by Dr. Tammy Nelson
Is it normal to find sex online? In our current technological culture we use cyber connections to create all of our relationships. We use the internet to manage our social lives, meet new people, and develop both emotional partnerships. Why wouldn’t we find sexual relationships online too?
Today the opportunity to use hand held devices, texting, IM’ing and email as ways to find sexual stimulation through pornography or real partners is as easy as logging on. For some, this is a new way of relating to sexual stimulation that makes erotic connection easier, faster and less complicated. For others, it can lead to problematic behaviors like infidelity, pornography addiction and desensitization to real time relationships.
Yet dating online is the new way of social interaction for anyone looking to meet someone new, make a lifelong marriage match or even connect with old friends.
The way we relate to the world in general is less personal and direct than ever before. Screen to screen, we are becoming removed and isolated from real time contact. Although we are never really alone, with constant access to one another through technology, we are cut off from developing real connection. We make less eye contact, have more difficulty with direct social skills and avoid phone conversations or even leaving voice mails, favoring text messages and emails instead.
And yet technology is not going away; we are moving more toward the convenience of relating to the world through the internet – we do our banking, our shopping, our trading, our news, and our world online. Why wouldn’t we create our sexual relationships online too?
Instead of fighting the tide of sexual technology we can learn to embrace the tide of communication breakthroughs and explore sexuality in healthy ways through new cyber connections into the future. After all, you are reading this article on-line!
Dr Tammy Nelson is a sex and relationship expert and the author of What’s Eating You?, Getting the Sex You Wantand the upcoming The New Monogamy due out in 2012. Connect with Tammy athttp://www.drtammynelson.com
