Let Your Fingers Do the Talking: Sex on an Adult Chat-line

Abstract

Based on the theory of social construction of love and sexuality, this project uses a sexually explicit computer bulletin board (BBS) named Pleasure Pit as the source for contacting individuals who combine their technological computer abilities with their sexual desires. The purpose of this paper is twofold: to examine how and why individuals participate in sexually explicit computer bulletin boards; and to see if sex on-line is a way of replacing face-to-face relationships or a way of enhancing them. Specifically, this project focuses on how one sexually explicit BBS operates, what types of people use this BBS, what kinds of activities are available for the participants, why individuals participate in sex on-line and how those sexual behaviors are accomplished without face-to-face interaction. The findings suggest that individuals get to know each other much better, quicker, and based on different characteristics than those in face-to-face relationships. Similarly, the computer BBS has worked as a way of enhancing the face-to-face relationships rather than replacing them.