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Fleshly Pleasures: Multi-User Dungeons and International Relay ChatBy Tom Geller
Multi-User Dungeons (MUDs)If you're an experienced user of MUDs, by now you're probably saying: "Why are you wasting time with newsgroups and IRC? Come to a Multi-User Dungeon -- that's where the real action is!" And it's true: along with all the fantasy role-playing that goes on in these text-based adventures, there's an awful lot of sexual and romantic chat going on. In addition, clever (and well-motivated) programmers have expanded the medium to allow users to develop real personalities within these imaginary (?) worlds, and honest-to-god relationships which continue for months are not uncommon. However, the world of MUDs is incredibly complex, with each site boasting its own complement of features, commands, and rules. While that shouldn't turn you away from trying them out, it would be hard to do them justice in this short article. If you'd like to learn more about these virtual worlds, point your web browser at http://draco.centerline.com:8080/~franl/mud.html, where Francis Litterio and friends explain it all for you.
Internet Relay Chat (IRC)If you're looking for real-time chat on the Internet, you've come to the right place. Sometime around 1987, folks started using the "talk" function in Unix to set up centralized chat locations where anyone with 'net access could take part in CB-like discussions. The next year, Finnish programmer Jarkko Oikarinen formalized the format with his IRC program. When it first started, there were just a handful of channels, identified only by numbers. But as Channel 9 came to be known as the Highway Patrol channel in Citizen's Band-land, so did IRC channels gain their own "personalities": 69 became the "straight" sex channel (for obvious reasons), and 33 became the gay channel. (A bisexual channel was proposed for 51, which is halfway between 33 and 69. It never caught on.) Since then, the system has exploded to such a degree that anywhere from 2,000 to 6,000 channels are typically running at any given time. While this is encouraging, it makes it hard to find the channel you want -- unless you already know its name. A survey of the 3,000 channels running on a Friday afternoon turned up over 200 which were obviously of a sexual nature. (Of course, sex chat can -- and does -- occur in every room from time to time, from #chess to #christ. Supposedly, those with prurient names have a higher likelihood to host sex-related chat.) Below you'll find those which were the most active (along with the number of people in them when surveyed).
How to get on IRCUnfortunately, getting on IRC can be pretty daunting to the first-time user. It's a text-based system -- no icons to guide you -- ruled by arcane commands and an even more arcane culture. Basically, you'll need to use a Telnet program to log on to an IRC server, either directly or through your Internet Service Provider. A specialized IRC program will make the going easier. Follow the program's instructions to connect to an IRC server: in the U.S., the three most popular are irc.bu.edu, irc.colorado.edu, and irc.uiuc.edu. To "join" a channel, type /join channelname. Need more help? Try the FAQ at http://www.kei.com/irc.html, or the IRC help pages at http://www2.undernet.org:8080/~cs93jtl/IRC.html, http://mistral.enst.fr/~pioch/IRC/IRCprimer/IRCprimer1.1/IRCprimer1.1.html and http://urth.acsu.buffalo.edu/irc/WWW/ircdocs.html. Good luck!
General sex channels
Regional gay channelsFor some reason, fully 56 of the 211 sex-related channels showing on IRC when I surveyed it were regional, gay chat rooms. Additionally, many of them were in gay-hostile Middle America and in other countries. That makes sense to me: when I was a college-age bisexual geek in Cincinnati, it was easier (and less intimidating) to find others like me through electronic means than to go to the gay bars in town and risk being attacked as I walked to the parking lot. Violence, loss of job, loss of home, loss of friends: all these threaten sexual beings in Middle America, but none result from cruising on the Internet.
United States (sorted by decreasing level of traffic)
Non-United States (sorted by decreasing level of traffic)
"Trade" channelsGot pictures? Want pictures? These are the places to arrange trades.
Power games/S?At first sight, you might think that some of these listings would be better classified as "gay" or "straight." But in the world of "power play" sex -- which includes Sadochism/Masochism and Bondage/Discipline devotees -- such divides seem less important when the lash starts flying. That explains why one of the most widely-read S? writers, a lesbian named Pat Califia, is best known for her long-running column in the gay men's magazine, The Advocate. Go figure.
This page was last updated on Monday, February 09, 2004 at 3:07pm CST. All contents copyright 2005 by Tom Geller.
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