A Sexual History of the Internet With Mindy Seu

April 2
1h 1m

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Episode Description

The internet didn’t just change sex. Sex built the internet. So who actually gets credit for shaping the digital world?


Today, Christiana speaks with Mindy Seu, author of A Sexual History of the Internet, to unpack how sex, desire, and the labor of sex workers quietly built the foundations of the internet, and why that history is still left out of the conversation.


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00:56 Meet Mindy Seu

01:32 Cyberfeminism

05:04 How sex and sex workers have influenced the evolution of the internet 

10:10 Sex workers and cryptocurrency

12:05 Defining “sex work”

23:36 Why don’t more people know about the sexual history of the internet?

26:40 The physicality of technology  

32:26 Female body parts named after men 

33:51 How technology and the sex industry are influencing each other 

35:36 How the sexual nature of the internet is affecting girls and women 

38:31 Digital black books for sex workers

39:30 Sex workers currently experimenting with technology and artificial intelligence

42:05 OnlyFans

45:54 The internet as a utopic fantasy space 

47:30 The future of the internet and AI

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