Now the Orgy is Over
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
Spring 2010
Abstract
Based on six months of ethnographic fieldwork, this study explores the intersections between embodied flesh and digital (re)presentations by examining how participants experience virtual sex on Second Life. We explore how and to what extent Second Life avatars mediate personal desires and fantasies with others who, collaboratively, construct sexual adventures in forms of playful deviance that allow for the emergence of secret sexual selves, as well as how those sexual adventures are ultimately fashioned and experienced in a “diffused life” that is neither of Second Life nor of first but a tightly bound combination of the two. Despite the enormous freedom of Second Life residents for seemingly boundless creative self-expression, we conclude that these experiences are more bound to and confined within disciplined practices than they first appear.
Department
Sociology and Corrections
Publication Title
Symbolic Interaction
Recommended Citation
Dennis Waskul and Justin Martin. 2010. "Now the Orgy is Over." Symbolic Interaction, 33 (2): 297-318.
DOI
10.1525/si.2010.33.2.297
Link to Publisher Version (DOI)
Publisher's Copyright and Source
Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons. Article published by John Wiley & Sons in Symbolic Interaction, volume 33, issue number 2, 2010, pages 297-318. Available online on December 22, 2011:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/si.2010.33.2.297
