A friend recently asked me if I would look over, and contribute to, a project she started working on while bored: a glossary of terms regularly used in sexchat. Things like

SCENE

  1. (n.) Cybersex or sexual contact performed on IRC, usually in a public context (for example, in a channel), eg: “I was in a scene with John”. Can also be used to describe any act of cybersex, even in private.
  2. (v.) To take part in a scene as an active participant, eg: “I’m just a slut who likes to scene”.

and more stuff specific to IRC like

HOP

  1. (n.) IRC term short for “half-operator”, denoting a user with a percentage sign (%) next to their name. A rank of status allowing the user to moderate the channel with less access rights than an op. Known as +h.
  2. (v.) To grant someone the hop (+h) status.

How do I know this stuff?

I’ve mentioned it before, but never in too much detail. I am a seasoned user of IRC – from being a regular in chat rooms, to being a HOP, AOP, SOP and even IRCop at one point. I’ve done it all. One of my proudest achievements (or at least it would be, but pride is a sin!) is that of keeping a dying chat room going for a few years – the action-packed second week of my ownership being one of my favourite memories.

None of this is to do with sexchat, but… well, I used to do that too.

My third year at university was a busy one. I didn’t enjoy my first two years and, although this year wasn’t much better, I wasn’t having a whale of a time. I had my music, and my communities, and my eternal friends – books. After charging it, I even had my faithful DS, which afforded me the luxury of handheld gaming. Even my housemates were nice.

But, still, I was lonely. Being a final year student meant that I spent the majority of my time stuck in my room reading texts. Were it not for the fact that I was doing a creative writing dissertation I may not have bothered to do final year. Nevertheless, I stuck with it, I finished my dissertation, passed everything else and took Japanese on the side… and finished with a 2:1, which I suppose could have been worse. No regrets there.

I spent the rest of my time on sexchat.

There I found myself in a very different community of people (including the aforementioned friend, who was both at my university and on sexchat) than those which I was already used to. I wasn’t writing as ILB yet, and in all honesty I was both naïve and a little sheltered at the time. Here, however, was a collection of people who were unafraid to talk openly about sex, and also quite willing to engage in it, if you had a good prose style and mastery of the /me command.

Yes, there were terrible people there – angry, horny, hairy men who wouldn’t take no for an answer, used the /me command for their own nefarious ends and made everyone uncomfortable (including me, with my gender-neutral nick which made everyone assume I was a girl; it’s just my real life nickname!) – but, once you’d filtered them out, those left would be the ones you’d want to talk to. Over time, I came to think of a number of them as friends.

I liked cybersex, because of course I did, I’m ILB for Glod’s sake… and I was quite good at it, or so I’m told. But what kept me coming back, for hours on end most days, wasn’t the orgasms so much as a chat. It’s not every community where you can have one tab open discussing the relative merits of the Star Wars prequel trilogy, while in another you’ve got your smooth, pulsing cock splitting the folds of a beautiful Dutch bisexual lady, her describing how the beads of sweat running down her breasts tickle her skin while you fill her so completely.

So full and good. Yeah.

Where was I?

So, yes. I’d been going to sexchat since I turned 18, but as a 21-year-old student with few friends and having had absolutely no sex for three years, it really was my saving grace. A dodgy place, there is no doubt; once you’d figured out how to navigate it, however, and you weren’t being a dick (even to those who wanted dick), it held my attention enough to keep me going back, as I did for years afterwards.

I don’t really go to sexchat any more, but my friend does, and as she pointed out when she asked for my help, I am perfectly qualified to write a few entries for her glossary.

Because, when it comes down to it, some things never change.

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose…