Baudrillard was not concerned as much about pornography and particularly not about cybersex, as he was about the more general concepts of ‘hyperreality’ and the ‘obscene’. But nevertheless, it seems that his ideas might be relevant in today’s ‘mediated’ forms of sexual pleasure. This paper therefore tries to apply his theory towards the notion of cybersex. Two questions seem of highest importance: Is cybersex ‘real’? What is it that actually takes place in cybersex? The first question can be framed with Baudrillard’s notion of ‘hyperreality’ and ‘virtual’, whereas the ‘obscene’ is most fruitful in describing the content of cybersex. In the following, this essay will in the first paragraph deal predominantly with the definition of cybersex before the second and third part will introduce Baudrillard’s ideas and critically apply them towards the question of the ‘realness of cybersex’ as well as the ‘content’ of it. Before the conclusion will try to give the analysis a wider perspective, a section of general critique will follow the development of the argument and reflect on the applicability of Baudrillard towards cybersex. First, however, it is necessary to come to a common understanding of the notion of cybersex.
Baudrillard was not concerned as much about pornography and particularly not about cybersex, as he was about the more general concepts of ‘hyperreality’ and the ‘obscene’. But nevertheless, it seems that his ideas might be relevant in today’s ‘mediated’ forms of sexual pleasure. This paper therefore tries to apply his theory towards the notion of cybersex. Two questions seem of highest importance: Is cybersex ‘real’? What is it that actually takes place in cybersex? The first question can be framed with Baudrillard’s notion of ‘hyperreality’ and ‘virtual’, whereas the ‘obscene’ is most fruitful in describing the content of cybersex.In the following, this essay will in the first paragraph deal predominantly with the definition of cybersex before the second and third part will introduce Baudrillard’s ideasand critically apply them towards the question of the ‘realness of cybersex’ as well as the ‘content’ of it. Before the conclusion will try to give the analysis a wider perspective, a section of general critique will follow the development of the argument and reflect on the applicability of Baudrillard towards cybersex. First, however, it is necessary to come to a common understanding of the notion of cybersex.
In a 2005-interent surveyconducted by Daneback, Cooper and Mansson (2005) almost a third of participants from both sexes reported to engage in cybersex. In order to understand this substantial group of society and this specific activity, it is first of all necessary to define what is generally meant by the term‘cybersex’. Two distinct features might define cybersex in contrast to ‘sex’: virtuality[1] and being simultaneously a ‘body game’ and ‘bodyless’. Cybersex is an “erotic form of real-time computer-mediated communication” (Waskul, 2003:71). It always implies “meeting someone else […] for the purpose of explicit sexual communication, arousal and/or gratification” (ibid.: 71). However, this meeting takes place in the „virtual reality“ (Laurel, 1993) of the internet.Secondly, cybersex can be characterised as simultaneously ‘bodyless’ and attached to the body. For Slater (1998), “the body or its absence is central to contemporary notions of ‚cyberspace’“ and in this way also to the specific notion of cybersex (compare to Waskul et al. (2000); „ultimate disembodiment”). On the other hand, the body is involved in the activity, either directly as a form of ‘stimulation’ (in video-based cybersex) or in the process of masturbation leading to gratification as the final aim:„once satisfied, the interaction typically ends and participants disconnect“ (Waskul, 2004: 39). In this way, cybersexmight generally be understood as a computer-mediated sexual experience leading to causual satisfaction.[2] Various forms can be differentiated, but this paper will concentrate on two distinct variants (see Waskul, 2004): firstly, text-based cybersex as a purely semiotic interaction supporting masturbation and secondly video-based cybersex as a displayed ‘body-game’ with the same aim of satisfaction.[3]
After this clarification of the term itself, the argumentation will now try to shed a different light on two important questions on cybersex. The first one is about the form: is cybersex ‘real sex’?[4] The second one is about content: how can one describe what it is that takes place ‘there’? In the course of the analysis, the theory of Jean Baudrillard will be the main pillar. His concepts of ‘hyperreality’ and the ‘virtual’ will be applied towards the first question, whereas the second issue will be described with his notion of the ‘obscene’. The following paragraph will first of all try to take Baudrillard’s perspective and look at the degree of ‘realness’ in cybersex.
The most important feature of cybersex is its ‘location’, what one might call its form: the internet.The ‘digitalisation’ and ‘virtualisation’ in this medium’, might be the reasons for many people not to describe cybersex as ‘actual’ or ‘real’ sex. The question‘is this ‘real sex’?’ might be evoked in this respect. The notion of ‘reality’ can be framed with Baudrillard’s concepts of the ‘hyperreal’ in a general way and with its notion of the ‘virtual’ very specifically in terms of media. It is therefore needed to introduce the concepts very briefly before a description of the ‘hyperreality of cybersex’ will follow afterwards.
Baudrillard declares the age of the mass media as the age of ‘third order simularcra’.[5] Simluacrum per se refers to images without references in reality – the simulacrum masks the absence of the‘real’. Building on Saussure’s semiotic theory of signifier, signified and referent constituting the sign[6], Baudrillard claims the existence of a sign produced by the media and forming an alternative non-reality, which is the ‘hyperreal’. “It is reality itself today that is hyperrealist” (Baudrillard, 1983a:147). As Gane puts it: “Reality decamps into the image [of the media]” (2010: 96). Baudrillard’s (1983a: 23ff) example of Disneyland is often cited as an illustration for this concept: “Disneyland is there to conceal the fact that it is the real country, all of real America, which is Disneyland” (ibid: 25) In this way, Disneyland is a simulacrum that conceals the absence of the ‘real America’. The real is just a ‘fiction’, a ‘simulation’.[7] It is no longer possible to tell the difference between real and hyperreal.
In the specific case of the internet, the media play a distinct role in this disappearance of reality. Baudrillards describes them as “a genetic code, which controls the mutation of the real into the hyperreal” (1983a:55) – media produce ‘virtuality’. The "virtual coincides with the notion of hyperreality" (Baudrillard, 2003:41), it “is what takes the place of the real" (ibid.:42). Everything today "happens by technological mediation" (ibid.:42) – the virtual reality is ”perfectly homogenized, digitalized, and 'operationalized'” (ibid.: 43). It “stands opposed to the real [and] gives us the sense that it now marks the vanishing or end of the real (ibid.: 41).So ‘virtual’ and ‘hyperreal’ are just two words to describe the current situation: the media[8] and their influence produce a ‘virtual’ world, a ‘hyperreal’ world that marks the disappearance of and indifference towards the real.
How does this now relate to the ‘hyperreality of cybersex’? It might first of all be possible to say, that for Baudrillard the internetor media in general and all activities taking place in its realm are not more or less real than ‘reality’. For him, the difference between ‘reality’ (or what one normally understands as such) and the ‘virtual’ is flawed – there is no such distinction any more in the age of mass media. “It is reality itself today that is hyperrealist” (Baudrillard, 1983a:147; see also 1983b:18). Both types coincide. However, does this mean that for Baudrillard, cybersex is the same as sex without the cyber? Only relating to his notion of hyperreality as laid out above, essentially yes. This might be the ‘easy answer’. To try to complement Baudrillard’s argumentationwith an alternative view, one can draw on his critique of the First Gulf War (1995), the warthat ‘never took place’.
For Baudrillard, this war was a ‘simulacrum of a war’ in a twofold sense: it was first of all a ‘virtual war’, in which missiles where guided by satellites, tactics simulated on the computer before put in place and broadcasted over TV and radio. Media and technology ‘simulated’ this war. Secondly, this war had lost the Clausewitzian features. It was not about political domination or rivalry, but about “a general consensus by deterrence” (ibid.:83). In this sense, it was according to Baudrillard a ‘non-war’. Similarly, sex might be seen today as a ‘simulacrum of sex’: actual sex is mediated and simulated (bymedia or information technologies) and oftenremoved from its original context in marriage and love.[9] Its aims have blurred (Baudrillard, 2002: 9f). Sex is hyperreal, it is ‘non-sex’. This is what was concluded in the ‘easy answer’ already – but with a different argument. If one now applies the defining features for ‘simulacrum’ following the Gulf War example, is it then possible to conclude that cybersex isin contrast to actual sex a ‘simulacrum of the simulacrum’?[10] Using the definition of ‘Non-war’ according to simulation / mediation and confused aims, one might be inclined to argument in this way. Firstly, cybersex is mediated twice – it takes place over the media in a mediated time.It is a ‘virtual body game’ (only as hyperreal as sex), yes, but it is also a simulation of the simulation. There is a difference here between sex and cybersex. This difference does not come out of Baudrillard’s concept of the ‘virtual’ and the ‘hyperreal’, is even denied in it, but included in its account of the Gulf War.[11] Before further attention will be paid to this critique, the second definitive feature needs to be made clear. Cybersex is secondly about pure satisfaction(Waskul, 2004:39).[12] Its aims do not coincide with the aims of actual sex – at least not to their full degree. Similar to the argument about the confused aims of the Gulf War, the second defining feature can be seen as satisfied as well. This argument using Baudrillard against Baudrillard then leads to the confusion, that ‘cybersex’ might be seen as the simulacrum of the simulacrum, the hyperhyperreal sex.A critical reflection on this will be provided below after a summary of both arguments.
So one might be tempted to conclude that a general Baudrillardian answer pays tribute to the doubts raised in the beginning – the ‘realness’ of cybersex can indeed be questioned. However, this is not due to its taking place in the ‘virtuality’ of the internet, but because it is taking place now, ‘after the orgy’, where humankind (and its media) is not able to produce anything but hyperreality and simulation. Cybersex might therefore be seen just as hyperreal as actual sex. That is what was called the ‘easy answer‘. But secondly, cybersex might be seen a ‘simulacrum of the simulacrum’. It is in general not less real than actual sex – both are hyperreal, but cybersex is moreover a ‘simulacrum of sex’, a hyperhyperreality. As already stated above, this is an extension of Baudrillards argument, used against his first line of thought manifested in what was called the ‘easy answer’. However,both lines bear significant room for critique that is going to be expressed in the next paragraph.
The ‘easy’, purely Baudrillardian answer might be seen as completely ‘relativist’, almost nihilist account. Everything is hyperreal. Whether the actions that are taking place in the ‘real world’ or in the ‘virtual world’ – it does not make a difference – the worlds coincide. Although rather polemic, one might conclude that this account is rather arbitrary. Everything is everything. As he goes on arguing in ‘After the Orgy’ (Baudrillard, 2002:9; see also Baudrillard, 1988:140), “each category is generalized […], so that eventually loses all specificity […]When everything is political, nothing is political any more, the world itself is meaningless.” This account of the ‘world’ does not only seem quite arbitrary, but very pessimistic at the same time. Baudrillard tells the story in a very critical way himself, reflecting on the development towards as well as the current situation itself, but does not present an alternative, a ‘way-out’. "We do not know whether technology […] will liberate us from technology itself - […] - or whether in fact we are heading for catastrophe" (Baudrillard, 2003: 45).‘We do not know’ – Baudrillard himself seems helpless looking ahead. Besides this critique of the first answer, the attempt to bypass Baudrillard’s ‘easy answer’, leads to a similarly substantial problem as the next paragraph tries to show.
The argument of the simulacrum of the simulacrum is self-contradictory.The very notion of the simulacrum implies that no original, no real exists; trying to compose an order of simulacra in the sense depicted above confuses this definition. One would deny the existence of the first simulacrum introducing a simulacrum of the simulacrum. It confuses Baudrillard’s whole theory – everything is hyperreal there is no such thing as the hyper-hyperreality.Even taking the argument as it is, it can moreover be criticised as a mere ‘language game’. If one describes ‘reality’ as ‘hyperreality’ and the ‘virtual’ as the ‘simulacrum of the simulacrum’, it is only playing around with words. There still is a difference although it was exactly this difference that Baudrillard wanted to avoid – everything is hyperreal, whether virtual or seemingly real. In conclusion, also the second answer seems to be flawed. From this critical perspective, the paper will in the following paragraph come to the second question posed in the very beginning. What is it that is going on in cybersex – whether hyperreal or hyperhyperreal? This question will be dealt with in the next paragraph applying Baudrillard’s notion of the ‘obscene’.
The second issue raised in the beginning of this paper can similarly be described in Baudrillardian terms. What is it that actually takes place in cybersex? Seeing cybersex as a form of a specific “interactive erotic experience” (Waskul, 2003: 72), Baudrillard’s notion of the ‘obscene’ might be used to make sense of this. For Baudrillard, the obscene can be defined as „the becoming-real, the becoming-absolutely real“ (Baudrillard, 2003: 27). Obscene things are „there without distance and without charm. And without genuine pleasure“ (ibid.: 28). Obscenity in this way is the “total visibility of things”, the total “transparency” (ibid.:29), the becoming “too real” (ibid.: 28). He concludes that "it may already be crudely obscene to present the naked body" (ibid.:29).[13] Isn’t this exactly what takes place in cybersex? Total emotional or visual transparency – one describes innermost feelings, shares innermost pleasures, shows innermost gestures – literally strips down completely, either in written words or in the video-based form in front of a webcam. This ‘explicity’, this ‘obscenity’ is described by Baudrillard not only as characteristic for pornography (and in the sense of this paper, cybersex), but as the social condition par excellence. “This is sex as it exists in pornography, but more generally this is the enterprise of our entire culture, whose natural condition is obscene: a culture of monstration, of demonstration, of productive monstrosity” (Baudrillard, 1990: 35). Looking at cybersex and its content in this sense, one might argue with Baudrillard, that it is in the end one further expression of contemporary culture in terms of ‘loosing distance’, ‘stripping down’, ‘getting closer’. Baudrillard argues further, that this growing obscenity in different realms of life leads to exactly the opposite effect than desired: “Today’s nihilism is one of transparency” (Baudrillard, 2010: 159).The closer one tries to get, the more meaning is lost. The obscene as understood as total transparency, is itself an expression of the contemporary illness of nihilism as a “fascination for desert-like and indifferent forms, for the very operation of the system that annihilates us” (ibid.: 160).This has profound impact on the ‘self’ as well: it disappears into ‘virtual space’. “The virtual body, the virtual self: the self that has no real corporeal existence, only an affective existence as a temporary […] site for the remapping of experience” (Kroker, 1992:115).Applying the concept of the ‘obscene’ towards cybersex might therefore lead to the following conclusion: cybersex understood as total transparency, is one expression of the development towards nihilism – society looses meaning through total visibility and in this way the individual loses itself. Cybersex might be seen as another sign that society actually develops towards this pessimistic outlook.
[...]
[1] At this point, virtuality is meant to define the location of the activity: it takes place in the internet. It is important not to mix this use of the ‘virtual world’ with what Baudrillard means by his concept of ‘the virtual’ that will be used below.
[2] See Thomas (2004:158ff) for more definitions.
[3] A more detailed description of the two distinct forms of cybersex is included in Waskul, 2004: “In chat-based cybersex, semiotic icons emerge in a process of communication and replace all interaction between people.“ (Waskul et al., 2004: 13) making it “purely communicative” (ibid.:13). The participants meet in chats and forums mostly with the direct desire to engage in ‘virtual sexual activity’. Having found a counterpart[3], a form of communication takes part that is often very similar to the sexual act itself. Actions, thoughts and feelings are described and made explicit; this purely semiotic exchange is often accompanied by masturbation. In this way, the body is nevertheless part of this interaction not only as the “subjective semiotic body else [evoked] through typed words“ (Waskul, 2004: 36). The video-based form is similar to the text-based variant. Often, it is the same kind of chat or forum where people meet and the same process leading to the final interaction. The main difference can be seen in the course of the interaction itself: „In televideo cybersex, participants interact through digital cameras that display live images of their bodies.”(Waskul, 2004:36) Instead of the engagement in pure written language, the video-based form of cybersex uses televideo environments. The participants use their webcams to display their bodies – either reciprocally or one-sided. What takes place here is often a „conversation of gestures“ (Waskul, 2004: 39), a ‘body-show’ that is possibly accompanied by audio conversation. The aim – as in chat-based cybersex – is satisfaction. The difference can be seen in this explicitness of the body in the video-based form: It is a “body game” (Waskul et al., 2004:24), which makes it often directly visible to the counterpart.This distinction might be of further interest in papers building on the thesis of this work.
[4] Many scholars writing about cybersex are concerned about the degree of realness activities in the internet have. Especially the notion of ‘cyber-infidelity’ is illuminating in this area (see for example Whitty/Joinson, 2009; Jordan, 1999).
[5] ‘Symbolic Exchange and Death’ (Baudrillard, 1993) presents a detailed theory of the orders of simulacra that is not crucial here. However, it might be important to note that Baudrillard defines the three order according to historical periods. The current consumer society is the third order that is characterised by simulation. (Pawlett, 2010:196ff). For him, these orders are “power structures”, that are linked to the production of ‘reality’ (ibid.: 197).
[6] In this formulation in terms of language, the signifier is the word, the signified the concept and the referent the real world (Saussure, 1961).
[7] The ‘real’ is for Baudrillard no concept that has always existed, but a construct. It came into being with the ‘symbolic exchange’ in the first order and since then watered down continuously through industrial production in the second order and simulation in the third order (‘radical law of equivalence and exchange’). (Baudrillard, 1983a: 39ff)
[8] Very crucial for the following argumentation is that for Baudrillard, it is all media that are in included in this definition; interactive media are not different in their provision of “forms of response simulation” (1998:170), no proper interaction.
[9] This argumentation might only be applied to ‘western standards’. Marriage and sex are far more ‘sacred’ in other cultural realms (e.g. Islam) than the western. The ‘liberation’ of sex has not taken place here.
[10] This is not to be confused with the first, second or third order of simulacra presented above, that mark ‘historical, cultural stages’. Baudrillard did himself not make this difference but it seems to be possible in this instance of a ‘mediated simulacrum’.
[11] This argumentation can thus be seen as an attempt to ‘fight Baudrillard with Baudrillard’ in the first instance but also to pay attention to the perception, that a difference exist between something like ‘Second Life’ and ‘Reality’ (or ‘Hyperreality’).
[12] One might argue that there are also couples that use cybersex as a ‘substitute’ for actual sex one being abroad for example. Is this the same, however? This paper tries to put forward an argument against this notion.
[13] Baudrillard often uses the notion of the ‘obscene’ to describe the media directly and not their content. “Ecstasy is all functions abolished into one dimension, the dimension of communication. All events, all spaces, all memories are abolished in the sole dimension of information: this is obscene” (Baudrillard, 1983b: 23-24). This paper tries to apply this nuanced concept towards the medial content, however.
-
Upload your own papers! Earn money and win an iPhone X. -
Upload your own papers! Earn money and win an iPhone X. -
Upload your own papers! Earn money and win an iPhone X. -
Upload your own papers! Earn money and win an iPhone X. -
Upload your own papers! Earn money and win an iPhone X.