Cybersex – is it a good thing?
Cybersex is a very misunderstood word. Firstly, a lot of news websites that report sexual abuse cases via the internet use the term ‘cybersex’ when they mean ‘illegal cybersex’.
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There’s also confusion between cybersex and pornography, though they’re actually very different. It’s important to understand the difference because, according to research, they affect your relationship in different ways.
So let’s look at what cybersex actually is and what it’s not. And then see if it’s a good thing within a relationship.
Q: What is cybersex?
A: Cybersex is best defined as “interactive, online sexual activity”(Shaughnessy, Byers, & Thornton, 2011)
This means that porn is definitely not cybersex. It’s interactive, so both parties are aware of each other. Even if two people were watching online pornography together, that’s not cybersex as they’re just watching online content together. Cybersex could therefore be a webcam scenario where either one or both parties masturbate, it could be sexting (sexual messages via mobile text) or it could be sending pictures and videos of a sexual nature. It’s all cybersex as they all involve sexual interaction from both sides.
Q: Who is using cybersex?
A: Well actually, it’s ordinary folks that are in relationships. The research by Shaughnessy, Byers, & Thornton in 2011 states that amongst both men and women who have had cybersex, participants are significantly more likely to have had it with their current partner than somebody they know that they’re not in a relationship with. And those having cybersex with a stranger were the least commonly reported.
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Q: So it might be ‘normal’ but is cybersex actually good for your relationship and your sex life?
Research on cybersex by Grov, Gillespie, Royce, & Lever in 2011showed that both men and women in partnerships found it ‘easier to talk about what they wanted’ during cybersex, and that it made them more ‘open to new experiences’ With the quality and enjoyment of sex often being dependant on a healthy level of self-confidence, if cybersex were to encourage that confidence, then it’s perhaps a good thing. It may even help people to express themselves more freely in the bedroom department.
Rather unsurprisingly other researchers (Neustaedter & Greenberg, 2012) also reflected well on couples that were facing a long distance relationship, meaning that sexual intimacy could transcend the large spaces of terrain and oceans in between.
Despite some scary stories about people’s sexual and personal content being hacked, the internet is still about connecting and sharing in ways that you might not in person. If nothing else, it’s something new to explore. And if this research is reliable, it may be a healthy thing to try in your relationship.
