In 2015, when Tinder was a relative novelty and OnlyFans didn't even exist yet, WIRED put out its first (and to the best of my knowledge, only) sex issue. Sandwiched between a how-to guide to safe sexting and an article forecasting the rise of virtual reality porn was a collection of 12 first-person stories about the "often hilarious, sometimes tragic, and often triumphant ways that technology has changed our sex lives." People were finding Love on Grindr and getting dumped through their Fitbits and having sex on Skype. How strange! How thrilling.
These anecdotes seem cute in 2023, when technology has become thoroughly absorbed into our pursuit of sex and romance. These days, you hear about people who fall in love with someone from a past life or another country just by commenting on a post on Instagram. I know friends who have figured out who their exes are dating through Twitter and Venmo. My boyfriend and I met on Hinge, as did many of our peers, and had we not each downloaded the app, it seems unlikely that we ever would have encountered each other in person. Sex and tech are inextricable. You can love it or hate it; the one thing you can't do, apparently, is opt out.
That's a value-neutral statement, to be clear. You can make compelling arguments that tech has changed how we love for better or for worse, but neither point of view seems terribly exciting to me. I'm more interested in the weird, sweet, unexpected, and totally quotidian stories that emerge from this dating landscape, like those featured in our Sex Issue. Do you have any anecdotes to share? I'm here for any and all sweeping fairytales and dating misadventures! Write to me or leave a note below the article. Maybe we'll even facilitate a meet-cute in the comments!
See you next week!
Eve