Similar to the situation regarding Racism online, I do not feel there is much value in examining the issue of rape and sexual harassment in online communities such as LamdaMOO. As Dibbell points out, there is no actual physical contact in the case of an online rape, specifically that pertaining to Mr. Bungle. If someone is so deeply involved in their online persona that they are emotionally disturbed by such a situation, I feel they need to take a step back toward reality, or, "RL." Until online persona's gain right to vote, they shouldn't have the same rights of a physical personality.

I find it hard to persicute someone for online harrassment because the reare ways of avoiding these people. For instance, you can often block them from recognizing that you are online, or leave the room you are in. There are plenty of sick freaks out there and that should be known entering cyberspace. Cyberspace is virtually impossible to fairly police for all harrassers. Other then that it is much tougher to distinguish between those goofing around and those who have worse intentions.

One important difference between sexual harrassment in real life and virtual reality is the degree of physical control the victim has in the situation. Obviously in RL rape situations, this control is absent but the physicality is very much present. If a person receives an email or a phone call, they have the control to hang up or delete it, as well as block the number or address from any further attacks. In virtual reality, these attacks may not have the same physical effects on the victim as in real life, but often its the emotional and mental effects that are the most damaging.

I think that how affected someone is by harassment relies on how attached they are to the medium or which they communicate. I haven't been in a chatroom in a ages, and if I ever went into one again, I doubt I would take anyone seriously. It's easy to just close the screen and leave. There might be some offensive language exchanged, but you'll go to bed that night, and dont have to wake up in reality to deal with that person in real life.

In real life, sexual harrassment can be the term applied to any action made by a person that makes another feel uncomfortable. Anything from groping to blocking a person's way can be termed sexual harrassment in real life. On the telephone, persistent calls stating or threatening vulgar acts could be termed sexual harrassment. E-mail sexual harrassment basically constitutes the same thing as sexual harrassment over the telephone.

The prime differences in sexual harassment across media lie mostly in the victim's control of the encounter. In a physical, real life encounter the victim's control could be said to be very low, since the perpetrator can pursue and even detain the victim by force. More impersonal media offer greater control. A recipient of an obscene phone call can hang up and call the police if there are laws in force to punish such acts. An offensive email can be deleted and obscene overtures in MUD chat can be squelched or the user can simply shut the MUD off.

Physicality and mentality are largely affected when rape or sexual harassment occurs in real life, but the lines do tend to blur when it comes to a virtual medium. While it's true that the mental aspect can come into play with such media, it is not necessarily a certainty. I find that how affected a person is deals with how attached they are to the virtual form in which they are being harassed. A person who has a phone constantly glued to their ear might (though it's not a certainty) find it more difficult to hang up when such harassment occurs than someone who uses one less frequently. The more comfortable one is a with a phone, the more it can be hard to pull away...or so I've heard...I'm one of the few out there who could care less about using the telephone. Those dependent on e-mail might take things to heart much more seriously than those who aren't. A case in point would be all of those chain e-mails going around. I like e-mail as much as the next person, but I'm not overly dependent on it for communication, so when I see a chain letter in my inbox (or one from a person I know would send me such an e-mail,) it gets automatically deleted. Though there are those who just can't resist the urge to send it to everyone in their e-mail address book. Getting them and feeling the need to keep them up can be true harassment. Now, I know that example isn't based off of sexual harassment, but when it comes to the virtual world many forms of harassment can be abstracted to fit under the umbrella.

I believe that sexual harrassment is only a harrassment if the receiver of the message is offended on the basis of a "come-on" or sexual gesture. Some messages are offensive to some while not so offensive to others, and it is for this reason why everyone should be careful about the intentions of their messages (if they do not desire to sexually harrass someone) and how well they know the receiver.
Any message that is carried out via virtual medium has less authenticity in emotion, because you receive the message from a machine; there is less certainty of a deliberate, sexually-based, offense. After commenting on this belief, I will add that people generally feel less degraded, offended, etcetera, after receiving a potentially offensive message from a virtual medium than that of the same message sent in "real life," because the message loses it's authenticity through virtual reality. When an offender is being accused of sexual harrassment, he or she will probably have less of a case brought down upon them if the offense was made via online; there is more tone in an actual conversation, less of a chance for misunderstanding, and therefore, more proof for an offender to be tried in court. To conclude my stance on the difference between receiving sexual harrassment through virtual reality and actuality, I believe that the matters of "how offended was the offendee?" and "what were the intentions of the harrasser?" must be inspected closely. There is no firm definition on what is offensive and what can be considered sexual harrassment.

The difference between sexual harrassment in actuality and anything else is the physical aspect of the harrasment being done. I don't need to go into details but when a person is harrassed over the internet in emails or MUD/MOOs there is no actual qhysical interaction between the victim and the harrasser. It is still very wrong for anyone to harrass anyone in any way because the mental impact is forever scarring.

According to recent laws, there are few differences between harassment in cyberspace and in reality. The difference comes when the term "rape" comes into question.
Sexual harassment in reality is both verbal and physical, in cyberspace, harassment is obviously only verbal. Both, however, cause severe emotional stress. Saying "you are hot" to a co-worker in person is no different than that being said via instant message.

The difference between sexual harrassment in actuallity and over the telephone, in e-mail, or at a MUD/MOO is defiently the physical part of the harrassment. I mean you are still being harrased mentally and physically in actuallity but in the virtual world there is no physical interaction. Both are still extemely bad and unexeptable and should never be tolerated regardless the situation or the place (VR or RL).

After reading the selection, I think that the main differences between sexual harrasment in the real world and in the virtual world (like on the telephone, in a MOO/MUD, etc.) are obviously the results it produces, by this I mean no one is hurt physically in the virtual world, just mentality. Also the way in which it is regarded by people (besides the rapist and his victim) can be different in the virtual world than in the actual world.