but she means nothing to me ...she's just an avatar

An interesting article from MSNBC, Is a virtual affair real-world infidelity?, takes up the issue of whether virtual infidelity is RL cheating. The story describes an affair between two female avatars who were most likely married men in RL. Is this cheating? If so, does it matter that it's a 3d virtual world (with sex animations) or would such an affair be similarly wrong if facilitated by another medium?

According to the MSNBC.com/iVillage Lust, Love and Loyalty survey, 53 percent of men and 73 percent of women think it's cheating to send a sexually flirtatious e-mail to a co-worker. Further, 57 percent of men and 77 percent of women think online talk or “Webcamming” is cheating. Unfortunately, the survey did not ask about SL sex.

The other day I was in SL asking random people their opinions on this matter. The majority said that such a relationship would be cheating, though some did say it would be okay as long as your RL partner knew about it and approved. Well, of course! Some people have "open" relationships in RL, don't they? The only difference is level physical engagement, right? One way to test this would be to compare people's opinions about RL infidelity and virtual infidelity. I would hypothesize that more people are down with the latter than the former and if you're down with the former you're more likely to be down with the latter. In this world of STDs and psychopaths, it's probably safer to spread your virtual seed anyway.

And on a completely different note, if the two married men weilding female avatars knew that the other was actually a man in RL, does that make them lesbians in SL and gay in RL?