Cyberlife

So every once in a while, cybersex (and long-distance communication with IM in general) surprises me. Turns out it's a very flexible medium, and if you're someone with a literary bent, like myself or my erudite k, it can be a pretty satisfying alternative to a face-to-face encounter. Different, to be sure, but not altogether different, and possessing unique charms of its own.

I've started reading some media-critique literature lately, and I guess the idea of modes of communication, and how they affect the content of messages communicated, are on my mind a lot. So it's only natural that my brain starts inquiring about how the IM medium alters, limits, expands, amplifies, skews, and distorts certain kinds of ideas and communications, compared with say the telephone or a face-to-face interaction. But rather than bore everyone with theory, here are a couple of examples from yesterday...

My k was bratting out a bit. That in itself is something that I know would be an altogether different experience in real-life than in an IM window of course, but the mental landscape travelled is much the same. In any case, she was trying to get a certain kind of attention from me, using what I made clear were inappropriate methods, and I wasn't having any of it yesterday afternoon. For a while, we locked into what amounted to a staring contest. Which, yeah, you wouldn't think would work with people typing words back and forth on a screen. But damned if it didn't. I was right there, staring my gal down, and I felt the tension build between us, the atmosphere grow charged, brought her attention into a special kind of focus, and ultimately felt her willful defiance disintegrate.

All in all, it went on longer than a real staring contest possibly could, and had an element of theatricality about it that would have been laughable-to-impossible in real life. Of course there would have been other compensating factors in real life, but this experience had its own unique dynamic.

Once the staring contest was over, we proceeded to a bit of a spanking scene. Here's where things get muddy and complex and really interesting. You see, my poor k actually busted her delightful tailbone on a camping trip last weekend. The cross-pollination between the real and the online being so strong these past months, I actually have been avoiding giving her sexy butt as much attention (aggressive or otherwise) that I normally do. Yes it's strange that I had to mentally overcome this obstacle of not wanting to hurt my gal and actively convince myself that I wouldn't do any permanent damage by typing words about spanking her ass. That's what I did though, and the whole emotional process of the spanking and its aftermath was exactly we both needed at the time.

Funny to think that it's something that wouldn't have been possible in an actual real-life encounter. What I could have done as a satisfying substitute in a face-to-face (or hand-to-tush) situation is an interesting notion to ponder. Nothing puts the power dynamic between us into such sharp relief as a spanking, and it would have been disappointing indeed to have that option removed. Could we have sat at computers on opposite sides of a room and played out the scene in cyber anyway, despite the close proximity of the aching ass in question? Ridiculous as that seems, I could almost see it working. More likely, though, I'd have found another way to pull her into my sphere, open her up again to her own submission, allay her fears, put her in touch with the beautiful core of herself, and enfold her in my love.

Such is the relationship between us, whether online or off.