One of the missions of Dandizette is to chart the interesting and peculiar adventures of freaks and geeks both online and off. But being the total geeks that we are, we occasionally only notice one or the other at a time. The internet is a largely vacuous and lonely place and claims that its sole existence is based on/around the distribution of porn are very, very true.

There are always fun, creative, challenging people and events who exist and operate online and this is by no means a definitive list — it’s more like a starting point. So, on this exploratory quest to discover whether the web really does offer more than a million and one ways to procrastinate at work, we recommend the following.

Not Quite Porn

The internet and developments herein are 100% based on porn distribution. It is undeniable that porn has been central to almost every development in online communication. IRC, Instant Messaging, File-sharing, and, of course, those golden children of the Internet, social networking sites (such as MySpace), have all evolved to pornography. Any other use of such technologies is secondary. Despite — or perhaps because — of this, it is becoming increasingly difficult to locate the smart pervs and the online spaces that strive a bit beyond the penis extension spam and the pay-per-view porn (and, no, ASCII porn doesn’t count. Although the mere existence of ASCII porn proves something, I’m just not quite sure what it is). The clear majority of web porn is just as boring and predictable as traditional forms and just as likely to enforce the same exploitative structures. And, no, ‘alternative’ brands such as the Suicide Girls don’t particularly challenge, well, anything, but this has already been explored in other places. And, sure, every exhibitionist blogger now has a book deal — but this is just the same old story from back when Web Cams were the new black.

The question remains: where are all the rad perverts at?

Despite the prevalence of porn on the dirty interweb, it is not necessary to locate the creative and interesting freaks. While other sectors have evolved and mutated online, porn seems to have largely stagnated. Early adapters, such as Getting It fell victim to internet financing woes. Susie Bright now posts about liberal politics on the Huffington Post, while Nerve.com has gradually shifted content into a subscription-based premium service and, well, that’s just not very sexy. Having said this, I must admit I like Nerve and what they are trying (and often succeeding) to do. Magazine-style websites (is there a better term for this? ) such as nerve.com have definitely delved into the less boring sides of porn and erotica. Nerve has been producing and celebrating brainy smut since 1997 and, with growing numbers of celebrity contributors, is slowly morphing into the pervert’s Huffington Post. In fact, Arianna herself was interviewed on the site in the recent politics edition. Some other (free) recent highlights from the site are here you come again, which celebrates Dolly Parton as a sexual role model and the recent blog of the COPA trial.

Television and PopCulture Geekery

It’s not quite ironic (unless in an Alanis Morrisette kind of way) but certainly rather telling that internet has contributed new ways of watching and interacting with television. I’m certainly more likely to watch television in short clips, rely on recaps for early impressions of television shows and read about television shows I like than simply tune in based on a television guide schedule.

This section should really just be called Television Without Pity because both the TWoP site and the various side projects of the staff are synonymous with television-related geekery. This is the site that made it a-ok (or at least mildly acceptable) to not only watch a television show obsessively, but to recap, dissect and debate said show in often-excruciating detail. You also have these folk to thank for terms such as Schadenfreude and hoYay! (which is pretty much the unofficial motto of this site). A helpful glossary has now been provided. Although worth mentioning is Wing Chung and Glark’s (2 of the creators of TwoP) other main project, FameTracker although many of us are still mourning the demise of that site’s message-boards. That was truly the end of a snarky era.

Poppolitics is another site that covers TV and other media, often countering the unfathomable and sometimes plain idiotic decisions made by the networks. Recent posts on the site include: “??The Importance of Being Bigger: The Online Discourse of Male-Member Outsizing, Young, Hip and Deadly: The Changing Face of Teen Drama and I Want My Gay TV!. PopPolitics also gets an honourable mention for being one of the first places that recognised Buffy the Vampire Slayer as offering more than the average TV drama. The backlog of feature articles and reviews of the show are definitely worth reading and are the natural predecessor to Slayage, the online international journal dedicated to the Slayer.

We Heart the Comic Pervs

In an age of shoddy and/or overblown film translations of comic superheroes and the dreary misogyny of the mainstream comics industry, the mere survival let alone success of the comic perverts is particularly impressive. Comic debauchers is a broad category that I am using to unite a spectrum of bloggers, writers and miscellaneous fans. What they have in common is that profound ability to put the sex into even the most banal, innocent comic story. They are the necessary and welcome alternative to the asexuality of most comic book and graphic novel conversations. Because we see what is really going on right there on the page.

But discussion around the supposed gaying up of the latest Superman film proved rather disappointing. Muscles equals gay. Alien equals gay. And then, of course, Superman absolutely and in no way equals gay. Ever. At all. In fact, Superman Return‘s Director Bryan Singer (after the film had reaped the benefits of the various rumours), declared that Superman is:

probably the most heterosexual character in any movie I’ve ever made.

The competition seems to have been provided from X-Men 2, various short-lived TV shows and ummm.. The Usual Suspects.

Chief among the comic perverts would have to be blogs such as Girls Read Comics (and they’re pissed) and When Fangirls Attack (even though it’s a link blog, we know they know) and the podcasts like I Read Comics.

Incidentally, Lena of the I Read Comics podcast is also partly responsible for the Look At This Butt podcast, which is all about William Shatner’s ass, maintaining that fine tradition of Star Trek-inspired perversion. . It’s not only that they never fail to see the subtext, but also that they never fail to call the comic creators on their misogyny, never fail to pay attention to the small press, never fail to be able to dissect every aspect of a character’s wardrobe, and never fail to notice when they get it right. They put the smarts back in comics when everybody else still seems to be debating whether adults should read graphic novels or not.

Obviously, this is a very small percentage of what’s out there but, alas, separating the wheat from naked-pay-per-view chafe is not always as simple as it seems and it heartens us so to know these sites are out there.