Hello World

"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.

22 Sex and greed

Page 177
In my early years online I had been fascinated by the unfamiliar exotica...

I recently came across a post I made to a discussion list in 1997 when we still used terms like 'fleshfactor' without embarrassment. It's still out there, online at a forum set up for Ars Electronica 1997. I rather like to see the passion I had then, and that I still have, for whatever it is that's happening on the net. Here is a short excerpt from a much longer post:
To : fleshfactor@aec.at
Subject : reply to Brian Leigh Molyneaux
From : Sue Thomas < thomas@innotts.co.uk >
Date : Wed, 16 Apr 1997 23:07:55 +0100
Reply-To : fleshfactor@aec.at
Sender : owner-fleshfactor@aec.at
Something is happening out here. If nothing else, it is rapidly redefining what we perceive as 'normal' human experience. It's fascinating, it's exciting, and I intend to be part of it as deeply and as intensely as I can.