Online Seductions: Falling in Love With Strangers on the Internet

Although this volume appears to tell torrid tales of online passion or to advise how to find the love--or at least the lust--of your life online, it does neither. Instead, psychiatrist Esther Gwinnell focuses on how and why online romances happen. Gwinnell compares the modern online relationship with historical cases of individuals who met as pen pals and fell in love. But she also notes significant differences, such as the subtle personality clues that exist in e-mail as opposed to handwritten letters.

Gwinnell uses several examples of online couples and correspondents to demonstrate how romances evolve, flourish, and sometimes wither. The examples are all composite cases to protect the identities of the many people who shared their stories and correspondence with her, but anyone who has experienced a cybercrush can testify that her examples, if simplified for illustrative purposes, are right on target. In the course of her exploration, Gwinnell discusses why cyberromance is suddenly so prevalent, how to deal with both good and bad experiences, and how to protect yourself from bad online relationships. It does an especially good job of highlighting the danger signs that your correspondent may be a pathological personality.

Gwinnell offers some wonderfully hardheaded questions to ask yourself and your potential significant cyber-other before things go too far. - -Elizabeth Lewis

INFIDELITY ON THE INTERNET

Virtual Relationships and Real Betrayal

by Marlene M. Maheu, Rona Subotnik

From Publishers Weekly
"Cybering," slang for virtual sex online, appears to be the dark secret of the Internet, and it is creating havoc in the real world of relationships. The ease with which people can find partners for sex a quick computer search can yield hundreds of opportunities, in chat rooms or on porn sites and the apparent safety of anonymous encounters has tempted huge numbers of people to cheat on their mates.

According to mental health professionals Maheu and Subotnik (Surviving Infidelity), a large-scale study in 2000 reported that an estimated 20% of Internet users engage in online sexual activity, and two-thirds of them are married or in a committed relationship. The many cybersex practitioners given voice here demonstrate wide-ranging viewpoints about what constitutes infidelity. People cruise cyberspace for brief sex with strangers or for lengthy affairs.

Some believe cybersex is a harmless fantasy, while others acknowledge the harmful consequences that discovery brings and express profound regret. Testimonies of cybering adventures solicited through a self-help Web site elucidate the different motivations that drive people to have cybersex and the obsessive-compulsive behavior that can develop among habitual users.

Expressing zero tolerance for people who minimize the consequences of cyberinfidelity, the authors present a program for kicking the habit and rebuilding a damaged relationship after an online romance has been revealed. Although they allow for the possibility that in a climate of openness and honesty, extramarital cybering might be a nonthreatening, permissible form of Internet recreation, their argument that cyber-infidelity is often damaging and addictive is convincing.

Forecast: If cybering is as widespread as the authors suggest, the audience for this book could be sizable. But do cheaters actually purchase books on cheating?

SOURCE

INFIDELITY ON THE INTERNET

Virtual Relationships and Real Betrayal

by Marlene M. Maheu, Rona Subotnik

From Publishers Weekly
"Cybering," slang for virtual sex online, appears to be the dark secret of the Internet, and it is creating havoc in the real world of relationships. The ease with which people can find partners for sex a quick computer search can yield hundreds of opportunities, in chat rooms or on porn sites and the apparent safety of anonymous encounters has tempted huge numbers of people to cheat on their mates.

According to mental health professionals Maheu and Subotnik (Surviving Infidelity), a large-scale study in 2000 reported that an estimated 20% of Internet users engage in online sexual activity, and two-thirds of them are married or in a committed relationship. The many cybersex practitioners given voice here demonstrate wide-ranging viewpoints about what constitutes infidelity. People cruise cyberspace for brief sex with strangers or for lengthy affairs.

Some believe cybersex is a harmless fantasy, while others acknowledge the harmful consequences that discovery brings and express profound regret. Testimonies of cybering adventures solicited through a self-help Web site elucidate the different motivations that drive people to have cybersex and the obsessive-compulsive behavior that can develop among habitual users.

Expressing zero tolerance for people who minimize the consequences of cyberinfidelity, the authors present a program for kicking the habit and rebuilding a damaged relationship after an online romance has been revealed. Although they allow for the possibility that in a climate of openness and honesty, extramarital cybering might be a nonthreatening, permissible form of Internet recreation, their argument that cyber-infidelity is often damaging and addictive is convincing.

Forecast: If cybering is as widespread as the authors suggest, the audience for this book could be sizable. But do cheaters actually purchase books on cheating?

SOURCE