alt.sex
alt.sex is a
newsgroup – a discussion group within the Usenet network – relating to human sexual activity. It was popular in the 1990s. An October 1993 survey by Brian Reid reported an estimated worldwide readership for the alt.sex newsgroup of 3.3 million, that being 8% of the total Usenet readership, with 67% of all Usenet "nodes" (news servers users log in to access the system) carrying the group. At that time, alt.sex had an estimated traffic of 2,300 messages per month.[1]
The newsgroup hierarchy below alt.sex comprises several newsgroups, including bestiality, for example)."[1]
The first usenet BDSM newsgroup, alt.sex.bondage, was created in 1991.[3] The term BDSM itself was first recorded on a post in alt.sex.bondage in 1991.[4]
The University of Waterloo in 1994 ceased carrying alt.sex.bondage, alt.sex.bestiality, alt.sex-stories, and alt.sex-stories.d upon the recommendation of its ethics committee, which had expressed concerns that the content of those newsgroups may have violated the Canadian Criminal Code.[1]
alt.sex.cancel is a Usenet newsgroup set up specifically to help combat
cancelled automatically.[citation needed
]
The well-known mass-mailing
Melissa virus" was originally distributed via the alt.sex newsgroup. It was hidden inside a list purporting to contain passwords to pornographic websites. The messages containing the virus were posted with message headers claiming that the post had been written using the America Online (AOL) account of Scott Steinmetz, whose username was "skyroket". Kizza reports that the headers on the post were probably forged by Melissa's author, David L. Smith.[5]
References
- ^ ISBN 0-8039-8805-2.
- ISBN 0-87367-398-0.
- ^ Kadrey, Richard. "alt.sex.bondage". WIRED. Retrieved 2020-01-07.
- ^ "BDSM n. (in entry B, n.)". Oxford English Dictionary Online (draft ed.). Oxford University Press. June 2013. Retrieved 29 November 2015.
- ISBN 0-387-20473-3.
Further reading
- Brian Reid (1993). "Usenet readership summary report". Palo Alto, California: Network Measurement Project at the DEC Western Research Laboratory.
{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires|journal=(help) - Maureen Furniss (1993). "Sex with a hard (disk) on: computer bulletin boards and pornography". Wide Angle. 15 (2): 19–37.
External links
- alt.sex Newsgroup FAQs
- alt.sex.bondage group on Google