Virtual Sex, Lies and Cyberspace

The first time Donna Tancordo “cybered,” she switched off her computer midway through the typed seduction, shocked and scared at the power of the words scrolling down her screen.

“I’ve never described what I was feeling like that before,” she said. “I freaked out.”

But Tancordo, a happily married New Jersey housewife with three kids, soon logged back onto America Online. In a chat room called “Married and Flirting,” she met another man. For days, they whispered the details of their lives into the ether. When he asked her if he could take her on a virtual trip to the mountains, she agreed.

This time her computer stayed on.

All hours of the day and night, America Online’s chat rooms teem with people seeking something missing in their lives--like Jay, a successful business consultant in Boston, who says he logs on to fill “the void of passionate emotion.”

The blurted confidences and anonymous yearning scrolling through AOL’s frames reveal a rare picture of the American psyche unshackled from social convention.

In the vacuum of cyberspace, self-exploration is secret and strangely safe. Much has been made lately of how cults may find fertile recruiting ground among online seekers. A vast range of support groups--for pregnant mothers, cancer patients, substance abusers--also flourish. Unlikely friendships are struck and sometimes sustained.

But in an age when sex is scary and intimacy scarce, the keyboard and modem perhaps most often serve a pressing quest for romantic connection and sexual discovery.

Eric lives in a small California farming town: “I’m pretty much a straight kind of dude.” When he flips on the computer at 4:30 a.m. to check the weather, he is drawn to rooms where San Franciscans recount stories of sexual bondage.

Eleanor, 13, is 5-foot-1, with dark brown hair. When she surfs the “Teen Chat” rooms after school, she looks for kicks as a tall strawberry blond.

Peter, a 45-year-old professional in Manhattan, spent his first weekend on AOL posing as a 26-year-old woman while his wife was away on business. Enthralled with the ease of uninhibited communion, he cycled through a whirl of identities. He disguised himself as a gay man, a lesbian and a young girl. But eventually he settled on a more mundane form of seduction.

“What I really wanted was to have sexual conversations with women,” Peter said. “Kind of garden variety, but that’s who I am, and what made it such a fever for me--that’s not too strong a word--was the flirtation aspect of it.”

The ritual of pursuing secret desires from behind a facade is as old as the masquerade. But perhaps because it has never been so easy, the compulsion has never seemed so strong.

‘Leave the Meat Behind’

The free computer disks that arrive unbidden in the mail offer not only a mask, but an escape from the body--the ability, as cyberpunk author William Gibson puts it, to “leave the meat behind.”

It is an offer with remarkable mass appeal. As AOL’s subscriber count doubled over the last year to 8 million, the number of chat rooms on busy nights tripled to 15,000. And the recent, much-publicized agitation over the service’s busy signals was due largely to people chatting longer, now that a new pricing plan means they do not have to pay by the minute.

AOL is by far the most popular gathering spot on the Internet, in part because its culture of anonymity--members can choose up to five fictional screen names--promotes what one observer calls “the online equivalent of getting drunk and making a fool of yourself.” Although it is possible to chat on the World Wide Web and other areas of the Internet, the technology doesn’t work nearly as well.

Largely because of the unabashed sexual character of many of its chat rooms, AOL executives traditionally have downplayed their importance to the company’s bottom line. “What we’re offering at AOL is convenience in a box,” said AOL Networks President Robert Pittman. “If you use AOL it will save you time. People aren’t buying it for chat.”

Perhaps. The service offers e-mail, Internet access and information and entertainment features. Many of its customers never venture near the chat rooms, and most usage of the Internet is unrelated to chat.

But according to America Online statistics, more than three-quarters of its subscribers use chat rooms at least once a month, the equivalent of 1 million hours a day.

“If AOL eliminated chat you’d see the subscriber base go from 8 million to 1 million faster than you could spit,” said Alan Weiner, an analyst at Dataquest, a consulting firm.

Not all chat is laden with sexual innuendo. “I can say I’m a voluptuous teen and I still don’t get attention when I go into the sports and finance rooms,” quipped one frequent female chatter.

Some chat rooms emerge as genuine communities where the same group gathers regularly. The “SoCalifover30” room even holds regular “fleshmeets” at restaurants or members’ homes. A core group keeps up on one another’s romantic exploits online and offline.

“Ladykuu,” a San Diego bus driver trainer and the mother of twins, says she has become close friends with another mother of twins in Boston, with whom she shares life’s tribulations.

But even Ladykuu enjoys “lurking” and listening to others tell secrets to which she ordinarily would not be privy:

“It’s just fascinating to me to see, what is that deep dark fantasy, what is the naughty thing you’re thinking about and--oh my gosh, I’ve been thinking about that too.”

Some sexual-oriented chat is basic singles bar sleaze--and some is mainly an excuse to swap pornographic pictures. But much more prevalent is the search for genuine connection, and perhaps seduction.

Some chatters seek a companion to meet in person. Others, who shun the idea of a real-life affair, seize on the opportunity to engage in the thrill of a new seduction over the computer from the comfort of home--often while their spouses sleep in the next room.

Whether the demi-realities of chat can fulfill real world needs or only add to their urgency is a subject of much debate among online seekers. Some discover hidden pieces of themselves that lead to significant changes in what, in a telling delineation, is called RL--real life.

Others grow sickened by the relentless layering of illusion, where friends and lovers appear suddenly, and then melt into air, or morph into aliens. For there is in all this a bitter irony: That a search for intimacy brings people to pose as airbrushed versions of themselves, so that they may share their inner fantasies with strangers.

“It’s not healthy for people to pretend to be someone they’re not and fantasize about that constantly,” said Nancy Wesson, a psychologist in Mountain View, Calif. She has seen marriages break up in part because of one partner’s online activities. “It allows you to perpetually live in a fantasy instead of living in real life.”

Ultimately, marriage may be the institution most rocked by the new technology. Although cyberspace obviously doesn’t invent secret longings, it does provide a way to uncover and exploit them that has never been so available to so many.

Cheating Without Really Cheating

Some flirters say the ability to cheat without really cheating, to voice fantasies somehow too personal to share even with spouses, has invigorated them.

Donna and Ralph Tancordo, high school sweethearts who have been married for 17 years, sign onto AOL and “cyber” with other married people--with each other’s consent.

“My cheekbones hurt I’ve been smiling so much lately,” said Donna, who opened her account a month ago. “I think it’s the flattery. It’s like, ‘Wow, somebody else is attracted to me other than my husband.’ And it’s improved our sex life 150%.”

In the case of Peter, the Manhattan professional, the online habit nearly broke up his marriage. Finding a woman that he would care to talk to and who would talk to him could take hours on any given night. He would stay up after his wife, Janet, went to bed, and look forward to when she would leave him alone at home.

In the end, Janet became too distraught over his regular online meetings with a woman who lived thousands of miles away. Peter agreed to cancel his AOL account. Both say the experience has opened up a productive, if painful, period of exploration for them.

“I was bored and I lied about it to myself,” Peter said. “I had a sex life, but it didn’t have passion. At some level, that’s what I was seeking, and it’s hard to find. There may not be an answer.”

For Janet, the hardest part has been trying to sift out what may be her husband’s harmless fantasy life from what to her is hurtful reality.

“Everyone knows someone who has had an affair,” Janet said. “If your husband’s having an affair and you tell your girlfriend, you’re going to have instant sympathy. But do I have a right to be pissed about this? I don’t know.”

She has not talked to any of her friends about it: “It’s embarrassing. I don’t know anyone else who has gone through this.”

A lot of people have. The online consensus is that, as Tiffany Cook of the SoCalifover30 chat room puts it, “if you’re talking to a married man often enough, that’s an affair even if you never meet.”

But in the 1990s, when interest in family values is on the rise and the ethic of safe sex prevails, AOL offers 1960s-style free love from behind the safety of the screen. The medium offers a sense of physical and psychological safety that strips away taboos faster than the sexual revolution ever did.

Many married people--they constitute two-thirds of AOL subscribers--comb chat rooms, scope the profiles and send private instant messages (IMs) to prospective romantic partners.

The flirtation medium of choice, IMs pop up on-screen as soon as they are sent, heedless of whatever the recipient may be doing. More insistent and perhaps more intimate than e-mail, they solicit an immediate response.

“I’ve tried erotic e-mail. It’s like bad D.H. Lawrence,” said an artist who prefers the edge of IMs.

Three million IM sessions are opened every day. They are by nature fleeting and the exchange is rapid-fire, lessening the risk and increasing the nerve.

“I make advances to men the same age group as I am to start flirting and sometimes it goes a lot further than flirt,” said Donna. “I read their profile first. If I like it, I’ll IM them by saying. . . . ‘BUSY?’ ”

In the curious state of disembodiment, where the body is nonetheless very much the point, the typed words come as stream of consciousness, and then, with the click of a mouse, they disappear.

“I’m sorry I can’t talk right now,” one woman tells a reporter. “I’m getting nine IMs as we speak.”

Often, IM exchanges begin between people in the same chat room. At any given moment, subscribers fill rooms of varying salaciousness--”Hot and Ready Female” “Discreet in Illinois” “CA Cops Who Flirt” “BiCuriousM4M.” Many of the chat rooms created by subscribers--as opposed to those established by AOL--have overtly sexual themes and many others draw people interested in romance.

“There’s a lot more diversity out there than I would have given people credit for,” said Jenny, a 27-year-old lesbian from Manhattan who roams the chat rooms when she is not using the service to check stock quotes.

“Wanna cyber?” comes the standard query, proffering the on-line equivalent of a one-night stand. “M/F?” “What are you wearing?”

“On AOL you could be talking about sex within three minutes of meeting someone,” said a 28-year-old male marketing consultant who goes by the handle “MindUnit.”

Many simply want to experiment in the intricate art of flirtation, sometimes behind a guise, sometimes as themselves.

“It’s the only place you can throw yourself at someone and not care if you get rejected,” said Jenny.

Women especially say the ability to both be more aggressive than they would in real life and to hit “cancel” or “ignore” if a flirtation gets out of control is liberating--and perhaps good practice.

For many, the point is not cybersex per se, but delving into the forbidden realm of sexuality. Says one online explorer on the East Coast: “We live in a world and particularly this culture that seeks to, on the surface, completely repress our sexuality. I think for many people, AOL represents a safe and healthy expression, although, like all pleasures, from fatty foods to erotic pleasure, there is probably a price to pay.”

After empty nights of chat room prowling for the ideal cybermate, many end up being as disappointing as such searches often are in real life.

“All I can tell you is that there are thousands of searching people out there . . . and AOL has become a vehicle to meet others. . . . affairs, etc. . . . “ types a Southern California man to a reporter one Saturday night. “But it doesn’t solve the problems of real life.”

Sometimes connections that seem solid suddenly fade away. Even carefree Donna was thrown off-balance recently when her AOL lover sent a cryptic message saying he wouldn’t be spending as much time online.

“He was basically blowing me off and I was really upset,” she said. “I was sitting in the dentist’s chair and I couldn’t get him out of my head. I’ve gotten too emotional about this. I really need to handle it better.”

Psychologists caution against getting wrapped up in a reality that is not, in fact, real. And online junkies acknowledge that it can be hard to pull out of what one calls “AOL’s sticky web,” which can become an addictive escape from three-dimensional existence.

Psychologist Kimberly Young, who has studied online addiction, says it’s comparable to compulsive gambling in its mood-altering appeal--and is just as dangerous.

Sherry Turkle, a professor of the sociology of science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, draws a more optimistic conclusion. In her recent book, “Life on the Screen,” she argues that on-line technology is enabling a new, decentered sense of identity to emerge, and that the practice of trying on different personalities could be a useful way to work through real-life issues.

Swapping genders is a popular activity among both sexes, but since (real) men outnumber women by about 2 to 1, the likelihood of talking to a man claiming to be a woman is fairly high.

MindUnit has devised an only-sort-of tongue in cheek “Rules to Establish Gender,” testament that even in a world without gender, well-socialized roles remain largely intact.

They state, in part: “If she sounds ‘too good to be true,’ that is One Strike. If she has no profile, that is One Strike. If she seems preoccupied with sex, or starts the sex talk herself, that is One Strike. If she volunteers exact statistics about herself, especially measurements or bra size, that is One Strike. If the statistics are really hot, that is Two Strikes.” By MindUnit’s trauma-tested logic, three strikes means the woman you’re chatting with is a man.

Little in the AOL chat world is as it appears to be. But, for many, the chance to honestly express their desires and be privy to those of others outweighs the veil of lies that seems somehow necessary to make it possible. “Let me find someone with an open mind, good intentions, and sincerity,” reads MindUnit’s profile. “Failing that, I’ll take a nymphomaniac.”

Few know better than Tiffany Cook the perils of confusing online illusions with real-life truths. First, the 30-year-old Santa Monica interior designer hit it off with a man who flew to visit her from New York. The chemistry didn’t translate in person.

But then for three months she spent hours a day chatting with a man from Northern California. He said he was 33. Then he confessed to being 43, and then to his actual age: 71. He had sent her a picture--it turned out to be of his son.

“It was terrible,” she said. “I felt so deceived.”

Still, Tiffany, who changed her screen name after learning the truth about her most passionate correspondence, still spends part of almost every day online.

“You know what? It’s expanded my world,” she said. “I’ve laughed really hard and I’ve learned a lot, and no matter what I might think of [him] now, the fact is we had a huge amount to talk about.

“Besides, your chances of meeting someone who’s hiding behind something online and someone who’s hiding behind something in real life is about the same.”

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Anatomy of a Chat Room

In America Online chat rooms, up to 23 subscribers can type messages to one another. To enter a chat room, subscribers click on an icon called “People Connection” and call up a list of active rooms. Members can create their own rooms or participate in those set up by AOL. Each subscriber can have up to five screen names, with separate profiles listing information such as age, gender, marital status and hobbies. The screen names of chat room participants appear in a separate window. Clicking on a name brings up the member’s profile. Profiles are listed in the member directory, a database that subscribers can browse. AOL subscribers also communicate via e-mail and instant messages, a feature that allows you to send a private, real-time message to anyone on the system. “IMs” pop up on-screen as soon as they are sent, and subscribers can hold several IM sessions at the same time.