Quote Originally Posted by ValKyrie
I think that the end result of the cyber age on BDSM will be a more mainstream acceptance of it and us!

Cyber BDSM is a another means of BDSM practice, another "kink" if you will.

Perhaps the internet will make more people aware of the SM community, but it what way?

If the lurkers and watchers and people that really want to know see a bunch of nitwits, trolls and wannabes, then the image the internet is creating of the online SM community is one that say we have no idea what we're doing.

Cyber-BDSM might be another kink, but since most of the cyber-BDSM I see can be labeled as cyber-kinky-sex, I don't think a viewer can really appreciate the difference between real-world SM and cyber-BDSM.

Real-world SM hurts a lot more than cyber-BDSM does. It's more dangerous, more tactile, more pleasant and more intense. Peopl that don't recognize that this is true before making the leap from online to real-life can easily get hurt or frightened away from BDSM altogether. And that is a bad thing.

So, as long as the image being put out by the popular pornography industry and the clueless-about-SM majority is one of cyber-sexing, cyber-bullwhip cracking, Tarn-riding cyber-Goreans, then I will continue to try to make people more aware of the differences between the cyber world and the real one.