Cybersex

Oh god, this week lecture has been a really interesting experience. We have first definitely seen that sex does sell more than other subjects, with around three times more students in the lecture than usual and we can better understand why do so many enter in this very lucrative market that is the porn or sex industry. As written in www.orroz.net (sexual phantasms and reality), in the USA, the porn industry has a revenue between 4 to 6 billion dollars per year (2001). Why would you open a company that will not be assured of having success when you can open a sex enterprise with a very good probability of success?

(Cybersex is sometimes so real!)

I will for this week lecture base my written opinion on what happens in France or Switzerland and the researches I have done on the Internet. I am not really an expert on Australia and its sex industry!

I am not sure how many have read “The Marquis de Sade”. This is an old book about his life (the marquis de Sade was born in 1740 and died in 1814), and it shows that already in what would some call ancient time, they were people with sex desires that not everyone could understand and that they were willing to do anything in order to satisfy their sexual phantasms. Also, in the 80’s in France and Switzerland you could buy magazines only related to sex and rent porn videos directly from the video shop if you where eighteen (they did not always ask for ID though). One of the most famous magazines was Union Magazine with real or fake sex stories, soft or harder pictures and different possibilities of contacting people with same sex liking than them. If you wanted sexy lingerie or other sex toys you had to enter a sex shop and look and/or tell what you were looking for to a salesman or saleswoman.

Nowadays we have the Internet and what is called cybersex. What is so different to what is written in the “Marquis de Sade” or a Union - or other like it - magazine, is that you do not need anymore to be eighteen to have access to whatever domain of sex you are interested in. The Internet has allowed anyone to have access to millions of different sex websites, with or without accident, and their anonymity is nearly always assured.

I have done some research, from home as I was not allowed to enter any of the sex websites from Swinburne (I wonder why?!?), and those searches and readings have been sometimes funny (have a look at some pictures I have put on my blog), sometimes scary and disturbing (paedophilia, zoophilia, …). I would also call some of the pictures of computerised women an oeuvre d’art. So I have to say that if before doing those researches on the Internet about cybersex I did not think cybersex does change human sexuality I could have absolutely no doubt after those readings that it does definitely change human sexuality and will even further change it in the future as many will not know when hyper reality begins and reality stops. The frontiers are already blurred and the technology will make even more difficult to differentiate reality from hyper reality. We can already see that many images of computerised women on the Internet look like certain real models in magazines. Or is it that certain real models in magazines are so retouched that they do look like the computerised images of women on the Internet. Not sure we can always see the difference, that we can see what it is real and what is unreal.

In the beginning of 1980, promises were made that we would all lived in a virtual word created by computer (we can think to the Terminator) and that we would even make virtually love in the virtual world. These ideas were shocking at that time but look now pretty realistic in the sex domain of 2007.
We can read on http://www.croixsens.net/sexe/cybersexe.php that cybersex has four factors to help it become so tempting - and addicting - for millions of people around the world. Those factors are:
1. It is cheap; the only thing needed is an Internet connection.
2. It is in general anonymous and you can hide cybersex dependence even to your nearest friends, family or even your spouse.
3. Everything is found really quickly, just a few seconds and clicks of the mouse, not so much time to change idea.
4. Every little emotional discomfort is hidden by the sexual excitation, exactly like would a powerful drug act.

So who are those people accessing sex websites? They can be anyone and this is the danger of cybersex. There is, usually, only one button to press: “I acknowledge that I am more than 18) and here you are, entering the doors of a sex website and having the possibility to satisfy all your weirdest sex phantasms and desires.

As we can read on http://www.orroz.net/ (sexual phantasms and reality) so many try to find excuses to their abuse of internet sex websites. Some of those excuses are that it is virtual, not real so it cannot be dangerous or addictive, that the women are all agreeing to be there and all love sex, that looking at some nude pictures of children on porn websites is not that bad as there is no sexual act included and it is for the beauty of the body, and anyway those children are smiling so they must be happy, and we can go on and on about excuses. Those excuses are always untrue. It is not because it is virtual that it is not dangerous. Usually but not always, the women in porn sites are paid for it and do not like to do it. Enjoying looking at nude pictures of children is horribly wrong and this is called paedophilia, with or without sexual activities with children and finally children do not enjoy being part of the porn industry and being used by adults for their own personal phantasms.

(A life destroyed in a click)

The problem with cybersex is that often the ones that are looking and enjoying porn websites will want to access harder porn websites and in higher quantity, and this will include paedophilia and zoophilia porn sites and this is when I think the limits are reached and phantasms should remain phantasms, and people doing/showing these things should be stopped.

Cybersex does not especially annoy me if it does only concern willing adults and does not hurt anyone. But it does disturb me that often it helps paedophiles or other whacko of sex and the porn industry to use children and even animals for their personal pleasure. Children are the one that pay the hard price of the cybersex and porn industry. I am wondering how many children around the world are being used and abused for the pleasure of so many adults that use the Internet and its anonymity in order to satisfy their sexual phantasms (http://www.technewsreview.com.au/cat.php?cat=11). And of course by allowing someone to have access to so many different porn websites can give them the impression that they are not abnormal, that they are in fact totally normal, as so many others do it.

Have al look at this video about cybersexe on http://www.nouvo.ch/95-1

I do believe that cybersex is addictive, like alcohol or drug, exactly because of this virtual reality, a better reality than many live or see (better body, better skin, better sex, women that are not bickering or having a headache when the men wants to have sex, impression that the other sides of the camera wants the same than you do, and so many other reasons). I do not believe that we can, or should stop cybersex as many adults do enjoy it and do not abuse it and especially do not click on paedophilia or other unethical websites. But I would like to believe, that one day it will be possible to totally stop the use of unwilling children, adults and animals that are hurt and abused by the sex industry. The sex industry did not wait for the internet to be one of the most lucrative industry and have always used not only willing but also unwilling people to satisfy other people sex phantasms so I do not believe that the problems is cybersex and the internet, but more who is using it and for what.

Not really necessary to translate, image pretty powerful