LOG ON TO SEX - SOME NOTES ON THE CARNAL COMPUTER AND EROTIC CYBERSPACE AS AN EMERGING RESEARCH FRONTIER

Innovation in technology often provides new opportunities in the pursu it of deviance. The response or adaptation to these new opportunities takes the form of deviant technicways. New technology in the case of t he computer promises to have an applicability for carnal behavior that is socially volatile in both its perversity and import. Through on-li ne bulletin boards dedicated to particular modes of sexual behavior, c omputer users with special sexual predilections can communicate with p ersons who share similar interests throughout the world. Computer comm unication of the erotic variety may involve mild flirtations, seeking and sharing information about sexual services available in different c ities and countries, and seeking and sharing information about specifi c varieties of deviant sexual behavior. The computer has been used by some individuals to obtain child pornography from abroad, to contact y oungsters to try to arrange meetings for sexual purposes, sometimes to misrepresent one's sexual identity (''gender bending'') for various r easons ranging from seemingly harmless ''on-line transsexualism'' (Van Gelder, 1985) to more convoluted (and possibly more sinister) purpose s. The appearance of computer erotica can be interpreted at various fu nctional levels and holds considerable import for social behavior. Jus t as the computer has begun to revolutionize social life, it may also revolutionize crime and the parameters of deviant sexual behavior.