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Chatroulette and Sexuality; An Exploration of Freudian Psychology and Second-Wave Feminism.

Justin Ling
April 19th, 2010
Susan Dodd
2,621 Words
It is often the case of society that underlying sentiments, cultural inclinations and sociological
movements find a way to rupture the surface like tectonic plates forcing a volcano to the sky, and it
is often these spontaneous examples are covered in a bizarre mask. While they may take on their
own independent cultural significance, one can interpret these oddities as not just a random
happenstance permitted by the civilization, but rather as a defining characteristic of it. Chatroulette
is one of those outgrowths that appears to be nothing more than a quirky fad, but it holds a wealth
of information about the underpinnings of society. This paper is concerned primarily with an
interpretation of this phenomenon through the writings of Sigmund Freud and Simone de Beauvoir.
Their views are perhaps the best suited by virtue of two criteria. First, both writers define the
academic schools that this paper will be addressing; Freud’s psychoanalysis of sexuality and
Beauvoir’s second-wave feminism. Secondly, they are preferential in their anachronism, that is, their
writings exist irrespective of the technological realities that Chatroulette depends on. This is
important because their writings talk about the individual with an ignorance to other factors that
their contemporaries may rely too heavily on, such as the internet.

Chatroulette, at barely six months old, has already attracted 1.5 million users. The simplicity of the
site perhaps owes to its popularity; it seeks to match up two random people from anywhere on
earth and connect them via video chat, text and/or audio. Its user demographics give an indication
of exactly what sort of significance it holds in terms of modern feminist and sexual culture. The site is
incredible in its ability to absolutely buck statistical demographics. Despite the absolute randomness
inherent to the site, it is statistically probable that the person on the other end will be a 20-
something American male. And, given the high percentage of those males performing a sexual act
(nearly 1 in 8), it can be deduced that most are searching for a woman. This, then, owes itself to the
idea of the game, which the site advertises itself as. It is not merely a gamble, but a struggle to find a
connection, to avoid being “nexted” (or skipped over in favour for another user) and to define
oneself in relation to every other user on the site, which manifests in one’s nexting of those they
deem as inferior or unworthy.

The first group that must be addressed is that of the clothed female. Her participation in the game
is a fundamentally self-valuing activity. She participates with the site knowing full well that it is
nearly impossible to make a meaningful connection, so she enters the game knowing that men will
demand a performance. To this regard, she herself performs and holds her power on the site as a
means of defining herself over other women. She is, at least in the game, a narcissist. Beauvoir
detailed her account of the female narcissistic writing in The Second Sex,
...The comedy of narcissism is played at the expense of reality; an imaginary character
solicits the admiration of an imaginary public, a woman infatuated with her ego loses all
holds on the actual world, she has no concern to establish any real relation with others.
(Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 638)

The difference being that the narcissist needs no longer play to an imaginary audience, but rather
she is presented with an endless stream of random admirers from any point on the map, and many
of them are carnally-driven males, the prime audience for her game. In this respect, she demands
not only an audience, but also a sort of reciprocity in her performance. While it is difficult at this
point to take a view irrespective of sexuality, it must be identified that there is a platonic aspect to
this game.

It is perhaps going too far to say that anyone on the site is absolutely asexual, as such people do
not exist in reality. There is no person in society that escapes subconscious sexual desires or
culturally imposed sexual norms. By simply playing the game, they are pulled into a sexual
atmosphere. However there are certainly users of the site, especially women, who seek satisfaction
through a sort of indirect, subtle sexuality. However, merely her performance, however tame it may
be, is radical. Despite the advances for women in modern society, to be so bold as is allowed and
demanded by Chatroulette is still a cultural oddity for females. These aspects finds root in the
woman’s wish to express herself in such a way as to not be subjugated by social norms.

A woman who has no wish to shock or to devaluate herself socially should live out her
feminine situation in a feminine manner; and very often, for that matter, her professional
success demands it...it will be necessary for the woman who is also subject, activity, to
insinuate herself into a world that has doomed her to passivity. (Beauvoir, 683)

In this regard, the anonymity of Chatroulette is ideal; it is liberating. What is perhaps the most
radical aspect of this is that the women need not actually do anything, or at least in the most literal
sense. One needs only experience a few minutes on Chatroulette to realize that very few people are
actually performing any sort of action, but this is irrelevant. The importance is in the persona; in the
acting in general. The woman presents herself to, assumedly, the man both as a display of herself
and also in hopes of gaining some sort of inner vindication. That is to say, that the actress does not
only act to entertain an audience, but she also acts for the flowers she receives at the end; she acts
to know that she can act. In this respect, the woman presents herself to a stranger not only to give
the stranger a connection, but to know that she is worthy of his time and to avoid the dreaded
“next.”

It is true to varying extents that they are voyeurs within the game; the longer they play, the higher
the likelihood that they will, at some point, see sexual imagery from both sexes. The male is the
common example of this; he will never ask or demand for a performance, because the woman
presents her show to him regardless. Whether he admits it to himself or not, his role on the site is of
a voyeur. For Freud, there is an inherent curiosity in every person, stemming from childhood, when
children had a driving curiosity to witness the excretory functions of their playmates,

When repression of these inclinations sets in, the desire to see other people's genitals
(whether of their own or the opposite sex) persists as a tormenting compulsion, which in
some cases of neurosis later affords the strongest motive force for the formation of
symptoms. (Freud, Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, 58)

Repression is a common part of childhood and thus the shame attached the displaying and viewing
of genitalia for children leads to this compulsion. Just as in any situation where sexual imagery is
implied, but not certain, there will be those who use the site despite the sexual connotations, and
those who use it because of them. Freud terms this voyeuristic compulsion scopophilia, of which he
says,

In the perversions which are directed towards looking and being looked at, we come across a
very remarkable characteristic ... in these perversions the sexual aim occurs in two forms, an
active and a passive one. The force which opposes scopophilia, but which may be overridden
by it (in a manner parallel to what we have seen in the case of disgust), is shame. (Freud, 23)

So, then, the passive and the active unite on Chatroulette. In some situations, they may connect; the
passive looking for a non-sexual relation while accepting the possibility that any user on the site may
be searching for otherwise, while the active voyeur may be pursuing sexual reciprocity while
accepting that some may not want the same. Both may seem the same on the surface, however
their aims are radically different. It could be said that these two counterparts make up the vast
majority of Chatroulette users, both male and female. In this regard “Every active perversion is thus
accompanied by its passive counterpart: anyone who is an exhibitionist in his unconscious is at the
same time a voyeur.” (Freud, 33)
The most intriguing are those who use Chatroulette as a medium for perversion, or as a stage for
their exhibitionism. Before this can be properly explored, a dichotomy must be established between
males and females who use Chatroulette as a sexual vehicle. Durkheim characterized the distinction
as such,

Men, as social beings, have socially created, mental desires that are potentially infinite.
Therefore they need social regulation, socially imposed restraints that limit their desires, to
achieve moderation and satisfaction. Women, as social creatures, have only naturally
created physical drives. Therefore they are subject to natural regulation and naturally
imposed restrains: their drives are spontaneously limited and finite. (Lehmann, 65-66)

This may immediately seem at odds with Beauvoir’s overt feminism, but that is not the case. It is
society that has fed into and expanded upon man’s carnal, sexual desires and women are, in a sense,
free of these arcane feelings. This is an explanation of why Chatroulette is such a popular sexual tool
amongst men; it is their way to satisfy the desires, the ones instilled into them by modern culture,
without regard for the constraints imposed on them by society. Their childhood curiosity and sexual
desires arise and reawaken in the sexually-driven society that Durkheim describes and those who are
able to express themselves purely sexually have demonstrated a freedom of shame or disgust, as
Freud characterizes it. However, the checks and balances that he describes break down on
Chatroulette; it is within the anonymity that they receive freedom to exhibition themselves. Their
satisfaction cannot be found solely in, say, pornography. As Freud expressed, man is a dualistic
being; he seeks not only to see but to show.

So, of course, the sexually voyeuristic aspect of man rages on this site. While women assume their
roles as actresses in the game, men see them more as strippers. There is not only a hope, but rather
an expectation to have the woman undress. One cannot play the game for very long without
encountering a sign or player that instructs them to remove their clothes. Beauvoir contrasts this to
Ancient Greece, where “ the exhibition of an unveiled body [was] a display of art; American
burlesque has made undressing a drama.” (Beauvoir, 566) However, the men who demand
reciprocity find that they speak a different language as the majority of the women. While the female
may be performing, and she may even carry an implied or overt sexual connotation; it does not
change the fact that their desires are radically different. The male wants to see his sexuality reflected
on the woman, while the woman wants merely an audience for her show; she does not wish to be
objectified by his game for she has already objectified herself. Thus the genders come into conflict,
both trying to find themselves in their opposite, yet rarely finding what they expect to encounter.
The woman’s goal is a social one; the man’s is purely sexual.

That’s not to say, however, that the woman does not participate in the sexual aspect of the game.
However, she seeks not reciprocity in sexuality, but rather she seeks social response through her
sexuality. In this sense, she takes on the role of the stripper so that she may control the socially-
minded man, not so that she may please the sexually-driven male. There is not the same appetite
present in the women, it is instead a sort of social empowerment,
A woman who expends her energy, who has responsibilities, who knows how harsh the
struggle against the world’s opposition, needs--like the male--not only to satisfy her physical
desires but also to enjoy the relaxation and diversion provided by agreeable sexual
adventures. (Beauvoir, 686)

So, then, her sexual exploits are simultaneously satisfying her carnal desires but more importantly
she fulfills a necessity for an appropriation of the same luxuries as the man enjoys. Chatroulette
offers this, but in a safer context, for in normal society “...if she exercises [her freedom], she risks
compromising her reputation, her career; at the least a burdensome hypocrisy demanded of her.”
(Beauvoir, 686) This contrast between the male and female exhibitionists here becomes striking. For
the male, “...the length of the penis, the force of the urinary jet, the strength of the erection and
ejaculation becomes for him the measure of his own worth.” (Beauvoir, 48) on the other hand, “Not
having that alter ego, the little girl is not alienated in a material thing and cannot retrieve her
integrity. On this account she is led to make an object of her whole self, to set up herself as the
Other.” (Beauvoir, 48) So, again, the male and the female pervert on Chatroulette seek different
things; the male seeks approval and acceptance of his worth, as it were, and the woman demands
assurance of her prowess as not just a woman, but as her objectification of her womanhood.

This is perhaps no more evident than in the display of the penis. The male pervert on Chatroulette
does not cover up until he finds an adequate female, he merely shows it to every user he comes
across. To this extent, he defines himself in his penis; It is his Other. While the woman defines
herself in herself as the Other, the man defines himself in his manhood. The women must define
herself as the Other because she lacks the penis, “...castration cannot be deduced from
development alone...Man here acts as the relay whereby the woman becomes the Other for herself
as she is the Other for him.” (Lacan, Feminine Sexuality, 93) So, then, through this privation of a
penis, she redefines herself. However, Beauvoir argues that this privation is not necessary an
anxiety-based lacking, but rather

...far from the penis representing a direct advantage from which the boy could draw a
feeling of superiority, its high valuation appears on the contrary as a compensation—
invented by adults and ardently accepted by the child—for the hardships of the second
weaning. (Beauvoir, 272)

So the woman lacks the penis, yet she feels no need in defining herself with relation to it. She is not
merely an entry for the penis. In fact, from an early age the penis represents “Fear of childbirth...fear
of the “crises” that threaten married people, disgust for indecent behaviour...” (Beauvoir, 304) So
her personality, her sexuality and her performance is a replacement for the penis, and it is not
merely a means to attract a male, or the penis, but it is her empowerment in her gender.

Chatroulette may only be a passing curiosity, but it speaks to the inherent social values that
modernity holds under the surface. It peels away the surface of an evolved, structured society and
speaks to the sexual desires intrinsic to Western culture. Furthermore it attacks the perception of
equality amongst men and women and gives credence to those influence and inspired Beauvoir’s
work, such as the third-wave feminists, to look at the underlying and striking differences that exist
between the sexes. Furthermore is breaks down the idea of the gender binary; that male and female
are either opposites or the same. In a way, it presents a wild savannah for the male and female to
engage without the same societal preconditions that exist in the normal arena of modernity. It
speaks a great deal to the radical difference of the two sexes that even when they are both naked
and seeking sexual gratification, without the actual act of sex they have no way to actually relate.
The exhibitionist in one cannot probably speak to the voyeur in the other, and vice versa.

Works Cited
Moore, R. J. (2010, March 16). Chatroulette Is 89 Percent Male, 47 Percent American, And 13 Percent
Perverts. Retrieved April 16, 2010, from TechCrunch:
http://techcrunch.com/2010/03/16/chatroulette-stats-male-perverts/

Beauvoir, Simone. The Second Sex. New York: Vintage, 1989.


Freud, Sigmund. Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality. The United States of America: Basic Books,
2000.

Lehmann, Jennifer. Durkheim and Women. The United States of America: University of Nebraska
Press, 1994

Lacan, Jacques, Mitchell, Juliet and Jacqueline Rose. Feminine Sexuality. New York: Pantheon Books,
1982.

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