Unfortunately, when it comes to virtual sadomasochistic sex, things get even more complicated and frustrating. For sadists who get off on inflicting pain on others, and masochists who enjoy the sensations of pain, a virtual world where no one feels pain at all can be just a little exasperating. Imagined pain and pleasure are poor substitutions for the real thing, unfortunately. Bondage loses much of its appeal when a person can free himself from his restraints with a simple click of his mouse, and simulated impact-play has all the emotional impact of swiveling Ken’s little plastic arm to spank Barbie’s perfect little plastic ass.
In short, BDSM play in these virtual worlds leaves a lot to be desired. The product designers typically have little or no experience or knowledge about the lifestyle or its practices and so what you end up with, more often than not, is a ridiculous caricature of what some nerdy developer in Taiwan imagines happens during BDSM sex. What is typically your first clue that the animator is vanilla? Apparently their view of BDSM sex involves lots of crying, and no orgasms. Go figure.
It also seems to consist almost exclusively of tying people to beds and/or giving spankings. Beyond those two activities, it’s a virtual fetish wasteland. Suspensions? Nope. Edge play? Nope. Fire play? Nope. Violet wands, breath play, anal play, breast flogging, or pussy spankings? No, no, no, no, and not even anything close. Those poor Taiwanese animators really need to get out more.
One of the unique features of the online BDSM culture that you’ll encounter in many virtual worlds is the slave market. Slave markets exist almost exclusively in BDSM chat rooms for the simple reason that they would be impractical or illegal anywhere else. They typically consist of chat rooms with kneeling-pillows, upon which hopeful, unowned slaves kneel and wait to be interviewed by Dominants who imperiously sit on nearby thrones. The rooms are called markets, even though no one buys – or even rents – anything, or anyone. Many of these so-called slave markets require visitors to announce their “status” to the existing occupants of the room and to request permission to enter. This status theoretically consists of whether you’re a Dominant, submissive or switch, whether you are owned or unowned, and what – if anything - you happen to be seeking. An example might sound something like this: “I am an unowned submissive seeking a Mistress. May I enter?” Not all slave markets require such formality, but when in doubt, it is usually best to err on the side of high protocol.
Upon being granted permission to enter, Dominants should inquire as to which seats or thrones are appropriate to sit on. Submissives should assume that kneeling-pillows are their only seating option, though there may be certain pillows that are reserved for moderators or chat room regulars. If the seating arrangement consists of something other than thrones and pillows, it’s probably a good idea to ask the current occupants of the room where you should sit.
You may be asked to tell the other people in the room a little about yourself; actually knowing how to respond to this question can go a long way towards establishing your credibility and making new friends. The absolute worst thing you can do is attempt to bluff your way through an initial conversation of this sort. There’s no shame in admitting you don’t know much about the lifestyle, as long as you are open and honest about it. Misrepresenting your experience and knowledge is considered not only extremely bad form, but can be emotionally devastating to your potential partners and potentially dangerous to everyone involved.
Spotting an Online BDSM Phony
One of the most useful skills that can be developed and honed by members of the online BDSM community is the ability to spot a phony. When the online environment allows virtually anyone to pretend to be anything, a person’s credibility becomes his or her only currency. We should take a moment to clarify what we mean when we use the word phony in this particular context. If we assume that the online BDSM culture is “real” in its own unique way (at least to the people who are a part of it) then obviously the people who are a part of it should be considered real, as well. In other words, the mere fact that a person has no real-life BDSM experience does not mean he or she is a phony. Sometimes, real-life circumstances prevent people from acting on their wants and needs. Even so, it may be entirely possible that the person has many years of experience in online BDSM relationships and has much to offer someone who may be new and desirous of a mentor.
So, what constitutes an online BDSM phony, then? For our purposes, we’ll define an online BDSM phony as a person who knows little or nothing at all about the BDSM lifestyle – online or real-life – yet attempts to present himself as experienced and knowledgeable. The most common example of this kind of behavior is what happens when a young, sexually frustrated person stumbles upon the existence of the online BDSM culture and naturally assumes that simply calling himself a “Master” (or “Mistress”) will result in a treasure trove of slaves offering sexual favors and unconditional adoration.
It never seems to occur to these individuals that there may be more to being a Dominant than simply calling yourself one. The clueless would-be Dominant immediately launches himself into slave markets and other BDSM-related chat rooms to proudly announce, “I am a Master! Who wants to be my slave?” To fully understand the sheer, unthinking vacuity of such behavior, try to imagine a person walking into a popular real-world nightclub, standing just inside the entrance, and calling out loudly to everyone within, “I am a studmuffin! Who wants to be my love-bunny?”
The first few words out of a person’s mouth are usually all one needs to hear in order to know just how much credibility he or she deserves in the online BDSM culture. There are, however, some people who are quite skilled at the art of online duplicity. They can mimic the customs and protocols that are common in the online BDSM lifestyle, but they can’t discuss knowledge of the lifestyle that they don’t have. Their ignorance of the lifestyle very quickly becomes apparent to anyone who is paying attention. A skilled interviewer, whether Dominant or submissive, can usually expose the phonies by asking simple, polite questions in a particular way. The questions should be carefully worded to be innocuously inoffensive to authentic members of the online BDSM lifestyle, yet exceedingly difficult for anyone pretending to be something that he is not.
Here are just a few examples:
· Never ask, “Are you a Dom or a sub?” This allows a clueless imposter to simply pick one of the above. Instead, ask, “Are you a switch?” A knowledgeable person will typically respond with one of the following: No, I am a Dominant. No, I am a submissive. Or, Yes, I am! A phony will invariably be dumbfounded for a moment and ask, “What’s a switch?”
· Always ask, “How long have you been in the lifestyle?” Don’t refer to it as the BDSM lifestyle. Anyone who is actually in the lifestyle will naturally assume you mean the BDSM lifestyle. A phony, even as he or she sits in a slave market, will often inanely respond with, “What lifestyle?” While you’re at it, check his answer against his supposed age. A twenty-year-old who claims to have been in the lifestyle for fifteen years is not only a liar, he’s also a math-challenged moron.
· Try asking a philosophical question - perhaps something like, “Do you think D/s is a matter of who you are, or what you do?” A knowledgeable person will enjoy a chance to give his opinion on the subject, and you may even gain some insight from his response. A phony will ask, “What’s D/s?”
· Ask questions of preference: “What’s your favorite kind of scene?” It’s a simple question for someone in the lifestyle – even for those who may be very new, or may be limited exclusively to the online lifestyle. A phony, however, will often be completely unfamiliar with the way the word is used in this culture, and will typically respond with, “What do you mean by scene?”
· Consider asking a trivia type of question: “We’re having a disagreement about what the D in BDSM stands for. What do you think?” Feel free to consider any response that actually involves a word that starts with the letter D as acceptable.
Sometimes, it is the perplexing and often amusing questions
that someone asks in these online chat rooms that expose him as a phony. The following is a list of actual questions that have been posed to me by allegedly “highly experienced” online Masters and Mistresses who claimed to have years and years of BDSM experience. Seriously, I couldn’t make this stuff up:
· Do your slaves let you have sex with them? I was just wondering.
· How do you keep your slaves from running away? I’m having a bit of a problem with that.
· Would it be easier to get more slaves if I created second account as a sub and collared myself?
· How many slaves do you have? I have 23. More, if you count the ones whose names I don’t remember.
· All my slaves turn out to be, like, thirteen years old. What am I doing wrong?
· I really want to be a real-life Master. Real-life Masters have lots and lots of sex, right? How much sex, exactly, are we talking about, here?
· How do you get your submissives to respect you? This is way harder than I thought it would be.
· Do you practice forced collaring?
Obviously, it’s not particularly difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff in these kinds of conversations. The only real issue becomes, how do you handle a phony once he or she is exposed? Do you tell the person how you tripped him up? If you do, then the imposter simply chalks it up as a lesson learned, and tweaks his performance to better deceive the next person who comes along. If you don’t, you are often left with the irksome feeling that you’ve allowed someone to think he has gotten away with deceiving you.
Sometimes, the best solution is to simply inform the individual that you weren’t fooled. Then, if you have the power to do so, boot and ban.
Challenges
Despite all of the apparent pessimism you’ve thus far been bombarded with in this chapter, online BDSM relationships actually do happen, and sometimes, even flourish. The keys to having a successful online BDSM relationship generally come down to the following three factors: Determining beforehand where the line is that separates your virtual BDSM life from your real-world life, deciding for yourself the importance of the reality behind the avatars, and asking yourself, “Why am I doing this, and where is it going?” The answers to these three questions aren’t easy, nor should they be. In fact, if one or more of the questions seems easy for you, then I would suggest that you’ve probably seriously underestimated the complexity and gravity of the issues involved.
The wildcard that is often overlooked when it comes to online relationships in general, and online BDSM relationships in particular, is the role that our emotions play in our perceptions and decision-making. We often go into these things with one set of expectations, only to discover - after we have fallen in love - that a completely different set of expectations has suddenly appeared out of nowhere and taken precedence. If either partner is unprepared for it when that happens, it can not only be potentially devastating to the online relationship, but it can lead to significant problems in their real-lives, as well.
The Virtual Line
There are many who will probably disagree with me on this, but I believe that there are three kinds of people who seek out the online BDSM culture.
The Reality Geek. This first category consists of those who live a BDSM lifestyle in real-life and simply want a convenient and entertaining way to connect online with like-minded friends, or make new ones. For those people, the line that separates their virtual lives from their real ones may be flexible, fuzzy or may not exist at all. There is little or no cognitive dissonance between the two environments. In fact, for many of the people in this category, the internet is not considered a virtual world or as a completely different environment at all. It is viewed simply as one more facet of their real-world environment; another mode of communication that is not unlike talking on the telephone or texting. Just as most people would never characterize a telephone conversation as an alternate life, the people in this group typically don’t think of a graphic internet chat room as one, either.
The Toe-Dipper. This second group consists of people who wish to explore the lifestyle virtually before making the plunge into the real-life culture. For these people, it may be necessary due to their present circumstances, or simply preferable, to learn as much as they can virtually before considering a decision to adopt the lifestyle in reality. The individuals in this group must, out of necessity, consider the internet and their real-lives as two separate realities with no significant overlap. For them, the separating line is usually quite distinct, even though it may move or get fuzzier over time as they grow more confident and become more willing to cross the line. In short, the separating line is there, but it is often moving or temporary.
The Fantasizer. Third and finally, there are those who, for whatever reason, cannot or have no desire to live a BDSM lifestyle in reality, and so they do it virtually. There are many good and valid reasons why this may be so, and it isn’t our place to judge another person’s reasons for doing so. Long ago, I had a friend in the online BDSM lifestyle who, I learned years later, was a paraplegic, and had been confined to a wheelchair since his childhood. Another acquaintance was afflicted with agoraphobia, and hadn’t left her apartment in almost a decade. There may also be family or career considerations which make the pursuit of BDSM in reality an impractical lifestyle choice for some. It should suffice to know that if these individuals believe there are good reasons to keep their two lives separate, then there is an equally good reason to establish a firm separating line between them. For these individuals, that line is usually non-negotiable and impermeable.
The online environment may be virtual, and the emotions experienced there are real, but what about everything in-between? What should be allowed to cross over from the virtual world to the real one, or vice-versa, and what shouldn’t? Where do you draw that line? Should you give out your real name or telephone number to a stranger in a chat room, reserve them for the people you trust, or not give them out at all? Do you tell your online friends what you do for a living in real-life? Do you allow your online Master or Mistress to tell you what color you should dye your hair? Should that cross-over influence extend to controlling your real-life finances, or disciplining your children?
Cross-over influences happen all of the time - sometimes in dribs and drabs and others times in a flood - yet we very rarely consider the potential consequences. It is easy to believe, while basking in the aura of NRE (New Relationship Energy) that the person with whom you’ve just become involved is practically perfect in every conceivable way, and would never do anything to hurt you, but let’s take a look at the actual odds.
The overwhelming majority of all relationships – online or in real-life - will fail for one reason or another, and many of those will end badly. There is very little hard data available on the success rates specifically for online BDSM relationships, but the phenomenon of online relationships in general have been studied extensively. A 2005 study of online relationships by Dr. Jeff Gavin, of the University of Bath in the U.K. revealed some fascinating data on relationships that began online and then made the transition to real life:
· When a couple met first online, and went on to meet in real-life, there was a 94% chance that they would meet a second time in real-life.
· Within that group (that met at least twice in real-life), 18% of the relationships lasted over one year, with the average relationship lasting seven months.
· Of the relationships that were no longer together at the end of the study, only 4%, or roughly one in twenty-five, had lasted two years or more.
· Surprisingly, men were significantly more likely to stay committed to an online relationship than women.
· Not surprisingly, the more a couple engaged in online chat or telephone calls, the better they were able to understand and depend upon one another emotionally.
A study by the Oxford Internet Institute surveyed a random sample of 24,000 men and women in 2011 and found that the odds for a successful relationship that begins onlin
e were significantly higher for middle-aged people (aged 40 to 69) than they are for younger adults. This was somewhat counter-intuitive to the prevailing notion that younger people would be more likely to start a relationship online and would be better at it. Of the 24,000 respondents to the survey:
· 30% of the respondents had tried online dating or online relationships.
· 15% had met their current partners online.
· Of the middle-aged group (age 40-69) 36% had met their current partner online.
· Of the younger adults (age 18-39) only 23% had met their current partners online.
Finally, a 2010 study entitled “Strategic Misrepresentation in Online Dating” by Jeffrey A. Hall and others examined and attempted to validate the online profiles of over 5,000 people who were registered on online dating sites. They found that among that group of people, people who were required to post actual photographs of themselves and allegedly had every intention of taking their new relationships real-life, the percentage of profiles containing “strategic misrepresentations of the truth” (otherwise known as bald-faced lies) was an astonishing 81%. The inevitable question that naturally comes to mind as a result of a study like this is a frightening one: If 81% of those people are lying on their online profiles, imagine what the percentage must be for individuals who do not have to post a photograph, and have no intention whatsoever of ever meeting you in real life. It’s a scary thought, indeed.
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