Sexual Identity Online Main Page
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This concept refers to the lack of physical presence in the virtual world. Removing one’s self from the physical restraints of the body, the Internet presents an opportunity to completely rely on the mind and imagination in constructing online identity. As Westfall (2000, p. 160) states,
“ Although a body is necessary for the user to access cyberspace, the body does not enter into communication within the chat room…free of the socially, economically and historically marked body, the user is almost absolutely able to present her-or himself as possessing any identity whatever �.
Those who advocate the role of the Internet in communication, argue that this very disembodiment allows all traces of discrimination to be removed. Indeed, regular case studies demonstrate the completely different experiences people with disabilities or those from minority groups encounter in the real versus online worlds. However, with the very body which determines our real life existence removed, critics argue that experiences in the virtual world can never compare to those in real life.
From the utopian point of view of the online world, the Internet presents an opportunity to participate in a judgement and discrimination free experience, where users can feel comfortable in engaging in any form of behaviour or experience they desire. This is particularly important to those who feel their real life is restricted by physical impediments such as disability, gender, race, sexuality etc. Most commonly alteration of these identity components are used in the search for sexual gratification and experience, particularly in allowing users to experience acts that are otherwise impossible or rare in the real world.
McRae (in Porter, 1997, p. 75) states that
“While some may well find technologically facilitated eroticism to be a disembodied, alienating and ultimately meaningless experience, others, however, have discovered that it can be as involving, intense and transformative as the best kinds of embodied erotic encounters, and that furthermore, its virtuality enhances rather than detracts from the experience.�
It is points such as these that raise the notion of dis/embodiment and its importance to experience and communication.
While initial conception brought great excitement about societal boundary transcendence, the response towards virtual embodiment and virtual worlds on the Internet are now generating a greater deal of scepticism.
Concerns are being raised over the inability of some users to distinguish between real and online experience. While such users may argue that there is no difference between the two, critics concur that the lack of truth impairs the true depiction of reality and thus real experience.
An additional criticism is in particular reference to sexuality and sexual behaviours, and the belief that the Internet and MUDs can allow users to experience acts otherwise impossible or unacceptable in real life. Westfall (1997, p.160) argues that “As e-communication is anonymous and disembodied, the only presence users have in cyberspace is discursive, and thus ultimately typographical; users appear to each other simply as lines of text (or as icons generating lines of text)�.
The notion of virtual dis/embodiment and its subsequent effects on online presence and identity remains open to contention and vast arguments. As the role of the internet in communication and experience increases, it is likely that research will begin to indicate the effects the body has on the overall experience one undertakes.
Sexual Identity Online Main Page
Femke Mason 18:08, 25 Oct 2004 (EST)
