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The internet HIV risk?
26 Mar 2008-
London, England - More 4 News will tonight explore the downside of
internet social networking as part of its dot.com decade series of
reports by showing how technology has normalised extreme forms of sexual
behaviour.
Gaydar and other
gay "hook-up" websites were popular long before the launch of mainstream
social networks like Bebo and Facebook boast millions of British
members.
As More4 News will
show, users are able to search for a partner based on a variety of
criteria: hair colour, eye colour, height, weight, even penis size.
The frank nature of
the site has had an impact on the gay scene, with bars and clubs scaling
back, some even closing down completely as users opt to locate a partner
online rather in real life.
As one user
says:"It's like take-out pizza, you just order in sex."
The websites also
allow users to search for people willing to have unprotected, so called
"bareback" sex. Within minutes online, More 4 News was able to find
thousands of British gay men willing to have bareback sex. On one
website, 613 men said they only have bareback sex.
Using language that
can not be broadcast, users set their "status" with "adverts" such as
"XX HUNG BARE BACKING PIG - CONDOM FREE ZONE" and "Lets get raw and
bare."
One 19-year-old boy
says he is a "boy for older daddy to use and abuse". Shockingly, an
18-year-old boy says he is looking to "BUGSHARE." Another 18-year-old
says he is a "young teen poz bottom for poz top guys."
As More 4 News
reports, the Health Protection Agency are warning of a rise in a so
called super virus where someone is infected with two strains of the HIV
virus.
Gaydar director
David Muniz told More4 News: "We don't dictate to individuals how they
are going to change or how they are going to act. We work within the
confines of the law.
The ability to
search for and locate sexual partners who are willing to engage in the
same forms behaviour has only been possible thanks to the technology of
the web.
Despite the
negatives, some believe that the websites have revolutionised gay life
in a positive way. Labour MP, Chris Bryant was revealed a user of Gaydar
in a tabloid frenzy in 2003.
He told More 4
News: "30, 40 years ago [for] most gay men and lesbians who lived in a
rural area or a district like mine in the South Wales valley as soon as
they knew they were gay they would disappear off to Cardiff or one of
the big cities and nowadays they can go online and find one another on
the internet."
Social networks
aimed at the gay community were trailblazers, in technology terms laying
a path that the mainstream social networks would soon follow. But they
also stand as a warning to society as mass mainstream online social
networks take off.
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