Safe Cyberspace

One topic we will be discussing during the semester is the early mainstream scholarship that began to appear in the early 1990's that were about the political potential of the Internet.  The students will be reading Steve Silberman's 1994 Wired essay, "We're Teen, We're Queer, and We've Got E-mail."  The essay discusses the way the Internet became a safe space for young gay people in communities where coming out would have been dangerous.  While with all the recent discussion of gay marriage and the end of "don't ask, don't tell" this reading seems slightly dated, it is interesting how globally the same discussion continues to appear.  I was checking out digg today and found an essay about South Korea.  In his piece, "South Korea: Online Haven for Gays," Michael Rhee outlines the ways teens in the country are finding a safe space on the Internet to discuss their sexuality outside of the homophobic public discourse.  One of the questions I want to ask the class is if they feel the popularization of the Internet in America during the late 1990's was in any way related to changing perspectives about homosexuality among the mainstream.