Cyberporn addiction is a "dirty little secret" that "can shatter our carefully preserved self-image and make us question our morals or our self-esteem."

by ANONYMOUS

NOBODY TALKS about it, and nobody owns up to doing it, except with very close friends. It's the dirty little secret addiction that can shatter our carefully preserved self-image and make us question our morals or our self-esteem. Call me coward, but that's one reason why this piece is anonymous. I can be male or female, gay, straight, or bisexual, a young horny teenager or a dirty old dominatrix nearing her 50s. Or I can be just a bored executive of either sex who just wants a kick to spice up what had been a very dry evening.

That's the beauty of the Net — and its danger. You can literally create a new identity in the span of a few hours, play a diva or a hunk, connect with someone whose need fits yours, and after the encounter, vanish, never to be seen again.

Of course, some people take it to the next level and actually go on camera, relinquish their nondescript nicks, and disclose who they are and what they are to the chat pal at the other side of the planet (or so their partner claims). Sometimes, they find another chance at romance; marriages between people from two different worlds after a long online relationship are not uncommon. At the opposite end of the spectrum, meanwhile, are those who remain as virtual f--k buddies, or worse, choose to prostitute themselves and bare their bodies on camera in return for a few dollars, a DVD player, cosmetics, or designer clothes.

The anonymity of the Net and its capacity to allow you to reinvent yourself for a brief period of time can open long concealed crevices in your soul and unleash emotional and sexual needs you somehow can't reveal to your spouse or closest friend. How else can you explain lonely, obese, grey-haired 50-something matrons with sagging skin and round bellies developing chat sessions with men thousands of miles away? That these ladies who are well past their prime and are definitely not sweet young things can still attract male companionship can boggle the mind. Unless, as a friend who stumbled into one open email account in a cyber café discovered, said male companion is also well past his prime, is also bald and stout, and probably can't find the nerve to introduce himself to someone more attractive.

Yes, it can be pathetic, scandalous, and downright obscene. But it's also human.

Just as it's human to indulge in sexual appetites and tastes that you wouldn't have the opportunity to do so anywhere else. Here's the thing: Respectable men and women who would rather be dead than be caught with a copy of Playboy or Playgirl find it more comfortable to explore their desires on the Net. To some, it's just practice. Not many of us can tell our real-life partners what we like or don't like in the act of sexual intercourse. Imagination during cybersex can give you an idea that you can test in reality (tweaking the nipple is erotic, kissing my collarbone does not turn me on).

My own journey into cyber erotica started six months after I got hooked on the Net. As I keep repeating (to myself as a means of justification), I am human. There are times when I just want to unwind, get off, and indulge my more animal instincts — and either a dirty magazine in the privacy of my bedroom simply won't suffice or actual real-life companionship is unavailable. Surfing porn sites and chatting are, to use the phrase of one chat pal, "the safest sex there is." And a couple of hours indulging in stuff that will shock dear old Dad or Mom or whipping out your fantasies (pun intended) with a stranger at the other end of the modem in a no-strings-attached agreement can relieve you of your tension with no harm done to all involved.

Supposedly. Ideally.

SOME USE the Net to explore their boundaries and live out more esoteric fantasies. It can be amazing what you can reveal and find out in chatting with other cybersex addicts. There are heterosexual guys who prefer to watch two lesbian ladies "make out" in a chat room, just as there are heterosexual females who get a kick in downloading gay porn. I know of at least one straight lady who dissolves her stress by reading threesome erotica (that's either male-male-female or female-female-male).

Then there's an entirely different world where "masters" or "mistresses" treat their "submissives," a.k.a. "subs," as personal playthings they can enjoy in any manner they please (in a virtual way, but which can lead to a real-life meeting). Collars, whips, nipple clamps, and butt plugs are as ordinary in the Dungeon Universe as a kitchen knife or a calculator is in ours. The source of the hormonal rush isn't the pain but the virtual surrender of one's being to an "owner" who can love and hurt you at the same time.

Online role-playing games reach a whole new level as chat-partners knowingly adopt different identities to enact out-of-this-world sexual scenarios. The age-old romance of Tarzan making wild monkey love to Jane is passé; what a subgroup of slash-fiction writers has made hotter are Superman and Batman getting it on while flying over the skies of Metropolis.

What can I say? Different strokes for different folks.

Personally, I do draw the line at certain things: pedophilia, incest, bestiality. Yes, if you search long enough, you can find them, along with the folks who get a high on them. But that's one deep dark crevice that I'd rather not jump into.

Because though some cyberporn players are sane enough to distinguish that thin but very important line between fantasy and reality, or the virtual world and the terra firma we live and breathe in, there are a few crackpots who cross that boundary and can wreak havoc on your clean, normal, life. It can even be scarier when said crackpot has the technological means to trace your location, hack your PC, and retrieve your files. That opens a very dangerous door through which they can trace your real-life identity.

A friend of mine swore off MIRC (that's one network with about a dozen channels, each with a hundred more chat rooms) when a seemingly nice but domineering guy from London (at least that's what he said) refused to accept her "I'm not interested" answer. Over chat, he specifically told her he knew she was in the Philippines (she had lied previously and told him she was in Thailand). He then cited to her some specs about her PC that she herself didn't know. A few seconds later, her anti-virus device screamed that SOMETHING was bulldozing her systems and attempting to get into her files.

My panicked friend did the right thing and rebooted. Her IT buddy assured her that her immediate action probably threw the hacker off her trail. He did recommend, though, that she change her IP address. (You have to ask your own IT expert what that means.)

That was one heck of a reality check. It's something I've resolved within myself years ago the minute I realized that the Internet was touching a side of me that I didn't know existed. I also make it a point to remind myself that psychos park right beside simple players in the cyberzone. As occasionally intoxicating, diverting as this skies-the-limit imaginary world is, it's just a momentary diversion to recharge and rejuvenate me for the next hard bout of real life.

I keep the worlds separate. I don't blur the lines. That's how I survive.