Cybersex
Encyclopedia
Cybersex, also called computer sex, Internet sex, netsex, mudsex, TinySex and, colloquially, cybering, is a virtual sex
encounter in which two or more persons connected remotely via computer network
send each other sexually explicit messages describing a sexual experience. It is a form of sexual roleplay in which the participants pretend they are having actual sex. In one form, this fantasy sex is accomplished by the participants describing their actions and responding to their chat partners in a mostly written form designed to stimulate their own sexual feelings and fantasies.
Cybersex sometimes includes real life
masturbation
. The quality of a cybersex encounter typically depends upon the participants' abilities to evoke a vivid, visceral mental picture in the minds of their partners. Imagination and suspension of disbelief
are also critically important. Cybersex can occur either within the context of existing or intimate relationships, e.g. among lovers who are geographically separated, or among individuals who have no prior knowledge of one another and meet in virtual spaces or cyberspaces and may even remain anonymous to one another. In some contexts cybersex is enhanced by the use of a webcam
to transmit real-time video of the partners.
Channels used to initiate cybersex are not necessarily exclusively devoted to that subject, and participants in any Internet chat may suddenly receive a message with any possible variation of the text "Wanna cyber?", "Wanna cam?" or a request for "C2C"/"C4C" ("cam to cam" and "cam for cam", respectively).
Cybersex is commonly performed in Internet
chat room
s (such as IRC, talker
s or web chats) and on instant messaging
systems. It can also be performed using webcams, voice chat systems like Skype, or online games and/or virtual worlds like Second Life
. The exact definition of cybersex—specifically, whether real-life masturbation must be taking place for the online sex act to count as cybersex—is up for debate. It is also fairly frequent in online role-playing games, such as MUD
s and MMORPG
s, though approval of this activity varies greatly from game to game. Some online social games like Red Light Center
are dedicated to cybersex and other adult behaviors. These online games are often called AMMORPGs. In other games of the wider MMORPG
genre, it ranges from widely accepted to the point of game masters/moderators taking part, such as in Final Fantasy Online, to moderated based on player reports, as in World of Warcraft
, to grounds for a suspension from play or a permanent banishment, as in EVE Online
and Anarchy Online
.
Cybersex may also be accomplished through the use of avatars
in a multiuser software environment. It is often called mudsex or netsex in MUDs. In TinyMUD
variants, particularly MUCKs
, the term TinySex (TS) is very common.
Though text-based cybersex has been in practice for decades, the increased popularity of webcam
s has raised the number of online partners using two-way video connections to "expose" themselves to each other online—giving the act of cybersex a more visual aspect. There are a number of popular, commercial webcam websites that allow people to openly masturbate on camera while others watch them. Using similar sites, couples can also perform on camera for the enjoyment of others.
Cybersex differs from phone sex
in that it offers a greater degree of anonymity and allows participants to meet partners more easily. A good deal of cybersex takes place between partners who have just met online. Unlike phone sex, cybersex in chat rooms is rarely commercial. In online worlds like Second Life
and via webcam-focused chat services, however, Internet sex workers engage in cybersex in exchange for both virtual and real-life currency.
One approach to cybering is a simulation of "real" sex, when participants try to make the experience as close to real life as possible, with participants taking turns writing descriptive, sexually explicit passages. Alternatively, it can be considered a form of sexual roleplay that allows the participants to experience unusual sexual sensations and carry out sexual experiments they cannot try in reality. Amongst "serious" roleplayers, cybering may occur as part of a larger plot–the characters involved may be lovers or spouses. In situations like this, the people typing often consider themselves separate entities from the "people" engaging in the sexual acts, much as the author of a novel often does not completely identify with his or her characters. Due to this difference, such roleplayers typically prefer the term "erotic roleplay" rather than cybersex to describe it. In "real cybering" personas often remain in character throughout the entire life of the contact, to include evolving into phone sex, and meatspace encounters while in character, as a form of improvisation
, or, nearly, a performance art
. Often these personas develop complex past histories for their characters to make the fantasy/roleplay even more life like, thus the evolution of the term "real cybering".
Privacy concerns are a difficulty with cybersex, since participants may log or record the interaction without the other's knowledge, and possibly disclose it to others or the public.
There is disagreement over whether cybersex is a form of infidelity
. While it does not involve physical contact, critics claim that the powerful emotions involved can cause marital stress, especially when cybersex culminates in an Internet romance. In several known cases Internet adultery
became the grounds for which a couple divorced. Therapists report a growing number of patients addicted to this activity, a form of both Internet addiction and sexual addiction
, with the standard problems associated with addictive behavior.
Virtual sex
Virtual sex is a sexual act where two or more people gather together via some form of communications equipment to arouse each other by transmitting sexually explicit messages...
encounter in which two or more persons connected remotely via computer network
Computer network
A computer network, often simply referred to as a network, is a collection of hardware components and computers interconnected by communication channels that allow sharing of resources and information....
send each other sexually explicit messages describing a sexual experience. It is a form of sexual roleplay in which the participants pretend they are having actual sex. In one form, this fantasy sex is accomplished by the participants describing their actions and responding to their chat partners in a mostly written form designed to stimulate their own sexual feelings and fantasies.
Cybersex sometimes includes real life
Real life
Real life is a term usually used to denote actual human life lived by real people in contrast with the lives of fictional or fantasy characters.-Usage online and in fiction:On the Internet, "real life" refers to life in the real world...
masturbation
Masturbation
Masturbation refers to sexual stimulation of a person's own genitals, usually to the point of orgasm. The stimulation can be performed manually, by use of objects or tools, or by some combination of these methods. Masturbation is a common form of autoeroticism...
. The quality of a cybersex encounter typically depends upon the participants' abilities to evoke a vivid, visceral mental picture in the minds of their partners. Imagination and suspension of disbelief
Suspension of disbelief
Suspension of disbelief or "willing suspension of disbelief" is a formula for justifying the use of fantastic or non-realistic elements in literary works of fiction...
are also critically important. Cybersex can occur either within the context of existing or intimate relationships, e.g. among lovers who are geographically separated, or among individuals who have no prior knowledge of one another and meet in virtual spaces or cyberspaces and may even remain anonymous to one another. In some contexts cybersex is enhanced by the use of a webcam
Webcam
A webcam is a video camera that feeds its images in real time to a computer or computer network, often via USB, ethernet, or Wi-Fi.Their most popular use is the establishment of video links, permitting computers to act as videophones or videoconference stations. This common use as a video camera...
to transmit real-time video of the partners.
Channels used to initiate cybersex are not necessarily exclusively devoted to that subject, and participants in any Internet chat may suddenly receive a message with any possible variation of the text "Wanna cyber?", "Wanna cam?" or a request for "C2C"/"C4C" ("cam to cam" and "cam for cam", respectively).
Cybersex is commonly performed in Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
chat room
Chat room
The term chat room, or chatroom, is primarily used by mass media to describe any form of synchronous conferencing, occasionally even asynchronous conferencing...
s (such as IRC, talker
Talker
A talker is a chat system that people use to talk to each other over the Internet. Dating back to the 1980s, they were a predecessor of instant messaging....
s or web chats) and on instant messaging
Instant messaging
Instant Messaging is a form of real-time direct text-based chatting communication in push mode between two or more people using personal computers or other devices, along with shared clients. The user's text is conveyed over a network, such as the Internet...
systems. It can also be performed using webcams, voice chat systems like Skype, or online games and/or virtual worlds like Second Life
Second Life
Second Life is an online virtual world developed by Linden Lab. It was launched on June 23, 2003. A number of free client programs, or Viewers, enable Second Life users, called Residents, to interact with each other through avatars...
. The exact definition of cybersex—specifically, whether real-life masturbation must be taking place for the online sex act to count as cybersex—is up for debate. It is also fairly frequent in online role-playing games, such as MUD
MUD
A MUD , pronounced , is a multiplayer real-time virtual world, with the term usually referring to text-based instances of these. MUDs combine elements of role-playing games, hack and slash, player versus player, interactive fiction, and online chat...
s and MMORPG
MMORPG
Massively multiplayer online role-playing game is a genre of role-playing video games in which a very large number of players interact with one another within a virtual game world....
s, though approval of this activity varies greatly from game to game. Some online social games like Red Light Center
Red Light Center
Red Light Center is a privately owned Massively Multi-User Reality site that was made available to the public early in 2006 by Utherverse Inc.. Its tag line is "EXPAND Your Fantasy". Red Light Center is modeled after Amsterdam’s Red Light District. The online community site offers users virtual...
are dedicated to cybersex and other adult behaviors. These online games are often called AMMORPGs. In other games of the wider MMORPG
MMORPG
Massively multiplayer online role-playing game is a genre of role-playing video games in which a very large number of players interact with one another within a virtual game world....
genre, it ranges from widely accepted to the point of game masters/moderators taking part, such as in Final Fantasy Online, to moderated based on player reports, as in World of Warcraft
World of Warcraft
World of Warcraft is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game by Blizzard Entertainment. It is the fourth released game set in the fantasy Warcraft universe, which was first introduced by Warcraft: Orcs & Humans in 1994...
, to grounds for a suspension from play or a permanent banishment, as in EVE Online
EVE Online
Eve Online is a video game by CCP Games. It is a player-driven, persistent-world MMORPG set in a science fiction space setting. Characters pilot customizable ships through a galaxy of over 7,500 star systems. Most star systems are connected to one or more other star systems by means of stargates...
and Anarchy Online
Anarchy Online
Anarchy Online is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game published and developed by Funcom. Released in the summer of 2001, the game was first in the genre to include a science-fiction setting, dynamic quests, free trials, and in-game advertising. The most ground breaking feature in...
.
Cybersex may also be accomplished through the use of avatars
Avatar (computing)
In computing, an avatar is the graphical representation of the user or the user's alter ego or character. It may take either a three-dimensional form, as in games or virtual worlds, or a two-dimensional form as an icon in Internet forums and other online communities. It can also refer to a text...
in a multiuser software environment. It is often called mudsex or netsex in MUDs. In TinyMUD
TinyMUD
TinyMUD is the name of a MUD server codebase, and the first MUD running that codebase. The MUD itself has subsequently come to be known as "TinyMUD Classic" or simply "Classic", or occasionally "DaisyMUD"...
variants, particularly MUCKs
TinyMUCK
TinyMUCK or, more broadly, a MUCK, is a type of user-extendable online text-based role-playing game, designed for role playing and social interaction...
, the term TinySex (TS) is very common.
Though text-based cybersex has been in practice for decades, the increased popularity of webcam
Webcam
A webcam is a video camera that feeds its images in real time to a computer or computer network, often via USB, ethernet, or Wi-Fi.Their most popular use is the establishment of video links, permitting computers to act as videophones or videoconference stations. This common use as a video camera...
s has raised the number of online partners using two-way video connections to "expose" themselves to each other online—giving the act of cybersex a more visual aspect. There are a number of popular, commercial webcam websites that allow people to openly masturbate on camera while others watch them. Using similar sites, couples can also perform on camera for the enjoyment of others.
Cybersex differs from phone sex
Phone sex
Phone sex is a type of virtual sex that refers to sexually explicit conversation between or other persons via telephone, especially when at least one of the participants masturbates or engages in sexual fantasy...
in that it offers a greater degree of anonymity and allows participants to meet partners more easily. A good deal of cybersex takes place between partners who have just met online. Unlike phone sex, cybersex in chat rooms is rarely commercial. In online worlds like Second Life
Second Life
Second Life is an online virtual world developed by Linden Lab. It was launched on June 23, 2003. A number of free client programs, or Viewers, enable Second Life users, called Residents, to interact with each other through avatars...
and via webcam-focused chat services, however, Internet sex workers engage in cybersex in exchange for both virtual and real-life currency.
Uses of Cybersex
Cybersex can be utilised to write co-written original fiction and fanfiction by role-playing in third person, in forums or communities usually known by the name of 'A Shared Dream'. It can also be used to gain experience for solo writers who want to write more realistic sex scenes, by exchanging ideas.One approach to cybering is a simulation of "real" sex, when participants try to make the experience as close to real life as possible, with participants taking turns writing descriptive, sexually explicit passages. Alternatively, it can be considered a form of sexual roleplay that allows the participants to experience unusual sexual sensations and carry out sexual experiments they cannot try in reality. Amongst "serious" roleplayers, cybering may occur as part of a larger plot–the characters involved may be lovers or spouses. In situations like this, the people typing often consider themselves separate entities from the "people" engaging in the sexual acts, much as the author of a novel often does not completely identify with his or her characters. Due to this difference, such roleplayers typically prefer the term "erotic roleplay" rather than cybersex to describe it. In "real cybering" personas often remain in character throughout the entire life of the contact, to include evolving into phone sex, and meatspace encounters while in character, as a form of improvisation
Improvisation
Improvisation is the practice of acting, singing, talking and reacting, of making and creating, in the moment and in response to the stimulus of one's immediate environment and inner feelings. This can result in the invention of new thought patterns, new practices, new structures or symbols, and/or...
, or, nearly, a performance art
Performance art
In art, performance art is a performance presented to an audience, traditionally interdisciplinary. Performance may be either scripted or unscripted, random or carefully orchestrated; spontaneous or otherwise carefully planned with or without audience participation. The performance can be live or...
. Often these personas develop complex past histories for their characters to make the fantasy/roleplay even more life like, thus the evolution of the term "real cybering".
Advantages
- Since cybersex can satisfy some sexual desires without the risk of a sexually transmitted disease (STD) or pregnancy, it is a physically safe way for young people (such as with teenagers) to experiment with sexual thoughts and emotions. Additionally, people with long-term ailments (including HIVHIVHuman immunodeficiency virus is a lentivirus that causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome , a condition in humans in which progressive failure of the immune system allows life-threatening opportunistic infections and cancers to thrive...
) can engage in cybersex as a way to safely achieve sexual gratification without putting their partners at risk.
- Cybersex allows real-life partners who are physically separated to continue to be sexually intimate. In geographically separated relationships, it can function to sustain the sexual dimension of a relationship in which the partners see each other only infrequently face to face. Also, it can allow partners to work out problems that they have in their sex life that they feel uncomfortable bringing up otherwise.
- It can enable participants to act out fantasies which they would not act out (or perhaps would not even be realistically possible) in real life through roleplaying due to physical or social limitations and potential for misunderstanding, such as extreme BDSMBDSMBDSM is an erotic preference and a form of sexual expression involving the consensual use of restraint, intense sensory stimulation, and fantasy power role-play. The compound acronym BDSM is derived from the terms bondage and discipline , dominance and submission , and sadism and masochism...
, incestIncestIncest is sexual intercourse between close relatives that is usually illegal in the jurisdiction where it takes place and/or is conventionally considered a taboo. The term may apply to sexual activities between: individuals of close "blood relationship"; members of the same household; step...
, zoophiliaZoophiliaZoophilia, from the Greek ζῷον and φιλία is the practice of sex between humans and non-human animals , or a preference or fixation on such practice...
or rape.
- It takes less effort and fewer resources on the Internet than in real life to connect to a person like oneself or with whom a more meaningful relationship is possible.
Criticism
Cybersex is often criticized because the partners frequently have little verifiable knowledge (including gender) about each other. However, since for many the primary point of cybersex is the plausible simulation of sexual activity, this knowledge is not always desired or necessary.Privacy concerns are a difficulty with cybersex, since participants may log or record the interaction without the other's knowledge, and possibly disclose it to others or the public.
There is disagreement over whether cybersex is a form of infidelity
Infidelity
In many intimate relationships in many cultures there is usually an express or implied expectation of exclusivity, especially in sexual matters. Infidelity most commonly refers to a breach of the expectation of sexual exclusivity.Infidelity can occur in relation to physical intimacy and/or...
. While it does not involve physical contact, critics claim that the powerful emotions involved can cause marital stress, especially when cybersex culminates in an Internet romance. In several known cases Internet adultery
Adultery
Adultery is sexual infidelity to one's spouse, and is a form of extramarital sex. It originally referred only to sex between a woman who was married and a person other than her spouse. Even in cases of separation from one's spouse, an extramarital affair is still considered adultery.Adultery is...
became the grounds for which a couple divorced. Therapists report a growing number of patients addicted to this activity, a form of both Internet addiction and sexual addiction
Sexual addiction
Sexual addiction is a popular model to explain hypersexuality—sexual urges, behaviors, or thoughts that appear extreme in frequency or feel out of one's control...
, with the standard problems associated with addictive behavior.
Further reading
- Deuel, N. R. (1996). "Our passionate response to virtual reality." in S. Herring (ed.), Computer-mediated communication: Linguistic, social and cross-cultural perspectives. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 129-146. ISBN 1556198035.