We need to talk about Jeff Bezos’s penis. Words, dear reader, that I never expected to type. Last week’s furore around the Amazon founder and CEO’s extraordinary response to an apparent attempt at blackmail was – amongst many other things – a stark reminder of the conflicted role the internet plays in our intimate relationships.
From AIM and MSN to WhatsApp and Snapchat, many of us have played out our entire sexual lives online. That’s been a great thing. But it’s also been a terrible thing. Whether sexual or platonic, the human need for social interaction has been sent into overdrive by the internet. And amongst the plethora of bombshells in Bezos’s expertly-crafted blogpost, it’s easy to overlook a simple fact: the richest man in the world, just like each and every one of us, seemingly sends naked pictures of himself over the internet.
Which, providing it’s solicited and between consenting adults, he absolutely should. But, in apparently doing so, Bezos has lost control of images that were likely only intended for a very specific audience. There’s nothing inherently internet-ey about that – an intimate letter, delivered via the postal service, is equally out of your hands once sent. By the same measure, an erotic etching, delivered by post rider, is also lost to you. That’s the obvious price of our needs as social and sexual beings – you leave yourself, physically and metaphorically, exposed.
What the internet does, of course, is enable abuses of trust – or, potentially, subterfuge – to operate on a global scale at the click of a button. The human still clicks the button, but the internet is a wonderful mechanism for disseminating information. When we are intimate online, we often do so privately. But there is nothing inherently private about sending a naked picture of yourself to another human being over the internet.
When it comes to revenge porn, or non-consensual pornography, the internet is an almighty complexifier. As dozens of revenge porn cases have shown, once an image or video has left your device and someone decides to use it against you, it can and will haunt you around the internet for years to come. You took that picture, you shared that picture, but you no longer have control over that picture.
The Bezos drama is a very human story – of power, ego and politics – augmented by the uncanny power of the internet. It’s a story of our times – it’s human, but it’s supercharged by technological innovations of our own making. That one of the richest and most powerful people in the world is as vulnerable as the rest of us is a reminder of how the internet can be a great leveller. It’s the democratisation of human evil. Though, as his mic-drop letter shows, Bezos does have the power and finances to fight back.
But how do you reconcile all this? For decades, the internet has been changing how we interact with one another – for better or worse. Need relationship advice? There’s a sub-reddit for that. Want to look up an old flame and trawl through every detail of their life? Social media is expertly crafted to enable stalker-like behaviour. Want to have an affair? Skip human interaction altogether and do it with a character in a video game.
This week on WIRED, we're going in-depth on the world of sex and love online. From keeping your most personal secrets away from the all-seeing eyes of Google and Facebook to the damaging effects of Instagram’s #couplegoals, we’ll explore how the internet is altering the nature of human intimacy. In the struggle to improve sex education, we’ll look at how some people are subverting trends in pornography to reform a broken system.
Beyond that, we will also report on how the science and technology industries have failed to adequately address some fundamental problems. From the glacial pace of innovation in period products to the never-ending race to create an effective male contraceptive, many of these problems are a result of a staggering lack of diversity in positions of power.
This article is part of our in-depth series investigating how technology is changing love, sex and relationships.
From keeping an intimate secret from the internet to the battle to destroy super gonorrhoea, we'll explore the technologies and ideas changing how we all live and love – for better or worse.
Click here to read more articles from this series.
– Inside the strange world of China's romantic video games
– What Jeff Bezo's penis can teach us about online intimacy
– Why it's so difficult keeping your unborn child a secret from the internet
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
