In the virtual world of Internet people appear to fall in love sooner. Why is that? Why is there so much flirting in chat rooms? Does it have anything to do with the relative anonymity and playing with identities? What
are the particular characteristics of netlove? What is the distinction between netlove and local love? Who fall in love on the net? What are the possibilities and restrictions of
netlove? 

Cruising for love is the most popular
motivation for chatroom forays. Netlove (love on the Internet) is accompanied by a number of problems and presents a whole different set of questions. Does online flirting count as cheating on your local partner? How erotic can a cyber-romance be? Should you have
cybersex on the first date? What may be the local consequences of a love affair at distance? 

You cannot touch each other on the Internet. How is it possible then to build up an intimate relationship? Isn't physical contact a basic element of human intimacy? Can we have
telesex with someone who's body stays on opposite side of the planet? 

Studying the romantic and erotic sides of virtual relations we have to look at the borders of these phenomena, and beyond. We certainly should cannot ignore the darker aspects of cybersex. Where does indecency end and obscenity begin? Where does
eroticism end and pornography begin? And last but not least: what are sex crimes on the Internet and how can they be contended? 
 

       The New Way to Date and Indulge

                    By Gretchen Malik
 
 

                         services and the need to be
                         loved by someone, online
                         "dating" has become the way to
                         go in our "real" society. Of all
                         the ways that cyberspace has
                         changed our lives, the most
                         exciting is the creation of new
                         means to interact with people.
                         Falling in love with the
                         mysterious person producing
                         the responses to your text
                         need no longer mean meeting
                         a lonely, single nerd, but
                         possibly a beautiful woman or
                         gorgeous man.

                            The cybersex phenomenon,
                         which is changing the modern
                         dating scene, is causing empty
                         singles bars to echo with
                         leftover sounds of "what used
                         to be" and modems to burn
                         with hot conversation. Online
                         dating brings a level of comfort
                         with flattery, flirting,
                         "emoticons" (smiley faces) and
                         LOL (laugh out loud) adding
                         sizzle to the online chats. Even
                         e-mail that is sent or received
                         has begun to take on new
                         meanings.

                             Most people seeking out
                         others on the Internet do so
                         for the pleasurable experience
                         of just meeting someone to
                         chat with. They feel a need to
                         fill a void in their lives with
                         friendship. But for others -- the
                         married but unfulfilled, sexual
                         deviates, virgins, etc. -- what is
                         lacking is sex. They search out
                         the many chat rooms (places
                         on the Internet to meet
                         faceless people) in order to
                         flirt, meet, and have cybersex.
                         This search, for some, can turn
                         with a keystroke into what
                         feels like a love affair. But
                         reality overtakes fantasy, and
                         the hopes of falling
                         head-over-heels are dashed
                         with the click of the off-switch.

                             A fantasy can also take over
                         real cybersex (having sex with
                         a faceless person on the
                         Internet). Some meetings in
                         chat rooms go immediately
                         from flirting to sex.
                         Conversations go further down
                         the flirtatious road with
                         pre-sexual word play. 

                             The fruits of temptation are
                         bountiful in cyberspace. Many
                         people feel that since there is
                         no physical contact, actual
                         adultery is impossible. Or is it?
                         If a spouse, lover or significant
                         other creates a secret time to
                         meet their cybersex partner, or
                         lies about what they are doing
                         or saying on the net, isn't this a
                         form of adultery? Or shall we
                         call it cyberadultery? For a
                         woman in Philadelphia, this
                         "cyberadultery" made her lose
                         custody of her child when she
                         was going through a divorce.
                         Her husband was able to
                         successfully use her meetings
                         on the Internet against her as
                         evidence of adulterous affairs. 

                             What about people who
                         don't fit the above category, or
                         do, but have a need for sexual
                         fulfillment beyond the chat
                         room? The Internet has
                         abundant offerings. A search of
                         the World Wide Web, accessed
                         through America Online, offers
                         40,810 sex-related listings.
                         There are a number of World
                         Wide Web sites that index
                         pages on the Web: Excite had
                         783 sex-related sites; Yahoo,
                         97; Magellan, 45,121;
                         Infoseek, 74; Hot Bot, 2,143;
                         and the Alta Vista, 90,000.
                         Interested parties can receive
                         pictures of whatever they
                         desire, and, yes, some offer
                         animal sex and child pics.
                         Phone sex is available. Sites
                         also offer the opportunity to
                         purchase sex toys, see live sex
                         acts, view naked men and
                         women, and buy books. 

                             Don't fear -- a Safer Sex
                         Page with tips on safe sex is
                         available, too, and legal
                         information is provided for
                         those who care to know what
                         their lawmaker thinks. The
                         majority of sex sites viewed do
                         state that their sites are locked
                         up to keep anyone under the
                         age of eighteen from viewing --
                         but, of course, children may
                         have access to their parent's
                         credit card. Charges can range
                         from $19.95 per hour of
                         viewing to $9.95 per picture.
                         The use of Parental Blocks can
                         come in handy in these cases. 

                             As with every story, there
                         are two sides. The personality
                         you project in the chat room
                         while harmlessly flirting could
                         help you meet someone who
                         has been catching your eye in
                         the real world. A few chatters
                         (chat room attendees) have
                         indeed found true love or real
                         friends, but other people
                         should take heed. 

                             Here are a few do's and
                         dont's which I accessed off the
                         Internet: l) Remember that the
                         people you meet and pick up
                         are strangers. 2) Guard
                         personal information. 3) Don't
                         believe every word you read.
                         That "she" can actually be a
                         "he", and vice versa. 4) Report
                         any lewd or obscene e-mail
                         you receive to your online
                         server. And, most importantly,
                         5) Never arrange to meet your
                         online sex partner in person. (If
                         you feel you must, do so in a
                         very public place and never
                           alone.)

                             In closing, if you own a
                         computer and modem and
                         wish to explore, do so, but use
                         good judgment. 

In recounting her experiences with a collector of
pornography who paid a dollar per page, Anaïs Nin recalls how the munificent smut prince would offer terse telephone critiques. "Less poetry. Be specific,'' he would bark. Her agent remarked that "He likes it better when it is a narrative, just storytelling, no analysis, no philosophy" (ix). "Leave out . . . descriptions of anything
but sex" (ix). "More matter with less art," a pandering Gertrude exhorted a too expansive Polonius. If sex is matter, then what is art? If sex is narrative, what are analysis, philosophy, poetry? If, as Robert Scholes declares, "the archetype of all fiction is the sexual act" (26), what expressive forms do sexualities take? 1 

The interrelation of sex, sexualities, and narrative has been at issue ever since Sigmund Freud divined that "normal" sexuality occurs when a "normal" sexual aim (coitus) corresponds with a "normal" heterosexual, human object. Freud's discussion of sexuality in Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality situates sex and sexuality as elements in an extended developmental trajectory remarkably analogous to contemporary
understandings of narrative. "Perversions" threaten to derail the story, introducing inappropriate aims in relation to inappropriate objects just as Vladimir Propp's "interdictions" and "testers," Peter [End Page 429] Brooks's "bad object choices," or Teresa de Lauretis's liminal "monsters" supply barriers, attractive but deadly alternatives, or circuitous routes to less
"satisfying" narrative ends. 

The omnipresence of the perverse endangers good
narrative, providing so many delightful attractions and distractions on the way to narrative completion. It is not, however, that the perverse is decoration to narrative's direction. The perverse is an intrinsic part of narrative; as Freud points out, the perverse and the normal are intricated, the perverse being necessary to get us to the proper end. Without the perverse--without activity that has something inappropriate as its immediate aim or object--we would never get to the correct and satisfying end where all the parts come together in a reassuring productivity. Without the perverse- -without the art, poetry, storytelling, analysis,
and philosophy--narrative would be unbelievably fleeting and terrifyingly direct like the no frills pornography Nin's collector special orders. Together the perverse and the "normal" produce a narrative of joinder and production ending in marriage, a child, victory, death, or even--and especially--another narrative. "The narrative," Tzvetan Todorov reminds us, "will always be
the story of another narrative" (164). 

It might be fair to say that sex is narrative and narrative sex and sexuality the art of both. But art, Todorov asserts, "is not the reproduction of a 'reality'" (168). Sexuality is neither the ornament nor the condition of sex, but its alibi, something of a different order, belonging to the imaginary and representation instead of to the physical and the real, if we even understand sex to be either physical or real. But sexuality is not
representation in relation to some real of sex; sexuality trades through and around the "normative" aim/object as sex is transformed by and transforms narrative. Sexuality, then, is the companion to sex, conditioning, elaborating, side-tracking, even denying the narrative
impetus of sex and the sexual impetus of narrative. 

The example of Nin's porn collector raises a spate of questions. Can one narrate sex without also narrating a sexuality? Is it possible to omit the poetry and produce a bare narrative of sex, which if Scholes is right, would already be doubly sexual--the sexual story of sex? If sex is both narrative's content and its pattern, then doesn't sex automatically become sexuality--sex's art--the moment one attempts to represent sex? What transpositions and transliterations, implications and [End Page 430] connotations are necessary to denote sex/sexuality? What permutations of aim and object, form and content, form's content, and content's form can convey multiple, varying, "normative," "perverse," interstitial, and/or asexual sexualities? Is it possible to narrate one kind of sex in the form of another? And how strong is the ideological/formal normative current against which the expression of sexualities other than the "normal" must battle? 

Freud's narrative exposition of the interrelation of
perversities and normative sex provides a model for the narrative cooperation of sexualities in the narrative of sex where multiple sexualities contribute to the story. Freud's discussion, however, is not a representation of sex per se, but a narrative about the relative valences and relations of sex and sexualities--a sexual metanarrative. By differentiating between sexual aims and objects, Freud's excursus permits us to discern a difference between sex and sexuality as the objects of representation--sexuality as content--and sex and sexuality as conveyed through, enacted, or intimated by forms and contents (or the relation of forms and contents) that at best only indirectly reference sex per se--sexuality as performative. This means that one can narrate sex and/or sexuality; one can narrate sexily, or both. The sexy narration of a narrative of sex occurs not only, as Freud believes, in normative heterosexuality, but also in the overtly sexualized expression of sexualities in some erotic films: Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita, Erica Jong's Fear of Flying, Jean Genet's The Miracle of the Rose, Nicole Brossard's Picture Theory, Roland Barthes's Incidents, or Jeannette Winterson's Written on the Body. 

Although sex has long been the topic of narrative, the impetus for such conventions as Ovid's tales and de Sade's lessons, and has suffered everything from censorship to imprisonment to lucrative popularity, only more recently have the relations between sexuality and narrative been interrogated critically. A varied spectrum of 70s and 80s feminist critics including Teresa de Lauretis, Judith Fetterley, Annette Kolodny, Shoshana
Felman, and Barbara Johnson have questioned the social, ideological, and aesthetic effects of narrative's masculinist and patriarchal impetus. If, as diverse critics demonstrate, narrative has an inherent gender bias, then it might also have an inherent sexual bias, one already identified by Freud and Scholes and one, that like narrative's oedipality, shifts, twists, and coerces material from and into certain "normative" narratives instead of other less imaginable stories. [End Page 431] Following and expanding feminist models, lesbian and gay critics from Jane Rule to Eve Sedgwick, from Joseph Boone to Elaine Marks, from Catherine Stimpson to D. A. Miller have focused on the repressions and expressions of lesbian and gay sexualities in literature. 

The value of recognizing narrative's inherent ideologies and formal biases is both political and aesthetic. Like unearthing its gender valences, identifying the heterosexed tendencies of narrative enables the recognition of cultural ideologies about sexuality, criticism of narratives' sexual presumptions, exploration of narrative alternatives and alternative narratives, and experimentation with narrative itself. In light of feminist narrative analyses, the project of interrogating the relation between sexuality and narrative promises a similar, but perhaps even more complex reconsideration of narrative's functions, cultural work, and our aesthetic predilections. Insofar as narratives are bound up with dominant ideologies, perpetuating and reinforcing stereotypes, normative behaviors, and capitalist values, then grasping narrative's operation and finding ways to alter its implications become political projects. In as much as one recognizes the dilatory presumptions of exhausted convention, discerning the relations between narrative and sexuality enables the recognition of previously underrated practices and licenses alternative aesthetics, including an aesthetics of connotation, indirection, implication, and Barthesian "bliss" that inform an entirely different way of reading. 

Although indebted and related to gender studies, studies in sexuality rely on gender only insofar as our definitions of specific sexualities depend upon gendered positions. Gender paradigms are different from but associated with the sexual, the sexual introducing sometimes less binary, often more dynamic multiply-termed models that incorporate, question, and transform the necessary heterosexual premises of a dualized gender system. Many of the papers submitted for this issue focused on gender rather than sexuality; the confusion between gender and sexuality is the product of both cultural deflection (sexuality is reduced to a matter of gender) and the sometimes stereotyped presumption of their intellectual covalence (the stuff of gender is the stuff of sexuality). 

There is also a careless presumption that sexuality means only homosexualities just as race is mistakenly understood to refer only to blackness. While we might question, as Foucault does in The History of [End Page 432] Sexuality, the historical and ideological uses of the category of sexuality, sexuality does not refer only to the nondominant. Rather, sexuality, like race and gender, comprises a system whose interrelation of dominant and nondominant sexualities and their permutations is neither pure nor self-contained, but drawn among and dependent upon the other epistemological categories--race, class, gender, ethnicity--of human identity and relations. To study sexuality as only homosexualities or as an isolated category is to miss the more complex interlocutions of sexuality's deployment in modern culture. 

The essays in this special double-issue of Modern Fiction Studies all explore some aspect of the relation between narrative and sexuality: they undertake discussions of sex as the overt or covert subject of narrative, sexuality as narrative's implication, the relation between sexuality and narratives of commodity culture, the meaning of sexuality's absence, the dangers of over-reading sexuality, and critical biases based on misplaced sexual presumptions. They interrogate what narrative tells us about sexuality and what the attempted expression of sexualities reveals about narrative. 

The issue is divided into two sections: "Narratives of Sexuality" and "The Sexuality of Narrative." No essay focuses exclusively on either sexuality as content or as narrative praxis, but those in the first section emphasize what narratives about sexuality tend to reveal, displace, struggle with, or omit. Taking as their subject matter the work of David Leavitt, Roman Polanski's Bitter Moon, Leslie Feinberg's Stone Butch Blues, Samuel Beckett's All Strange Away, and Sylvia Townsend Warner's Summer Will Show, the essays demonstrate a range of theoretical matrices (from psychoanalysis to Marxism), critical practices, and issues of criticism itself. They consider questions of male homosexuality, transgenderment, lesbian sexuality, heterosexuality, and sexuality in relation to sexual difference. 

The essays of the second section focus more on the symptoms and cultural effects of narrative's sexual cast from "lesbian panic" to the "queering of Henry James." Considering a diverse range of texts--Melrose Place, The Little Girls, Philadelphia, commodity culture, "The Pupil," The Last Boy Scout--these essays illustrate and analyze what happens if the relations between normative sexuality and normative structures are challenged in literature and in culture. The issue ends with a review of James Miller's The Passion of Michel Foucault, which, like the [End Page 433] other essays, questions narrative's heteronormative presumptions and critical
practices that assume too much about sexuality or its various manifestations. 

Judith Roof teaches English at Indiana University,
Bloomington. She is the author of A Lure of Knowledge and co-editor (with Robyn Wiegman) of Who Can Speak? Authority and Critical Identity. Two new books, Come As You Are: Sexuality and Narrative and Reproductions of Reproduction: Imaging Symbolic Change, are forthcoming. 

When Mother Jones stepped out onto the electronic superhighway, so did a few cyberpigs.
 
 

Using the handle MaryHJones, MoJo recently logged on to a "live chat"
session to check out the on-line action. She told her newfound friends
that she did union work and was fairly new on the "net." "Are you
married?" asked Jim. "How tall are you and what color hair do you
have?" And later, "When was the last time you really enjoyed sex? Was
it gooooooooddd? " 

Though the "information superhighway" has been heralded as a great
equalizer, where race, class, gender, sexual preference, and physical
appearance make no difference, many women are finding otherwise.
Females who surf the Internet's vast, male-dominated network of
computer databases or join in public discussions are often subjected
to sexism and harassment--occurring most frequently in live chat and
via "talk" requests where people can send private messages to anyone
on-line at the same time. 

Things can turn ugly. After apparently offending someone in an
Internet newsgroup discussion, Stephanie Brail received an untraceable
e-mail "bomb" containing hundreds of sexual and violent messages--the
mildest of which was "Shut up, bitch." Brail is calling for action.
"It's against the law to harass people on the phone, in person, or in
the mail," she says. "Personally threatening e-mail messages should be
against the law." 

Other women have reported similar incidents; some refused to identify
themselves for fear of on-line retaliation. Though laws pertaining to
phone threats likely extend to e-mail, they remain untested. But
Howard Rheingold, author of "The Virtual Community," believes the
problem will diminish with time. "It will be regarded as uncool. There
are people who do uncool things, [but] that's not the medium, that's a
larger social issue." 

Meanwhile, several on-line groups have taken matters into their own
hands. Women's Wire penalizes repeat offenders by suspending their
accounts. MIT-based Cyberion City (a "bar" of sorts in cyberspace)
warns customers that "unwanted advances of a hostile or forward nature
are unacceptable. If you think someone [wants] a closer personal
relationship, make absolutely sure before saying or doing anything
that would be considered inappropriate in real life." 

Will the promise of cyberspace fall to a few sexist cyberpigs? The
only way to change the present course, as nearly everyone in
cyberspace agrees, is to get more women on-line. In the meantime, it's
a sty out there. 
 
 

Things are between them
by the score,
they haven't a clue
as to what's in store.

They vow a love
of the truest form,
blindly driven,
out of the norm.

The thing about love,
and how it's true,
is that it sticks around,
what ever you do.

So yes, love grows
in cyberspace,
without ever seeing 
a loved ones face.

Although we stand on  separate shores,

So many miles apart...

I see my lover in my mind,

And feel him in my heart...

And as we sit behind our screens,

Chatting with each other...

We leave this realm behind us,

Our souls drifting to another...

To a world of expressive dreams,

And interactive fantasy....

Where time and space no longer exists,

To keep my lover from me...

As we chat our spirits drift,

Dancing with each other...

Floating on the words we type,

And our passion for each other...

Each typed response evoking emotion,

Like none we have ever known...

Cyber love, so deep and passionate,

Like none I have ever known...

I look deep into your eyes,

And see my soul reflected back at me...

And I touch the screen and wonder,

Was it a dream or reality?...

       -Poem by Elizabeth A. Hargis

 Can you think of anyone who will look you over as closely as a date on
 your first time out? Maybe your doctor, but you don't want to impress
 him--just get him to warm his stethoscope. But a date will be looking you
 over just as intently and far less objectively--especially if it's your first
 meeting. That's scary, but it's not necessarily bad. 

 After all, you're putting him under the magnifying glass too, aren't you?
 You both want everything to go well and you're both looking very hard for
 all the good things, hoping to discover that you've just met somebody
 special. The only trouble is that when you look that closely you can't help
 seeing the bad things, too. Especially it's something easy to notice. Like a
 poor make-up job. 

 If there's one thing you can count on it's that your date will be paying
 meticulous attention to your face. The way he sees you on your first date
 will be forever ingrained into his mind. He'll be watching every
 expression, every smile, every twinkle in your eye, every glow on your
 cheeks. In short, he'll be paying very close attention to every place you've
 applied cosmetics. And while he might not know any more about make-up
 than he knows about the techniques of 3rd century Peruvian stone carving,
 he'll notice the effects of bad make-up just like he'd notice the effects of a
 3rd century carved Peruvian stone dropped on his foot. 

 First impressions are important. They exert an emotional force that has
 little to do with logic. Any man worth impressing knows perfectly well
 that there's much more to you than your eye shadow and mascara. But the
 deeper you takes time to discover while the way you make yourself look
 has an immediate impact. You could have the brain of Einstein and the
 heart of Mother Theresa, but if your make-up reminds him of The Living
 Dead, his gut instinct will be that you got them by ripping them from their
 bodies with your bare hands. 

 So if you're meeting a possible somebody special for the first time, be
 cautious. Either be certain that you're wearing make-up properly or don't
 wear it at all. Believe it or not, it is not a crime to go on a date make-up
 free. Make-up should be worn only when you know you can use it to bring
 out your best. The first principle of the medical profession applies to
 cosmetic use as well: First, do no harm. Wearing no make-up is vastly
 preferable to wearing poor make-up. 

 Let me explain just a few of the problems I'm talking about: 

 * Clumpy mascara and stuck together lashes are a no-no and a real turn off
 during a candlelight dinner. 

 * Tacky or glossy lips can make your mouth look like medicine, giving you
 a sickly appearance. What's less kissable than Pepto Bismal? 

 * Too light of a foundation can give you an anemic look that drains the life
 from your face, and from your date's enthusiasm. 

 * Too much make-up can look classless, sleazy, or just messy. "Pretty as a
 picture" doesn't mean looking as if Leonardo DaVinci had painted the
 Mona Lisa over your face. 

 Does it sound like I'm making a lot out of small things? Maybe. But try this
 little thought experiment to see how a small detail can change your
 attitude. Picture a fantasy guy of your dreams. You've had a great dinner, a
 great conversation, a great time. He's everything you hoped he'd be and
 now he's leaning over to kiss you... 

 And that's when you suddenly see an eight-legged crawly thing scampering
 across his lips. Do you want to kiss him now? 

 Make-up disasters can have similar effects on certain impressionable men.
 You know that something is wrong if your date exhibits one of these mental
 and physical male disorders cataloged by the Center for the Study of
 Cosmological Trauma: 

 1. Acute Maxofacial Catatonia: His mouth and eyes go wide, his speech
 becomes incomprehensible and then stops altogether. It might look like
 he's in awe of you but if you check his pulse you'll find it faint instead of
 pounding. Also, an awestruck male will follow you like a puppy. A male
 with this form of shock is more like a zombie. 

 2. Optical Aversion Syndrome: He loses control of his eyes so that they
 wander everywhere but to your face. Or he may seem fascinated by the
 doorknob behind your shoulder. Women whose dates exhibit this behavior
 have often been approached by movie casting directors wondering of they
 were interested in auditioning for the starring role in a remake of The
 Bride of Frankenstein, or the female lead in a new live-action adaptation
 of The Smurfs. 

 3. Paranoid Sunlightophobia: He becomes nervous and fidgety, turns up
 his collar and dons dark sunglasses. He insists on walking in shadows and
 dining in the darkest corner of the restaurant. One give-away phrase is the
 common question, "There's nobody we know here, right?" 

 4. Montezuma's Renege: He makes an urgent trip to the bathroom at 7:05
 and is still missing at 10:30. Those who suffer this affliction may also
 exhibit a form of absentmindedness leading them to leave their telephones
 off the hook for many days to follow. 

 5. Alternate Personality Amnesia: He claims to have never heard of the
 guy you're supposed to meet even though he looks exactly like him--right
 down to the giraffe-shaped birthmark above his left elbow. He may also
 exhibit signs of being rushed, explaining that he just has time to get to the
 airport and catch his flight to Kafiristan. 

 Fortunately, all of these reactions are avoidable. All it takes is a little care
 in selecting make-up and practice in applying it to create the look that
 gives the real you a chance to make a great impression. Because it's how
 the real you gets along with the real him that will lead to 2nd, 3rd, and
 more dates to come. I'll be sharing that information with you in upcoming
 articles. 

 In the meanwhile, if the first glance causes him to exhibit signs of shock,
 wash off the make-up. It's perfectly okay, honest. And it's sure better than
 washing off the date. 

 ===== 

 Barbara Lagese is a leading expert in make-up and skin care. She's
 consultant to some of the world's most beautiful women, a syndicated
 magazine columnist and a frequent guest on a variety of national
 television and radio talk shows. A renowned cosmetic chemist, she's
 the founder and president of Santa Barbara Cosmetics, Inc., which
 produces products for the special make-up needs of models, beauty
 pageant contestants and other celebrities. Reach her or find product
 information by writing Santa Barbara Cosmetics, 350 5th Ave. Suite
 3304, NY. NY 10118-0069, by calling 1-800-636-3996, or visiting her
 website www.santab.com