Mercedes Sayagues
Body Language
Tuesday, April 6: An old flame who lives halfway around the world e-mails, professing eternal lust and shall we meet for cybersex at this website for shoe fetishists? Why not? says I. We make a date for Saturday at 10pm. I had been considering an upgrade of my e- mail link to full Internet. This is the perfect reason to do it.
Wednesday, April 7: Wrote cheque for Zim$999,90 to server, double the e-mail- only fee. Ready for some cyberaction.
Friday, April 9: Chose my cybername: lick my boots. Old flame’s name: just do it.
Saturday, April 10, 9pm:Off to an early start and get sidetracked on a fetish search. The menu offers perplexing items. Latex sex: what is this, sex with a male condom on? No, people dressed in latex body suits, like vacuum-packed foie gras. Fistfucking: spare me that. Pregnant women having sex: I wonder if the stars keep getting pregnant to keep the job. Older women having sex: it is heartening to know one is not completely unemployable after age 70.
10pm. Log in. And what do I get? YOU NEED TO UPGRADE YOUR BROWSE. How in the world do I do this? E-mail a frantic SOS to server. Date flops.
Monday, April 12: Internet service provider manager Sydney sends instructions. Upgrading takes three boring hours. I follow instructions but still cannot access chat room.
Instead I read the Daily Mail & Guardian, and check out latest info on Angola in six (not sex) sites. Since this year I have travelled to Angola more frequently than I got laid, I guess this makes sense. Downloading takes for ever. I am starting to hate the Internet.
Tuesday, April 13: Cyberlover tells me wild adventures with shoe fetishist he met in chat room and later in London. He attaches pics taken by co-fetishist. His instructions: “Winzip compacted, uncompact with Pkunzip, other format self-compacting (JPG).” What the hell does that mean? I hate cyberlover. Off to Bulawayo to do a story.
Friday, April 16: Back from Bulawayo. National holiday, long weekend. No reply from Sydney. He is surely having sex with his girlfriend. He does not need to upgrade his browser, he just pulls down his trousers. I hate Sydney.
Tuesday, April 20: Post and telecommunications (PTC) technicians on strike. Phone is dead. E-mail is dead. Internet is dead. I hate the PTC. Will change cybername to: neanderthal barefoot babe.
Monday, April 26: Strike is over. Workers win. Happy for them. A luta continua – Sydney replies! It will cost Zim$700 for a technician to upgrade my link.
Will the Mail & Guardian pay so I can go on with story idea?
Tuesday, May 4: Tech Francis installs faster modem, but striking PTC workers sabotage server’s dial-up lines: hooking takes up to an hour, lines drop constantly. Deep frustration.
Thursday, May 13: Server sorts out sabotage, but I still cannot access the Web.
Furious call to Francis’s cellphone at 10pm, a gross lack of manners in Zimbabwe. Crossed lines land my call on wife of wrong Francis, who turns out to be a bank executive. Wife does not believe I am looking for Francis the tech although I rattle angrily about connections before we realise the mistake.
Tuesday, May 18: Eureka! I’m having cybersex!
So how is it? I confess I had prejudices against cybersex. I thought I would end this piece with a disqualifier, like, better spend your money on a flimsy tanga. But, contrary to my expectations, there is something to be said for it.
There you are, writing your most secret thoughts, your dirtiest fantasies, the ones you would hesitate to whisper to your closest, hottest lover in bed. There you go pouring it all to perfect strangers, protected by the anonymity of cyberspace (or so I hope).
After initial hesitations (what is the etiquette? what constitutes bad manners?), overcoming own shyness (do I really dare to write this?) and the ever-present guilt feeling (what if somebody walks in? what if my messages one day come to haunt me, like Bill Clinton’s semen on a blue dress?), after a while I am into it, getting turned on by words and images.
You reveal your sexual soul on the screen and someone, somewhere, plugs into your fantasies and responds in kind.
Or you plug into somebody else’s. Like Bad Boy. He adores Princess Diana’s and Fergie’s feet (not Camilla’s), posts pics of a shining, barefoot Di and makes up stories of weird sexual dalliances between Charles and Di.
So far, I have only seen softcore at this site. No torture scenes and no child porn. I wouldn’t stomach these. I don’t believe that stuff is protected under freedom of speech. It should be penalised, and I don’t care if I sound like Tipper Gore.
Kinky sex it is. Monica, who wants to be told what underwear to wear to the office tomorrow. White Boots, who is turned on by women wearing these and collects their photos. Meshnet, who craves mock strangling with women’s pantyhose. Nederlander likes to photograph feet in wrinkled pantyhose.
Orango enjoys sniffing mules with pom-poms. The variety of foot and leg fetishes is mind-boggling.
The site is user-friendly. As I log in as New Kid on the Block, Naughty Boy explains how to “privately whisper to” for a liaison a deux (I hope). Unfortunately, sometimes I forget to hit it, so there go my words to all.
Most users enter, find a partner, and retreat into private whispering. Some post photos for all.
Zap among chat rooms – Boots Only, Socks and Pantyhose, Domination Lounge, Shoes and Sandals, Feet and Toes – with a caveat: you are playing musical chairs with 20 chatters per room. Either your slot is taken – or the line drops.
So what do you get out of it? A turn-on; a feeling of complicity with fellow chatters; a peek into other people’s sexual fantasies, and into your own; a way to explore mental sex, unbound by physical presence and fleshy concerns.
Am I becoming a cyber-mystical Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz? OK, cut it out.
It’s just a way of passing the time when you have nothing more interesting to do.
The catch is that this is interesting. And safe: you won’t catch Aids or get pregnant from cybersex. It’s like visiting the S&M clubs of New York, without parking problems and for the cost of a local phone call.
It is fun to do it alone and fun to do it with a partner. I felt freer alone, when I could express my dirtiest thoughts, those you either keep secret or spill out to the world of cybersex addicts.