Virtual Passion
Perhaps the least understood component of interpersonal relationships on the Internet is the explicit sexual encounters that occur on MUDs, in chat rooms, and within some of the private rooms of the graphical meta-worlds. The practice of sex in cyberspace goes by many names with slightly different connotations. Examples include netsex, virtual sex (V-Sex), compusex, cybersex, cybering, MOOsex, and tinysex. All indications are that varieties of virtual passion are becoming quite popular, partly because the medium supports and encourages hyperpersonal communication quite well, as we discussed.
The chat rooms of America Online and IRC are especially noted for the abundance of sexually explicit encounters and conversation. For e a listing of chat channels on IRC's Dalnet returns names such as #AdultBeachHouse, #sexy_n_nude_celebrities, and of course, simply #sex and #cybersex. One called #30-40+flirting explains its purpose in tne title Fantasy*Lust*Innuendo*Subtle*Seduction*We have it all. At any time of day or night, thousands of people are logged into these channels bearing nicknames such as the ones below who, at 2 PM EST on a Thursday afternoon, were all in.
You can see from this list that people try to convey hints about their age, occupation, intention, or sexual orientation through their nicknames to narrow down the search for a partner and manage their impressions. Lawyer49m, for example, says quite a lot about himself through his nick, and managed to relay his occupation, age, and gender very quickly. Whether any of the information is actually true is open to question, of course. Although it is very difficult to estimate the gender ratios in these rooms, they seem to be predominantly male, perhaps overwhelmingly so. If you join the channel with a female or gender-ambiguous nickname, you will instantly receive several requests for a private chat. Except in the gay channels, a male nickname may be ignored.
Nancy Deuel's exploratory study of people who have participated in such encounters on MUDs led her to the conclusion that the virtual reality aspect of cyberspace provides an innovative and unique world in which people can, with relative safety, explore sexuality and personal expression. The programming environment on a MUD allows participants to be especially creative and to mix fantasy with reality. They can build their own rooms and populate them with bottles of wine, candles, and soft music. One player's room is "gently lit by candlelight which flickers and you feel very relaxed, leaving all your troubles and worries behind you." Another, more explicit, couple built a Nudist Trailer and placed a sign on the entrance: "If you have clothes please leave them by the door!"
Psychologists Michael Adamse and Sheree Motta collected numerous stories of cyberaffairs, romances, and online sexual encounters through their Web site and found an enormous variety. Some people reported an accidental online meeting in a discussion forum that led to email and photo exchanges, phone calls, and eventually visits. Unfortunately, the unbridled tendency to idealize the person when the usual face-to-face cues are not available led to many unrealistically high expectations and false hopes, and the actual meeting often killed the relationship. Sometimes, however, the chemistry survives the difficult transition from cyberspace to the real world, as it did for Britt, one of the people who told her story to Adamse and Motta. She met Eric, who lived in Germany, on one of the German language channels. After several years and thousands of hours logged into IRC, they met and married. Marriages made in cyberspace were once headline news, but not anymore.
Many of the interviewees never have any intention of meeting their online partner and instead are using the Internet as a safe place to indulge in one-night cyberstands and to explore fantasies and fetishes. The networks carry channels bearing titles that convey both the usual singles-bar atmosphere (hottub, cybercheers), and also almost any conceivable sexual variation, such as Truth_or_Dare_Sex Fun, gayteen, 3waysex, hornywifehomealone, and BDSM. The characteristics of the Internet make it attractive as a place to fantasize about sexual adventures and even act them out at the keyboard from a safe distance. Hyperpersonal communication among consenting adults enters a new and controversial level in this context. Whether this is good or bad news is debatable, and research on the issue will be very difficult to do. Deuel argues that Vsex should be considered a phenomenon of social interaction that many of her interviewees appear to value highly as a form of individualized learning, development, and exploration. Yet stories of spouses who feel betrayed when they learn of their partner's online romances are not uncommon.
The exploration component of sexuality on the Internet can get very far out, and a number of odd corners appear to involve practices that could be quite difficult or impossible in real life because of morality, social censure, physical risk, and legal consequences. Channels bearing names like incest, rapesex, toiletsex, extreme_female_torture, snuffsex, yddiesex, and bifemdogsex are all out on the Internet, though they are a miniscule proportion of the total. These tiny corners can be the target of sensationalized press, and one might wonder how many of the visitors are mostly gawking to see what is going on, or journalists interested in a story. Nevertheless, there has been very little solid research to determine who actually participates, what their motives are, and how the availability of these anonymous and interactive outlets for consensual sexual deviance affects them.