Virtual Spaces: Sex and the Cyber Citizen

A lot of people have written about the phenomena of cybersex--some to tell their own adventures and others to provide social analysis. Author Cleo Odzer has the qualifications and talent to do both. As an anthropologist with a specialty in human sexuality issues and an unabashed cybersex enthusiast, she draws on both her own sexuality and her professional training to explore the worlds of cybersex in both personal and analytical manners within Virtual Spaces. She doesn't shrink from any aspect of online eroticism, providing replays of online events from the flirtatious to the explicit. However, this is not a romanticized portrayal of the cybererotic; it is instead a look at how real people sexually interact in fantasy environments and how the physical interaction is fictional, but psychological and emotional interactions are totally real.

As Odzer shares her experiences from a variety of online environments ranging from simple chat areas to complex MOOs and palaces, she explores the meaning of cybersex. She considers what cybersex means to individuals and what role it can play in both healthy and unhealthy sexuality, as well as how it can interact with the "face to face" world. Odzer doesn't ignore the ethical issues attached to sexuality--from gender discrimination to pornography--as they apply both online and off. Through it all, Virtual Spaces delivers a message about the reality of online eroticism in terms of emotional interaction among people and as a means of often surprising self-discovery.