s ‘A Comparative Study of Algorithmic–User Classification Practices in Online Dating: A Human–Machine Learning Process’ highlights the significance of graphical user interface (GUI) structures and the role they play in shaping users’ self-presentation and interactions. The categories established by dating app providers mediate human–algorithmic interactions and influence the recommendations made by platforms, yet little attention has been paid to what this might mean for those seeking a date. Pidoux’s research brings to the forefront the users’ perspective on classification processes, providing valuable insights into the ways individuals make sense of predefined categorical structures and their impact on how they might present a desirable image to would-be suitors.

The final article in this issue, ‘“Pleasure With a Purpose”: Datafication and a Phallocentric Logic to Sexual Pleasure in the Lioness Vibrator’ by Christi de Kloe, delves into the world of smart vibrators and their data-driven approach to sexual pleasure. Biosensors on the Lioness enables users to quantify their experiences of pleasure and masturbation, generating ‘pleasure data’ about physical sensations including strength of orgasm. de Kloe argues that the seemingly neutral perspective of knowledge production through datafication carries a phallocentric bias. Despite deploying feminist language in its marketing, the vibrator contributes to a biopolitics that privileges quantitative knowledge over qualitative knowledge, such that the data-design of the Lioness reinforces goal-oriented and phallocentric notions of sexual pleasure.

These thought-provoking articles illuminate the multifaceted connections between technology, sexuality, and algorithmic systems, contributing to our understandings of the impact and implications of data systems, prompting us to critically reflect on the ways they shape our experiences, perpetuate biases, and might influence our perceptions of sexual pleasure, dating, online industries, and censorship practices. These valuable insights into the implications and embedded biases are particularly important in the context of ongoing attempts to regulate and control pornography and other sexual content on the internet, as well as social media networks facilitating distribution. Such efforts often rely on algorithmic tools and technological solutions to filter and block explicit materials, and yet the motivations for these regulatory efforts are not solely rooted in technological concerns. They are often accompanied by appeals to protect children from online harms alongside nostalgic longing for a perceived ‘safer’ sexual landscape of the past. It is crucial that we maintain a critical lens – safeguarding children online is important – but the effectiveness and unintended consequences of algorithmic filtering and regulatory measures will need to be carefully examined. The realities of technological advancements and the complexities of contemporary digital and sexual cultures will require nuanced understanding and measures.