Net Compulsives

loss of inhibition due to anonymity

Users of online chat rooms experience a loss of inhibition due to the anonymity of the computer medium. This anonymity is a direct result of the narrow-bandwidth effect, as described in a previous chapter. This loss of inhibition allows users to more freely experiment with their online selves. In the anonymous environment of online chat rooms, users are able experiment with their (multiplicity of) selves. This loss of inhibition online, and the ability to access other selves there, can just as easily lead to positive experiences as it can negative ones. Some users, like Alison, use cybersex to access their sexual self and their loving self. As Alison's online self learns and has experiences in cyberspace, it shares discoveries with Alison's whole self. Other u sers, like Rob, use the anonymity (and in the case of his victims, false anonymity) of online chat rooms to experiment with abusive selves. Rob abuses men and women online, and they also incorporate these experiences into their whole self.

loss of inhibition due to anonymity

Users of online chat rooms experience a loss of inhibition due to the anonymity of the computer medium. This anonymity is a direct result of...

cyber rape

Turkle describes a cyber rape that occurred in a MUD. One player took control of another player in the MUD and forced the victim's chara...

Rob's online self has lost the inhibitions and fears

Rob, just out of university and married, is a graphic designer at a California office equipment and computer manufacturer. Like anyone else ...

Rebecca has had numerous cybersex partners

Rebecca has had numerous cybersex partners in the time that she has been online. She feels that although cybersex is pleasing for her, ...

"no sex is safer than cybersex." (Sagan, 1996)

Rebecca has not been having real life sex since she started having cybersex and phone sex. Because of her personal moral beliefs, Rebecca do...

AOL is for cybersex

America Online has a lot to offer diverse types of users, and this is part of the reason that AOL is the largest and fastest growing online ...

Feminist View

We must also note that this program is created by (most likely) men who have already received the cultural message that good women tailor themselves to meet the desires of men, and that men can select (and indirectly tailor) women to meet their desires. The program clealy runs on a view of women as sexual commodities manipulated by men, and the technology itself facilitates this manipulation in a virtual sense. This is a dangerous message, and the interactive nature of the game may instill this message more powerfully, but the message itself did not originate with the programmers, the game, or the technology. IF the point about role playing teaching men is true, and the interactive format is more powerful than other media, then there is a real opportunity to write programs that teach men something valuable about women's sexualities. Perhaps issues could be worked in to the program around consent and communication, women's sexual physiology, safer sex, or the wide variation of experiences different women find pleasurable at different times. Randomizing the program could teach men that not all women are alike in our appearance, experience of pleasure, or sexual response.

Feminist View

We must also note that this program is created by (most likely) men who have already received the cultural message that good women tailor th...

cybersex can take on different forms

cybersex can take on different forms. For example, cybersex in online chat rooms often refers to computer-mediated, interactive sexual story telling (in real time). There is also virtual-reality cybersex, where people enter a virtual environment to interact with others by wearing special goggles and movement-sensitive sensors. Similarly, multiple user domains (MUDs) are used as virtual places where characters, objects, rooms, and actions are all created in text. MUD users often have cybersex in much the same way as Internet Relay Chat and chat room users do. They tell each other sexual stories. Finally, there is an emerging area called cyberdildonics, which relates to interactive gear and toys that can enhance the online cybersex experience with actual physical sensations. Vivid Entertainment, the world's biggest producer of adult films, for example, has been experimenting with cyberdildonics. Proud of its reputation as a company that's been on the frontline of technology, it has a functioning $200 Cyber Sex Suit — a neoprene bodysuit with 36 electronic sensors in the chest, inner thighs, and other erogenous zones that transmit heat, cold, and vibrations. A person can send a signal to a DVD player via a remote, which then goes over the Internet, into the wearer's computer, and to the suit via a connector. Vivid Entertainment's lawyers, however, fear that someone might have a heart attack while wearing the suit, so the company has put it on the shelf for the near future. But what really makes cybersex so appealing? Experts cite safety, anonymity, convenience, affordability, and escape as the five top reasons. Pornography used to require risks: a trip to the seedy movie theater or the scrutiny of a video-store clerk. Physical encounters require more serious risks, including disease. Virtual sex poses none of these problems.

cybersex can take on different forms

cybersex can take on different forms. For example, cybersex in online chat rooms often refers to computer-mediated, interactive sexual story...

The "body suit" is another new device

The "body suit" is another new device. It would stimulate many different erogenous zones simultaneously, thereby intensifying physical experience. They would use sensors to stimulate touch and will likely be custom-fitted to accommodate a wide range of body types and proportions. Different sensor pads might be located throughout the body suit, each designed to stimulate a specific region of the body in variable and programmable ways. Other sex machines have employed the use of suction cups and vibrating parts. Primitive body suits have reportedly been developed, but met with opposition from federal agencies due to medical concerns. On another front, television has gradually migrated to increased suggestiveness. This trend toward sexualizing music is epitomized for our youth through stations such as MTV. Imagine celebrities of the future may very well take their suggestiveness a step further. For the price of a concert ticket, imagine wearing a body suit and having cyber-sex with a suggestive MTV pop singer. Imagine that you feel every thrust of the superstars' gyrations, with sensors strategically placed to throb and pulse until you reach orgasm. Then imagine having sex with your life partner later that evening. After feeling the superstar afterglow, where will your thoughts go as you make love to your partner? Will your thoughts go to the superstar? How will sex with the partner compare to cyber-sex with the superstar? Let's take you a step further into the psychological complications that might arise from such technical wonders. If you solve your marital problem by having your partner join you for the evening's cyber-sexual activities, where will your partner's thoughts go during lovemaking with you? Will you have the skills to keep connected to each other? Or will you silently join the ranks of the increasing population of "at-risk" individuals who engage in cyber-sexual compulsivity? As the Internet evolves to providing increasingly life-like erotica, users of pornography are proportionately at risk for committing infidelity. For these people, it will become ever more important that discussions of relationship agreements be clarified to include all forms of technology. Unfortunately, it is more likely that for these groups, such discussions with their offline partners will be avoided.

The "body suit" is another new device

The "body suit" is another new device. It would stimulate many different erogenous zones simultaneously, thereby intensifying phys...

Cybersex Bot

Jenny18 - A Cybersex Bot Implemented in Eliza 'eliza' is a program that talks to you, pretending to be a psychologist. its script of possible responses is super tiny, so it doesn't fool anyone. or so i thought. IRC is a network full of chat rooms (or "channels") where a lot of scary internet people (or "perverts") hang out. my friend reduz found a version of 'eliza' that could go on IRC. he put it on IRC. a lot of people from other countries thought it was a real woman, so naturally they tried to have sex with it. they got frustrated quickly. reduz is a bad man. reduz asked me to make the eliza bot better. i'm not smart enough to make like neural networks and natural language parsing and contextual branching decision matrices, but i sure as hell know how to talk like a guy pretending to be a dumb girl. it is sort of like jenny18: heeeeeyyyy how r u? =) wanna sex? lol so i replaced eliza's tiny, boring script with a massive dumb blonde script that has like 3,800 responses on all sorts of topics, but mostly sex. jenny18 is very horny and she loves talking to horny guys. and everyone knows the best place to talk to horny guys is on dalnet irc sex channels. so i took jenny18 there. eventually an actual real artificial intelligence professor from Ireland noticed this little page. he came up with the idea long before i did, but i obsessed for hundreds of hours over it, so he was pretty impressed. this goes to show that lots of challenge in AI is in speaking naturally, and on the internet most people speak like idiots, so you can sort of cheat around a lot of things. i wrote a little editorial on that phenomenon a while back, too. e-mail me at virt@vgmix.com if you think this is cool. to answer some questions: no, not a single line of jenny18 dialogue is typed in, it's all coming from the bot's script. also no, i'm not releasing the script just yet, i am working on a second, even cooler version! and finally, making sex bots is just a disturbing side hobby, my real job is writing music for video games!

Cybersex Bot

Jenny18 - A Cybersex Bot Implemented in Eliza 'eliza' is a program that talks to you, pretending to be a psychologist. its script of...