[Commlist] New Book: The Digital Closet: How the Internet Became Straight

New Book: The Digital Closet: How the Internet Became Straight

I wanted to post an announcement for my new book /The Digital Closet: 
How the Internet Became Straight/ that just came out from MIT Press. 
/The Digital Closet/ is an exploration of how heteronormative bias is 
deeply embedded in the internet, hidden in algorithms, keywords, content 
moderation, and more.

You can use the coupon code ‘MONEA20’ to get 20% off when you purchase 
the book direct from Penguin Random House at PRH.com. See here 
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/691644/the-digital-closet-by-alexander-monea/ 


I’ll post the summary below, but you can also find more information 
about the book (including endorsements, author details, etc.) at 
https://www.digitalcloset.org


Summary:

In /The Digital Closet/, Alexander Monea argues provocatively that the 
internet became straight by suppressing everything that is not, forcing 
LGBTQIA+ content into increasingly narrow channels—rendering it 
invisible through opaque algorithms, automated and human content 
moderation, warped keywords, and other strategies of digital overreach. 
Monea explains how the United States' thirty-year “war on porn” has 
brought about the over-regulation of sexual content, which, in turn, has 
resulted in the censorship of much nonpornographic content—including 
material on sex education and LGBTQ+ activism. In this wide-ranging, 
enlightening account, Monea examines the cultural, technological, and 
political conditions that put LGBTQ+ content into the closet.


Monea looks at the anti-porn activism of the alt-right, Christian 
conservatives, and anti-porn feminists, who became strange bedfellows in 
the politics of pornography; investigates the coders, code, and 
moderators whose work serves to reify heteronormativity; and explores 
the collateral damage in the ongoing war on porn—the censorship of 
LGBTQIA+ community resources, sex education materials, art, literature, 
and other content that engages with sexuality but would rarely be 
categorized as pornography by today's community standards. Finally, he 
examines the internet architectures responsible for the 
heteronormalization of porn: Google Safe Search and the data structures 
of tube sites and other porn platforms.


Monea reveals the porn industry's deepest, darkest secret: porn is 
/boring/. Mainstream porn is stuck in a heteronormative filter bubble, 
limited to the same heteronormative tropes, tagged by the same 
heteronormative keywords. This heteronormativity is mirrored by the 
algorithms meant to filter pornographic content, increasingly filtering 
out all LGBTQIA+ content. Everyone suffers from this forced 
heteronormativity of the internet—suffering, Monea suggests, that could 
be alleviated by queering straightness and introducing feminism to 
dissipate the misogyny.



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