Automated cybersex is not cybersex, it's toon porn

Interesting post with intelligent discussion thread from Heroine Sheik last week:

Cybersex is an art. To do it well requires a sensitive grasp of language, an earnest attention to detail, and a good ear for rhythm. Perhaps in real life we can simply lie back and enjoy the show. But online, without the responses of our physical flesh to keep us interested, we must remain constantly active and involved in order to create pleasure.

After all, cybersex, like its real-life equivalent, is not just an end result, it’s an act. Even if real-world thrusts have become type-written lines, they have to be performed… in their entirety. The act of typing — with all of it’s ups and downs — has comes to stand in for physical. So, if the act of typing does not take place, than neither, in a sense, has sex.

Enter Xcite!, an in-world Second Life company that produces and sells, among other things, interactive genitalia.

She goes on to describe the difference between active cyber and the auto-cyber these interactive graphics provide.

The comments thread made me think, too. People talk about the different ways men and women experience sex, which is something I've touched on – that a lot of women mourn the advent of the webcam. But putting the auto-cyber in context of where you find it, Second Life, where you're already immersed in visual (not just written) representation of your activities, makes sense too.

That reminds me that The Luddite said he was writing about cybersex for his column this week ... I better go take a look.