Saturday, October 18, 2025
The Internet, artificial intelligence, and other emerging technologies have transformed the way humans can interact with each other and express romance, sex, and other forms of intimacy. Digital intimacy, including online dating, sexual/intimate content sharing, online sex work, and romantic chatbots, has grown ubiquitous. This can both be a source of great joy, such as when connecting remote partners and supporting sexual self-expression, and a source of harms, including but not limited to image-based sexual abuse, deepfakes, location privacy violations, and technology-enabled intimate partner violence. As new technologies continue to transform digital intimacy, this workshop aims to create a sex-positive space for digital intimacy researchers as we imagine and build a world where everyone is able to safely engage in consensual intimate activities with dignity and agency.
As in most other facets of life, people have brought parts of their intimate and sexual relationships online. Research and design for digital sexual intimacy can support opportunities for stronger relationships, greater self-esteem, and sexual satisfaction. At the same time, new forms of digitally-mediated sexual abuse have arisen, driving a range of research on understanding, preventing, and remedying harms.
While this area is growing rapidly, research across the spectrum of digital intimacy can be stigmatized and ethically challenging, making working in the space an isolating experience for many. Furthermore, as there are increasing moves to regulate technology used in perpetuating sexual violence, there is a need for researchers across disciplines to work cooperatively to form research agendas, define best practices for work in this space, and work towards joint recommendations for collective advocacy.
Workshop goal: This hybrid workshop brings together scholars and practitioners across disciplines to create community and share expertise on the challenges of building, researching, and regulating intimate technologies. The workshop is aimed at researchers who have already done some work in the field, as our goals include sharing research challenges and agenda-setting.
Responses will be reviewed by the workshop organizers. Upon acceptance, at least one author of each accepted talk must attend the workshop. The submissions will not be published—we will instead publish a list of talk abstracts and a summary of the workshop activities on our website. All participants must register for the workshop.
If you have questions, please contact Chris (c.geeng@northeastern.edu) and Lucy (Lucy.qin@georgetown.edu)
Submission Deadline: August 15
Please check back, a detailed schedule will be posted soon!
Chris Geeng is an assistant teaching professor at Northeastern University, Seattle Campus, in the Khoury College of Computer Science who studies security and privacy mitigations around online dating and intimate imagery.
Lucy Qin is postdoctoral fellow at Georgetown University. Her current research explores mitigation against IBSA while enabling safer intimate content sharing.
Allison McDonald is an Assistant Professor of Computing & Data Sciences at Boston University. Her expertise spans computer security and human-centered computing, with a focus on understanding and disrupting technology-enabled harms.
Amna Batool is a PhD candidate at the School of Information, University of Michigan, specializing in women’s online privacy needs in a global context. She collaborates with NGOs and law enforcement agencies in South Asia to study abuse, help-seeking, and platform responsibility.
Diana Freed is an Assistant Professor of Computer & Data Science at Brown University. Her research includes a focus on human-centered security, privacy, and policy aimed at addressing technology-facilitated intimate threats and image-based sexual abuse.
Oliver L. Haimson is an Assistant Professor at University of Michigan School of Information and author of "Trans Technologies" (MIT Press, 2025). His work focuses on trans tech, social media moderation, and marginalized populations.
Jevan Hutson is Acting Assistant Professor of Law and Director of the Technology Law and Public Policy Clinic at the University of Washington. He focuses on sexual privacy and intimate computing, with attention to law, ethics, and design.
Elissa M. Redmiles is the Clare Luce Booth Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Georgetown University. Her work focuses on security, privacy, and prevention of sexual abuse in digital intimacy contexts.
Zahra Stardust is a porn studies scholar and author of "Indie Porn: Revolution, Regulation and Resistance" (Duke, 2024). She lectures at Queensland University of Technology and is an Affiliate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society.
Miranda Wei is a Ph.D. candidate in Computer Science & Engineering at the University of Washington. Their work investigates help-seeking for digital threats, including image-based sexual abuse and synthetic nonconsensual imagery.
Douglas Zytko is Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in the College of Innovation & Technology at the University of Michigan-Flint. His work uses consent as a lens to design mitigative solutions for sexual harm in online dating.
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