Sex and the single girl online

You can get lucky at any time but the connection is fantasy, not necessarily fantastic. %anuary 12, 200& Antonia 'erbisias
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.oo bad about .ackle,e / which is neither his real name, nor his cyberhandle. -ince # signed on to 0oin RedLightCenter.com, he is the only man # got naked with who didn1t seem to care, or even get, that # was reporting on the shadowy, se2y world where anything goes.

Avatars hook up on the Red Light Center site, a simulated community with 1.1 million members 20,000 o whom pay !20 a month or "#$ privileges.

.hat, despite how my leggy blonde avatar was named .oronto-tar and my pro ile clearly stated that # am a 0ournalist. 3ut he didn1t give me time to tell him be ore whisking 4-tar4 o to a hotel aerie with a stunning view o a $aci ic sunset. Let me tell you, pointing and clicking, while a computer pro2y moans, groans and cries 4*h )od54 and a cartoon version o you writhes and wriggles through mechanical se2 positions, can get very old, very ast. # can1t type one6handed, anyway. -o # 7uit the scene, leaving him, shall we say, eeling a little blue. #t was back to the 4transport room4 / think -tar-e2 8nterprise / or virtual resh lesh. 9elcome to what # came to think o as :irty 3arbie and :irtier ;en. .his is social and se2ual networking, adult entertainment and entertainment or adults, all rolled into one simulated community modelled a ter Amsterdam1s red light district. .here are clubs, bordellos and bars, diners and discos, movie theatres that show real porn, beaches and lagoons, skating rinks and actual retail areas, and, oh yeah, se2 <ones. =ere in Red Light Center, # am built like =eidi ;lum, strut about on the highest heels # can click on, party with strangers, hook up with hotties...and never leave my desk. As a "#$ member, which costs me !20 a month, # can get naked and get it on anywhere # like. 43asics4 / who 0oin or ree / can hang out, but not let it all hang out. -im sites are nothing new, o course. -econd Li e, a multi6player online game, is well6known. 3ut Red Light Center, owned by "ancouver6based 3rian -huster, >&, a ormer cartoonist, is already way ahead o -econd Li e in the Ale2a.com rankings. -o ar, it has some 1.1 million members, nearly 20,000 o them "#$s. About 10 per cent are in Canada. RLC1s success is not really surprising considering that, according to a study published by the ,assachusetts #nstitute o .echnology in 200?, nearly @0 per cent o men and A> per cent o women who play multi6user online games say their virtual riends are better than their real pals / assuming they have any. 9hat1s more, a 'ogby and @?> Communications survey ound that one in our Americans says the #nternet could stand in as a signi icant other, at least or 4some period o time.4 ,en and women are, the poll shows, e7ually in

love with the online world. 3ut, i a 2002 study published in the Journal of Sexual and Marital Therapy is anything to go by, more women than men have 4cyberse24 / as in, 4chat dirty to me4 / while about a third o men who play online play with themselves o ten or 4all the time.4 .hat1s compared with 10 per cent o women. .his could e2plain my dissatis action with .ackle,e1s tackle. Bor ;imberly Coung, director o the Center or *nline Addiction in 3rad ord, $a., that1s no surprise. 4# think men naturally are more visual and tend towards #nternet pornography more than women,4 she wrote in an email. 49hen it comes to avatars, # think both genders are acting or playing out roles. 9omen ind this more reeing because, o ten, they are brought up to be somewhat reserved about their se2uality, or perhaps have repressed se2ual eelings. .he creation o virtual characters allows them to e2periment in ways that seem sa e and non6 threatening.4 RLC, barely a year old, has been picking up members so ast that the server has repeatedly crashed, coldly booting users back into real li e. As a result, -huster has been directing, at least until new so tware is launched, new 8uropean users to a sister site in )ermany. 9hich is too bad, because the best bud # have made so ar in RLC is 4Red Alice,4 a happily married writer in :emark who is drawn by its entertainment value. 4Cou can be silly or lirty or whatever you want,4 she / assuming she is a she / private6messages me. Alice, like me, ell into the RLC beds on our irst days there. 3ut both o us 7uit that scene, inding it more un to mi2 and mingle on the street or in ,erlin1s, the virtual pub. 4#t1s more about social interaction,4 she writes, pointing out there is a real person behind every avatar. 4.he emotions in here are real. $eople have eelings toward each other. #t1s a mirror o li e.4 #ndeed, right down to the homophobia and racism. *ne guy rom Argentina complained to me about all the 47ueer people,4 while the A rican6American #nspecman, my irst RLC riend and uno icial tour guide, says he sometimes is attacked or chatting up white women. -till, says -huster, 4$eople come in and are very 7uickly able to ind their place and their riends.4 =e is at a loss to understand why, while # ind it addictive, # don1t think RLC is all that se2y. 3ut then, he1s a guy. 4# think the whole se2 thing can be very romantic, very antasy and very compelling,4 he insists. #nspecman, a married +.-. Air Borce vet, says it1s a release. 4.he se2 is sa e, you can1t get a disease, and it can be a way to relieve tensions,4 he tells me. 4# came on to make riends and have as much un as # could / and # have met people rom all over the world.4 And so have #. # 0ust wish that so many o them weren1t all over me. (o .ackle,e, you did not have me at 4 1ur hot54 # pre er a man, not a mouse.

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