I was surfing on the Web one night, mostly wasting valuable time, when I happened upon an intriguing online journal called Women and Performance Quarterly. At first, I was drawn to it by the title of Issue 17, Sexuality and Cyberspace. The specific article titles pulled me further in, along with fascinating graphics and eerie moving artwork. I glanced through the articles, thinking about various issues of embodiment, gender, and cyberspace. "Performing the Digital Body„A Ghost Story," by Theresa M. Senft; "Turing, My Love," by Matthew Ehrlich; "On Space, Sex, and Stalkers," by Pamela Gilbert. The next time I looked up, two hours had passed.
I was fascinated, needless to say, and on impulse I wrote an email message to the guest editor, Theresa M. Senft, complimenting her on this wonderful collection of essays and asking her if she would like to participate in my study. Several weeks passed, and I assumed the absence of a reply meant, "No, thanks." Actually, Terri wanted to say "Yes, of course!" but, as she explained later, she had experienced a systems crash. We eventually found a space in our schedules to talk in my and Beth's room at Diversity University.
Terri says, "Okay. How shall we start?"
You say, "well, let me give you some official sounding pre-interview stuff:"
Terri exclaims, "okie dokie!"
You say, "I guarantee that I will not ever reveal your address/name/location. I also guarantee that I will delete any references that might give a reader clues about where you live, who you are, or where you work.
You ask, "You can disconnect from this interview at any time and I will not bother you again. Do you mind if I archive this conversation for later analysis and possible publication?"
Terri says, "sounds good. but you also have my permission to use my identity for anything I say. I'm fine being on record; record away."
You exclaim, "Thanks. And can I just say that I have been looking very forward to meeting you. You are a fantastic writer!"
Terri exclaims, "you are such a sweetie. If you tell me I am rich and thin, too, we can get married!"
Markham laughs!
Terri works for Prodigy, an online service provider, where she writes a column called "Baud Behavior." She's also a doctoral candidate at New York University's Department of Performance Studies; a prolific writer in various online arenas; a guest editor of Women and Performance Quarterly; a reviewer for the feminist journal SIGNS; an active member of the WELL and ECHO, two of the best-known communities online; and a dominatrix in another online service. To put herself through college, she worked as a phone-sex operator. (Incidentally, she's also a wonderful, open, and engaging person. I feel lucky to have met her.)
Of all the people I interviewed, Terri was the most candid about her experiences in both online and offline contexts. When I asked her again recently if she wanted me to use her real name, she responded immediately, "I have this weird belief that since the Net is a space of writing, people should 'own their own words.' Unless, of course, they request you grant them anonymity. But I have no anonymity, for I am a brazen hussy."
Terri is also highly reflexive about her identity and performance of self in various contexts, which makes sense given her research interests in feminist theory, performance studies, and technology. In addition to talking with me in a formal interview, Terri gave me access to several essays she had written or participated in as well as to her website. Some of the conversation below is supplemented by these resources, all of which are included in the bibliography.
*
"What does the Internet mean to you?"
Terri said, "I'm assuming you don't want a technical answer here, let me think." After a moment, her answer appeared on my screen. "Truthfully? The internet gave me guts. It allowed me to write people I had never met to ask them to read my book. It allowed me to realize my dream of NEVER wearing pantyhose to a job. It has helped me understand that I can move anywhere and still be connected to my friends and lovers. I know the phone can do those things too, but the phone means very very different things to me than the net."
I asked, "What about the net makes it so unique or different (say, from the phone, or face-to-face conversation)?"
Terri replied, "I really believe that online experiences (for me) are similar to offline, with this one major exception„online life has a paper trail. I try to capture every long conversation I have online. I find myself reading over what just happened. I like that feeling. I wish I was videotaping my of fline life for examination. It would save me therapy bills! haah!"
Markham laughs!
"Can you imagine?" Terri asked.
"Yes. I can imagine how quickly I'd end up in therapy trying to examine and analyze my every move ... yikes!!!"
Immediately, Terri responded, "I'm already there, so for me, it would be like mother's little helper, I swear."
I laughed aloud. "The image cracks me up! You know, it would be the basis of a great novel called Terri's Little Helper."
"Yeah," Terri said, "It could be directed in the film version by woody allen, starring some nutty young chick ..."
When the interview began, I assumed we would be talking about Terri's online experiences as they related to her regular life. I soon realized we were actually talking about Terri's life, period. For Terri, life online is not a reflection of, a reproduction or, or a simulation of real life or even offline life. Online and offline are two different modalities in which living one's life just happens. Roughly, one is based in text and the other is based in the body. But these distinctions blur significantly for Terri, not just because she spends a great deal of time online, but also, as she says, because "cybernetics is a condition, not a lifestyle choice. If you are disabled, use a sex toy, utilize telephone messaging services, are chemically dependent in any way, if you have sent e-mail or keyed a bank ATM lately, then you are, yourself, a cyborg„a body containing both organic and technological components."
As well as collapsing many of the distinctions between technology and humans to talk about identity, Terri also focuses on identity as the effects of ongoing performances rather than as a stable state. She writes, "There has been a recent impulse ... that suggests that online life is the ideal spot to experiment with hypothetical identity-making. This line of thought... carries a wrong assumption that only an online textual body is performative, whereas a biological body at the end of the terminal is stable.... Online or off it, identity and gender are complicated performances" (Senft, 1997, p. 7. Terri elaborates on these issues in her other writings.)
Not only is Terri's computer a natural extension of her body, her connections with others through the computer are a normal, meaningful part of her everyday life. After all, if we perform identity, gender, sexuality, and community, it doesn't make much sense to privilege one particular performance over another. As she describes her various online roles, I realize that issues of technology and the body inevitably infiltrate every aspect of her life. Put differently, when she is online, Terri is neither living in words nor trying to escape the idea of the body to be with others in some existential way. Rather, Terri performs embodiment through the text, in a visceral way.
"When my mother died, I found it difficult to talk to people„on the phone, in person, anywhere. That was when I got introduced to a cybersex community called Cyberoticom, where I was Jane Doe. Jane Doe, on cyberoticom, was this spoiled little rich girl, something I never was. She would do any kind of wild thing sexually, as long as there were yummy gifts at the end."
The first time she went online, Terri recalls, she had an explicitly sexual encounter before the night was over. In her online community, she freely shares stories of her various sexual performances online: "I go back to Echo to report my AOL sex antics... My favorite part of the experience is when I climax on line, typing 'yessssssssss' and everyone claps.... I think I'd really like it if after my real life orgasms, I got an applause track played."
I asked, "How would you describe your self online?"
Terri paused a moment, then said, "Well, it depends on where online. Like, I am different here than I would be in a spazzy fun conference on Echo, or who I would be as a NYC 'outsider' on the San Francisco based WELL, or how I would be when I am posting to an academic listserv, cuz Gawd knows who reads those things."
I grinned, knowing exactly what she meant. I sometimes felt strange writing in vastly different voices to different audiences.
Terri added, "And I am definitely different now than when I am running the 'Obey Me' room at America Online, working as an online dominatrix. All of these are 'me', you know?"
"Wow," I said, in my usual unimaginative way. "I'm sure I'd get confused. But I know what you mean. I enact these same sorts of multiple roles all day, every day ... online and offline."
"Yeah." Terri agreed, "It's like we expect to be a singular being, and every moment of our life, we're proven wrong. When I first joined Echo, I was advised to be 'myself,' and I couldn't really figure out what on earth that was. Was I supposed to be a graduate student, a sex worker, a bisexual woman, a family cancer survivor, a person who suffered from depression, or what? In time, I have learned to 'be' all of those things online, but there is a time and a place for each of these manifestations of personality."
A moment later, Terri concluded, "I don't think I've ever met anyone who had 'one self.'"
"I agree," I said, "But here's another question I've been grappling with. We all live multiple manifestations of personality, as you say. But sometimes the mediated (computer) contexts make me seem almost distinct from my self at times. I'm not being clear, I'm sure. I guess I'm asking: Do you think your sense of self as a person online is fundamentally distinct from your sense of self of fline?"
"Hmmmmm. I feel far more vulnerable of fline. That is the most honest way I can describe it. Sometimes vulnerability is great! Sometimes it's crippling, and I like muting it when necessary."
"What do you mean, muting it?"
"Going online to mute the vulnerability I feel of fline. At this point in my life, I'll suppress expressing stuff if it makes 'me' uncomfortable. But at the same time, I'm not ashamed of my life, you know? And because I am physically separated from other people online, I have no trouble revealing all kinds of other things about myself, within the text."
"On the other hand, one thing I conceal online is my physical presence: my body, my home, my voice, my health."
Markham nods
"Terri," I asked, following a thought, "Why do you feel vulnerable offline?"
There was a long pause, and then Terri replied, "Everyone has their own story about this. Mine goes like this„I was a textbook abused child, which is to say I was beaten and yelled at repeatedly through childhood. To cope I learned to speak quickly and well. As a result, I am damn near overbearing in person. I experience the phone as a very visceral thing, grain of the voice and all that. Probably why I like and understand phone sex so much. But things feel too raw on the phone for me sometimes, I crave mediation, physically crave it."
Terri continued, "I crave mediation because of the abuse I suffered for years; in the name of 'familial immediacy.' I didn't even get to have a lock on my bedroom door as a child. For me, mediation, and access to it, is empowerment. So being online allows me to choose my level of immediacy. It gives me the power to mediate my own presence."
"How so?" I prompted.
"My thoughts are here, on this screen, and for now, that is enough. You can't hear if I am sobbing, or if I am off my medication, or anything. This makes me feel safe for now."
Interesting, I thought to myself. When I think of "safe" I think of being anonymous, part of the crowd, not singled out. But Terri doesn't seem to be referring to this kind of safe. She is referring to separating the presence of others from herself physically.
Terri verified my thoughts a moment later, "I don't think 'real' need be synonymous with 'available for anyone, all times and in all ways.' Women have been synonymous with the body and immediate presence for all history, look where it gets us. No thanks. I far prefer choosing my level of immediacy."
*
As we continued to talk about the performance of self in online contexts, I realized Terri was talking about control in a very different sense than the other participants. I had met many other users who said they felt empowered by the Internet because it {'gave them more of a voice, it made them more confident, or it allowed them to talk to people they might not otherwise feel comfortable talking with. I assumed that Terri was talking about power in much the same way. However, for Terri, empowerment means she can control directly the form and degree of the connection. Through online communication, Terri can limit the level of intimacy, and control the extent to which relationships are mediated.
This makes sense. Any of us who are raised without privacy or power might physically crave it as well. And like Terri, while sitting at our terminals with the capacity to make or break walls between self and other at will, we might feel "tremendously powerful."
Interestingly, Terri does not worry about the online presentation of self. She does not attempt to control her online appearance or persona, but allows it to emerge spontaneously, through conversational interactions with others. Yet at the same time that Terri does not try to control the presenting of self, she does seek to control the absence of self, as well as the presence and absence of others.
In other words, Terri wants to be able to disconnect from Other whenever she chooses to. Of course, this is more possible online than off because it is easier to shut off the computer and instantly rid yourself of the other's presence (or "mute" the other, as Terri says), than to walk away from a physical person, or to try to lock a door with no locks to keep abusive family members away. This measure of control is at least part of the reason she prefers to exist online.
Online or offline, our selves are constructed through multiple performances and responses to those performances. We can imagine that some of our performances are more authentic or meaningful than others; we might like to erase certain performances, repeat others, create new patterns. As I talked with Terri, though,it occurred to me that she doesn't seem to suppress or privilege any performances of her self, online or offline. They are all meaningful components of existence. As she says, "they are all me, you know?"
However, Terri consciously separates the contexts in which the performances take place, whether these contexts are online or offline. This is a crucial move; for her, understanding self as it is performed in one context can help her perform in other contexts. As Terri notes, she often gets too comfortable in one context or the other, which makes her realize she needs to find more balance:
"Two months ago, I would have said that I am most comfortable with the virtual version of me. Now, I am realizing that when I am more comfortable with myself online than off, this is a sign that I am retreating from the flesh, if that makes any sense. In some ways, online life is too comfortable for me.
"This is not necessarily a bad thing: online life has taught me all kinds of new ways to re-imagine myself in the physical world. But now, I am trying to use my physical experiences (vulnerability, sexuality, mortality and the like) to broaden my online persona, and I have to say that it is a much more difficult project, at least for me."
Terri appears to have accepted online and offline experiences as part of the performance of everyday life. Although they might be different experiences, and each mode of experience may offer different advantages, technology is as natural as any other means of expressing and enacting identity. In effect, Terri is not only rejecting my question "Is it real?" but she is simultaneously rejecting a traditional way of thinking about how identity gets constructed in the first place. And in most of her discourse, everything about "being" is inevitably also about performance.
I think it is important to note that Terri was one of the few people I met online who actually acknowledged that being online is not such a great thing; rather, it marks an impossible attempt to escape the body.
You say, "Do you think 12 hours online per day is a lot?"
Terri says, "Yes, I do! I am beginning to feel like the online equivalent of a stockbrocker with his shoulder permanently disfigured (cuz he's the one with the phone all the time and holds it up to his ear with his shoulder)."
You ask, "Good imagery.... I wonder what appendage is disfigured (disfigured for you, that is)?"
Terri says, "my posture has completely fallen apart in the last few years due to hunching over the screen. I am also displeased by the arrival of what can only be called Computer Butt."
Markham grins understandingly Terri asks, "I am hoping its a phase, you know?"
You ask, "the computer butt or the being online so much?"
Terri exclaims, "hahaha both!"
Terri says, "like, we fell in love with online stuff and binged on it, and soon we'll realize that we simply MUST exercise and such in order to live full healthy lives."
You ask, "would you spend more or less time online if you could?"
Terri says, "sitting at the terminal, with so much going on, makes me feel tremendously powerful. I could give a shit about large-scale corporate power, but now I see its seductiveness for people like my brother (who works for an investment house)"
Terri says, "But, no, I wouldn't spend less time online. Instead, I would figure out how to spend *more* time exercising, singing... physical things that DON'T require other people."
You ask, "What do you mean, physical things that don't require other people?"
Terri says, "Well, because so much of my life is connected to being online all the time, and because of grad school, I feel like I have MORE than enough human contact, you know. What I DON'T create is time to be alone, NOT in a book, NOT in a conversation, NOT writing, but doing something like running, or singing, or (gads) meditating"
Markham grins, thinking of her own life
Terri says, "It just doesn't take much for life to turn into a version of "Codependent No More," you know? It gets wearisome."
I knew what she was talking about, especially when I looked at my own life of breathing filtered air and always walking on concrete. Perhaps after one incorporates technology to such an extensive degree, one feels the urge to get connected to the planet again. We get plugged in, we think it's everything, and then we need to get offline to live healthy lives because our backs are sore, our butts have grown soft, and our posture is atrocious. Our eyes hurt from the glare of the screen, we suffer repetitive stress syndrome in our hands and wrists, and we lack vital nutrients because we spend all our time inside, sitting at the computer, forgetting that we need to nourish our bodies.
So Terri is currently somewhere in New England, painting houses for a living. She'll do a few things online, but for the most part, she's getting connected in a different way.