Sex, lies and internet

Abstract

The Internet more increasingly seems to be used to socialize as well as to engage in sexual relations. Cybersex can provide some benefits, but also facilitates the exposure to some risks such as the easiness of lying about one’s identity and characteristics, and the difficulty of verifying this information by the interlocutor. The motivation may be to explore one’s sexuality, but also try to hide complexes or try to deceive the other person. Our objective is to analyse to what extent lies are frequent in cybersex and their relation to different variables. 1.907 people (45.9% women) aged between 18-50 years (Mean=27.9; SD= 9.72) were administered an online battery. 97.4% of men  and 75.8% of women used the Internet for sexual purposes (Chi square=141.89, p smaller than 0.000). 31.3% of these men lied about some aspects of their appearance, compared to 24.5% of women (Chi square=5.36, p smaller than 0.021). The content of the lies was mainly different aspects of his/her life (studies, work, family, friends, ...) with 10.8% of men and 7.4% of women; followed by age (10.6% and 6.5% respectively); the physical appearance (7.7% and 4.6%); and the fact of being man or woman (3.2% and 1.8%). There was no relationship with age and self-esteem, but was with the number of hours connected to sexual websites, the concern about the cybersex use, the degree of sexual compulsivity, addiction to cybersex, sex and the internet, and sexual sensation seeking. While the percentage of heterosexuals who lied was 21%, in bisexuals and homosexuals it exceeded 40% (Chi square=55.74, p smaller than 0.000). In conclusion, the lies in cybersex are not only frequent but also closely related to a problematic or addictive use of it.