The urgent need to reduce HIV in this population has been a driving force to develop innovative research and Internet-based intervention methodologies.
Much of this work has been grounded in models of disease prevention, largely as a result of the ongoing HIV/AIDS epidemic. Studies have carefully considered the ethics, feasibility, and acceptability of using the Internet to conduct research and interventions with gay and bisexual men. In kind, researchers too have adapted to the Internet to study gay and bisexual men, though not at the same rapid pace at which technology (and its users) have advanced. Gay and bisexual men have adapted to the ever-evolving technological advances that have been made in connecting users to the Internet-from logging into the World Wide Web via dial-up modem on a desktop computer to geo-social and sexual networking via a handheld device. Over that time, gay and bisexual men have rapidly taken to using the Internet for sexual purposes: sexual health information seeking, finding sex partners, dating, cybersex, and pornography.
In this review, we document the historical and cultural shifts in how gay and bisexual men have used the Internet for sexuality between the 1990s and 2013.
