Cybersex can be defined as ‘accessing the internet for sexual purposes’ and may involve looking at pictures, uploading or sending on information, interacting with anonymous partners or sex workers. It could involve online sex-based activities which may or may not include orgasm. Some contacts are made in an attempt to meet with potential partners offline at a later date. However, cyber sex sometimes results in people engaging in unwanted sexually oriented contacts.
Reasons that people engage in cybersex include desire, intimacy, play, experimentation or escape. It maybe to somehow belong or avoid loneliness – belonging is a key human need.
Cyber-affairs are romantic and/or sexual relationships that are established online and maintained through some form of virtual contact. These may be for masturbation or lead to emotional intimacy. It is important to know that internet affairs, it appears, have a similar effect on partners as face to face affairs: the online spouse withdraws emotionally and socially from real life relationships to engage in the online relationship.
Help with cybersex activities is generally sought for two reasons. One is when people find their life unmanageable and are desperate because they have lost or are at risk of losing everything, including their work and partner; the other is when people are under pressure from a partner to seek help.