COMPUSEX: REACH OUT AND TOUCH SOMEONE – Introduction
Last spring, I bought a modem and began computing in the fast lane. In fact, it
was so fast and racy that you could accurately describe my system’s capability
as downright 1200 bawdy.
It all began innocently enough when I strolled into my local Radio Shack and
bought a membership in CompuServe, the information service that (for $5 an hour
during nonprime time) can hook you up to more than 800 different databases –
everything from the weather in East Africa to the latest price for gold futures.
The service’s most popular section, however, is its live, on-line “CB”
simulation, in which crazed keyboard jockeys from coast to coast get together to
argue, gossip, joke, philosophize, and make singles-bar small talk. There are
bulletin boards around the country that offer similar realtime relating, but
none are as hugh or as geographically diverse as CompuServe.
It was CB that my two prepubescent daughters were itching to try. Within
minutes after logging on, they were dragooned into private talk mode by a fellow
who seemed delighted to be talking to CB’ers of the female persuasion. After a
cursory chat about their careers (he was an electronics engineer; the girls
described themselves as “students”), “Anthony” asked, “Are you ladies cute?”
Then he asked about the length and color of their hair. The kids found this
line of inquiry fascinating, and went on in detail about their shoulder- length
blonde and chestnut tresses. From there the “conversation” went something like
this:
HE: Have you been introduced to compusex yet?
THEY: No we haven’t, but introduce us.
HE: Just respond with what ever you feel like.
(pause)
THEY: When does it start?
HE: I love you darling
(pause)
THEY: Phtooey!
HE:
THEY: I haven’t washed it for ten weeks!
HE:
THEY: Get the hell off!
HE: Don’t like it, huh?
THEY: Anthony, we have a confession to make. You happen
to be talking to a twelve and nine year old kid!
We just are very sophisticated because we come from
New York.
(pause)
THEY: Hello?…Hello?
Poor Anthony’s come-on brought a new dimension to the concept of “touch typing.”
But at the time, I assumed he was a lone CompuPervert, lookin’ for love in all
the wrong databases. In the weeks and months that followed, however, I learned
that CompuSex – along with its less flashy but equally sought-after sibling,
compufriendship – is a staple out there in the global village. “Whoever would
have thought,” as one of my CB pals, Changeup, typed one night during a bemused
discussion of the phenomenon, “that sexual technique would ever be dependent
upon spelling!”
What’s In A Name?
If you’ve never used CB, a little explaining is in order. When you first log
onto CB, you’re asked for your handle. (You can change yours at any time, simply
by typing the command /han.) My own handle is Lynx, chosen because it’s
androgynous but slinky, and because it sounds like my real name – although I
metamorphose into JournaLynx when I’m interviewing people, and into Lynx the
Amazon when I’m spoiling for a fight.
Handles can reflect the user’s job, computer brand, home city or favorite
fantasy, and they’re generally pretty creative. A few personal favorites of
mine are Conan the Librarian and Baroness Von Slink. The regulars on CB tend to
have handles they use all the time, so their friends can find them. People who
are cruising on CommpuSex are sometimes readily identifiable by their handles
alone. On one recent weekend night, they included Funky Slut, Studley Hungwell,
**NAKED**, Spanker, Programmed for Fun, HornyMale Wants Girl, Sex Maniac,
Knockers, and a few too lascivious to be reprinted without overheating my
circuit board.
Once logged on, you can use the status command (/sta) to find out how many
CB’ers are on each of 36 channels. (Channel 1 is the official “adult” channel;
Channel 33 is the unofficial channel for gay men; 17 is for kids 17 and under,
and most of the rest are up for grabs.) You can then type /tun to tune to the
channel of your choice. If you want to find out who else is on CB, or on a
particular channel, the user status command (/ustat) will bring you a scrolling
list of each user’s handle, the “nodes” they’re calling from (“NYC” for New
York; most of the rest resemble airport codes), their permanent CompuServe i.d.
numbers, the channels they’re currently tuned to, an asterisk indicating whether
or not they’re in private talk mode, and their “job numbers” – temporary numbers
assigned by the system to everyone on CB. To go into private talk mode, you
request to /talk and give the person’s job number. Then you wait for the person
to confirm with a command to /talk to you.
Once you know the commands, the trick is to think fast, type even faster, and
learn to translate all your normal body language and emotions into the verbal
domain of CB personality. If someone gets off a funny line, for example, you’re
supposed to type “hehehehe,” or perhaps “<slapping thigh>.” In other
situations, you might <blush>, <sigh>, <snarl> or even be seen <hanging head in
shame>. On a good night, people pass around joints, which you’re expected to
share by <drawing deeply>.
My friend Bluegrass was once a member of a CB gang. Actually, he only got to
join the gang after becoming the first recorded mugging statistic on CompuServe.
It all began one night when he was “lurking” (CB slang for eavesdropping without
making one’s presence known) on a bunch of people who were bemoaning their high
CompuServe bills. Someone named Sweetcakes suggested robbing a bank, and began
passing out black hats to the assemblage. Suddenly, Bluegrass blurted, “If I
don’t have a hat, does that mean I’m a victim?” Next thing he knew, he was
ordered to put his hands up. They took his gold watch and his gold teeth, and
decided not to kill him only after someone pointed out that if they let him
live, they could rob him again the following week. When Saturday night rolled
around again, the group decided that Bluegrass had been a pretty good sport, and
they asked him to ride with them – albeit with a dusty rose hat. “The gang
finally settled down on a raunchy little ranch off Channel 10, and we kept it
going for about 6 month,” Bluegrass recalls.
They were soon known as the Seedy Weed Funny Farm, and they were tough. “We
used to hang CB wrong-doers regularly. Some flake-o would come on to the
channel we were on and start making remarks we considered insulting, and Gunner
would say, ‘Hey, Blue, where’s the rope?’ Sweets would say, ‘Didn’t we smoke it
last weekend?’ and Cowboy would say, ‘I thought of that – there’s some fresh
rope in the truck.’ And while the flake-o would be saying ‘what the hell are
you clowns talking about?’ we’d be busily picking out a tree.
Beginnings
Most of us start our CB careers by lurking around on an open channel until we
find someone to strike up a chat with. The CB equivalent of “What’s your sign?”
is “What are you using?” – which is to say “What kind of computer do you have?”
Reader, beware: If you happen to have an IBM, you’ll be treated like a living
Vuitton bag by the hordes of VIC-20 owners. More than once, I’ve been asked,
“Oh, are you rich???” It’s gotten to the point where I’m toying with the notion
of saying I have a Cray. But there’s also snobbery at the high end,
particularly in the area of capital letters, the unmistakable sign that a person
(a) has an el cheapo computer, or (b) is too technically wimpy to figure out how
to change log-on defaults. The in computer, as far as I can guage, is the slick
Radio Shack Model 100, which combines high cost and affordability – a sort of
digital T-Bird.
Actually, CB is like nothing so much as high school. There is an unabashed
emotional intensity that manages to be simultaneously cliquish. For instance,
it’s traditional to send flamboyant <huggs> and <warm fuzzies> to greet your on-
line buddies, like sophomores passing their friends in the stairwell between
bells. There are popular folks and wallflowers, and the cultivation of a CB
identity is serious business. The difference is that in real life, high school
and beyond, we’re routinely judged by our social categories: age, race,
attractiveness, disability, gender, sexual preference, what we do for a living.
On CB, none of these matter. There’s a story currently making the rounds among
the compuscenti about a famous science fiction writer who was introduced to CB
at a computer show. Asked his handle, Famous Writer gave his real name and then
spent a frustrating 20 minutes communicating with blase CB’ers who assumed this
was some sci-fi freak’s idea of an interesting persona-for-a-day.
People start by communicating some essence of themselves. The social categories
get filled in later, after rapport is already established. One of the most
popular people on CompuServe is a bright, warm, witty woman who can’t speak and
is confined to a wheelchair. Still another is a woman who is both deaf and
blind and uses a special Braille instrument to communicate. This
ultra-democratic aspect is unquestionably one of CB’s biggest charms, and –
without putting too fine a socio-mystical point on it – one of the things that
makes it seem like a quantum leap into some future world of digitized spirit.
As Hyperher, a Los Angeles IBM owner, puts it: “I always had a fantasy about
being made love to by someone who was blind … because I wanted someone to
experience the me who I am inside, not what is apparent to the naked eye. This
is as close as I’ll get!”
Translated into the sexual venue, this means that you can turn yourself into
Catherine Deneuve, even if you’re not really beautiful (or even if you’re not
really female). You are what you type.
Thundar and Lightning
“Your true feelings come out when you’re invisible,” says Thundar, “and all your
inhibitions fall away.” Thundar is a 25-year-old programmer and Apple II+ owner
from South Carolina. I “met” him recently when I set off on a series of on-line
interviews with people about their CB relationships. Thundar is a hard-core
CBer with a $400 a month habit, and he says his on-line friendships (most of
which are nonsexual) are so intense that his off-line friends are jealous.
When Thundar has CompuSex, he says it tends to be as much romantic as
pornographic: He likes to tell his partners stories about knights doffing their
suits of armor to bed fair damsels, and the people in his stories are always in
love. Nor is he electronically promiscuous. “I don’t think people on CB should
attempt such things until they really got to know a person,” he maintains. “CB
can be used as a cheap thrill medium, but as in real life, I prefer a *real*
relationship and not some quickie.” Once, however, Thundar had a sobering
experience. In the midst of a hot on-line session, his /talk partner suggested
that she get off her modem and call him on the telephone, thus heating things up
even more. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out that way. “When we talked (voice
line)”, he reports, “the walls went back up.”
A female CB’er also pointed out that CompuSex can lead to worse jealousy than
the kind on encounters in real life, where lovers at least usually have the good
grace to sneak around. “I used to see that asterisk next to the handle of the
guy I’d had CompuSex with, and I knew he was doing it in /talk with another
woman – and it really drove me crazy.” Then there was the night someone called
“Ready Female” went into /talk just long enough to ascertain each poor chap’s
predilection and then ran back to open channel to kiss’n’tell. (“Hey, so-and-
so is into whips!” etc.) Still, most people I interviewed were thrilled with
their newfound compusexuality. As one Texas man noted with enthusiasm, “It’s
like having a dirty book that talks back to you.” Several people pointed out
that CompuSex relieves partners of worries about birth control or herpes. And a
Corona owner from Georgia added that CB was one of the few places where he could
meet and “date” women who “know that this is not a Funny Typewriter.”
Meeting In Real Time
Some CB friends get together at organized parties, and many others eventually
arrange to meet. Several marriages have even come out of CB, the most notorious
of which actually took place earlier this year on-line, with the minister at one
computer, the bride and groom at another, and dozens of assembled guests from
all over the country. There was a lot of <wiping eyes> and at the end, the
throwing of CB-style rice: !!!!!!!.
But then there’s Connie, a 35-year-old Florida woman, who is about to get the
first CB divorce. Connie describes herself as someone who has “always had a
great deal of difficulty meeting people. I never knew what to say and was
afraid of appearing foolish.” When Connie got interested in computers – she now
owns three different Radio Shack models and a Texas Instruments – she profited
professionally (getting promoted from bookkeeper to head of computer operations
at her workplace, since she was the only person who understood computers) and
also began to lose her paralyzing shyness. CB, she says, gave her the
spontaneity of face-to-face contact, but with the freedom to edit and censor
that actual conversation lacks.
Her first experience with CompuSex was completely unexpected; a man she was in
/talk with asked her what she was wearing, and proceeded slowly to take all her
clothes off. When Connie told her husband about this episode and a few others
that followed, they decided to separate. “He now refers to ‘my other lover’ –
the computer,” according to Connie, and in fact, at this point in her life, she
says she prefers CompuSex to the analog variety. “I will not talk CompuSex with
anyone unless that person really appeals to me,” she adds. Like Thundar, she
uses the word “romantic” to describe what she likes most about CompuSex. “I
think some people can’t understand how it can be that way. Those people are
missing something very special.” Luckily for Connie, her current marital
difficulties are being made easier to bear by the fact that she has a supportive
friendship in her life – another CB’er named Blue Bomb. “I don’t know what I
would have done without him,” she says.
Remaining Chaste
Personally, I’m still a CompuVirgin – but out of monogamy, not morality, not
being the kind to make judgments about what people do behind the privacy of
closed disk drive doors. I have, however, made some terrific compufriendships.
My best friend is Lady Editor (she’s married to Bluegrass, who runs with the
electronic posse), and I met her very early in my CB career – so early, in fact,
that I couldn’t understand why she ignored my request to /talk. “But I’m a lady
writer!” I protested on the open channel. The next day Lady E. sent me a
letter (via CompuServe electronic mail) saying that if I were really a lady
writer – and not a male CompuSex cruiser – she’d be glad to arrange a time to
chat. Lady E. turned out to be a West Virginia newspaper editor with a passion
for horses, chocolate, feminist politics, folk music, and telecommunications.
We started to “talk” several times a week last May, mostly about computers and
the newspaper business, but eventually about relationships, and about our
childhoods. There’s something about sitting in the green phosphor cocoon of
one’s computer at 3 a.m., laughing out loud, and knowing that someone else is
doing the same thing 800 miles away, that makes one feel ridiculously intimate.
Lady E. and I are both of the opinion that we would have become close friends if
we’d met under some other circumstances – but part of what we have in common is
our fascination with the medium in which we did meet, and our willingness to go
with it. In fact, Lady E. and I now know each other so well that I’ve begun to
refer to her in conversation the way I would about any friend – sometimes much
to the bewilderment of my noncomputing, real-world friends.
My second best friend is Changeup, a San Francisco software editor, whom I
originally met during a fight with someone whose handle (Stormtrooper) I took
extreme political exception to. As I was donning my Lynx the Amazon leather-
lady gear and practicing my <uppercut to the jaw>, Changeup suddenly appeared on
the channel and stuck up for me, making old Stormy feel like he’s just lost the
Normandy beaches. Changeup is very funny and articulate, and I recently tried
to cajole him into having CompuSex with one of the Channel 1’ers so that I could
interview him for this article. I even tried to help him think up irresistible
handles, like “Surfer Stud” (Californians are absurdly popular on CB) or “For a
Hot Time, Call Job “…” but he wouldn’t listen. So far, he reports stumbling
into a lot of terrific, meaningful friendships with women who are sick of
compuharassment and want to talk to a nice guy for a change.
My 12-year-old, meanwhile, was unfazed by her experience at the hands of Anthony
the compumolester and is now having regular dates with an 11-year-old boy from
Long Island. On line, of course.