I’d gotten so many emails since starting (and eventually finishing) my online sex column Click Me from would-be cyberers who couldn’t find a decent internet haven. It was lovely to be able to direct them to my site, newly formed — i.e. rough around the edges– as it was. Then, at the end of December, host site Ning.com purged all networks with adult content, sending Beautiful Stranger back into the internet oblivion. Well shit.

I write to you now, fellow naughty internet explorers, to implore you to rebuild where I left off. Sadly, as a full-time writer, a soon-to-be PhD candidate, and an even sooner-to-be bride, I don’t have the time to start a new, better (faster, stronger) Beautiful Stranger. But someone should do it. Not only is there money in it — a dating site for people with dirty minds who don’t want to meet in real life? Those people exist, to quote Frank N. Furter, in abundance — there’s need. NEED I tell you. How much longer can good people roam bad AOL forums weeding through teens and the spelling undead?

So if you’re at all interested in building a cybersex social networking site and you’d like to confer with me on the details (half a year running such a beast did teach me a few things), please feel free to get in touch. Alternatively, the next time you’re wasting precious hours of life scouring the internet for a cybersex haven, redirect that horny energy into working on this project. Yes, this one here. Because we proud pervs need to stick together. And how are we supposed to do that if there’s nothing to stick to? Insert raunchy joke about sticky seminal fluids here.

A recent study links online and depression – but don’t believe the buzz kill just yet.

Cybersex has long suffered the unfortunate stigma of being a pastime for loners and the emotional inept. Now science has stepped in with its official take on internet romps and our feelings. This past October an Australian study, “The Psychology of using the Internet for CyberSex,” unleashed the claim that there’s a direct relation between internet-users’ depression levels and the amount of time they spend engaging in dirty chat or watching pornography. The 1,325 people surveyed logged, on average, more than twelve hours a week to wett their dot-com whistles. 358 of them ranked “moderately to severely depressed.” Word caught on fast with print media and blogs: getting it on online makes you sad. However, said Swinburne University PhD student Marcus Squirrell, the researcher who conducted the study, that’s far from the full story.

Though Squirrell, busy with both his clinical psychology degree and his therapy patients (one of whom actually threatened to commit murder right before our interview), was hard to track down, we eventually spoke over the phone – and over seventeen time zones – from his office in Australia. Right off the bat, Squirrell helped set the facts straight. First, what he means by cybersex is just about any form of online sexual entertainment. Next, the data he’s using was collected from an online survey he posted on sex-oriented websites. He also wanted to stress that his study doesn’t just look at depression, but also at anxiety, loneliness, and interpersonal attachment. Most importantly, he said, “Depression and anxiety certainly correlate with increased use of cybersex but we can’t actually say it’s a casual relationship.” The two may impact each other, but a study of this kind can’t prove one causes the other.

That’s exactly the quarrel psychology professionals had with Squirrell’s work as they saw it reported by the media. Dr. Kimberly Young, an expert on online sex addition, expressing her concerns over email wrote that, instead of cybersex leading to depression, “it may be depressed people use cybersex more.” Now that Squirrell has had a chance to voice his side of the story, it’s clear he too is unwilling to dump the oversimplified blame on the internet. “It may be that the people who are more severely depressed are more likely to be engaging in cybersex, since it might help with their anxiety,” he said, explaining a potentially positive link. “It gives them a purpose and allows them to make human connections that are harder to make face to face.”

Back in December I was also able to speak with Professor Ann Knowles, one of Squirrell’s two academic advisors, who shed some additional light on this research. First off, she explained, the study is far from complete, so no definitive conclusions can yet be drawn. Though all data has been collected, Squirrell’s official results won’t be released until this summer. Knowles stood behind her student’s methods, but did admit the people surveyed only represented one subset of the cybersex world. “The type of sites on which the questionnaire was posted it is certainly not a representative sample of the general community because it must over-represent people who visit sites dedicated to various sexual topics,” she said. What about the correlation between online sex and emotions in more casual enthusiasts? The scientific world may never know.

While the jury is still out on whether depression causes cybersex or cybersex causes depression, plenty of people who have sex online – and have it a lot, like the men Squirrell surveyed – don’t seem sad or anxious or lonely. One anonymous enthusiast, who has spent up to fifteen hours a week over the last ten years surfing for porn and exchanging naughty emails, reports that such activities allow him to express a fetish he feels embarrassed about in real life. Another interviewee, who dedicates a similar amount of time to erotic chat, said that, since he used to be shy with flesh-and-blood women, he didn’t have many opportunities to assert himself sexually. He admits, “Cybersex was, for a couple years, my sole outlet for coming to know more about myself sexually.” Eventually, his experience helped him start real-life relationships. These days, the more he gets laid online, the more he gets laid offline – and the better he feels.

Unlike the news sources that ran condemnatory headlines like “Cybersex causes depression!”, Squirrell himself enthusiastically admits that online pleasures can be wonderful things – when taken in moderation. “Don’t think for one minute I’ve got anything against cybersex,” he laughed. “For the majority of people it’s not a harmful activity… In fact, I think it can be quite life-enhancing, as long as people make relationships outside the online world.” Know what that means, sad, anxious, and lonely people? Button up your pants, step away from the keyboard, then go make some friends and get a therapist. Afterwards you’re welcome to come back and share in the fun with the rest of us.

The reason Click Me has been MIA: the Village Voice site got a makeover. From now on you can find my column here, in the sex section.

Also of interest in the realm of sex machines is this coverage of Regina’s from the Adult Novelty Expo. You too could buy a giant sexy toy that plugs into the wall and never gets tired. Now how to explain it to house guests.

Oh, and there’s also this week’s Clickable Clit. So much to read…

Update: check out the Fucking Machines gallery for shots of the machines doing there things.

It’s 4:30 in the afternoon and I am a pirate wench. Life can’t be too bad though, because apparently I own a corset—and presumably a tri-corner hat. Of course, I’m role-playing in online chat. My partner, a forty-something user from California playing hooky from work [pretending to be a sexy nurse], is stroking his cock while he instructs me to stick out my tongue and say “Ah.” I don’t have the heart to tell him: for me this is work. I do however muster the sass to suggest that the real disease I suffer from is tasting too sweet, and would he/she please perform that age old medical test of diagnosis through licking.

This all started last month when I interviewed Sam Yagan, the co-founder of OkCupid, the self-declared dating site of hipsters and polyamorous people. Being a little bit of both, I wondered if the site could also be a happy home for cybersex… I also point the finger at Audacia Ray, fellow sex writer and head of the Voice blog Naked City. I recently read her book Naked on the Internet—a great intro to a lot of the topics discussed in Click Me. In it, she talks about the culture of sex blogging, which chronicles the juicier details of a writer’s sex life. I liked the idea of doing something similar for my cybersex encounters—making a record of all the faux-mating I do for “research”—so, for fresh material (i.e. a roll in the online grass) I decided to test out Yagan’s claims about OkCupid.

Check out the piece for the full naughty details. Also, while you’re here, admire the Captain Hook costume above. I know it’s not wench attire, but how great is it to think “Man, she’s hot!” and “Man, I hope she doesn’t maul me with that hook!” at the same time?

The day I sit down, look my mother in the eye, and tell her I like having sex with strangers on the internet is the day I choke myself with a giant glittery dildo. The day my mother Googles me, on the other hand, and uncovers my shameless rants about sleeping with various virtual playmates for the sake of decadent “research” . . . Well, that day came long ago. Plus, apparently I have no gag reflex. So here I am.

The point is this: no matter how sex positive or proud you are, coming out as a cybersex enthusiast to your family and friends can be downright hard. Despite the opening of a few select minds, when most people hear “sex on the internet,” they still think of perverts, pedophiles and other nasty creatures that go bump in the chat-room night. So whether you decide of your own free will to “come out”—or whether a chat window left open does the outing for you—you should be armed with some tactics less drastic than sex toy asphyxiation for explaining your online sex life to the people in your real one…

Read the rest here. Also, pictured above: a real-life hussy (or at least some very slutty pie).

According to the site’s founder and namesake, Abby Winters, what makes her models so enthusiastic—and her porn so sexy—is her emphasis on “naturalness.” Unlike most pornography, where even amateurs get dolled up with makeup and “six-inch plastic high heels,” Winters says her models have regular clothes, no fake boobs, and plenty of pubic hair. (“Shaving is so ’90s,” declares the “Be a Model” section of the site.) She only hires women between the ages of 18 and 25, and proportionate figures that promote “a positive body image” are a must. “We’re basically subverting the porn paradigm,” Winters explains. “All our models are just normal women.”

Thanks to Regina Lynn, who’s earlier column on the subject cued me in to checking out Abby Winters. Oh, also, two redheads making out: both strangely appealing and strangely wrong. Their are so few of us in the world, it seems like redhead incest. Anyone? Anyone?

We allow people to be really expressive on OkCupid. It’s not just a matter of filling out check boxes… There are certain niches of people—like polyamourous people—who find OkCupid to be a much more open and accepting place [than other dating sites]. Someone who’s polyamorous doesn’t fit into the Match.com box, and God forbid doesn’t fit into the Eharmony box. We also have a slightly higher than average percentage of people who identify as gay, lesbian, or bisexual, probably 13% or 14%. So the people who are marginalized on some of the subscription sites find a really welcoming venue here.

And on the possibility of using OkCupid for cybersex:

If you were to put on your profile, “Hey, one of the things I’m interested in is cybersex, I’m very, very confident than in short order you’ll start finding people who have that interest… If I go to your profile, and you’ve taken the “Do you give a good blowjob?” test, then I’ve got an easy segue to start talking to you about blowjobs. I don’t have to ask, “Do you wanna cyber?” I can just be like, “Hey, you seem to think you give good head. Tell me about it.” Now you’re essentially cybering, right?

Something like that, Sam Yagan, something like that.

According to Abram, Xstream3D’s North American marketing and business representative, PC-only Virtually Jenna has been in ongoing development for the last five years. In fact, it won’t be officially finished until 2010—despite opening its doors to the paying public in 2005. Add in a two-million-dollar budget, says Abram, and that explains why his game looks better than any other sex sim on the market. It also explains why, for their $29.99 a month, players get regular updates supplementing the game’s simple, self-proclaimed goal of making girls “suck and fuck hard and wild.”

I can’t even imagine the amount of work these guys do, considering Xstream3D runs at least five versions of Virtually Jenna with different “skins”–including a three-dimensional hentai game. Serious props for range, folks!

As always, if you have a question about cybersex, sex on the internet, sex and technology, or sex in video games you’d like to ask the resident sexpert (that’s me!) feel free to send an email. You’ll find my address in the contact section, along with a picture of me balancing Pichu on my head. That’s how you know you’re getting credible advice: my love of adorable plush pokémon.

Inspired by Brett Kahr’s book, Who’s Been Sleeping in Your Head, a sort of modern-day Kinsey report, the piece asks, “Can cybersex mitigate emotional trauma the way Kahr claims sexual fantasies do?” The answer may or may not surprise you–but the tales of online debauchery certainly will. Ok, knowing this crowd (I love you guys!) maybe they won’t, but they sure are fun to read.

Image via Kink.com.