Virilio Part 2

Our group picked up’s virilio ideas of cyber love relationship, cyber-feminism and space-time matter for this week’s discussion. Each of us will address one of the issues in our blog to find the interrelationship among cyber-feminism, cyber love and space-time.

In page 67, Virilio stated that “lack of any limit apart from the cosmological constant of the speed of reality waves would quickly induce us to practice long distance love” “not the courtly love of Middle ages any more, but the virtual love permitted by the sensory feats of cybersex with demographic consequences for humanity that go without saying thanks to the invention of such a universal condom”.

Second Life provides people with virtual bodies and identities in virtual environments. People create avatar on behalf of themselves to interact with other beings. The avatar’s appearance tends to indicate the images that people want to present for themselves. With the multiple communication channels in 3D virtual worlds, users can meet with other people to satisfy their social needs. Hemp (2006) stated that within Second Life, avatars of flesh-and-blood individuals can be an intense experience -- living in the skin of an avatar, looking through its eyes and engaging with other beings. In the virtual world, relationships can be developed the same way as in real life. People can know more about each other through conversations, voice chat, and instant messages. For instance, you can meet someone in a dancing club and it is a very convenient way for avatars to begin a conversation. Then, if you find some common interests and mutual understanding, both of you will go to find some thrill and enjoyment together in virtual worlds. The time you spent together will develop real feelings for each other. Through emotional and mental intimacies, people can develop serious relationships within virtual worlds. Numerous virtual-world friendships lead to virtual marriage/real-world marriages.

Virtual wedding in Second Life


Here is an article of virtual marriage in Second Life

Far from reproducing the usual dichotomy between the pleasure of the senses- the art for art’s sake of the sex act, and the act of the flesh intended to engender family descendants, the tele-technologies of remote love are inaugurating not only a furtive from of remote birth control but also beginnings of a hyper divorce that will eventually endanger the future of human beings.” P109.
The virtual relationship may bring some negative impacts on physical relationship. In real world, if you catch your partner having an affair with another person, it is emotionally devastating that may end up with a broken marriage. But if your partner having a relationship and in the act with other person in virtual world, do you think it is some kind of cheating or it is nothing rather than a game?

Here is an article from CNN reporting a man who was caught by his physical wife, having cybersex with another woman in Second Life. Their marriage ends up with the divorce.
Second Life affair ends in divorce

Another negative impact of virtual relationship is that it is much easier to develop a “cyber-imaginary” capable of becoming a tool to present a false image of self than in physical world. It is also easy to develop emotional intimacy, trust in a virtual relationship because people think they are safe and may do something they will not do in the physical world. Hemp (2006) claimed that avatars comprise not only complex beings created for use in a virtual environment but any visual representation of a user in an online community that is the most conspicuous online expression of people’s desire to try out alternative identities or project some private aspect of themselves. Thus, how the virtual relationship affects people’s physical relationship and life will be an interesting area to investigate.