Virtual Spaces: Sex and the Cyber Citizen

Rating:
Summary: Cyberporn is addictive
Review: As a psychologist specializing in sexuality, I found this book not at all qualifying as a professional offering. Odzer gives us pornography herself, and justifies it by her "analysis." Cybersex isn't normal sex, its symptomatic of loneliness and isolation, and often addiction. Readers shouldn't be reassured, but rather helped to take a look at what is missing from their social and love lives. Anyone who does more than take an occasional look at cyberporn should be worried.

Rating:
Summary: Cyberporn is addictive
Review: As a psychologist specializing in sexuality, I found this book not at all qualifying as a professional offering. Odzer gives us pornography herself, and justifies it by her "analysis." Cybersex isn't normal sex, its symptomatic of loneliness and isolation, and often addiction. Readers shouldn't be reassured, but rather helped to take a look at what is missing from their social and love lives. Anyone who does more than take an occasional look at cyberporn should be worried.

Rating:
Summary: A disappointing attempt to expose the "truths" of cybersex.
Review: I eagerly opened this book expecting to gain insight concerning the how's and why's of cybersex from an anthropological point of view. Instead, I learned about one woman's adventures in the prostitution houses of Thailand. The juxtaposition of human sexuality and cyberspace is a topic ripe with possibilities for exploration, but I found myself instead reading "glory days" passages and feeling pity for Odzer.

The references to pornography, s&m and the "horror" of meeting a virtual reality partner only to discover previously undisclosed girth is just not enough incentive to try to grasp the idiosyncracies and pleasures of cybersex.

I would suggest that this particular book be classified as "autobiography" instead of computer/internet interest.

Rating:
Summary: A disappointing attempt to expose the "truths" of cybersex.
Review: I eagerly opened this book expecting to gain insight concerning the how's and why's of cybersex from an anthropological point of view. Instead, I learned about one woman's adventures in the prostitution houses of Thailand. The juxtaposition of human sexuality and cyberspace is a topic ripe with possibilities for exploration, but I found myself instead reading "glory days" passages and feeling pity for Odzer.

The references to pornography, s&m and the "horror" of meeting a virtual reality partner only to discover previously undisclosed girth is just not enough incentive to try to grasp the idiosyncracies and pleasures of cybersex.

I would suggest that this particular book be classified as "autobiography" instead of computer/internet interest.

Rating:
Summary: Personal and entertaining, a good geek read
Review: This book is best read as the third in Cleo's series of rich yet exotic life experiences. As with the other two books, here we have a woman whose looks and charm have allowed her to squeak through a whole host of interesting experiences that, by now, should have left her dead, diseased, or incapacitated. But fortunately for us, we have this MUD & VR-centric collection of experiences that are refreshing, fun and immersive from this woman's community-centric point of view - and a very honest take on the (intended and unintended) hypocricies of love online.