Between the image and the act: interactive sex entertainment on the internet

An analysis of participation in adult video-conferencing on the internet reveals a subversion of traditional relations between the image and the act in pornography, providing an ‘interactive’ sex entertainment which is both representation (or image) and presentation (or act). CU-SeeMe offers an experience that is at the same time both image and act, creating a space that accommodates multiple and fluid roles, allowing the positions of spectator and spectacle to be freely exchanged, and rewriting active/passive gender relations. In proposing that interactive CUSeeMe sex entertainment blurs the boundaries between image and act, this article suggests that online interactive sex entertainment allows for the possibility of rewriting codes of sexuality