Net 12 Journal 1.1

1.1 CYBERSEX: How far would a partner/spouse have to go before it is considered cheating?

I think this is a personal value judgment but I’ve googled “cybersex’ and looked at three sites that invite me to enter into a conversation with the girl on the screen and anyone else who is in the chat room. I guess if the intention is to substitute this internet relationship for the one you have with your spouse/partner, then you are cheating but this is a generalization and there may be hundreds of personal reasons for trying what seems to me to be a very unsatisfactory alternative to the real thing.

I also looked at three sites that explain what a cybersex site is and how I should have the right equipment i.e. a webcam and microphone and how I should behave with dialogue that steers us to a crescendo of mutual (erotic?) pleasure.

I don’t know if this is a common theme on all the “instruction” websites but the ones I read do seem to treat it as a form of light entertainment or a way of faking a strong libido or trying to find a way to have a long distance sexual encounter without the fear of social rejection.

"Pleasures Of the Fur" & "Burned Furs"

I guess my limited imagination has only let me explore what I think are “mainstream” or “conventional” websites and functions of the internet that support the practical aspects that make up and support my every day life. In this case a significant community has developed around a common attraction for Anthropomorphics which degenerated into a cultural argument over the purpose of the community and an attempt to retrospectively invent/impose rules to control the formation of sub cultures in the community. (I had to write this down to get a reality check on the quirky subject matter of this group)

Mainstream Coverage:

• A common interest group has become popular.
• It has grown to a size that extends beyond a group and now has formed a community.
• The community exists without any obvious control or philosophy to guide its citizens.
• Special interest groups are able influence the community by weight of numbers.

Subcultures:

I think that subcultures exist in every community (e.g. religious, economic, sex, political etc.). There is always going to be friction where the interests of each subculture overlap such as sex and religion, sex and business, sex and politics. It seems that sex has such a polymorphic behavior that it can assume relevance in almost any area of a community if there is nothing to control it.

This online community appears to have changed itself into a different animal that started off as an interest in combining animal and human characteristics to a venue that explores a number of social/sexual dysfunctions. Who would have expected such a dramatic transformation to affect such a perfectly normal interest????

Everyday Life:

I cannot in all honesty say I appreciate the behaviour of the people in “Pleasures of the Fur”. Has the internet changed their character to the point where the online community becomes acceptable behaviour in the real world? If I visited an online community as an “avatar” would I try and be my online character while I was offline every day?