It all starts with pornography that becomes interactive.
         Advancements of technology transformed our society into an accessible port of interests, whims and grievances. The World Wide Web, among other forms, generates a kind of obsession that transcends distance, culture, physical availability and beliefs. For most CyberSex (CS) enthusiasts, the Internet sets a new avenue for sex. It gives an interactive pleasure among men and women who either find it a cure for world-weariness or just being sexually ravenous.
        One can be playful, adventurous and pretentious when one engages in cybersex. Yet it could also be destructive. Online sexual affairs can often lead to addiction that often deteriorates a person’s priorities. Men tend to neglect their marital obligations since having this wanton pastime could be foreseen just as such. A man will never be charged with concubinage or adultery since there is no physical intimacy involved. Although more often than not, men usually engage in cybersex when their wives are not around. Since cybersex is considered to be a “safe” way to have extramarital affairs, this diversion still confirms their fooling around. In other concerns, this preoccupation leads to SEB (Sex Eyeball) where one gets to meet the person he chats with (whether they had CS or not) and decides to do each other. CS and SEBs greatly affect a person’s self-esteem and put a greater risk for sexually transmitted diseases.
         Young Filipinos of today are already hooked with the Internet, much more with its many aggressions, one of which is cybersex.  Although there are no disturbing statistical study done to scrutinize online sexual activities, it is very apparent that pornography and prostitution, be it actual or interactive, are prevailing in the Philippines. A survey done by the AC Nielsen Philippines last year only described the country’s Internet population as “urban, young and sophisticated.”(Manila Times) Chatting, e-mailing and surfing are prevalent among the younger group. Of the total estimated 1.5 million Filipinos that use the Internet, half of which are in Metro Manila, AC Nielsen noted that 45 percent are aged 12-19 years old; 36 percent are under the age bracket of 20-29; 30-39 years old comprise 12 percent while the age bracket of 40-60 represents 8 percent.
          For most of the people who engaged in cybersex, they perceived it as harmless. Each of them could play a role, either a shy first-timer, an aggressive sex-pert, a sadist, a masochist, a dominatrix etc. People want to satisfy a temporary rush of excitement within the anonymous realm of computer technology. However, there are always loopholes to any kind of endeavor as there are partypoopers. If you think that people who secretly engage in cybersex could not be traced, you’re wrong. There are actually downloadable programs in the Internet where one can have a copy of all the users of a chat room and automatically detect their geographic location through their IP (Internet Provider) addresses. The thing is, if you lie about it, you’re safe. These are just some of the dangers one could encounter when engaging too much dealing with strangers online. As much as you can fake (ironically, cyber means replicated) your orgasmic experiences, you can disguise and deceive people with your lies.
          Where else can a fat, balding, cigar-smoking 60 year-old man tell everyone that he is “Melanie”, a statuesque showgirl who can immediately be your slave if you ask her to? Online romance is a game of deceit and exaggeration. Fading flowers can bloom, mahinhin girls can be wild and naughty and worst of all, men can be women.
          Young or old, rich or poor, it really doesn’t matter. It is how you project yourself online. It would be a plus-factor if you can write poetically, so to speak. A guy whose nick was “the_vocalist” in IRC (Internet Relay Chat), a 23-year old creative writing student at UP Diliman admitted that although he is not a cybersex addict, he usually engages in CS. “Trips lang,” he replied when asked how he was introduced to CS. He actually prefers SEBs because he could get to know his partner better that way. It would always start however with friendly online conversations. “If she’s nice and isn’t too picky with guys, then I ask her out.”  Though he was thrilled with all the interactive stimulation he gets in CS, he still deems it as disappointing. “Di lang makontrol ang libog. And it is an assisted masturbation. Iwas sa complications tsaka baka mainlab,” he said laughingly.
          There are two popular chat rooms often visited by Filipinos and other people around the world where they get to acquaint themselves with friends and strangers alike: IRC and YM (Yahoo Messenger). The former was simpler because there were no visual aids except maybe describing yourself to the person you’re talking to. Unlike in YM, there were voice chat and Web cam services. You get to talk to the person like that in a telephone and could see each other through a built-in video camera. In the regional chat rooms, you can access chatroom Philippines and will find over 100 chat rooms, 51 of which were named explicitly sexual. Thus, people who stay in these chat rooms were more often than not, performing sexual activities with each other. In IRC, you can access chat rooms by typing channels (usually prefixed with #) and talk to people whom you have the same interests with. With popular attraction to cybersex, there are channels which cater to horny individuals such as #tops, #hook-ups, #kantutan, #cybersex, #pinoysex, #seb, #libog among many others. These names already give you a clue of the services you can get. Typically, people would ask other people who are interested with the game in the main window of the chatroom. If a person agrees, they would then proceed to a private chat room once you give a private message from that person. There are times when cybersex is done by more than two people (orgies) or by two people of the same sex (ex: #bi-manila).
          Cybersex dependency originates in a person’s tendency to sexual fantasies. Thus, the contentment of a person in his satisfaction to his sexual urges depreciates because one way or another, you would still feel incomplete. “Marvin”(not his real name), a 24 year-old IT programs consultant, declined to give what used to be his chat nick for his own “peace of mind”. He was then a cybersex addict and would often chat just to have sex with someone online. “Sometimes I have cybersex even when other people are around. I guess it was like that because back then I neither had a girlfriend or a sex life and my social life sucked. I guess it's some sort of coping mechanism.” He was currently working in a multinational bank and is getting married soon. It was strange for him how he really got involved with cybersex. “I don't really know. I believe I came across some horny girl, an American if I recall correctly, asking me to describe myself. Apparently she digs tall Asians, and then she asked me if I wanted to have cybersex. I agreed. I guess reading pornographic literature (Xerex, the works) kinda contributed to it because I enjoyed it and she said she enjoys it.” He describes himself as somehow “rehabilitated” and felt that his indulgence in this kind of sexual activity remained to him as one guilty pleasure he had outgrown with. He felt no shame considering he did that when he was uncommitted. Marvin also established a sexual relationship with someone he met online, though it didn’t work out. He had a friend whom he had cybersex with but both of them agreed it was all just a fantasy and that they should just forget about it. For Marvin, cybersex was thrilling in a way because, “It’s interactive. I guess the feeling that someone is out there masturbating over your words thrilled me, as well as the responses to you. All of that without the hassle of having to meet up, and the sheer fact that you can't be rejected (at least not in your face),”he said. “It usually starts with us asking the usual stuff. ASLs (Age, Sex, Location), how are yous, whatever. My style is that I try to talk to the girl normally, then slowly steer the topic to sex. The more that she gets the impression that I'm smart or what, the better. It's true that the best way to seduce a girl is through her mind.”
          “The usual technique I apply after that is asking her if her back aches. That's usually true, especially if you've been chatting a long time and you're sure she never left her seat. I then describe to her how I would massage her back and her arms. That would induce, if not increase, arousal. And then I ask whether she's horny or not. If she says yes, then I start describing kissing, and then foreplay, and finally the act.”
But in all other cases, disappointment always gets in the way. “I learned that even in cybersex, girls want the attention and being taken care of. They appreciate it a lot if you do foreplay. They appreciate it even more if, after saying both of you are done, you cap the "act" by saying that you'd hug her or cuddle her. That actually increases the chance of her wanting to have cybersex with you again. And that might, to a certain extent, apply to real life as well.”
          Though people find it as a pastime or some guilty pleasure you can easily disregard and forget, there are other cases where one actually changes because of too much exposure on virtual sexual fantasy. At the U.P. College of Engineering a male student has become infamous among his batch mates. They say he has become a walking zombie, often staying up late at night chatting, most of the time in Internet sex rooms. His foray sometimes lasts for 12 hours. He often goes to school spaced out. He has become so oblivious to grooming that he has neglected to bathe. His tangled hair reeks of a pungent smell down to his body. He flunked his exams and failed to graduate.
          If these activities tend to affect the lifestyle of these people, then a psychological assessment would determine that one is suffering from cybersex addiction- a phenomenon extensively studied abroad but remains unexplored in the Philippines. Joseph H. Puyat, a professor of psychology at the University of the Philippines, said that such addiction could be compared to other types of addiction such as gambling, substance or sexual abuse in its corporeal sense. “Someone is addicted to something when he or she is no longer under control of his or her behavior. If it is an activity, the activity is already controlling that person. It becomes one’s obsession,” he adds. Puyat says that there are four signs of cybersex addiction: anxiety or personal distress, maladaptability, statistical frequency and deviance from social norms.
           An addict feels anxiety and/or personal distress when he cannot engage in cybersex. “Maladaptive” behaviors manifest themselves when cybersex hobbles a person from performing his or her regular routine or from being productive in other aspects of his or her life. Statistical frequency is measured, albeit subjectively, by the level of engagement of a population to an activity. Deviance from social norms happens when a person’s lifestyle runs counter to the values of his community so that it looks perverse in the social mirror. 
          As Marvin had put out, he considered it as something he has outgrown with. For most people, it just takes their time off pressure and stress. Cybersex might seem out of harm's way for some people but the negative consequences of it should not be taken for granted. There are circumstances when it lures you and attracts you that you find it hard to resist. But once you get there, you should know how to set control of yourself. Too much of something is bad enough.
Disguises, deceit, intellectual and sexual manipulation and obsession are present in virtual and real life. How many Marvins must we have to fully appreciate the beauty of the real thing? Are people already satisfied to their own world of make-believe? 
          Does sexual obsession reach the premier summit of utmost desperation?

a struggling writer who wants to make the most of her time, writing.