MCC:

How about the now infamous New Yorker Cartoon, "On the Internet, no one knows you're a dog."?

TMS:

I love that cartoon! Who wouldn't want to be the surfing dog? Hell, I started off my own Net life passing as a buxom blonde chick. In the flesh, I am neither buxom nor blonde. Of course, nowhere in the cartoon does it mention that if I can masquerade on the Net, so can someone else: I can be fooled as simply as I can fool. But really, that's not the interesting part; I know I am "really" a dog, posing as someone else . That's the cool part.

Now, here's the catch: Presumably, while you are sufing the Net, *you* know you're a dog, right? I mean, the dog sitting in the chair surfing might be anything or anyone online, but offline, he probably goes to get dog chow when it's all over.

But what if, after weeks, months, years of online conversation and masquerade, it occurs to you that you are really not a dog at all, but rather: a cat!

Now, all this sounds insane, I know, so here is a concrete example. My friend Kaley, nee Ken, came onto the Net "playing" a woman on a sex-related bbs. After time, though, Ken realized he wanted to have offline friendships *as a woman* with some of the other folks he knew from that board. Obviously, that was impossible.

Ken then began logging onto another bbs, Echo. He joined the Queer Conference I was hosting at the time, and began writing about transvestite issues, all the this time maintaining a male persona. In this way, he was being more "honest", right? Well, it didn't work out that way. What Ken realized during his Net travels was that he finally had a forum to articulate his most complex desire: Ken was transgendered, and wanted to transition to living as a full-time woman.

Changing from Ken to Kaley, she moved to Seattle, met with the requisite mental health professionals (who agreed with her assessment) and began hormone therapy. Oh, by the way, she quit her NYC corporate lifestyle as well (which is another version of masquerade we don't have time for!) and began her own ISP in Seattle.

I know so many people who have transitioned to a more comfortable lifestyle after "masquerading" first online: nice married women who have come out of the closet as lesbians after their first hesitant posts in a bisexuality forum, nice committed queer men who have admitted that they'd like to try fatherhood after lurking in Parenting conferences, people who have changed jobs, partners and, yes, even religions (I know two people who started attending church again after Echo's religion conference started--something the Net hating Christian Right should mull over) after having profound online experiences.

The surfing dog instructs us that if, in "real life", I'm secure in my own identity, then when I'm online, I'll have the power to transgress that knowledge whenever I wish. Later, presumably, when I turn off the computer, all will be back to normal and I'll be my old self. But that is nonsense.Every book we read, every conversation we have, every sexual experience we particpate in, all of them make up what we, in retrospect, call our "real" selves.

"On the Net, nobody knows you're a dog" is a cool thought. "Once you log off, YOU won't be sure off your dog-ness", is a cooler one.

MCC:

From MCI's new advertising campaign, "(On the Internet), there are no infirmities, only minds."

TMS:

And in Heaven, there are only souls. In the meantime, we have to access these places from our lowly bodies, connected to one another through technologies.

In what we learned in school was the "Dark Ages", the Church worked through the available technology of the times--illuminated manuscripts--and made sure to control who had access to that technology. Reading and writing was strictly controlled. Obviously, the invention of the printing press changed this. We congratulate ourselves on how advanced we are. But truthfully, we are now in what will be understood later as The Dark Age of Net access.

Do you know how difficult it is to understand a Windows interface if you are blind? Yet all the large commercial ISP's like AOL and Compuserve continue to design graphics-heavy, "intuitive" software to drive their services.

MCI must also believe that English is the natural language of "the mind", which mirrors the fact that 95% of the world's Internet resources are in Europe and North America.

I am not a conspiracy theorist, and I don't believe that MCI, or Microsoft or anyone, really is to blame for the present condition of Net access among the "infirm" (which I take to mean "the disabled, the poor, the non-English speaking".) But just because I don't want to blame Big Bad Corporate America doesn't mean that I am suckered by the Wired crowd's blatant disregard for individuals who can't help turn a profit. You shouldn't be suckered, either.

MCC:

From the government's argument in favor of the CDA, "The Internet allows children access to the world's largest adult bookstore."

TMS:

I wonder when "adult" came to be a euphemism for "pornography"?

Once, after a lecture on the CDA, a woman approached me and said, "I am so *tired* of being told that 'the computer is not a babysitter', and that I am responsible for my own children's safety. It always seems that the people who say this are young men in the computer industry. Are they watching children themselves? Do they know how hard this is? I am a single mother, I am working two jobs and can barely afford childcare. I know my children should be exposed to the Internet, because computer knowledge and the future go hand in hand. But how can I be everywhere at once?"

The Net is full of pornography. It's also full of politics,fiction,community, shopping,revolution, art, etc. All of these are "adult" topics. It's not fair that single mothers have become this country's designated adults. To my mind, *this* should be a more pressing topic for national policy makers than legislating porn on the Net, or anywhere else. It's clear to me why this isn't the case. Respect for women, compassion for mothers and financial assistance for childcare--these things are complex, and don't make good copy. Pornography does, and so it gets the politicians, and the press.

MCC:

Michael Kearney, age 10, in NetGuide, "One of the greatest things about the Internet is that no one ever has to know who you are."

TMS:

That's great! My friend has a three year old daughter who loves to run into the living room, cover her eyes, and announce, "You can't see me!" Michael's sentiment sounds like my friend's daughter.

When a three year old believes in invisibility, I think it's darling. The belief in invisibility, on the Net or anywhere else, is a child's belief. It's one of the things that we give up in adulthood, when we take on the responsibility of respecting people in our community, and valuing lives beyond our own. In an adult, on the Net or off it, the belief in invisiblity is, well, unethical. Just because you're unreachable, or even unactionable, doesn't mean you're invisible.