CU-SeeMe
and Hormone Heaven
by Maurice Fitznuggly

The market's up, unemployment's down, consumer confidence is up, the crime rate is down. What does it all mean, Alfie?

Maybe this, for starters:

Here's Fitznuggly's "Hormonal Law of Cyber-sexuality":

"Societal hormonal stress varies inversely
with societal computer usage."

Put another way: "As computer use increases, hormonal stress decreases." Or yet another way: "Repression is lessened in the eye of the beholder, and the beheld.

Could it thus be that one of the unexamined, unsuspected but massive effects of escalating computer usage is exactly the opposite of the panicked cries of concern? Media alarmists confirm every parent's secret fear: "Quake" caused Columbine. And perhaps there is some tiny strain of virulent behavior in a few people that is being fed by certain violent computer games.

Typical CU-SeeMe user
relaxes at home (see below).

But for the rest of us, consider this. At any time, day or night, there are thousands of people (mostly male, we assume for various reasons we won't even begin to go into here) who are doing some kind of cyber-sex on-line. Lots of them are getting off to pictures. Lots. A brief tour of a few of the tens of thousands of sex sites is all the proof you need.

That's not all. At any time, day or night, thousands of people are sexually doing a little more on-line that just passively whacking off to pixelized pussy and prick.

For $100 or so you can buy a real video camera for your computer. Not a still-picture camera for snapshots. This camera is a tiny little moving picture camera. Easy to hook up. You plug it in, install the software, and within minutes you have access to hundreds of video sex sites, where you watch other people and they watch you doing, well, whatever. And you can talk to each other, either using typed chat or a microphone ("Move your left ring finger about a quarter of an inch higher, please," etc.).

The original software for this level of interaction, called CU-SeeMe, was developed several years back at Cornell. That fine institution is off the hook, because they developed it for videoconferencing. And indeed it is still and often used for that safe, clean, decent, non-objectionable purpose.

CU-SeeMe user at her ease.

There is videoconferencing and there is xxx videoconferencing.

Is anybody out there measuring the decrease in socially destructive behavior as, say, the world's exhibitionists discover that they can exhibit to their genitals' any time they want to for as long as they want to and to as many people as they want to... from the comfort of their own home?

Does it not seem likely that this kind of easy, reliable, infinitely repeatable hormonal release (and not just for exhibitionists, mind you) may have some long-term positive effect on sex-crime statistics?

Sure, the grainy little CU-SeeMe video is a long way from the real-life, sweaty sights and smells of your standard S&M dungeon (or whatever), but the cyber-release is so easy and so available. The various cybersex video sites, like Baskin-Robbins, offer a variety of flavors. Gay, lesbian, straight, bi, trans, voyeur, exhibitionist: they're all only a couple of clicks away.

Let's move the argument into a behavioral arena that is less objectionable, that of simple competition. Uncounted tens of thousands are on-line at this minute playing a whole range of interactive games, from (yes) Quake, to chess, to bridge, to checkers, to hearts, to tic-tac-toe.

Add it all up--so MUCH hormonal activity and release--the effect must eventually rise far above the micro (individual behavior) well into macro (quantifiable social change).

Check it out for yourself.

Unshockingly, go to, say, Yahoo's Entertainment page. Then click on "Games" and you'll see what's available--and how many are playing--at that one portal.

Edging into the cyber-demi-monde, you can download the CU-SeeMe software for free and use it to explore the live video sex sites. You don't even need to buy a camera. Many of the sites--sympathetic to the voyeurs among us--allow "lurkers," that is, people who just want to watch. All you need is the software.

The Internet is far more that just e-mailers, day-traders, amazon shoppers, and ebay bidders. There're a lot of hormones being spilled out there right now, and maybe for the betterment--and safety--of us all.

For the CU-SeeMe software, plus helpful info about using it, go here.

The live video sites which you connect to with CU-SeeMe are called "reflectors." Streak's Reflector List is the most complete, most up-to-date.

For the CU-SeeMe Web Ring, go here.

END

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