This summer I received some video conferencing equipment as part of a pedagogical grant. I have working very hard at testing the equipment and various conferencing software programs. While using White Pine´s Enhanced CU-SeeMe, I have experienced a new realm in the Internet--"CU-Land." However, it did not take me long to notice that the rules governing this realm are not the same as in America--particularly rules concerning sexual harassment.

I have never really been a big fan of chat rooms or Internet Relay Chat (IRC), but I found myself enjoying CU-Land, which is nothing more than IRC with video and sound. I quickly made friends with people from Japan, Italy, Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, etc. These nice people helped me forget but not entirely ignore all the "fat, ugly, nakkid guys" (FUNGi) in CU-Land. Luckily you can turn off any video that you do not want to receive, and you can filter anyone from the chat text; however, not everyone appears to know how to do this.

Many of the FUNGi and other males in CU-Land don´t "surf" the ´Net. Instead they swim through various CU reflectors (servers) like sharks. When they smell blood (a female surfer), they attack. They constantly try to get the woman to take off her clothes, perform tricks ("play with hair for me, please"), or enter a direct connection (i.e., not through a public reflector, but a one-on-one connection) with them.

Because CU-Land allows people to send private messages that only the intended person can see, one often does not see that somebody is being attacked except for said person´s reaction. I have seen very nice and polite women suddenly "scream" obscenities at FUNGi or other sharks without seeing what made the women so mad. Some women have thicker skins and repeatedly answer the same questions over and over again, "I am 23. No, I don´t DC. I´m wearing a black bra. No I won´t show you. Etc."

Intrigued by this phenomenon, I wanted to find out more about what goes on in these private conversations. However, being a male, I don´t have the right smell to my blood to attract shark attacks, so I asked a fellow Ikaros writer, Petra Jedlicková to "dangle her feet" into the shark infested waters of CU-Land for me. Unfortunately, most of the sharks were asleep or at work when she came to assist me. Still, she did get more harassing comments than I ever see by myself.

It is interesting to note that many of the sharks like to order women around. This might be a result of the all the "Live Sex Video" WWW pages out there. A professor of mine at the University of Toronto told us that the porno industry has historically been the first industry to adapt to the introduction of new technology. Once video streaming became a reality--the on-line pornography business boomed. Most of the SPAM that I have received has been to promote "www.sexychicks.com" or some such site. They advertised that during the live video sessions you could have your fantasies and desires fulfilled. The women would do almost anything that you commanded them to do. This is just a theory--perhaps many of the more "bossy" sharks are veterans of the pay sites, but have no more money, so they are looking for "free" video women to command. These are voyeurs who enjoy watching and controlling what they watch.

The FUNGi are not usually this type. They are exhibitionists who love to aim their cameras down at their crotch excluding their faces from the video. Many do not chat much, as their hands are too busy doing other things. While others love to chat and talk dirty to the women on the reflector.

In the chat session they we recorded, the primary shark (Ham) was of this variety, and a minor shark (Curious John) appears to have been a voyeur/commander. Curiously, there is also someone (Yeto) who tried to play the role of the knight in shining armor to protect to the "fair Witch" from the FUNGi "wankers." Ham does not really order the Witch around, except for asking her a couple of times to mess up or play with her hair and a request to see her legs. Instead he asked her several times if she wanted to watch him cum ("have an orgasm"). Curious John, on the other hand, repeatedly begs the Witch to take her shirt off, despite the fact that she was wearing a dress not a shirt.

I have to admit that this experiment was slightly disappointing for me. I wanted to see examples of the serious valuations that have occurred to some of my female CU-Friends. Also, my choice of bait did not seem to want to play the role of the "innocent girl" who needs protection from the FUNGi wankers of CU-Land. Instead the Witch actively encouraged the sharks with flirtatious remarks (perhaps she did this to help me get some "juicy" text).

Despite the FUNGi and other sharks roaming CU-Land, I find this virtual country fascinating. If you would like to visit CU-Land, you need to download and install the software (note: you do not need to have a camera, unless you want to send video) from Cornell , Enhanced CU-SeeMe from White Pine, or QSeeMe for Linux.