Internet Nooky
by Lisa Daily
Every week I receive lots of letters from women complaining that their boyfriends or
husbands are engaged in a little online lust-fest. Is cybersex really cheating? Does it
mean he loves me less? Is looking at porn on the Internet as bad as flirting with someone
anonymously in a chat room?
Most of the women who write to me believe that cybersex is cheating. Here's the rub:
a surprising number of men (54% in fact, according to Divorce Magazine,) believe it's not.
Sure, typing words on a keyboard is not exactly the same thing as making out with a
stranger
in a bar after too many cosmopolitans, or sleeping with a coworker on a business trip.
Unfortunately,
what women seem to understand that men frequently do not is that online relationships mean
intimacy between two real people, whether they are in the same room (or Jacuzzi) or not.
Lots of guys use Internet flirting or cybersex as a sort of interactive girly magazine,
and
frankly, they leave their emotions at the bathroom door. The problem is that to women,
both
the woman in their lives and the woman on the other end of the DSL, the interaction is
real.
A cyber-relationship holds promise, and to a wife or girlfriend that promise feels like a
very real threat.
There's more. According to recent studies, (Greenfield and Rivet - Internet Use &
Abuse Survey 1999)
evidence proves there is a high correlation between online cybersex and subsequent
real-time sexual affairs.
The same study stated that a whopping 31% of people have had an online conversation that
has led to real-time sex.
Which means that cybersex, whether you think of it as cheating or not, poses a real hazard
to relationships.
So, what can you do to protect your relationship against cyber-nooky? Well, your best
defense is to let your
partner know exactly what your position is. He'll either respect your feelings, or he
won't. (Which is telling
in itself.) But either way, you'll know where you stand, and exactly the type of person
you're with.
© 2002 by Lisa Daily. All rights reserved. Lisa Daily is the author of "Stop Getting
Dumped! All you need to know to
make men fall madly in love with you and marry "The One" in 3 years or less". At
bookstores everywhere. As seen
in/on Cosmopolitan, The Other Half and Ricki Lake. Get our FREE Dating Tips newsletter -
chock-full of man-snagging
techniques, at www.stopgettingdumped.com