What Makes a Sexy Correspondent?

[BlackShanglan]

I know what you mean, but speaking for myself, I respectfully disagree. I have to know whether I'm dealing with someone who is as they represent themselves to be or is not. I understand where you're coming from, but I consider the two kinds of interactions to be quite different and separate, to be approached differently, with different parts of myself.

Some of the people on Lit, for example, happen not to be the gender they represent themselves to be. That matters to me. I suppose it speaks to my small-mindedness, but gender matters to me. Or maybe it speaks to the fact that I'm just such a hetero lech.

But I'd hate to be pouring my heart and soul out to someone I thought was one thing for a year, year and a half, only to find at the end of that time that my inamorata was a 48 year old retired cop or bunch of bored fraternity boys.

Interestingly enough, I can understand this, and even empathize with some of it. I think that we must approach virtual eroticism differently on some levels; typically I wouldn't seek a connection with the reality of a person I was flirting or writing erotic correspondence with, and to me the reality isn't important - but that's not the same thing as saying that being honest about reality isn't important. I am, at least here, particularly clear about the limits of the information I supply, to the extent that people recognize immediately that I'm declining to reveal certain aspects of reality. I am not transparent, but I strive to be forthright.

At other times, in other venues, I've been less direct, but then those were places in which one sought excitement and convenience rather than depth of connection. People knew (and sought to know) so little about each other that I didn't feel obliged to provide a realistic description of myself - although I have always been careful not to deceive people on the topic of gender, which I find bothers most people more than it does me. The few people I got to know better, I gave a more complete picture to. I would have thought it wrong to let someone spill his or her heart and soul out if I hadn't extended an equal level of trust, even if the trust was expressed more by "I don't wish to provide an accurate description of X" rather than "I am X."

I think we differ most in what gender means to us. I enjoy partners of either gender, and so I don't feel particularly troubled to know what the actual gender of an electronic correspondent might be. I have, in the past, learned that people I've known for some time as one gender were in fact another; being what I am here, what can I do but laugh at that, that I could miss it? But I'm quite content to take people as being whatever gender they care to present. If I am honest, I find the prospect of some doubt on the topic erotic. What's more daring than a leap into the dark? There's a delicious eros, to me, to the idea of sensuality powerful enough to make a man walk blindfolded, and I don't much care which side of the blindfold I'm on.

But how do you feel about other aspects of reality? Is it important to you to know the actual age, or height, or weight, or coloration of the person you're talking to? To me, they are cosmetic details irrelevent to online eroticism, but then I may compartmentalize more than you do. When I did seek erotic encounters, I sought them directly at venues focused on them and I tended to go there only for that purpose. When I sought friends to chat with and get to know better, I went elsewhere, and I didn't often mix the two. Possibly I cared less about reality because I sought less personal intimacy?

 

[CharleyH]

I know what you mean, but speaking for myself, I respectfully disagree. I have to know whether I'm dealing with someone who is as they represent themselves to be or is not. I understand where you're coming from, but I consider the two kinds of interactions to be quite different and separate, to be approached differently, with different parts of myself.

Some of the people on Lit, for example, happen not to be the gender they represent themselves to be. That matters to me. I suppose it speaks to my small-mindedness, but gender matters to me. Or maybe it speaks to the fact that I'm just such a hetero lech.

But I'd hate to be pouring my heart and soul out to someone I thought was one thing for a year, year and a half, only to find at the end of that time that my inamorata was a 48 year old retired cop or bunch of bored fraternity boys.

I completely appreciate your take Doc and I totally understand. But the fact is that all of us, you included, are nothing more than Avatars. How can we know anything different? Does it matter? Shang raises some great points. To me, and maybe because I am realistic and know I can't take many (not all) online genders at face value, it does not bother me to discover that someone I have talked to for a year, as you say, is a man or a woman. In my opinion, if I have connected to that person for so long? There is a reason, maybe not sexual, but there is a reason.

and hugs