Love Online: Emotions on the InternetCambridge University Press, 19. jaan 2004 Computers have changed not just the way we work but the way we love. Falling in and out of love, flirting, cheating, even having sex online have all become part of the modern way of living and loving. Yet we know very little about these new types of relationship. How is an online affair where the two people involved may never see or meet each other different from an affair in the real world? Is online sex still cheating on your partner? Why do people tell complete strangers their most intimate secrets? What are the rules of engagement? Will online affairs change the monogamous nature of romantic relationships? These are just some of the questions Professor Aaron Ben Ze'ev, distinguished writer and academic, addresses in this book, a full-length study of love online. Accessible, shocking, entertaining, enlightening, this book will change the way you look at cyberspace and love forever. |
Contents
| 1 | |
| 4 | |
| 7 | |
| 14 | |
| 16 | |
| 18 | |
The risky space | 20 |
Summary | 23 |
Is it worth it? | 120 |
Love and sex | 123 |
Happiness | 126 |
Types of online intimate activities | 129 |
Types of activities involved in cybersex | 131 |
The incomplete nature of online affairs | 133 |
Summary | 143 |
Flirting on and offline | 145 |
The paradoxical nature of online relationships | 26 |
Distance and immediacy | 27 |
Lean and rich communication | 30 |
Anonymity and selfdisclosure | 34 |
Sincerity and deception | 42 |
Continuity and discontinuity | 46 |
Physical and mental investment | 49 |
Distant relationships | 51 |
Summary | 55 |
Emotions on the Net | 58 |
A comparative personal concern | 60 |
Typical characteristics and components | 63 |
Emotional intensity | 66 |
Emotions and intelligence | 70 |
Netiquette | 73 |
Summary | 76 |
Online imagination | 78 |
The reality of online imagination | 80 |
Exciting information | 83 |
The reality of romantic and sexual imagination | 86 |
Dangers of online imagination | 88 |
Regret and online affairs | 91 |
Summary | 93 |
Online privacy and emotional closeness | 95 |
Initial distinctions | 96 |
Types of privacy | 97 |
Privacy emotional closeness and openness | 100 |
Online closeness | 102 |
Online openness | 106 |
Emotional pretense and sexual harassment | 108 |
The transparent society | 111 |
Shame in cyberspace | 114 |
Summary | 118 |
Online affairs as flirting | 149 |
The rules for online dating | 152 |
The formation of online affairs | 155 |
Summary | 159 |
Cyberlove | 160 |
Seeing with your heart | 166 |
Online attraction | 169 |
Love at first chat | 175 |
Availability and effort | 177 |
The exclusivity of cyberlove | 181 |
Online intimacy and commitment | 188 |
Online rejection | 192 |
Gender differences | 193 |
Summary | 197 |
Chatting is sometimes cheating | 199 |
Chatting about sex | 202 |
Casual sex adultery and infidelity | 205 |
The morality of online affairs | 208 |
Cybersex with software | 216 |
The risks and prospects of online affairs | 217 |
Summary | 221 |
The future of romantic relationships | 223 |
The marriage paradox | 227 |
Proclaimed monogamy with clandestine adultery | 230 |
Cohabitation and online affairs | 232 |
Whetting your appetite outside while eating at home | 236 |
Greater romantic flexibility | 242 |
Concluding remarks | 246 |
Notes | 249 |
Bibliography | 264 |
Index | 275 |
Common terms and phrases
Accordingly actual adultery anonymity aspects attraction become behavior Ben-Ze'ev casual sex characteristics chat rooms cheating cohabitation commitment considered conversations Cyber Love Stories cyberlove cybersex Elizabeth Lloyd's website emotional intensity enjoyable exciting external appearance extramarital face-to-face meeting fantasies feel flirting greater harmful Hawaii Chat Universe hence imaginary imagination impact increase interaction Internet intimacy intrinsically valuable activities involves Joan Elizabeth Lloyd's less Mae West marriage married woman masturbation messages mobile texting monogamy moral nature of cyberspace nature of online norms offline circumstances online affairs online communication online lover online partner online relationships online romantic relationships online sexual open marriages orgasm participants personal relationships phone sex physical profound psychological reality reduced reveal risk role romantic affairs romantic love satisfaction self-disclosure sense sexual activity sexual affairs shame significant sincere social someone spouse talk types typically virtual reality women writes www.joanelloyd.com/fbcheat.htm www.lovelife.com
Popular passages
Page 135 - ... unacceptable in 1980, the convexity of the value function for losses may have contributed to the election of a risky presidential prospect, namely Reagan. Loss Aversion A significant feature of the value function is that losses loom larger than gains. For example, the displeasure associated with losing a sum of money is generally greater than the pleasure associated with winning the same amount. This property, called loss aversion, is depicted in Figure 25.1 by the steeper slope for outcomes...
Page 120 - Whatever women do they must do twice as well as men to be thought half as good. Luckily, this is not difficult.
Page 103 - A life spent entirely in public, in the presence of others, becomes, as we would say, shallow. While it retains its visibility, it loses the quality of rising into sight from some darker ground which must remain hidden if it is not to lose its depth in a very real non-subjective sense.
Page 83 - I may not be a great actress but I've become the greatest at screen orgasms. Ten seconds of heavy breathing, roll your head from side to side, simulate a slight asthma attack and die a little.
Page 223 - Some people ask the secret of our long marriage. We take time to go to a good restaurant two times a week. A little candlelight, dinner, soft music and dancing. She goes Tuesdays, I go Fridays.
Page 63 - No matter how happily a woman may be married, it always pleases her to discover that there is a nice man who wishes she were not.
Page 16 - They pick up only the main channels — pain and orgasm"); useless to women ("A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle"); sexually maladept and inconsiderate ("The lovemaking was fast and furious.
Page 227 - Love is an ideal thing, marriage a real thing; a confusion of the real with the ideal never goes unpunished.
Page 26 - ... it weren't for the fact that the TV set and the refrigerator are so far apart, some of us wouldn't get any exercise at all,' says the New York humorist Joey Adams.
Page 111 - Honest criticism is hard to take, particularly from a relative, a friend, an acquaintance, or a stranger.