Gisella said:
What do you have to say about Sexual Tension ?
And about internet sexual tension?
IMHO, there's a definite distinction that needs to be made between face-to-face sexual tension and the internet-based variety. In real life, it can be that kind of jaw-dropping response you get to somebody in an instant --- "lust at first sight", one might say --- or else having their personality/looks grow on you over time --- that leaves your whole body tingling; and which is on some level reciprocated. But for some reason, you know nothing can happen .... whether it be due to you or the other person (or both) already having a monogamous partner; or because a relationship between the two of you would be unprofessional; etc. And so the most that can happen is a kind of teenager-like pouting and flirting.. which can be really very intense and sexual in its own right.. but always blocked from coming to fruition on the basis of certain boundaries. If things develop beyond that, then it has moved from a state of sexual tension to one of sexual release, which is a whole different animal.
On the internet, however ... I don't believe the emotions coming into play are quite the same. At most, one will have some two-dimensional impression of the other person, and will never have been able to experience whether there is precisely that indefinable "click" resulting from face-to-face contact. Most people are more guarded about how much of their emotional side they are willing to expose on the internet, and are also far more prone to edit out obvious flaws --- things that might be evident in an instant in real life. If two people tell me they are experiencing "sexual tension" on an internet-based level, then I take it to mean that they are both feeling horny. But not necessarily that it is anything more than that ... because the depth and defining 'connection' of a face-to-face encounter are absent. Of course, one can make real friends on the internet, and of course, a relationship online can be very intense if you are always PMing or MSNing, or whatever; but in my mind at least, one needs to stand back a little and remember the partial image one always receives online. Plus ... it's tempting to "fill in the gaps" of detail that one does not have about someone one has encountered online with the idealized way that one
hopes for them to be ... as opposed to being confronted directly with the way they
are.
If face-to-face sexual tension means responding merely to one fragment of the entire person in an intense way, then internet-based sexual tension is surely an even more partial response to a mere fragment of a fragment. BUT ... that obviously doesn't mean that either feeling is unpleasant or unrewarding ... just so long as one keeps in mind certain boundaries and characteristics of such interactions in order to avoid winding up feeling hurt.
*another 2 cents for the meter, damn this place is costing me a fortune*