Are internet affairs different?
Are Internet affairs different?
Historically, guys have been more likely to cheat, but cybersex may be switching that, research suggests.
By Brendan L. Smith
March 2011, Vol 42, No. Trio
Print version: page 48
The typical affair used to commence in the office and stir to a seedy motel room, but the vast reach of the Internet has brought infidelity into many couples’ homes over the past decade.
The growth in steamy talk room conversations and cybersex also has triggered a rethinking of the meaning of infidelity. If there is no physical contact or actual hook-up, is it still an affair?
“It’s not just that you’re communicating with someone online but that there is a sexual or emotional nature,” says Katherine Hertlein, PhD, an associate professor at the University of Nevada in Las Vegas who studies online affairs. “With the Internet, we’re moving away from just physical ideas about infidelity and acknowledging emotional infidelity.”
While there is no universally accepted definition, an Internet affair frequently involves intimate talk sessions and sexually stimulating conversation or cybersex, which may include filming mutual getting off with a Web camera.
Several studies suggest that even when there is no in-person contact, online affairs can be just as devastating as the real-world diversity, triggering feelings of insecurity, anger and jealousy. Women usually feel more threatened by the emotional betrayal of a partner’s online affair, while fellows are more worried about physical encounters, Hertlein says, but the gender differences are lessening.
“That is beginning to even out in part because of the equality of chance that the Internet brings to everybody,” she says.
While fellows traditionally have been the more unfaithful lovemaking, gender roles are reversing in some cases as more women practice cybersex. “I think there is this bias that women don’t cheat for sexual reasons at all,” Hertlein says. “Women are supposed to be the nurturers and the matriarchs in our society.”
Due to the secretive nature of online affairs, reliable statistics are hard to find, but a two thousand five probe of 1,828 Web users in Sweden offers evidence about the prevalence of cybersex and online affairs. Almost a third of the participants reported cybersexual practices, and people in committed relationships were just as likely to engage in cybersex as those who were single. But gender and age made a difference. While men’s interest in cybersex decreased with age, women’s interest enhanced slightly, with thirty seven percent of women age thirty five to forty nine reporting cybersexual practices compared with only a quarter of studs in the same age group (Archives of Sexual Behavior, Vol. 34, No. Three).
A two thousand eight Australian examine offers more insight into Internet affairs. It found that of one hundred eighty three adults who were presently or recently in a relationship, more than ten percent had formed intimate online relationships, eight percent had experienced cybersex and six percent had met their Internet playmates in person (Australian Journal of Counselling Psychology, Vol. 9, No. Two). More than half of the respondents believed an online relationship constituted unfaithfulness, with the numbers climbing to seventy one percent for cybersex and eighty two percent for in-person meetings.
Kimberly Youthful, PhD, who directs the Center for Internet Addiction Recovery in Bradford, Pa., says about half of the couples in her practice are seeking counseling because of online affairs or excessive use of online pornography. Youthfull sees more women who are online cheaters, in part, she says, because women gravitate toward erotic talks and webcam sessions while studs often are drawn to pornography.
“The Internet is opening up these fresh ways of exploring your sexiness and that includes infidelity,” she says.
Right under your nose
Americans now spend as much time online as they do watching TV — about thirteen hours a week. While TV viewing has remained fairly constant, time spent surfing the Web has enhanced more than one hundred twenty percent over the last five years. With the burgeoning use of the Internet, many practitioners are watching more couples because of online affairs and are addressing fresh issues in therapy, psychologists say.
“It starts in the home, which is very different than most affairs. It starts right under your roof,” says Elaine Ducharme, PhD, a psychologist in Glastonbury, Conn., who specializes in cybersex addictions. “You can’t usually get rid of your computer in the house. Every time you walk by, you’re asking yourself if he or she is using it for an affair.”
While most relationships are hampered by such workday realities as household chores and paying the bills, online relationships exist in an electronic nether world where strangers can construct their own identities, Hertlein says. “On the Internet, you can be whoever you want to be. You can type, backspace, delete. You don’t have to be this constrained person you think you should be.”
Fantasy also is a yam-sized factor in online affairs, and fantasy always trumps reality. “Your primary fucking partner will never be able to compare with the fantasy fucking partner,” Hertlein says. “They will never win.”
According to Youthfull, people with low self-esteem, a crooked figure photo, an untreated sexual dysfunction or a prior sexual addiction are more at risk to develop addictions to cybersex or online pornography.
Therapy can be more complicated if the cheating playmate doesn’t believe his or her online activities qualify as an affair, Ducharme says. “The excuses are, ‘I didn’t have hookup with this person. I didn’t go out and see anybody or catch any diseases,’” she says. “But the other playmate often feels such an emotional betrayal that they are going through the same feelings as if their fucking partner was having a real affair.”
Online affairs can contribute to divorce and child custody fights as the involved fucking partner becomes more enmeshed in the online relationship. A two thousand eight article in the Journal of Marital and Family Therapy (Vol. 34, No. Four) by Hertlein and a colleague reviewed eight studies of Internet affairs and documented many negative effects from online romances, including less interest in hook-up in the committed relationship and neglect of work and time with children. Almost two-thirds of the participants in one examine reported they had met and had lovemaking with their Internet fucking partners; only forty four percent of them reported using condoms.
Reasons behind cheating
Several studies have focused on the “AAA engine” that drives online affairs, namely accessibility, affordability and anonymity. “The Internet is enormously accessible no matter where you are,” Hertlein says. “You could be at home or at work or sitting on the couch with your fucking partner talking to someone online.”
As costs for Internet access have dropped, online affairs are also very affordable. They can be effortless to conceal, as long as the cheating playmate deletes the Web browser history and any incriminating e-mails. “It’s indeed difficult to track what your playmate is doing,” Hertlein says. “There aren’t receipts for hotels or dinners or excursions.” With the faceless nature of the Internet, anonymity also is effortless to come by. People often feel more convenient exposing intimate details of their lives to relative strangers because the relationship exists only in cyberspace, Ducharme says. “Things happen so quickly online,” she says. “Some people truly begin to think the other person is in love with them. They develop this closeness and fantasy relationship. The cool thing about fantasy relationships is they don’t require any work.”
Therapy is similar for online or traditional affairs, with couples working on issues of trust, betrayal and forgiveness. Hertlein also encourages couples to use the Internet to strengthen their relationships by loving pornography sites together or visiting websites for ideas about romantic dates or fresh sexual abilities.
After an Internet affair, couples often need to stir the home computer to a public space, such as the living room, and install tracking or blocking software, Ducharme says. But to build lasting trust, couples must dig deeper in therapy.
“In terms of treatment, the very first step is about the individual taking responsibility for the online affair,” she says. “But the duo also needs to examine what was happening in their marriage that led to one of them cheating online.”