Sexual encounters..of the virtual kind.

It has become increasingly evident that 'people are forming relationships and communities in places that only exist in cyberspace' (Maheu, 1999:5). It appears that as the understanding of what can be found online increases, people are changing their lifestyles around this technology in the same way mobile phones and television altered living forever. Along with (e)extremist and virtual realities, as I have previously spoken of, there has also been a revolution of chat rooms, dating services, cybersex and pornography online.
I remember a time when someone who was dating online was considered a little bit weird and if you were going to fly some mystery man or woman over to live with you and marry you..that was definitely going to end badly. Today, however, its pretty acceptable to chat and form relationships online, dating services were made for it. In fact, there are service available online to cater to ever demographics' dating needs - Young, middle-aged and even elderly, such as at sassyseniors.com .
Cybersex also seems to be expanding from the days when it existed in only a text-based form. Now there is access to virtual reality-based cybersex. This involves a virtual reality setting such as Second Life and sexual based communication or interaction taking place within that world. I recently saw a program which investigated sex in Second Life. They showed the way in which users could purchase body parts and engage in sexual interactions with another avatar. Essentially, these are two physical human beings sitting in front of their computers, with actual lives and possible spouses operating an these avatars. It raises an unusual question of ethics, I mean, I don't think I like the idea of my partner having a sexual interaction with someone online..even if there is no physical interaction, surely there is some form of emotional investment.

In terms of pornography, there are advantages to viewing online, such as access, affordability and anonymity. It's pretty obvious that theses are the main contributing factors as to why the online pornography industry is generating such revenue. For example, every second approximately $3000 is being spent on pornography, over 28,000 people are viewing pornography online and 379 people are searching adult terms. Not to mention that a new pornographic video is being created every 39 minutes (J. Ropelato).

An area of concern within the online pornography industry is the issue of child pornography and child exploitation. It is a disturbing thought that people are filming or photographing children and posting such images online with sexual connotations. It is also considered child pornography if child takes a sexually explicit photo of themselves and is found in possession of that image, I find the fact that this was not known to me, and what I can only assume is a lot of other people, truly disturbing. Similarly to (e)extremists, it becomes really difficult to consider censorship with these issues. In my opinion it would all around be better if these things didn't exist online. It's unfortunate the world doesn't work like that.