Comments on Net Sex

(A reply to Anton Nossik)

by Eugene Gorny

Dear Anton,

It seems to me that your sarcasm regarding netsex misses the target. Any form of interaction can be described as erotic and the impersonality of net communication purifies this erotica of exterior interferences such as the contextual conventions of place and imposed restrictions like gender, age, looks, and so forth. Certainly, Americans who begin any conversation with the phrase, "are you male or female?" cannot provoke with their directness nothing but laughter, but the purity of IRC eroticism is something that goes far deeper.

Separating erotica from sex is a rather complicated and unrewarding task, and I do not intend to carry it out. I will just make an observation of the fact that the phenomenon of netsex refutes the notorious cultivation of sex as strictly a physiological phenomenon, and love as a psychological and spiritual. Sex just like love, in reality, does not need an exterior physical object: the desirable object is built up mentally, the manipulation is performed not with the body but with its image. In the end, the real body (or soul) turns out to be nothing but an obstacle, an exterior and unnecessary factor: the pleasure principle, fully in accordance with Freud, rejects the reality principle.

The situation of solipsism that stands out here, essentially, is not that exceptional. You are right in part, equating netsex (as you call it, "net pornography") with masturbation. But is it all that important as to what exactly is being used as a means for masturbation, i.e., "callous working hands", a real vagina or a plastic one? I understand that it sounds cynical but how often do people actually see that other person, need him or her, precisely as something different, as a personality that has a value in itself, and not as a means for pleasure? Read sex-ads and watch porno movies (this is a rhetorical appeal and not a call to action)! A "partner" is not a person but a function, something that can fill in the gaps, replace "one's" lack of oneself.

However, nothing is as straight-forward as the narrow-minded moralists would like it to be. The visible anomaly of netsex camouflages the desire for perfection and fullness. The all-human roots of pornography seem to be obvious to me: first of all, this is a thirst for "abandoning oneself" that the person is often not aware of, out of the boundaries of this, thrust on one by birth, the society and external circumstances, in some sense "a revolt against one's destiny", that strives to cut off all the possibilities, to bring down the potential "universal man" in each human being, to a determined and limited "I", sentenced to a life long confinement in the prison cell of his or her "personal story". When destiny completes its work , the floor and the ceiling of the cell merge, the person having nothing to choose from, cannot escape from "oneself" to "not-I", and so one dies.

Certainly, many will see these reflections as nonsensical, but we as authors (what an American word!), have to look beyond the surface of the issues, not to behave in the manner of like the publicists whom you refer to with such disdain. No one argues that a real woman is better than "naked womenfolk in a picture", or, at least, more real. But "humans cannot live on reality alone." Curiosity, fantasy, and games, from the point of view of "the reality principle", are useless and even harmful for they are not productive and only serve to shatter social structures. It is obvious, nevertheless, that without curiosity, fantasy, and games, reality would become hell. Man is finite and therefore deserves compassion. Condemning him for his attempts to replace his lack of himself ("I do not possess this", Beckett), is not in the least bit humanistic. We might not like the form in which these attempts are manifested, but condemning what this form is striving to express, seems inappropriate to me.

Some personal remarks on the content of your piece: