~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ eye WEEKLY February 17 1994 Toronto's arts newspaper ...free every Thursday ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ NEWS & VIEWS NEWS & VIEWS E-MAIL FEMALE FOR A DAY by K.K.Campbell To get a glimpse of how the other-sex lives, people have tried pop psychology, role-playing, cross-dressing, even sex-change operations. Such inefficiency. Me? I just had to use a computer. Some years ago, I was researching a story about "computer-chat" systems -- better known as bulletin board systems, or just BBSs for short. By hooking your dusty home computer to your telephone by a a modem, then dialing certain phone numbers, you can talk to complete strangers. You'll see their typing on your monitor. And they see yours. Anyway, in this research I noticed, to my chagrin, that there are many BBSs females can call free, which males have to pay to use. Since writing makes one just enough money to starve by degrees, a friend, Elisa, graciously let me use her account. A female account. I could call free. The only condition she set was that I tell no one I wasn't her. If the person who ran the BBS found out she was letting a male use her account, she would get deleted. Effectively, by using her account, I was transformed from a 6'4" male into a 5'1" female -- whose hobbies, as stated in the little biographical profile she'd written for others to read, included: "gazing at the stars with a special someone." So call I did. And WHAM! It starts almost immediately: "chat requests" from males. Little notes on my screen saying -- "So-and-so is requesting you for a private chat." I can only imagine what they want, so pay no attention and go about trying to learn my way around the system. But this one guy named Jeff is absolutely relentless. I couldn't tell him I wasn't Elisa (I promised, I promised). I just did my best to ignore him. He'd surely quit -- right? Men are polite -- right? After chat request number 31, Jeff switchs tactics and starts sending me little notes. Messages only I can see. The first message reads: "Are you new here?" A variation on the timeless, "Come here often?", I suppose. "Who _is_ this guy?" I ask aloud. I go to the area where all the little biography are stored and look up Jeff's profile. It scrolls onto my monitor: Description: 30-years-old, 5'9", 200 lbs, with very short, black hair. Hobbies: Sex, stereos, electronics, sex, making love to beautiful women. Favorite movies: All, especially sex movies! Sports: Sex. Sex. Favorite Reading: Playboy. (There was other stuff about him being a computer programmer.) I stare at the screen, truly awestruck, flooded with flashbacks of grade school and pictures of naked women carved into desktops with ball-point pens. Meanwhile, Jeff's personal message barrage keeps pounding away at my bunker walls. "Need some help?" "Elisa your real name?" "Please chat - something important to say!!!!" It begins to dawn on me that Jeff is simply not going to leave me alone. "Stop being a weenie, Jeff," I growl at the terminal. More than just annoy, he's really beginning to piss me off. He is _only_ acting this way because he thinks I'm female. If there was a "male" designation on the screen beside my name, Jeff would not bothered me after the second ignore, if he would have noticed me at all. A new message beeps onto the screen: "Make love!" At this, I blink it in disbelief. What, precisely, is ol' Jeff trying to say, here? Is this some general statement on his life philosophy... or does Jeff imagine he is now coming in for the seductive kill? Before I can decide, yet another message appears: "xxx-4238." His phone number. He is giving me his phone number. I have not once even acknowledged his existence on Planet Earth... and he is giving me his phone number. That did it! You want to chat so bad, okay, pal, I'll chat. Even if I have to pretend to be a 5'1" female, fine, I'll be a 5'1" female and tell him what a defective representative of the male species he is. I figure out how to accept chat requests, and sit, glowering at the screen, waiting, waiting. Sure enough, a chat request comes in and I'm whisked off to personal chat. One on one. I watch him type that first sentence, ready to DefCon5 this dink's ego... when the twisted smile is wiped from my face. _It isn't Jeff!_ This is some other guy named Albert, whom I have never heard of before. Someone _else_ asked me to chat! My mind raced. It was then I realized, in horror, I didn't know how to _leave_ personal chat. "Um, hi," I type, trying to extricate myself. "I didn't mean to chat with you. I think I hit the wrong key by mistake. I'm new at this BBS. How do I leave chat?" Bad move. Delighted at my apparent stupidity, Albert decides to take me under his protective wing. He isn't going to take the polite brush-off. Instead, he starts heaping doting advice and condescending pep talks upon me -- "If you have any problems, come to me first", "Beware, some of these guys are perverts", "You are as good as anyone here, just remember that!" I am unsure if Albert thinks me an idiot or a turn-on... or both. But Albert is the least of my troubles. My going into chat with a male is apparently a signal for every male online to chat-request me. "Tony" and "Jim" have started hitting me up. I desperately want to leave chat, but Albert isn't coughing up the info too fast. And Jeff! Poor Jeff, seeing me chatting with Albert -- another man! -- is apparently undergoing some sort of mental event. His messages pour in like mortar fire. They are capped finally with: "Bitch! I asked you first!!!" _Bitch?_ What the...?! I reach over and just shut the whole damn modem/computer off. Bye, boys. Go play with someone else. I flop back in my chair, exasperated. Jesus. I really felt like breaking something. Like Jeff's head maybe. But there had been nothing I could I do. Except switch the machine off. Makes you wonder what switches women use to get away from these kind of guys in real life. Hopefully it involves hollow-point bullets. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Retransmit freely in cyberspace Author holds standard copyright Full issue of eye available in archive ==> gopher.io.org or ftp.io.org eye@io.org "Break the Gutenberg Lock..." 416-971-8421