Charlene Blair

The Internet has become an increasingly popular medium of
exchange for many people in the United States. Users are able
with the aid of a computer and modem to log on to different
areas of the Internet, "pull up a chair and chat" with virtual
strangers all over the world. This largely unregulated forum pro-
vides individuals with opportunities to create and share erotic
encounters. Because Internet encounters are primarily ex-
changed dialogue, the idea of discourse and its power impli-
cations become an important area of discussion. Types of
dialogue, developments in computer interactivity, and questions
of empowerment and self-awareness are examined in this chap-
ter.

This chapter is an examination of the phenomenon of Internet sex and the
implications it has for female power roles. The power role examined in this
chapter is the ideal expressed in The Female Gaze ( Gamman and Marsh-
ment 1989: 182), which explains Michel Foucault's idea of power as rooted
in discourse. On the information superhighway or the Internet, women
enter into an ongoing discourse in which they are "leveled" with men and
others. The Internet offers a unique place for the exercise of power by
women because the system is based on discourse. Discourse is the vehicle
to power because its strengths are enhanced by the anonymity of cyber-

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