The world wide web is part of a vast digital expanse known as the Internet. In January of 1994, there were less than one-thousand websites on the world wide web; in April of 2006, there were more than 80 million. The number doubled between the years 2003 and 2006. It is not unreasonable to assume that the world wide web has seen a bit of growth.
There's nothing new about using technology to get sex.
When the author of this book was a boy, the best porn magazine collection in town was in the lobby of the two-story hotel that was named after the town's founder. There was one problem. The old man who ran the hotel sat behind a large desk that was next to the wooden racks that held the glossy goods. The old man took seriously his job of protecting the dirty 'zines from the pleading glaze of the town's young. If you were under the age of twenty-one-or worse yet, under the age of twelve-the town's only porn stash might as well have been on the moon.
Fortunately, right across from the old man's desk sat the only elevator in town. It was an amazing, ornate contraption that was as old as time itself.
Using this piece of ancient technology required the old codger to leave his wooden perch, enter the ancient time machine, pull the shiny brass gates shut, and perform a ritual of knob-turning and lever-pulling that would nudge the lift from its slumber.
Whenever the boys in town needed reassurance about the true nature of the intimate parts of a woman's anatomy, they would head over to the hotel and hide behind the oversized Morris chairs that populated the west end of the lobby. They would wait patiently until the old man had his back turned. Then one of the boys would do a crawl-sprint up the stairs to the second floor and ring the call button for the elevator. By the time the old man minced his way into the elevator and made its big piston rise, the boys would have two-and-a-half minutes to look through the glossy magazines. That's how long it took for the old man to return with his empty cargo.
Nowadays, if the author of this book wants to see porn, he slaps his keyboard and there it is—an outrageous supply of nakedness and extreme sex.
Whether it's the Internet today or the clunky old elevator from years ago, sex and technology have never been strangers.
As for the old hotel with the antique elevator, there were other things of a sexual nature that went on upstairs that were beyond what the mind of a young boy could comprehend. They were curious things that helped some of the town's people keep their sanity, and others to nearly lose theirs.
If things have parents, then the sperm for the Internet was donated by the Cold War. If they have godfathers, the Internet's might as well have been Sputnik, a transmitter in a tin can that the Soviet Union snuck into space in 1957. The launch of Sputnik put the fear of God into the U.S. government and it triggered a massive race in technology. The foundations of the Internet arose from this national fury which was the technological equivalent of going to the gym, getting buff, and winning the babe back.
The Internet was based on a new idea called "packet switching," which was the communications version of coming in spurts. It's how we upload and download everything from PTA schedules to X-rated streaming videos.
One of the false myths about the Internet is that it was designed as a communications cobweb that would keep working after places like Washington, New York, and Chicago were buried by nuclear bombs with hammers and sickles on their sides. While no one at the Department of Defense would have minded such a stout creation, the Internet seems to have evolved as a way for computer programmers from the major universities and defense labs to share information. This was the womb that would eventually give birth to the world wide web.
Even if it wasn't created to be nuke-proof, thank goodness they designed the Internet to withstand a great deal of abuse. During any given week, millions of people in this country will be abusing themselves while they are logged on to the Internet.
(This chapter is continued in the book. For Sex in Online Gaming, see "Weekly Column")
