Cyberspace Rape?

While technical details and anatomical specifications could certainly prove me wrong, I cannot help but to insist that Mr. Bungle did indeed commit rape. One defintion classifies rape as “unlawful sexual activity and usually sexual intercourse carried out forcibly or under threat of injury against the will usually of a female or with a person who is beneath a certain age or incapable of valid consent.” Bungle’s actions indisputably classify as “unlawful sexual activity.” He described, in sordid detail, the sexual performances he demanded of others. Furthermore, as evidenced by the victims’ outraged and hurt response, the act was committed completely against the will of fellow lambdaMOO users. So while I most certainly think that Bungle is a rapist, there are probably many others who cannot see past the caveat of non-corporeality. If there is no bodily contact—no physical presence—how can rape actually occur? How does this cyberspacial assault disrupt notions of a traumatic and violent rape? Well, I was drawn to Dibbell’s suggestion that perhaps sex deals not so much primarily with the physical body, but rather with its “psychic double, the bodylike self-representation we carry around in our heads” (203). One could argue that gender and sexuality (and the consequent identities) are subject to inevitable social construction. That is, one’s performance (via body) of their gender/sexuality is heavily persuaded and directed by social framework. It is the psychic body—the theoretical self—that precedes any bodily expression/form. Therefore, for one to subject another to any sort of psychologically damaging sexual activity is, perhaps, the most fundamental act of rape.