Megalextoria

A summary for those that haven’t been keeping up with this series:

I found a number of 5.25″ disks at a thrift store a number of years ago (sometime in the late 1990s to the best of my recollection). I finally got around to acquiring a 5.25″ disk drive and extracting the contents a several years back. Since then, I have been occasionally posting the content here.

Based on the contents, most or all of these disks were apparently once owned by someone named Connie who used to run the “Close Encounters” Special Interest Group (SIG) on Delphi in the mid 1980s.

The following description of this SIG was found in a document on one of the disks: “This SIG, known as ‘Close Encounters’, is a forum for the discussion of relationships that develop via computer services like the Source, CompuServe, and Delphi. Our primary emphasis is on the sexual aspects of those relationships.”

This service was text based and was accessed via a modem and whatever terminal program you had available for your computer to dial in with. Many of these disks have forum messages, e-mails and chat session logs. All of this is pre-internet stuff and I am not aware of any archives in existence today that contain what was on Delphi in the 1980s.

This post includes the contents of ITSOVER.DOC. It contains a single e-mail dated December 10th, 1984. It’s one person’s opinion (going by the handle of FTF) of the sexual revolution and it is tied in to the topics discussed in the Close Encounters Special Interest Group. It looks like this was sent to three people including the manager of this particular SIG. Contents included below:

From:   FTF            10-DEC-1984 20:46  
To:     PRINCESS,JOHNMYSELF,CABUYS
Subj:   IT'S OVER!

The sexual revolution is over!

And I am not sure any of us can say who won...

Sure, you say to yourselves, thats just a gimmick to get us to
read more and perhaps that is part of what lies behind these
words.  But consider, for a moment some concepts regarding
trends of this sort. I certainly will concede that sex is
alive and well in this United States and most certainly in the
electronic world! 

But it's different now for some reason.  Look at the types of 
encounters that get discussed just here for example.  Loving 
Submission.  Multiple person relationships.  Casual and quite 
serious relationships.  The Main Event.  Even two years ago,
would it have been possible on an individual level to discuss
these events with such an open attitude?  I maintain it would
have been difficult. 

The sexual revolution was not so much an effort to make more 
types of sexual contact acceptable.  Behind the closed doors
of countless bedrooms the variations have always been
occurring.  No. That was not the point of all of the front
line actions.  The revolution has always been directed towards
making us comfortable discussing it and engaging in it.  To
take the word *dirty* out of what was already happening in the
trenches. To let us say to ourselves first and later to others
"You know,  I like sex!"  And then to go one step farther and
say  "I wish my lover/friend/spouse would try this or not do
that" and be honest about it.  To find the societal acceptance
to be able to say that one does indeed have needs and desires.

Of course with the greater awareness of the pleasures come the
increased awarenesses of the potential dangers as well  - the 
unwanted diseases - the greater risk of pregnancy - the fact
that sometimes lovers aren't terribly honest about themselves.
But those were always there.  We just didn't talk about them.

The sexual revolution is over. I think we all won!