"cyber sex"

Page 183

Online computer users often engage in what is affectionately known as "cyber sex." Often the fantasies typed into keyboards and shared through Internet phone lines get pretty raunchy. However, as you'll see below, one of the two cyber-surfers in the following transcript of an online chat doesn't seem to quite get the point of cyber sex. Then again, maybe he does...

I was first sent this hilarious account of cyber sex by Robin Rimbaud in the late 90s, and of all the jokes circulating on the net it still remains my second favourite.

My first favourite is badday.jpg, which is also mentioned in the book and can be found in Section 16 - Anxiety.

Comments

[Jonathan Kepple]

Cybersex was first suggested to me by someone in a compuserve chatroom. I was complaining that, having been diagnosed with hepatitus A, I couldn't, in good conscience, have sex with anyone.

Although I firmly believe in the erotic power of words, I think this power diminishes when they are being typed one-handed into a computer and then transmitted to a complete stranger. For me, no sexual fantasy is strong enough to completely hide the tragic,lonely reality underneath.

I wonder if there is an etiquette to cybersex. Surely it's bad manners to log-off until you've both come. If you kept doing that, you might earn yourself a reputation as a selfish virtual lover. Then people might not want to have cybersex with you anymore. Do you have to engage in post coital conversation afterwards? How long should you stay online after you've finished? I wonder if there are monogomous cybersex couples who only have sex with each other.

I think I'm too proud for cybersex. Maybe if I tried it I'd really enjoy it. Maybe it's my loss.

Recently I've noticed that some of the more established pornography-based message board communities have launched their own online roleplaying games. These games take cybersex and turn it into an interactive soap opera. Everyone has a character and - really I don't know enough about it - but I imagine that sooner or later you would end up 'having' everyone else in the group.

At the moment these games seem to be text-based but surely it can't be long before someone produces an Everquest/SIMs style online game which has graphics.

I'm a big fan of Robin Rimbaud's 'Delivery' album which he recorded under the name: 'Scanner'. It's an electronic album with occasional excerpts from mobile phone conversations that he intercepted. I like to think of 'Delivery' as an eloquent statement about our failure to communicate with one another in spite of the wealth of communication technology at our disposal. I used to walk around London listening to it on my headphones.