What Is Cybersex and How Is It a Form of Sex Addiction
The most common definition of cybersex is a virtual sexual encounter in between two or more individuals utilizing the Internet. It can involve people viewing each other over a webcam or communicating by way of text based messages, immediate messaging, webcam, voice, Skype, either in a chat room, on a message board, utilizing a video service, through instant messaging or via an e-mail method.
Some have expanded the term to include online pornography, but for us, the definition given above will be our frame of reference. Since the people involved are frequently miles or even continents apart, of course no actual sex happens and what occurs is technically regarded as masturbation.
There is nothing inherently incorrect with cybersex itself, and can be a way for long-distance couples to connect on a more intimate level than previous technology would allow. But it rises to the level of sex addiction when a individual is doing it compulsively, utilizing it to suppress negative emotions and perhaps replace them with false feelings of intimacy and love. A healthy adult can cut back on online sexual behavior if it threatens relationships, causes them issues or takes over big portions of their life. A individual suffering from an addiction may use the Internet to fill his or her requirements and can't reign in the behavior.
People, either with an addiction or with out, exhibit all manner of sexual preferences and needs. A individual with sex addiction looking for physical gratification may be content to masturbate to online pornography, and one seeking physical contact along with that gratification might go to prostitutes or visit a quantity of consensual partners.
In terms of the level of intimacy and social interaction needed, cybersex is 1 step above masturbating to pornography and 1 below visiting a prostitute. Even inside the behavior itself are a variety of intimacy levels. A chat space that uses only text is the least intimate of a person's online choices. The sex addict knows there is a real individual on the other keyboard interacting with them in real time, but they may not know every others' names, physical appearance, gender or something else except for what they create on a screen. A certain level of detachment is preserved, and there is room for fantasy still. A chat room or text message board is generally where a cybersex-based sex addiction will start.
In the chat space, pictures may be exchanged between the parties and can then segue into the use of voice chats, phone sex and or webcams. This does not mean the individuals involved have kept the same partners throughout the transition. Cybersex has the added lure of providing numerous sex partners with whom the addict can have casual, sexual encounters to fuel his fantasies.
A much more problematic aspect of this particular addiction is the heightened level of intimacy it provides for an addict, some thing beyond traditional pornography viewing. With sex addiction, rational thought can be overridden by the want to fill the require, which in these cases can be something beyond physical sex. Maybe two people engage in behavior with each other much more frequently than they do other people.
