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ORIGINAL: Politesub53

i agree with you that one should expect some of the people in chat rooms to be liars. Why though should we be comfortable with it. To me a lie is a lie is a lie.....

quote:

ORIGINAL: stella40

There's a lot of people online who seek to protect their real identity with an 'online' identity, for different reasons. Personally I don't, but I know a lot of people do.

I moderate on a Transgender chatroom, and recently was asked to moderate as a one off on a BDSM chatroom. I found it to be a very eye-opening, interesting and often amusing experience. The chatroom held anywhere up to 220 nicks, the vast majority to be men, Doms and male submissives all chatting happily and interacting with Dommes and female submissives who... predominantly were men pretending to be female. What surprised me so much was the fact that I appeared to be moderating what appeared to be an almost all male chatroom, but that so many Doms and subs claiming to be heterosexual and openly discussing what people discuss in chatrooms without even appearing to suspect that this could be the case. It takes all types I guess.

I have quite a few online friends in the scene and I often wonder if the person I have contact with online is anything like his or her cyber persona in real life.

And then I ask myself 'Does it really matter?' Does it really matter if you're having a really good cyber scene with an attractive woman who you might suspect is actually Arnold from Eindhoven or Norman from Pittsburgh?

Does the online friendship you form with Rebecca (who is really Michael) have any less value than the online friendship you form with Cindy (who is really Cindy)?