Sexuality at the Time of Coronavirus in Italy: A (Technological) Retreat in Itself?

Abstract

Our contribution aims at unravelling the knot between sexuality and the web in Italy during the coronavirus pandemic. Sex-related online practices intensified, due to health concerns and lockdown measures, and access to pornographic websites skyrocketed. What is the cul-tural, relational, and psychological impact of this? We identify two main outcomes: wide-spread solipsism and dissolution by excess. It is, to the best of our knowledge, an unex-plored territory. Sociologists did not address previous pandemics, nor have they provided extensive and methodologically satisfying work on sexuality in Italy. Given the delicate na-ture of the topic, and the unreliability of traditional sociological research methods, we chose to fully carry out our research online. We will examine online prostitution, webcam girls, user-produced pornography and dating sites, in addition to touching upon other topics such as sexting. We will, to the best of our abilities, try to mark a path in the wilderness of hu-man sexuality in the digital era and in these unprecedented circumstances. We believe that the link between online and offline sexuality will be consolidated and define this relation-ship as differentiated integration: a reciprocal adaptation covering the most diverse places and ways. To study this web-integrated society, we propose the eclectic approach.