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and Relationships via the Internet Manuel Fuentes Wendling Analysis of this world's phenomenon ---------- Manuel Fuentes Wendling |
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This text responds to more than 300 emails that have arrived throughout the year 2001, asking about the subject of cyber love.
Each question has received its proper answer since they are all individuals, each one with their own nuance. Based on these specific questions and considering their nature, the following analysis has been established. This is only an idea of an investigation about this matter in its most broad way that was realized with the help of specialists from various countries. |
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The so called "cyber love" is a phenomenon that is lived by millions of cyber navigators each day. It is initiated by exchanging identities and email addresses, it continues with exchanging ideas and develops up to the point of building a commitment that both persons involved really feel PARTNERSHIP LOVE for each other.
I speak of PARTNERSHIP LOVE in order to differentiate it from other categories of love that may occur from the Internet but that are not object of the observations. Among adults, although many are still not fully incorporated in the communication technology of the Internet, this planetary phenomenon is only known among those who have the time and feel the need to do it. But among the adolescents - including the ones living in a less developed nation - it is a common fact because the Web has turned into their favourite communication resource. Young people use the PCs of their homes, their colleges and universities or their work (for those that work or study and work) or those available in public places like Internet Cafés and Chat Rooms that have spread all over the nations and that charge little for each hour of being connected. This work concentrates on the phenomenon among the young but some of the aspects could as well serve for the adults. |
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"Cyber love" is understood as the love initiated via the Internet between two persons that live hundreds or thousands of miles away from each other.
The cyber love is a new phenomenon that expands vehemently as a paradox consequence that may be due to the lack of communication with the ones that surround us. About this phenomenon there are more opinions than investigations. The opinions are a product of an observation on how this phenomenon turned into a reality, mainly among the young people. Investigations are scant. The subject seems to not have had any focus of sociological interest until now. The mayor interest is the commercial factor as it is being reflected in the numerous Search Engines or Web Directories or the ones that possess electronic support of the physical communication means or that are solely electronic communication means. Such encourage the sentimental reunions of the couples using the Web. For this special rooms have been created (chat rooms). It is a nice and effective way to increase the "electronic visits" that serve to attract advertisers. |
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I think that the two individuals of an affectionate relationship that is created upon an Internet contact and that can be interpreted by the sentimentally involved as links of love, flatter and support each other mainly for the combination of the four factors:
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This is the power each one has to act upon personal reflection and select and decide in one sense or another.
In my opinion, the will prevails in all types of relationships and especially in teen relationships. The plain freedom to simply open and close a communication whenever it is wished; to establish relationships without any limit; to say and express any thought; to create images or to untie ones fantasy in all its spheres; to hide situations, create others, twist, lie or falsify about one's personality, wishes and dreams are, among many others, possibilities of expressions for the human beings that didn't exist before the World Wide Web was born. |
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Until now it is irrelevant for the young people that all conversations are intercepted by the electronic security systems that are activated by governmental agencies of the developed nations.
But it is not sure whether it doesn't concern them because they are simply not aware of it or because they are not informed well or because they just feel confident and don't care. The intimacy that is believed to exist in the Internet boosts the free will because the fact of being able to freely say or express whatever one thinks in the moment that one chooses, assumes the condition that this is carried out through the "electronic secret" between the two of a distance relationship through writing, voice or photo and voice. |
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This is a term I created and define as the "technological capacity of a communication instrument that permits a fluid and anonymous dialogue, free of commitments and over a great distance, between two or more persons that can be limited or unlimited in time and cut of by any of the persons participating in it."
The pre-recorded instant gives the opportunity to suspend, to cut or simply avoid all types of commitment for each one of the involved in a relationship that is formed via the Internet. It could be seen as a beneficial factor to value the sincerity of this relationship and also as an idyllic reconfirmation to love and appreciate what the other person says and expresses, their ideas and specially defined values more than their appearance and physical presence. But it also brings along a paradox: It permits to hide the worst intentions. But how much of this relationship that is created via the Internet and arises between two persons is true, real and valuable if, as it happens in most cases, the involved hide their identities and countries they live in? Who can guarantee that the person in the Internet is as he says if even the photographs he sends could be faked or correspond to another person? The fact of various crimes linked to "cyber love" already exists, among them there is the ELECTRONIC HOUND or the so called CYBER STALKERS. It is already considered in legislations that fight against CYBERCRIME. |
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The full freedom, within an intimate scene that is freely chosen, reaches, through the system of the pre-recorded instant, a higher fulfilment through the physical absence, the fourth medium of cyber love.
Only few that keep an affectionate relationship via the Internet would express themselves as they do in front of the monitor if they faced the persons they pretend this relationship with eye to eye. As a fact and as it has been indicated before, most navigators hide their identities by pseudonyms or imaginary names, and a important part of the couples in the cyber space have opted to not know their real identities and constitute such condition of anonymity that could mean sincerity as well as deception. |
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Nevertheless, the underlying question is whether it is really possible to construct something like love between to persons through the distance and if so, what sense does it have and which are the obstacles for its final realisation that, as a human condition, can only be expressed through physical presence of the ones involved.
It is undeniable that you can get to know fascinating people via the World Wide Web and engage yourself progressively in certain feelings for this person. But that this virtual affection achieves the level of partnership love is only an illusion because the involved lack of knowing and accepting each other physically. Neither words nor photographs that are exchanged by the virtual couple via the Internet can really provide a REAL DIMENSION of the feelings each one has. There is a wide range to mask intentions, ideas and feelings as there is a great space for sincerity that can reach dissolute behaviour that any other media would censor or not tolerate at all. The point from which the phenomenon of partnership love via the Web is observed, we can make a first conclusion: The physical presence in order to create a real feeling of love and affection towards a person is still an inevitable condition for the human being. |
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There is a section "Love and Sexuality" at this website where I have demonstrated some viewpoints that allow me picking them up now as they are appropriate for the subject of cyber love.
I say that love between man and woman, independently from the free idealization that each person can give to another from his or her own cultural perspective and within the frame of the society in which one grows, has its base and foundation in a biochemical conjunction and interaction between the two. This biochemical conjunction goes deep into the genetic structure of the human species and constitutes the tool which is used to seek to maintain supremacy regarding the other species. |
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The love between man and woman is therefore seen as a pre established mechanism assisting the sexual instinct. It is placed in the human genetics. Thus it is transcendent and, most of the times, it reins over reason.
Since the love between man and woman is an assistant mechanism of the sexual instinct, it acts in order to contribute to the relation (natural selection) between the human beings of opposite sex and only in cases of alterations of the sexual chromosomes and as a consequence of the disorders and disorientation that they provoke, between individuals of the same sex. |
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Behind this love there is the sexual instinct and an evolutionary logic that made the selection of such desire that is firstly expressed through a mutual recognition, perception, evaluation and personal acceptance. It goes on with an exchange of non verbal codes (movements and gestures) and, since the moment when humans learned to speak, through verbal expressions (through voice). This extends to a stage of exchanging experiences and seeking for affinity and eventually culminates in the exploration, physical stimulation and the discovery of shared sexuality.
Therefore, the human being has been equipped with love as an instrument that contributes to the complex system of sexuality by virtue of which the human specie survives, develops and evolves. |
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Therefore, the affectionate relationship via the Internet that are interpreted as real "love" can only be considered as a category of simple explorations of feelings as they generally lack of this vital personal biochemical exchange that the human nature demands.
But one should accept the cyber love among adolescents. |
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Nevertheless, cyber love between teenagers can be understood and accepted as a "game of affectionate virtuality" where a boy or girl can simulate the real relationship by exercising steps such as moving forward, going back, stop and combine various expressions of their personality with somebody that plays the same game, that talks the same language, that stimulates the other ones feelings and has fun chatting.
Since teen relationships are neither recognized nor is the love that may exist between two teenagers legally awarded, the relationship of a virtual couple is only a new way of constituting a link without it being criticised. |
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So the adolescents have created a virtual scene in the Internet where, without commitments and sometimes protected by anonymity, they create models of situations that can be helpful in order to face a real teen relationship. In such intention they are favoured by the will, the intimacy, the pre-recorded instant and the ability of incorporation.
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Nevertheless, the young shouldn't mix up the love within a real teen couple with the affectionate feeling for somebody via the Internet. They shouldn't suffer, neither get upset nor distracted but they need to be aware that it is almost impossible to meet somebody that lives 2000 or 10000 miles away unless there occur very extraordinary circumstances.
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They need to understand that the principal barrier that prevents that an affectionate relationship via the Internet culminates in real love, is obviously the distance between the involved.
As for these comments, cyber love is understood as the expression between two persons via the Internet that are separated thousands of miles from one another. It is different if a relationship is created via the Internet between two teenagers that live in the same country, at a surmountable distance. There is the chance of actually meeting each other, getting to know each other which would be the basis in order to initiate and establish a real teen relationship. |
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But to surmount and pay the costs of travelling to somebody that lives a great distance away is only doable for some adults.
The money matters sharpens when it comes to young people and great distance relationships because they aren't economically independent (mostly they are minors) neither personally. And it just results very impossible that a mom or dad of a teenage girl or boy provides the money so he or she can travel abroad to meet a complete stranger that is only known through the Internet. One of the first statistics of a research that was realized in the United States proved that there is less than 5% of the "virtual couples" that achieve constructing a real relationship and less than 1% of them that ends up in marriage after they have gotten to know each other. |
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I think that in contrary to what can happen to adults, between adolescent boys and girls there CAN be created an affectionate link via the internet and if it does not lead to depression, anxiety and sadness, it should be accepted as a proper phenomenon of the worldwide advance in communication technology.
Regarding to the previous, I think that it is possible or even beneficial that teen relationships are created via the Internet when seen and understood as a link that may be helpful in preparing and getting to know about real, direct and personal couple relationships. |
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With the possibility of incorporating voice and photographs while being in the Internet there is a VIRTUAL SEXUALITY BETWEEN THE ADOLESCENTS, as they have personally stated in their emails they have sent to this website. (It also exists between adults)
It is about an "electronic intimacy" where the involved have sessions of shared masturbation. |
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The phenomenon of cyber love in the context of what has been analyzed here is a reality of the Internet and can't be ignored or stopped. The only thing for the adults to do is, to lead and advise their teenagers well.
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