Part 2 "The Common Thread"

By Dr. Jim Aquila

RETURN TO ARCHIVES

© Alternatives- A Health Resource® 2000-2005

Everything you do with deep, intimate matters in your life involves your sexuality; and your close, intimate relationships, your "gut level" feelings; your strongest desires and your deepest fears.  What you need now is something GOOD to be PASSIONATE about.

“The Common Thread”

What do all the above pictures have in common?  

They are part of a pandemic problem known as Internet Cybersex.  In Part 1, we briefly discussed the seriousness of participating in Internet cybersex.  In Part 2 we will continue to discuss the various ramifications as they impact on our relationships.

Empowered with the many tools of the Internet, potential lovers are able to easily and inexpensively create any environment they desire in email, text or voice based environments.  Its a winter wonderland featuring steamy Chicago blues bar, or sweet and sweaty tropical paradise.  The participants can experience the entire spectrum of a relationship online, from the secretive glances across a chat room to wedding and divorce before their virtual friends and family.  For those limited in real life by physical abilities, finances, or a social skill, the Internet allows them to explore their inner drives with others who are admittedly creating the same long-suffering illusions.

For people who are in a committed and monogamous marriage offline, having an affair online can provide a variety of sexual experiences that all too often, create the same threats to a committed relationship that exist in offline affairs (Turkle, 1997). Cyber-infidelity has already led to reports of family complications, strife, and divorce (Quittner, 1997; Shaw, 1997).

What then, is cyber-infidelity? As demonstrated by the Clinton scandal of 1998, even definitions of in-person sex are unclear.  Is it any wonder that remote infidelity, through the media of technology is yet more ambiguous?  It appears that Americans would probably agree that flirtation becomes infidelity when someone in a committed, monogamous relationship has erotic physical contact with someone other than his or her mate.  In addition, flirtation becomes infidelity when someone has sexual arousal with someone other than his or her mate while uttering sexual messages while masturbating to erotic fantasies.  Yet, the enticement of having extra-marital affaire beats on over the cyber-waves, with or without the aid of definition.

The beginnings of cyber-affairs on the Internet can be compared to what happens over backyard fences, in health clubs, recreational sporting events, and in other daily routines, and while not physical, without a doubt its practices become very emotionally distracting from committed relationship offline.  Attempts at definition, range from those who claim there are different levels of infidelity, with live video interactions being more closely problematic than an text-chat, voice-chat and email lover, to those who claim that having an affair, including cyber-sex, with an unseen lover doesn't count.

Essential questions appear more rapidly than their answers.  Does propositioning someone online for cybersex count as emotional infidelity?  If you enter a chat room, engage with a few people, and masturbate yourself to orgasm, are you cheating on your spouse?  Does calling that person on the telephone and bringing each other to mutual orgasm count as infidelity?  If not, what are you doing?  Would you be comfortable seeking that answer when your Minister or Rabbi stops in for dinner this weekend?  Technology is clearly overshadowing our ability to use traditional values to formulate answers, while dragging our hearts and souls behind.

Some of the variations of cybersex are:

• Secret Cyber-affairs - this is the sneaky, secret, and clandestine love affair communicated electronically rather than face-to-face;
• Overt Cyber-affairs - one partner in a relationship knows of the other's cyber-affair, but doesn't voice a desire for it to stop;
• Menage-a-Trois Cyber-affairs - couples engage with another specific person or persons in a cyber-affair;
• Group Cyber-affairs - people meet in a virtual community, forum or game room with the intent of having an erotic exchange.

Secret Cyber-affairs.  Tradition and moral values have an imbued routine affairs with expected levels of secrecy, motive, and result, with or without the computer. Technology has improved certain aspects, making it more convenient, more varied, and physically safer.  But the seduction of satisfying one's sexual appetite with a few online nibbles before going for the real thing is simply a manifestation of people doing what they want to do, only doing it more easily with the tools of technology.

Overt Cyber-affairs. This type of affair can involve partners who either approve or disapprove of the affair.  For couples that agree that one or both can participate in cyber-affairs, there are still many variations that can take place between couples.  Of course, there is always the subgroup of people that has come to accept a mate's affair because he or she sees no alternative after learning of the partner's cyber-affair.

• With Partner Approval: For those who are in a committed and monogamous marriage offline, having an affair online can provide temporary extra romance and enriched sexual experiences, reportedly without endangering a marriage (Turkle, 1997).  This practice, however seemingly tame, is at opposition to traditional standards.

Menage a Trois. For those who share their messages with their spouses, when the activities are performed with the partner's approval or participation, there can even be added stimulation in their offline lovemaking.  For these people, the exchanges are reportedly considered a "turn on" for the spouse of the person having the affair.  For them, it is added fuel for sexual contact with their offline and, sometimes, online partners.  The long-term effects of these experiments upon the stability of committed offline relationships are not clear, however. Leiblum mentions the existence but relative infrequency of such arrangements (Leiblum, 1997).

Covert Group Cyber-affairs - The Lurker. This group is on the fringe of the infidelity camp, perhaps developing a preference for one particular virtual community, or one type of virtual community (S&M, or simply one particular dating site).  This member's object of desire, then, might be to participate in the community itself, or follow the behavior of specific members of the community. Some of these members might be: "lurkers," those who participate passively. In what might be considered "cyber-voyeurism," they might watch the exchanges of other people, and never make their presence known.  Voyeurism is easily enabled by technology and culminates in anonymous servers posting to anonymous websites where anything goes.

Repercussions of Cyber-affairs: esearch is needed to describe various types of behaviors that can be expected by psychologists when treating individuals who struggle with disorders related to the Internet, (Young, 1997, 1998a, 1998b, 1999), psychologists need to concern themselves with understanding and developing treatment strategies for patients whose cyber-infidelities lead to unexpected strife in relationship.  Early sex theorists are already speculating on these issues, some of which are described below.

Damage to the Self.  Several early theorists are observing that, just as with offline affairs individual’s who’s integrity of the individual and values are in tack are also at risk to cyber-affairs.  How does someone live with oneself when accepting a carefully prepared meal with one hand, while hiding a steamy, graphic description of sexual fantasy fulfilled by a few clicks of the mouse on the other hand?  While some people may not experience guilt over such inconsistency in behavior, many will.  They may not understand it, but it may damage their intimacy the next time they try to feel connected to their spouse or partner.  It will definitely affect family relationships and may weigh on them, costing them valuable emotional energy, which could otherwise be available for deepening a face-to-face relationship that has grown stale.  Affairs of any type are a betrayal of the self.  Internet infidelity might indicate that an individual is developed enough emotionally to find a partner but not developed enough to be openly, compassionately oneself in relationship with that partner" (Shaw, 1997, p. 30-31).

Deception.  Deception is generally recognized as one of the most destructive of all elements of infidelity.  When discussing deception in cyber-affairs, the Vaughans (1996) conclude, "In fact, most people whose partners have a sexual affair find that they recover from the fact that their partner had sex with someone else before they recover from the fact that they were deceived".  Deception also takes the form of secret alliances with other family members, friends or acquaintances, withholding or confusing information given or leaked to the individual’s spouse.

Lies of omission related to an affair are violations of monogamy.  The difficulty with deception related to any type of affair is that it typically creates emotional distance and ultimately severs trust, the cornerstone of all agreements.  "This is not the same as reading Playboy," said Sherry Turkle as quoted in Time by Toufexis,  "There really is another person there, and that person can touch you and move you in various ways, emotionally and sexually" (1996, p. 53).

Proximity as Heightened Betrayal.  One characteristic of these types relationships heightening a partner's sense of betrayal is that access to another love interest can literally occur from one's own living room, den, or even family room - without the knowledge of partner whose trust is being violated.  Some people not only report outrage that infidelity was happening right in their own homes, under their very noses, but that they were naïve enough to be bringing meals, refreshments, or other services to the offending partner at the computer.

While such behavior is often experienced by the faithful partner as a new peak of betrayal, arrogance and callousness, the proximity of access to an online lover is often reported as heightening arousal in those who are having the affair.  The ease with which naughty behaviors can happen in one's home or office may add intrigue and excitement for some people who pursue these activities, but may heighten the sense of mistrust once the betrayal has been revealed to the faithful partner.