"Sometimes There Are Strings Attached:" Inspot's Protection of the STI Victim, and the Implications of Their E-Cards
“Tell them if you've been exposed to an STI - send an anonymous e-card.” These are the words that greet visitors of inspot.org, a California based, not-for-profit website that has generated considerable controversy over its e-card service since its inception in 2004. Inspot provides individuals who have contracted a sexually transmitted infection, or STI, with a means of notifying their sexual partners anonymously via e-card. The website’s service works alongside the claim that partner notification (even virtually) is a proven method of reducing STI transmission. This essay will examine the workings behind that claim, as well as its relationship to the anonymity of the e-cards. Central to the discourse that surrounds STIs is a myriad of stigmas pertaining to race, gender, class, and other signifiers of cultural difference. By attempting to do away with those stigmas, inspot works to protect the rights of STI victims. My interest lies in the method and implications of this attempt. In other words, how does inspot go about protecting individuals with STIs, and what does this mean for the rest of society? To answer these questions, I will first discuss specifically how inspot protects its users against discrimination, particularly with regards to race and gender. I will then look to the broader implications of the anonymity promised by inspot, as they enact exploitative systems of power. Ultimately, this essay will show that inspot goes against hegemonic discourses of racial and sexual typing, and that it manipulates the systems of surveillance that inform the online economy today.
As Lisa Nakamura describes at length in “Menu-Driven Identities,” the popular understanding of the web as a new democracy or some ideal public sphere is merely wishful thinking. With regards to race, Nakamura asserts that the web merely perpetuates the racist discourse that pollutes contemporary society, and can even intensify it. This functioning is perhaps most evident in interface design, as Nakamura writes, “even websites that focus on ethnic and racial identity and community often possess interface design features that force reductive, often archaic means of defining race upon the user” (101). Inspot’s drop-down “select language” and “select region” menus immediately come to mind. Upon selecting the Indiana region, for instance, a set of six e-card options appears that is different from the set of e-cards presented to a user in the New York region. Such geographically informed options suggest assumptions as to why the Indiana user might want to send a red, party-themed e-card while the New York user does not receive that choice – assumptions that necessarily pertain to race, gender, class, and so on. It is significant, however, that inspot users are not required to select a region. Unlike most websites that ask for user information, users can select “All Regions” and choose an e-card entitled to any region he or she likes. In fact, no information is required of inspot users other than the e-mail addresses to which the e-cards will be sent.
It should be mentioned that a glitch in inspot’s ethics of non-judgmental user-friendliness is, of course, the mere fact of its online existence. As Nakamura notes, “racial minorities have less access to the web than their white counterparts” (Nakamura 108). Crucially, as an online-only service, inspot helps more white users than it does users of a racial minority.
Unlike other websites, however, inspot does not claim to be blind to race, gender, or any other signifier of difference. Indeed, the premise of the e-card service is precisely that users do possess bodies that are “denied housing and discriminated against in job interviews, and that suffer institutional forms of racism offline” (Nakamura 107). As perhaps the most taboo (or the “dirtiest”) of all infections, STIs carry with them strong social stigmas, such as the association of herpes with promiscuity, or of AIDS with homosexuality. The anonymity attached to inspot’s e-cards protects the user from being subjected to those stigmas. Thus, in Nakamura’s terms, inspot does not claim, or even attempt, to “wipe out” race. Rather, it recognizes that race and other social constructs are often treated as defining qualities of an individual, and more importantly, that they do not have to be. Though inspot inevitably subjects its users to some degree of racial typing by virtue of its online existence, it does combat greater stereotyping. Its anonymous e-cards keep the users’ ethnic and sexual identities private, protecting them from the victimization they would be subjected to otherwise.
Interestingly, rights protection of STI victims, though a benefit of the website, is not the actual goal of inspot. As stated on the “About this Site” section, inspot’s main concern is “developing and using internet technologies to prevent disease transmission and enhance the sexual well-being of individuals and communities” (inspot). The page further notes that even virtually talking to one’s sex partners is scientifically proven to reduce transmission. If the e-card service, as established, goes about this mission in a way that protects the privacy of its users, what about the privacy of everyone else implicated, such as the e-card recipients? The point of investigation becomes how the service actually works to reduce transmission, and in what way these “internet technologies” are employed.
One matter of significance here is inspot’s appeal to the process of digital enclosure. As Mark Andrejevic defines in “The Work of Being Watched: Interactive Media and the Exploitation of Self-Disclosure,” the digital enclosure is “the process whereby activities formerly carried out beyond the monitoring capacity of the internet are enfolded into its virtual space” (Andrejevic 238). As communication becomes increasingly digitalized, so do such personal matters as sexual partner notification. However, as Gilles Deleuze notes, the digital enclosure has very different physical ramifications than its predecessors, and should be conceived of, rather, as a system of controls. In “Postscript on the Societies of Control” Deleuze writes, “enclosures are molds, distinct castings, but controls are a modulation, like a self-deforming cast that will continuously change from one moment to the other” (Deleuze 4). Such ideas of modulation are key to inspot’s goal of reducing STI transmission, as such a goal necessarily implies an alteration of human sexual behaviour.
Significantly, if the first reaction of an inspot e-card recipient is to consider STI testing, the second reaction, or perhaps a simultaneous reaction, is to wonder who sent the e-card. In most cases, the identity of the sender will remain ambiguous. For a recipient who has had only two sexual partners in his or her life, there are only two possible senders, but for the recipient with many sexual partners, virtually anyone could be the sender. The latter recipient is now faced with the possibility that any of their past and current sexual partners could be “infected,” and therefore the possibility that anyone could know of said recipient’s possible infection. Furthermore, this “anyone” will remain as such, for attempting to discover the sender’s identity is conditioned by the fear of divulging the secret (of a possible STI infection) to the wrong person. To restate the question of how inspot’s e-cards reduce the transmission of STIs, the most obvious answer is that the e-cards encourage recipients to undergo testing, as more people than ever before can easily and quickly be notified that they are at risk of STIs. The e-cards work to stop transmission in another, less obvious way as well: as more and more people can be notified, more and more people are faced with the paranoia that any of their past and current sexual partners could have an STI, and that any of their future sexual partners could very well have one as well; the recipients of the e-cards are, in turn, more likely to use sexual protection, even if they are STI free. In these terms, it is not difficult to see how inspot’s anonymous e-cards “modulate” behaviour. The effect is essentially a reformulated panopticism via digital media.
One must look to the motivations behind such digital panopticism. To this end, Andrejevic writes, “the operative question is not whether a particular conception of privacy has been violated but, rather: what are the relations that underwrite entry into a relationship of surveillance, and who profits from the work of being watched?” (232) Thankfully, inspot is a not-for-profit organization that promises not to collect any information or share it with any public or private agency. One does not need to create an account with the service to send its e-cards, or even provide so much as a name. Thus, inspot does not subscribe to the emerging capitalist trends of online monitoring – the monitoring it enacts is distinctly offline. This fact complicates Andrejevic’s claim that the emerging model of the online economy is “explicitly based on the strategy for rationalizing and disciplining the labor of viewing – and of consumption in general – so as to make it more productive” (Andrejevic 237). Inspot’s strategy is certainly to rationalize and discipline consumption – that is, sexual consumption – however, this disciplining is not in the name of productivity. Inspot also constitutes an exception to Deleuze’s equating of the crisis of institutions with the “progressive and dispersed installation of a new system of domination” (7). Although inspot does exercise some form of domination via its panoptic rhetoric, it is not a corporate domination, unlike the examples cited by Deleuze. The motivation behind such domination is not corporate profit, but the prevention of STI transmission.
Thus, inspot recognizes the power of surveillance to create more then just “docile bodies.” Rather, it appeals to the “more suggestive aspect of Foucault’s analysis…the fact that docile bodies are not rendered inert, but stimulated” (Andrejevic 234). Inspot’s e-cards stimulate the recipients to get tested and use protection, two actions which greatly reduce the transmission of STIs. It is true that the e-cards are effective because they draw upon systems of power that exploit bodies through surveillance. However, inspot exploits those systems of power in themselves, using them not for their intended purpose of increased productivity and profit, but for protecting the rights of STI victims and promoting sexual health.
Works Cited
Andrejevic, Mark. “The Work of Being Watched: Interactive Media and the Exploitation of Self-Disclosure.” Critical Studies in Media Communication. 19.2 (2002): 230-248. Web. 25 March 2011.
Deleuze, Gilles. “Postscript on the Societies of Control.” The MIT Press. 59 (1992): 3-7. Web. 25 March 2011.
Nakamura, Lisa. “Menu-Driven Identities: Making Race Happen Online.” Cybertypes: Race, Ethnicity, and Identity on the Internet. New York: Routledge, 2002. 101-135. Print.
As Lisa Nakamura describes at length in “Menu-Driven Identities,” the popular understanding of the web as a new democracy or some ideal public sphere is merely wishful thinking. With regards to race, Nakamura asserts that the web merely perpetuates the racist discourse that pollutes contemporary society, and can even intensify it. This functioning is perhaps most evident in interface design, as Nakamura writes, “even websites that focus on ethnic and racial identity and community often possess interface design features that force reductive, often archaic means of defining race upon the user” (101). Inspot’s drop-down “select language” and “select region” menus immediately come to mind. Upon selecting the Indiana region, for instance, a set of six e-card options appears that is different from the set of e-cards presented to a user in the New York region. Such geographically informed options suggest assumptions as to why the Indiana user might want to send a red, party-themed e-card while the New York user does not receive that choice – assumptions that necessarily pertain to race, gender, class, and so on. It is significant, however, that inspot users are not required to select a region. Unlike most websites that ask for user information, users can select “All Regions” and choose an e-card entitled to any region he or she likes. In fact, no information is required of inspot users other than the e-mail addresses to which the e-cards will be sent.
It should be mentioned that a glitch in inspot’s ethics of non-judgmental user-friendliness is, of course, the mere fact of its online existence. As Nakamura notes, “racial minorities have less access to the web than their white counterparts” (Nakamura 108). Crucially, as an online-only service, inspot helps more white users than it does users of a racial minority.
Unlike other websites, however, inspot does not claim to be blind to race, gender, or any other signifier of difference. Indeed, the premise of the e-card service is precisely that users do possess bodies that are “denied housing and discriminated against in job interviews, and that suffer institutional forms of racism offline” (Nakamura 107). As perhaps the most taboo (or the “dirtiest”) of all infections, STIs carry with them strong social stigmas, such as the association of herpes with promiscuity, or of AIDS with homosexuality. The anonymity attached to inspot’s e-cards protects the user from being subjected to those stigmas. Thus, in Nakamura’s terms, inspot does not claim, or even attempt, to “wipe out” race. Rather, it recognizes that race and other social constructs are often treated as defining qualities of an individual, and more importantly, that they do not have to be. Though inspot inevitably subjects its users to some degree of racial typing by virtue of its online existence, it does combat greater stereotyping. Its anonymous e-cards keep the users’ ethnic and sexual identities private, protecting them from the victimization they would be subjected to otherwise.
Interestingly, rights protection of STI victims, though a benefit of the website, is not the actual goal of inspot. As stated on the “About this Site” section, inspot’s main concern is “developing and using internet technologies to prevent disease transmission and enhance the sexual well-being of individuals and communities” (inspot). The page further notes that even virtually talking to one’s sex partners is scientifically proven to reduce transmission. If the e-card service, as established, goes about this mission in a way that protects the privacy of its users, what about the privacy of everyone else implicated, such as the e-card recipients? The point of investigation becomes how the service actually works to reduce transmission, and in what way these “internet technologies” are employed.
One matter of significance here is inspot’s appeal to the process of digital enclosure. As Mark Andrejevic defines in “The Work of Being Watched: Interactive Media and the Exploitation of Self-Disclosure,” the digital enclosure is “the process whereby activities formerly carried out beyond the monitoring capacity of the internet are enfolded into its virtual space” (Andrejevic 238). As communication becomes increasingly digitalized, so do such personal matters as sexual partner notification. However, as Gilles Deleuze notes, the digital enclosure has very different physical ramifications than its predecessors, and should be conceived of, rather, as a system of controls. In “Postscript on the Societies of Control” Deleuze writes, “enclosures are molds, distinct castings, but controls are a modulation, like a self-deforming cast that will continuously change from one moment to the other” (Deleuze 4). Such ideas of modulation are key to inspot’s goal of reducing STI transmission, as such a goal necessarily implies an alteration of human sexual behaviour.
Significantly, if the first reaction of an inspot e-card recipient is to consider STI testing, the second reaction, or perhaps a simultaneous reaction, is to wonder who sent the e-card. In most cases, the identity of the sender will remain ambiguous. For a recipient who has had only two sexual partners in his or her life, there are only two possible senders, but for the recipient with many sexual partners, virtually anyone could be the sender. The latter recipient is now faced with the possibility that any of their past and current sexual partners could be “infected,” and therefore the possibility that anyone could know of said recipient’s possible infection. Furthermore, this “anyone” will remain as such, for attempting to discover the sender’s identity is conditioned by the fear of divulging the secret (of a possible STI infection) to the wrong person. To restate the question of how inspot’s e-cards reduce the transmission of STIs, the most obvious answer is that the e-cards encourage recipients to undergo testing, as more people than ever before can easily and quickly be notified that they are at risk of STIs. The e-cards work to stop transmission in another, less obvious way as well: as more and more people can be notified, more and more people are faced with the paranoia that any of their past and current sexual partners could have an STI, and that any of their future sexual partners could very well have one as well; the recipients of the e-cards are, in turn, more likely to use sexual protection, even if they are STI free. In these terms, it is not difficult to see how inspot’s anonymous e-cards “modulate” behaviour. The effect is essentially a reformulated panopticism via digital media.
One must look to the motivations behind such digital panopticism. To this end, Andrejevic writes, “the operative question is not whether a particular conception of privacy has been violated but, rather: what are the relations that underwrite entry into a relationship of surveillance, and who profits from the work of being watched?” (232) Thankfully, inspot is a not-for-profit organization that promises not to collect any information or share it with any public or private agency. One does not need to create an account with the service to send its e-cards, or even provide so much as a name. Thus, inspot does not subscribe to the emerging capitalist trends of online monitoring – the monitoring it enacts is distinctly offline. This fact complicates Andrejevic’s claim that the emerging model of the online economy is “explicitly based on the strategy for rationalizing and disciplining the labor of viewing – and of consumption in general – so as to make it more productive” (Andrejevic 237). Inspot’s strategy is certainly to rationalize and discipline consumption – that is, sexual consumption – however, this disciplining is not in the name of productivity. Inspot also constitutes an exception to Deleuze’s equating of the crisis of institutions with the “progressive and dispersed installation of a new system of domination” (7). Although inspot does exercise some form of domination via its panoptic rhetoric, it is not a corporate domination, unlike the examples cited by Deleuze. The motivation behind such domination is not corporate profit, but the prevention of STI transmission.
Thus, inspot recognizes the power of surveillance to create more then just “docile bodies.” Rather, it appeals to the “more suggestive aspect of Foucault’s analysis…the fact that docile bodies are not rendered inert, but stimulated” (Andrejevic 234). Inspot’s e-cards stimulate the recipients to get tested and use protection, two actions which greatly reduce the transmission of STIs. It is true that the e-cards are effective because they draw upon systems of power that exploit bodies through surveillance. However, inspot exploits those systems of power in themselves, using them not for their intended purpose of increased productivity and profit, but for protecting the rights of STI victims and promoting sexual health.
Works Cited
Andrejevic, Mark. “The Work of Being Watched: Interactive Media and the Exploitation of Self-Disclosure.” Critical Studies in Media Communication. 19.2 (2002): 230-248. Web. 25 March 2011.
Deleuze, Gilles. “Postscript on the Societies of Control.” The MIT Press. 59 (1992): 3-7. Web. 25 March 2011.
Nakamura, Lisa. “Menu-Driven Identities: Making Race Happen Online.” Cybertypes: Race, Ethnicity, and Identity on the Internet. New York: Routledge, 2002. 101-135. Print.
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