by Nashid Shabazz

Created on: May 19, 2008

Cybersex and Cheating: Analysis Outside Nominal Implications

Online chat rooms and game portals have evolved into hook-up arenas for the masses. Flirting and sexual content on the internet has become the norm. This preponderance has become known to many as cybersex. Is this new form of internet-based chat cheating? Cybersex as cheating should not be widely accepted because it applies only on a one-relationship basis.

Determining what leads to cybersex is the crucial factor in deciding its effects on a relationship. Cybersex for some can result from lack of sexual satisfaction or need for exploration. Or it can simply root from unspoken difficulties in a relationship.

As a person's computer use increases, along with the amount of cybersex hours, an addiction to the chat-based intercourse can occur. But is this addiction no different than being addicted to drugs, videogames, porn, or even masturbation?

Most people would contend that flirting is not cheating. If smiling or waving hello was a form of cheating, certainly everyone would be guilty of it. Why do people flirt, or in this case, type endlessly away in a flirtatious manner? Well, most people do it for attention.

Getting attention on the internet takes on different methods like using MySpace or "cybersex". But before the term cybersex was even created, what did we call this type of text-based chatting? Young children would call it "playing on the internet"; adolescents would say it was "having fun chatting"; and adults would say they were "joking around".

Cybersex, as the name suggests, is an intimate action in the private business of the user. Most importantly, whether cybersex is cheating or not, a person's privacy should never be violated by the partner or whoever else.

Everyone has secrets no matter how honest they are. Relationships are built on trust rather than revealing all one's secrets. Some secrets a partner would rather not know anyway. Couples trust each other not to go too far with flirtatious cybersex amongst other things. The reason for this thinking is to not control each other but to trust one another. People do make mistakes.

Cybersex in this relationship idealism is deemed as virtual reality. In the sense of the internet being a virtual world, no partner can actually cheat no matter how many virtual encounters they have. One thing is for sure. An excessive amount of encounters with someone on the internet other than your partner is an addiction, but it is not actually sex. The intentions of the user were never to have "sex" but to chat with someone intimately. So, there were never actually any intentions of cheating by the acting partner.

Cybersex is a term too loosely defined to be deemed as cheating. If one person does fall into an addiction with cybersex, how that affects a relationship only applies to that couple. Simply, cybersex is just someone dreaming or fantasizing on the internet...nothing more. Plus, how can someone cheat when they are the only one in the room?

References:

Zinsmeister, K. (1996), "Divorce's Toll on Children." In S. Hockenberry & J. Portz (Eds.), Human Ecosystems and Technological Change 4th Edition (pg. 23). United States: P.A. Hutchinson Company

Fisher, B. L. (2000), "Children at Risk for Adverse Reactions Should Be Given a Pass Without Penalty." In S. Hockenberry & J. Portz (Eds.), Human Ecosystems and Technological Change 4th Edition (pg. 65). United States: P.A. Hutchinson Company

Learn more about this author, Nashid Shabazz.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.