With Bioware’s hit MMORPG The Old Republic on the horizon, many of us will find ourselves subscribing and playing with hundreds of people worldwide. Sure there will be Jedi’s, Boba Fett wannabes and assassins but there will also be social exchanges, vented chat and run-ins with attractive people. Communication will range from text, to live chat, to real life meetings, depending on how close you get to other players. Of course with interaction comes attraction and from attraction comes the urge to bump uglies. One thing that I’ve always wondered was whether virtual sex was considered cheating as much as real, physical sex is.

The C Word aka Erotic Role-Playing
Editors Note: For you non-gamers reading “cyber” or “ERP – Erotic Role-playing” is when you use text or voice chat to play out a sexual encounter with a stranger in the game…

Having played many MMORPGs and seeing my share of cyber drama on each (people arguing on forums mostly), I will warn you that it isn’t easy to avoid if you are a “role-player”. I’ve played each MMO as my character and not myself so I role-play, get into the world and interact with the characters as if there was no-one behind them. This makes things fun for me because I would rather go on a quest with Brilly the war tempered Dwarf backing me rather than Peter from Walmart who is controlling him. I am telling you this because playing in this manner has managed to get me into cyber situations at the least expected times.

One example is in Star Wars Galaxies where I first got my cyber cherry popped. I was always a Rebel hard ass looking for PvP (Player vs Player combat) and role-playing in cantinas when things slowed down. One day I escorted a Twi’lek dancer from the cantina to a nearby town where she sends me a message “I start to carress you and kissing your neck gently”. I was like “wtf?” See Erotic role-playing ensued and it was the oddest thing in the world for me… I guess she felt she had to reward me. At first I thought it was funny and a naughty extra to MMORPGs that was good for a few laughs whenever someone was caught doing it. Funny until an elf in Everquest 2 found out who I was and what I looked like then proceeded to reveal her real “hot” self to me in an email and wanted to meet me in life. The “man” in me wanted to jump at the prospect of getting it, but there was one problem… I had a girlfriend.

Can Cyber be Considered Cheating?
So I wonder to myself, is cyber cheating? I mean it wouldn’t be acceptable to have some strange chick sexting you on your iPhone nor would your spouse be okay with you having phone sex with a stranger (well most spouses I wager). Cyber is a bit of sexting with a game as the backdrop and when you do voice chat it becomes similar to phone sex… It does happen a lot however, I knew happily married guys that were cybering there ass off in the brothels of Age of Conan… So I guess my question is, were they cheating?

What would you do if you walked in on your wife playing The Old Republic with her toy/dildo on full buzz, chatting and gasping into a headset – describing what she’s doing to Caled the Jedi Consular while their avatars are on the screen naked and facing each other? Would you treat it the way you would if she was getting off to Sean Diesel impaling some porn starlet on a video or is it beyond that? Would you view it as cheating or would you consider it “harmless fun”?

Have you ever caught your significant othercybering? If so how did you react? What about theoretically, would you be pissed if your significant other was cybering? How would you react to it if you caught your lover?

Written by Greg Dragon on Tuesday, July 6, 2010 

Filed under Married Life, Relationships, The Nerdiest Topics
Tagged with cheating, gamers, girlfriend, laughs, star wars galaxies