Cybersex, also called computer sex, Internet sex, netsex, and, colloquially, cyber or cybering, is a virtual sex encounter in which two or more people connected remotely via a computer network send each other sexually explicit messages describing a sexual experience.^[rx] Cybersex is a sub-type of technology-mediated sexual interactions.^[rx] In one form, this fantasy sex is accomplished by the participants describing their actions and responding to their chat partners in a mostly written form designed to stimulate their sexual feelings and fantasies.^[rx] Cybersex often includes real-life masturbation.^[rx] Environments in which cybersex takes place are not necessarily exclusively devoted to that subject, and participants in any Internet chat may suddenly receive a message of invitation. The quality of a cybersex encounter typically depends upon the participants’ abilities to evoke a vivid, visceral mental picture in the minds of their partners. Imagination and suspension of disbelief are also critically important. Cybersex can occur either within the context of existing or intimate relationships, e.g. among lovers who are geographically separated or among individuals who have no prior knowledge of one another and meet in virtual spaces or cyberspaces and may even remain anonymous to one another. In some contexts cybersex is enhanced by the use of a webcam to transmit real-time video of the partners. Non-consensual cybersex occurs in cybersex trafficking crimes.^[rx][rx][rx]

Environments

Cybersex is commonly performed in Internet chat rooms (such as IRC, talkers, or web chats) and on instant messaging systems. It can also be performed using webcams, voice chat systems like Skype, or online games and/or virtual worlds like Second Life or VRChat. The exact definition of cybersex—specifically, whether real-life masturbation must be taking place for the online sex act to count as cybersex—is up for debate.^[8] It is also fairly frequent in online role-playing games, such as MUDs and MMORPGs, though community attitudes toward this activity vary greatly from game to game. Some online social games like Red Light Center are dedicated to cybersex and other adult behaviors. These online games are often called MMORPGs.

Cybersex may also be accomplished through the use of avatars in a multiuser software environment. It is often called mudsex or netsex in MUDs. In TinyMUD variants, particularly MUCKs, the term TinySex (TS) is very common.^[rx][rx]

Though text-based cybersex has been in practice for decades,^[rx] the increased popularity of webcams has raised the number of online partners using two-way video connections to “expose” themselves to each other online—giving the act of cybersex a more visual aspect. Several popular, commercial webcam sites allow people to openly masturbate on camera while others watch them.^[rx] Using similar sites, couples can also perform on camera for the enjoyment of others.

In online worlds like Second Life and via webcam-focused chat services, however, Internet sex workers engage in cybersex in exchange for both virtual and real-life currency.^[rx]

Advantages

Cybersex provides various advantages:

• Cybersex allows real-life partners who are physically separated to continue to be sexually intimate. In geographically separated relationships, it can function to sustain the sexual dimension of a relationship in which the partners see each other only infrequently face to face. Also, it can allow partners to work out problems that they have in their sex life that they feel uncomfortable bringing up otherwise.^[rx]
• Cybersex allows for sexual exploration. For example, it can enable participants to act out fantasies that they would not act out (or perhaps would not even be realistically possible) in real life through roleplaying due to physical or social limitations^[rx]
• Cybersex is a relatively safe form of sexual exploration in comparison to face-to-face sexual interactions. Sexually transmitted infections, unwanted pregnancies, and physical violence are not dangerous in online contexts, which is an advantage, especially for women.^[rx]
• It takes less effort and fewer resources on the Internet than in real life to connect to a person like oneself or with whom a more meaningful relationship is possible.^[rx]

Research reviews and surveys call for a balanced view of online sexual activities in general and cybersex in particular that acknowledges both advantages and disadvantages, positive and negative effects.^[rx][rx]

Criticism

Cybersex often attracts ridicule because the partners frequently have little verifiable knowledge about each other.^[rx] For many the primary point of cybersex is the plausible simulation of sexual activity, and this knowledge of the other is not always desired, but this is also criticized as the emptying out of embodied relations.^[rx]

In the words of Carkeek and James:

Without continuing to draw off our historically ambivalent faith in embodied relations, techno-sex quickly becomes hollow, unsatisfying, no more erotic than collecting answers to what-are-your-measurements questions. And herein lies the rub, or so we will argue. By continuing to draw off that ambivalent faith, techno-sex and the many other practices of disembodying interaction contribute to a changing and increasingly abstracted dominant ontology of embodiment.^[rx]

Privacy concerns are a difficulty with cybersex, since participants may log or record the interaction without the other’s knowledge, and possibly disclose it to others or the public.^[rx]

There is disagreement over whether cybersex is a form of infidelity. While it does not involve physical contact, critics claim that the powerful emotions involved can cause marital stress, especially when cybersex culminates in an Internet romance. In several known cases, Internet adultery became the grounds for which a couple divorced.^[rx] Therapists report a growing number of patients addicted to this activity,^[rx] a form of both Internet addiction and sexual addiction, with the standard problems associated with addictive behavior.^[rx]

Cybersex trafficking

Cybersex trafficking is the live streaming of coerced sexual acts and or rape. Victims are abducted, threatened, or deceived and transferred to ‘cybersex dens. The dens can be in any location where the cybersex traffickers have a computer, tablet, or phone with an internet connection.^[rx] Perpetrators use social media networks, videoconferences, pornographic video sharing websites, dating pages, online chat rooms, apps, dark websites,^[rx], and other platforms. They use online payment systems and cryptocurrencies to hide their identities.^[31] Millions of reports of its occurrence are sent to authorities annually.^[rx] South China Morning Post has stated that new laws and police procedures are needed to combat this type of cybercrime.^[rx]