Using the Internet is how she became involved with her current married lover, MUSTANGXX, a 29-year-old, athletic, attractive and "happily" married man. They met online, when Dana posted on the Internet database Craigslist under Boston’s "casual encounters"- a collection of posts from locals looking to hook-up and get together, mostly for sex.

Between e-mail, instant messaging and surfing match sites, online hook-ups have become a popular alternative to going out to a bar on a Friday night, or suffering a "set up" by friends. The twist is, it’s no longer just singles looking to make a love match. K was only one of the 700 responses Dana received after her post:

Are you unsatisfied at home, and looking for something on the side? Though perhaps sporadic, something regular, with a woman who can be a friend, confidante, lover, listener who accepts you with no questions asked and puts no demands on you? I can be that woman for you – I have had several such relationships.

"Married sex often goes vanilla," Dana said about men who look for affairs. "At first it’s good and it’s frequent, but after kids and school projects and jobs, the sex tends to get boring and not as often." Dana happens to offer a variety of flavors with her appeal laying in her willingness to serve the most animalistic needs and urges. Her lack of inhibitions both on the net and in the bedroom is too tempting to resist — and she’s all too accessible to scratch a married man’s sexual itch because of the Internet.

Dana sees it this way: cheating spouses are entitled to an instant gateway into their fantasy worlds. Because these relationships start with a keyboard, computer screen and a mouse, people looking to step outside their relationship can have it now, not later, and not next week. And with cyber chats, webcams and the ability to arrange secret, safe meetings through sites like Craigslist or AffairMatch, they have all they need to make it work.

Surrounded by friend and family photos in her living room, Dana checks her Yahoo! inbox, waiting for K to come online. "He hasn’t responded back yet," she said.

The wait is all part of the game and the thrill. The adrenaline rush has proven to be one of the biggest turn-ons for cyber affairs, and while some married men and women suffer from guilt, it hasn’t stopped them from pursuing affairs or using the Internet to help them reach the end goal: sexual satisfaction. It took almost two years for K to get over his "guilt" before making his relationship with Dana physical last August. Now they see each other on a weekly to bi-weekly basis for lunch, picnics and a little afternoon delight.

Guilt is a one-way street for Dana. She rarely thinks about the "other woman"-the wife-and never feels guilty after adding another married man to her bullpen. At the end of the day, she’s looking online for sex, and she has no regrets about that. "You know, that’s their problem," Dana says about men who look for sex outside of their marriage. "I’m single, I can do whatever I please. I don’t have any guilt over this. I put it out there, but ultimately it’s the men who write back. I’m just providing something they’re seeking out."

A Cyber World

Computers and the Internet have become an integrated part of modern day life: online shopping, keeping in touch with old friends, and now cyber affairs are available instantly and at people’s fingertips. With an all-access pass to the World Wide Web and countless sex sites, people looking for a little fun on the side can cast a wide net when searching for affairs. The darkest, deepest sexual fantasy can be discussed, explored, and performed virtually — and all under a disguised identity.

"There’s a kind of excitement for me to anonymous sex and to connecting with people totally around sexual desires. That’s a turn-on all its own," wrote Jay Neycan in an e-mail.

Neycan who has been married for six years, refused to give his real name, but says he works for a Boston newspaper and has been scrolling through the sex ads on Craigslist for nearly two months. There are a few reasons why he likes the idea of finding an online affair, the first being the anonymity, which he sees as being both a turn-on and a comfort. Using private e-mail accounts that his wife doesn’t know about, Neycan is able to chat with women away from his wife’s watchful eye. The second reason is the direct conversations that take place online. Connecting to a person via a screen name or e-mail address allows people to be more frank and blunt in their speech, and in what they want from a sexual partner.

"The third reason," Neycan wrote, "is there is just something exciting about the forum, about the release of inhibitions. On the Internet you can be whoever you are without fear of rejection.”

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About The Author

Meghan Gargan is a Blast Magazine staff writer

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