Information, influence, ritual, participation: Defining digital sexual health

Abstract

This article draws on Epstein's theorisations of the ‘ideal’ of sexual health and wellbeing to argue that young people's access to digital sexual health content should not be understood primarily as a process of ‘information seeking’. Where digital practices are too narrowly viewed through a lens of information seeking and transmission, there may be an excessive focus on whether sexual health content is ‘factual’ – overlooking the question of whether it is meaningful in specific cultural contexts. We link contemporary digital sexual health cultures to the complex – and politicised – histories of popular mediated sexual health communication that underpin them. Exploring alternative theoretical frames – including pornographic vernaculars, influencer pedagogies, media as ritual, and situated peripheral learning in digital communities – we conclude that redefining and refocusing dominant understandings of ‘good’ sexual health content may generate new and productive strategies for engaging with marginal and disaffected digital sexual cultures.