[Air-L] List Submission: Cybersex?

[James Hinton]

> Quoting Hilary W <hilarywheaton at gmail.com>:
>
>
> > I was wondering if the list's collective mind could help me with a
> question:
> > when was cybersex (here defined as two or more individuals engaging in
> typed
> > descriptions of physical sex acts, emotions etc) first discussed
> popularly
> > and by whom?  ...
> >
> > Any thoughts, comments, epiphanies would be greatly appreciated :)
> >
> > --
>
> You might want to try a Google book search for "cybersex" limited to
> items between, for example, 1900 and 1995. Here's a link to a sample
> earch which returned 766 results: http://goo.gl/WcOF5 [Note. Google
> Book search is somewhat non-deterministic, repeated searches may
> return different results.]
>
> A Google book "ngram" search might also be fun ..
> http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/
>
> Ciao,
>
> Steve
>

Hilary,

It has been at least since 1985. While I can't say I have checked the
veracity of the story, and have only seen reprints, not the original, Ms.
Magazine ran a story in October 1985 titled "The Strange Case of the
Electronic Lover" by Lindsey Van Gelder. In it she details her experiences
as the victim of a man pretending to be a woman named Joan on CompuServe in
the early 80s who used his connection with women to lure them into physical
world sexual encounters. She states "Joan was sexually aggressive. Every
woman I interviewed reported - and was troubled by - Joan's pressuring to
have 'cybersex'. This is on-line sex, similar to phone sex, in which people
type out their hottest fantasies while they masturbate. (In the age of
herpes and AIDS, it has become increasingly popular.)" Van Gelder claims to
have met Joan in 1983, but we don't know if "Joan" was active in Cybersex at
the time already or if "she" didn't become "aggressive" until '84 or '85.

-J. Hinton