The Cyber-Age is Upon Us

[BDSM_Tourguide]

Have you ever noticed how cyber-BDSM is becoming a widely-accepted form of teaching and discipline?
Have you also ever noticed how much of a difference there is in cyber-BDSM and real-life BDSM?

Here's a theory I have about cyber-BDSM. I believe that a lot more people have access to the internet than people have acces to a local BDSM scene. Therefore, I believe it is easier for people to just log on and find a site for BDSM that they like and start their learning process there.
Another thing that I have considered is that a lot of people feel safer learning online. There might be a variety of reasons for this:
The internet is easy. You can't get hurt physically there. Everyone knows a cyber-spanking doesn't hurt nearly as badly as a real one.
The internet is "safe." Relatively speaking, of course. If you meet someone online you don't like, you can block or ignore the person. It is much, much harder to do this in real life.
You can turn the internet off. Let's face it, that little X at the top right of the screen is the ultimate safety net. If you have a problem you can't handle, you can just close the window and disconnect the modem. Trying to get yourself out of a situation in real life can be a lot more difficult.
In fact, I remember from my early chatting days when people used to get into arguements and then get "kicked offline" only to come back later under either a new handle or after the person with which the arguement occured had left.
Changing handles is another nice safety net. I know some people online that go by three or four active handles at any given time. I wonder why that is? Is it because they need the extra security that anonymity provides? Do they know people don't like them and figure everyone will give them a better chance if they change their name? Who knows?
I have been online and in chat for four years now. In one of my regular old haunts, I have had five handle. Of which, I use two. One for vanilla rooms and one for BDSM chats. All my other handles are gone and I inform people about the new one when I start using it.
That's really neither here nor there, though. I was just sharing a personal preference.
Now, here's another really neat question:
With all this "internet safety," what kind of dominants and submissive will be filtering into the lifestyle in the future? In our real life munches and play parties? Should we begin to start expecting to see reservation cards that say "Space reserved for TDN2010 and TDNs_robby?" Or perhaps our invitations to munches will be printes as follow in the future: "Please come to O/our munch on April 17th @ 7PM. W/we look forward to seeing A/all of Y/you at TGI Friday's on Smith Street. Please do not dress in leather or other fetish wear. W/we were told it was disturbing to the O/other G/guests in the restaurant the last time W/we were there."
I understand that the level of reality on the internet is a bit disconnected from real life, because it has to be. They have not yet invented a flogger attachment to hook up to your USB port, nor have they yet invented the Star Trek transporters so you can beam over to your submissive's house and punish her when she has been bad in cyber. However, shouldn't a certain level of reality and discipline still prevail?
Let me give an example of what I mean:
The internet offers several very well-designed web pages on a multitude of subjects. One such subject is medicine. Anyone in the world can log on to any of 100,000 or more medical directories and medical websites and can have an abundance of knowledge printed out for their perusal in seconds.
However, when you get into a car accident and require emergency surgery, would you rather be operated upon by the gentlman or lady that gained all their knowledge from medical databases and websites? Or would you rather have a doctor that attended medical school and has practiced surgical techniques for a few years cutting you open to save your life?
Personally, I would choose the well-trained doctor that studied in medical school. Maybe I'm just weird that way.
So, why can the same not be applied to BDSM? Sure, I can read all I want about spanking and flogçing and nipple clamps and whatever. But does that mean I can do it? Maybe. But maybe not correctly.
And what about aftercare? Never have I seen a website called aftercare.org "The web page for taking care of your sub's needs after a scene." And likely I never will see that site either. Why? Because it doesn't have any basis on a cyber-life.
I do realize that not everyone can get to a real life munch. I know that not every geographical region on the planet has an SM society. And I realize that, yes, the internet is easy. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't try to make the internet experience as real and positive as we can for people that don't have a clue what's going on, but would really like to.
"Alternative lifestyle" was the catch-term for the 90's. It's going to be bigger than ever in this century.
The population of the United States is just over 275 million people, but there are over 400 million computers in use (perhaps residentially, I don't remember the actual statistic).
What that means is that a lot of people in alternative lifestyles, including fetish and SM are going to be using a lot more computers in the days to come. Do you think they will want to see people typing "Y/you" and think it's normal? Do you think that they need to learn that running away and changing a handle can overcome their relationship problems? Do you think these people might need to learn a little about aftercare, besides what appears in three or four articles on a couple of fairly obscure sites?
If you think all that is fine and dandy, then let me ask you this: Imagine a cyber-troll trying his best "Hey baby. Let's go fuck." in a public bar. What is that woman, or worse, her boyfriend that he didn't even think to ask if she had, going to do to that poor guy?
The same can be said for someone in the chat scene. Imagine a person with only chat experience attending a play party. Never mind the munches and introduction courses. Those didn't sound interesting to him. He has cyber experience. He "knows" he can just jump right in and do whatever he wants at the play party, because it's what he sees everyday in his chat room.
After all, aren't play parties just that? Places where "willing participants" gather to flex their fetish muscles and use their most wicked toys?
It might be a fairly extreme example, but don't think it isn't possible. People coming out of cyber and going directly to real life might mostly be fairly responsible and have some common sense. But think of this. If 20% of the people that own computers are into alternative lifestyles. And out of that 20%, .01% are completely clueless like my example guy from before. Then that means, out of 400 million computer owners in the US alone, that somewhere in the vicinity of 8000 people will pose a genuine risk to others.
But like I said, not everywhere has a fetish scene. So, the majoroty of those 8000 or so people will fall into the fetish scenes in major metro areas, right? Not very likely. The exact opposite is true. Most fetish scenes in major metro areas are advertised pretty well. You can walk into almost any adult toy, clothing, or book store and find a flier or poster for the local munch.
But what about Podunkville, Louisiana? Population: 2000. Do you think Podunkville is going to have a local fetish scene? And if they do, do you think those good, honest, God-fearing people are going to advertise it? Hell no!
So, Mr. bob_OU812 from www.cyber-spank.com <http://www.cyber-spank.com> that just happens to live in Podunkville, Louisiana and has not a single lick of formal BDSM or fetish knowledge decides to take the plunge and attend his first play party in Bigtown, Louisiana. Because he knows there's a fetish scene there. His buddy, joe_69_4u, told him there was. So, bob_OU812 dresses in his best leather outfit and grabs his favorite bullwhip that he just knows some "willing participant" will want him to use, because he's got tons of experience using it in a chat room.
That's the kind of person that is quite likely to hurt someone in real life and make this lifestyle look worse than it already has been looking for the last 300 years or so. And that is the kind of person we (as real people) need to help.
I'm not going to stand here and preach that the internet needs a reality check. That is obvious to anyone that has ever seen a pornsite. But what I will say is that, unless the people that do know what they are doing don't start lending their real life knowledge to those that are not fortunate enough to have one, then the future does not look great.
In my opinion anyway.
And isn't that what the internet boils down to?
Each person's opinion?
Why don't you tell me yours, then? I'd like to hear it.