Joseph Westfall
Abstract
In this paper I wish to show that, although traditional notions of gender and sex break down in cyberspace, a revised Beauvoirian understanding of sexual secondariness is applicable and useful in coming to terms with the possible ethical and philosophical ramifications of this relatively new communication medium. To this end, I argue that persons who enter into communication in online chat rooms necessarily deny the bodily aspects of their own identity. In so doing, these persons make themselves inessential, or secondary, in Beauvior's sense. For Beauvoir, this is a denial of one's own freedom, and thus commmunication in cyberspace becomes an instance of self-oppression. Yet, if self-oppression can be avoided, the self-oppressor is morally responsible for her or his own oppression. Ultimately, I argue, cyberspatial communication is an instance of such self-oppression.
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