by Marlene M. Maheu, Ph.D.
Just as communication is the start of any relationship, we are seeing that communication technologies are creating opportunities for people to connect in new ways. Whether or not these relationships have a real-life component, technologies of the future promise to enhance their emotional and sexual connection with specialized features.
Developing and Maintaining Offline Relationships
Geographic separation over long periods can often stress a committed relationship and put the relationship at risk for infidelity. Examples of couples who deal with geographic separation include men and women who accept distant work assignments, such as military personnel, scientists, and business people. Virtual contact with electronic devices is likely to be a solution to the loneliness and deprivation caused by long periods of separation. Technology may make the separation more bearable and provide a solution for lonely people away from home. Various devices will allow couples in committed relationships to remain in virtual contact and engage in affection as well as sexual gratification.
[1]In spite of these fascinating options for overcoming separation from a life partner, it is unlikely that the majority of people who engage in cyber-infidelity will be trying to overcome the complications of geographic distance. Imagination and creativity will undoubtedly create new problems by making it easier to engage in cyber-infidelity. While data has not yet been gathered to fully understand the causes of cyber-infidelity, it is likely that the "Triple A Engine" identified by Dr. Cooper and colleagues is at the heart of the problem. As you will recall from our previous discussion, the Triple A Engine (anonymity, accessibility, and affordability), can reduce many of the traditional blocks to infidelity. While technology can create artificial limbs and other body parts, it cannot create maturity, loyalty, compassion, or trust. It cannot define monogamy or compensate for its betrayal. It cannot reduce the pain of discovering infidelity, even if the unfaithful spouse has fallen victim to cyber-sexual compulsivity because of the Triple A Engine's driving force.
Cyber-Travel
In years to come, travel of all types through technology is likely to become more common. Romantic get-aways could happen quickly and without the inconvenience of last-minute packing, travel, and room reservations. People may be separated by geography, yet joined through virtual reality and transported to a virtually shared environment-perhaps a warm beach on a private island paradise. Surrounded by plush tropical vegetation, they will be able to enjoy each other and themselves with artificial devices and escape the reality and loneliness of their situation. The idea of a weeknight or weekend getaway can take on new dimensions. Online virtual reality will offer options such as virtual homes, where two people can interact as if they lived together.
Sex Therapy
Another group of people potentially helped by technological advances are those who experience common sexual problems. Scientists are attempting to design devices known as body suits, which when worn can stimulate erogenous zones. Body suits will be designed with different objectives in mind. They might be helpful to those who have not been helped by Viagra, such as men who have undergone prostate surgery. The possibility exists that research may find that body suits are helpful to women who suffer from vaginismus, an involuntary contraction of vaginal muscles. Couples might be helped to enjoy more fulfilling sexual encounters when a partner has become ill or disabled.
A common reason for infidelity in a relationship is the result of an inability to communicate about sexual needs. Technology can either help or hinder relationships. Therefore, it is possible that sexual technologies will allow couples to have more detailed or explicit conversations about their sexual preferences and desires. In that way, partners who otherwise might break their promise of fidelity may find new ways to relate to their life partner rather than engaging in cyber-infidelity.
Social scientists are already working with programmers to develop therapy tools for the future. We can expect continued movement in this direction, especially since patient satisfaction reports are surprisingly high with such automated programs. While they are rarely used as stand-alone services, they are proving to be useful aids to psychotherapy with a variety of disorders.
Artificial Insemination
As illustrated by the opening story to this article, further enhancement of contact for partners separated by distance will be possible through technology. In Cybersex and Human Reproduction, Philip Zhai describes how reproduction could be altered with the use of body suits. Both parties could use sensor-based technology to stimulate and excite each other or themselves during this process. If the female suit has an artificial male genitalia equipped with sensors, it could transmit feelings such as pressure, temperature, and motion.
Zhai also described an artificial penis that can ejaculate. The ejaculated material could be simulated semen, or could actually be semen. Therefore, an online lover could impregnate a partner by sending the semen to her for insemination during cyber-sex.
Developing and Maintaining Online Relationships
Many people using the Internet are engaging in experiments to see if they can develop or maintain satisfying relationships with people they have never met face-to-face. What will the future hold?
Dating Services
Dating services will continue to be enhanced. Dating websites already offer matchmaking services that define people by the precise type of relationship they seek. These websites will refine their capabilities to filter and screen potential partners. Individuals will be able to use Internet technologies to screen thousands of potential partners as easily as conducting a search for information related to sports, stocks, and recipes. The "married but looking" chat rooms could easily evolve into "married but looking" databases and the potential for cyber-infidelity will increase greatly.
Anonymity enables people to attract others by presenting idealized versions of themselves through the Internet. What role will these enhancements and actual physical appearance play in relationships once video capabilities arrive?
Video Capabilities
It is clear that video and data basing capabilities hold much promise for the dating websites of the future. Traditional dating services began with written ads and then progressed to voice recordings. When video capabilities were added, the industry exploded.
Displaying an attractive picture at a dating website can greatly increase the number of responses to an online personal advertisement. Adding video clips has already begun. When people start using these clips to specifically request various types of relationships or activities, dating websites will be able to offer very specific screening tools to their users.
The future will also allow romantics to see and hear their virtual partners as if they are in the same room, while also offering the possibility of interacting with this partner though imaginary identities and realities. Those who play sexual games will take on added capabilities-extra hands, legs, lips, and other body parts-with experiences stimulated to suit those interested in either pornography or live, interactive playmates.
Web browser programs are already equipped with options for using video cameras. With broadband capabilities, the Internet public can freely use video cameras for making casual as well as business contact. The use of video equipment in all types of virtual romance, cyber-sex, and cyber-infidelity is not difficult to imagine. People will have an actual window into each others homes, offices, and lives. They will be able to look at each other eye-to-eye in real time, for whatever experience they care to create. Given the current lack of legal sanctions, they will be limited only by their imaginations.
In his book, Passionate Marriage, Dr. Schnarch reports that lovers can increase arousal and intimacy by making eye-to-eye contact during lovemaking. The availability of video cameras for common laptop and desktop computers has already made eye-to-eye contact in real time possible for online lovers connected with high-speed connections. Others who use slower connections can still see one another, but must tolerate a slight delay, poor picture resolution, and uneven motion. Nonetheless, to see one's lover while communicating through a chat room or using an Internet audio channel can prove very powerful. Research into these areas has not yet been conducted with any amount of reliability, but it can be imagined that eye-to-eye connections available through a video camera will greatly influence intimacy between people who have never met in real life.
References:
Cooper, A. (2000). Cybersex and sexual compulsivity: The dark side of the force. New York: Brunner/Mazel. Schnarch, D. (1997). Passionate marriage. New York: Henry Holt & Co. Zhai, P. (2001). Cybersex and human reproduction. Retrieved February 5, 2001 from the World Wide Web: http://www.geocities.com/athens/3328 [2]
Much gratitude is extended to those who helped clarify, amplify and edit the material used in this article:
Michael Erickson, Ph.D.; Les Posen, Ph.D.; Rona Subotnik, MFT; and John Suler, Ph.D.
About the Author:
Dr. Maheu [3] is an author, speaker, and researcher. She is the lead author of "E-Health, Telehealth & Telemedicine: A Guide to Program Startup and Success" co-written with Pamela Whitten and Ace Allen, published by Jossey-Bass: San Francisco.
She has also been the lead author on these two books: "Infidelity on the Internet" and "The Mental Health Professional and the New Technologies."