Forming Virtual Relationship: Cybersexual Attraction and Cyber-Relation Addiction

In recent days, several researchers and theorists put their effort in finding out the occurrence and extension of maladaptive and pathological pattern of Internet usage that influences adversely social, personal, academic and professional areas. While interviewing Internet dependents, it has been found that a majority of them are actually suffering from serious relationships problem including disruptions in marital and intimate close relationship as a result of Cybersex and online sexual compulsive behavior. Cyberaffair refers to a romantic or sexual relationship between two individuals that has been started through online communication, principally electronic mode of communication that may take place in any virtual spaces including communities, forums, blogs, chat room, interactive gaming zone, newsgroups, etc. A Cyberaffair can be facilitated with either one-to-one romantic or sexual conversation or it may comprise of a sequence of romantic or sexual conversation with many people virtually. The Internet addicts may show their compulsive behavior for meeting online their newly found love recurrently and use Internet more than actually necessary with a hope of meeting their love soon.

As reported by the President of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, there is an increasing trend of divorce accounting for Internet cheating and infidelity. But the area of virtual infidelity is greatly underestimated as the potential benefit of Internet concerning technological advancement outweighs the negative utilities. Moreover, healthcare professionals specializing in marital and other close interpersonal relationships are quite unaware with the dynamics linked up with comparatively recent idea of cyberaffairs and virtual infidelity.