The Digital Closet: How the Internet Became Straight

Strong Ideas

by Alexander Monea, Violet Blue (Foreword)

An exploration of how heteronormative bias is deeply embedded in the internet, hidden in algorithms, keywords, content moderation, and more. A Next Big Idea Club nominee.

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.

Genres: Nonfiction, Queer, History, Internet, Technology, LGBT, Sociology

280 pages, Hardcover

First published February 8, 2022

About the author

Alexander Monea is an Associate Professor of English and Cultural Studies at George Mason University. He received his PhD in Communication, Rhetoric, and Digital Media from NC State University in 2016. He researches the history and cultural impacts of computers and digital media with a specific focus on their impacts on marginalized communities.

Monea is the author of The Digital Closet: How the Internet Became Straight from MIT Press in 2022, co-author of The Prisonhouse of the Circuit from the University of Minnesota Press in 2023, and co-editor of a critical anthology on Amazon.com from Rowman & Littlefield in 2023. His work has also been featured in myriad academic journals.

Reviews

[Sarah Cavar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very serviceable intro to anti-SW legislation, web policy, and the downstream effects of internet censorship. That said, if you’re looking for a book with something novel to say, this isn’t it.

[Carolyn Fitzpatrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

A deep dive into the history of the internet, and how the development of online censorship disproportionately affects marginalized communities online: Black, LBGTQIA+, and sex workers.

The author talks a lot about how overblown concerns regarding online porn resulted in laws like FOSTA-SESTA. These laws are supported by a variety of social groups: the moral majority, anti-porn feminists, and mens rights groups like the NoFap community, Proud Boys, and incels. It was very interesting to see how the agendas of these groups differ in some ways but overlap when it comes to access to material that they consider to be inappropriate. Legislation governing technology is usually made by people who have more ties to these groups than they do to marginalized communities. The group NCOSE is called out in particular for publishing white papers on the dangers of porn, citing studies that have not been verified by independent researchers and have insufficient evidence of causation.

The internet was first constructed by people who saw heterosexual marriage as the norm, while bisexuality, homosexuality, pornography, and prostitution are regarded as titillating kinks. As a result, tagging an image or video as having to do with bisexuality or nudity, even if the content is not salacious at all, causes the content to be flagged as porn. Filtering based on anti-porn flags have caused this content to be pushed out of search results and deleted on social media. In the case of apps, it gets them banned from the Apple store and Google Play.

This is not about children accessing inappropriate images. Social groups demand these filters for all users of all ages, and target social media companies, search engines, private companies offering public wifi, and public libraries. Monea points out the filters currently in use make it very easy for medical, artistic, social justice content to be flagged as porn and banned, due over-reliance on faulty algorithms, heteronormitive tags, and human content moderators being asked to review content from a different language and culture.

In the conclusion chapter, she gives a several suggestions for ways that we can combat expanding censorship in society, without granting children access to actual pornography. But she also argues throughout that blocking access to pornography should not come at the expense of blocking children's access to age appropriate health and history materials.

[Tyler Morley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Did not finish

There are really good thoughts in "The Digital Closet":
- When internet platforms (or government legislation) crack down on sexual content, they tend to over-block things that are non-sexual but queer/feminist and they tend to under-block mass-produced straight-male-audience porn.
- Nude art is often allowed on platforms only if it's historical/traditional and well-renowned, which also skews very straight- and white-centric.
- Criminalizing sex work often doesn't help anyone, it just makes sex workers' lives more dangerous.
- Some of these outcomes result from unconscious bias, some of it from targeted prejudice. Both are a problem.

I likely would have finished it if it wasn't due at the library, and if I'd had more energy to deal with the rough edges.

The roughest edge for me was the writing style. It has a fairly academic feel to it, but the content wasn't as dense as you'd expect from all the $10 words and the dry language. I had to spend extra effort to understand what I was reading but then felt like the interesting information was being doled out to me at a leisurely pace.
Almost like a boring but intricate rube-golberg machine. Why did we do all of these complicated things just to open a soda can? I could have opened it faster and easier with my finger! Either use simpler language or give me more to think about.

[Byram · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this book up after going to an author reading and Q&A at Politics and Prose upon its release. A smartly told and well-researched book on the mechanisms that are limiting the free expression of sexual preferences, identities, expressions, and artistry, especially marginalizing queer-identifying people. It has a fascinating discussion about filters and algorithms that specifically shutout anything that is outside of the mainstream, which hurts the enrichment we as people get in having access to information to safely explore the middles and the margins. It also discusses the pernicious effects of FOSTA and SESTA on the ability of not just sex in art and pornography and sex workers to have safe expressions, but also how it affects access to healthy sex education and LGBTQ communications. Surprisingly, this wasn't too academic or technical such that somebody like me who does not have specific expertise in these matters could follow along easily. Would recommend for anybody who cares about keeping dialogues open and keeping queer voices in the public spaces.

[Lola · Rating 5 out of 5]

I cannot recommend this book more if you're looking to understand the state of not only the internet right now, but our political and economic climate. It's incredibly messed up but explains so much.

[luna · Rating 2 out of 5]

the first 2 chapters were great, but the contradictions, misinformation, and allo supremacy in chapters 3 & 4 … no.

[Reed Thomson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really good premise, but at times it went way into technical detail. Maybe that was necessary but I think it made it difficult to enjoy