Lilith
01-30-2003, 06:24 AM
by William Dean
(01/29/03)
It was a wonderful thing, a beautiful dream, a cyber time and place where people from around the world could come together, literally. But now, it seems, it's over. What was a focus for believers in tantra, sex magick, and just plain universal climax has closed its site. This is how it began. This is how it was. This is how it ended.
Imagine you're with your lover. In a sex club in Amsterdam. As you engage in your various loving acts, you hear, through the thin cubicle walls, the sounds of other lovers -- some speaking languages you can't even understand. But you don't really need a translator. The moans, the cries, the urging whispers all convey the general, if not specific, event of the moment: orgasm. At that moment, what wondrous inspirational thought courses through your mind?
Well, if you were John Halcyon Styn, it would be that everyone ought to share that powerful moment of orgasm. Yes, everyone. Simultaneously if possible. And globally. For that was the origin -- only a couple of years ago -- of Globalgasm.com.
Some six and a quarter billion people share our whirling, orbiting planet. What if all of them came at the same time? Would the world suddenly shudder, gasp for breath, and yearn for that post-orgasmic cuddle? That was the hope, the belief perhaps, of the participants in a monthly digital orgy that was the brainchild of Halcyon Styn.
Maybe you heard Jay Leno mention it on The Tonight Show. Or you may have seen him a while back on MTV. Globalgasm was featured in a seven-minute segment in a documentary titled: "Sex2K: Naked on the Web." While reviews of the segment are mixed, those of the regular participants of Globalgasms are not.
Jenn Ramsey, host of her own Web site, HiddenSelf.com, is an avid advocate. "I've spent the last four years of my life helping people become more comfortable with their sexuality through my site," she says. "I've never heard of a tool as successful as Globalgasm to get people to embrace their sexuality. What a wonderful idea -- a monthly holiday, where across the world, people could bring themselves and their partners to the ultimate of bodily expressions, and know and share that there were hundreds of others throughout the world doing the same."
So, what was it like to hook up -- through modem, Webcam, and chat programs -- and get off in the cyber presence of your fellow worldwide orgasmers?
Most people reported that, at first, they were a little shy, spooked even, but once they'd done the deed, they felt liberated, in tune with their sexuality in ways mere "behind-closed-doors" folks cannot comprehend.
Jenn Ramsey explains -- "I had a lot of trouble adjusting to having sex, or even masturbating, on cam. I'm such a sexual person that it hurt me to the core to be uncomfortable with my sexuality in any sense, but the cameras stretched my boundaries to places I didn't know they could go."
"Fundamentally, I wanted to participate. It was hard for me to find the compromise between my desire to support the cause and doing so on cam."
"John (Halcyon Styn), my roommate at the time and one of the founders of Globalgasm, always stressed to me that Globalgasm was not a show, but a sharing of positive energy. The first few months I lived in a Webcam house/art experiment called TheRealhouse.com, I found something else to do out of the house in order to leave them and their energy-focusing be. Then, finally, I managed to participate for the first time, by myself, with wine in one hand and my favorite vibe in the other (and under 3 sets of blankets). Progress, right?"
So everybody wasn't just fucking. Some were soloists; some were in groups. Some used toys; some had partners. Some did it in the shower; some in fetish costumes. One married couple did it on separate floors of their house. The important thing is that everyone was "doing it."
The rush of orgasming in conjunction with so many people can be a powerful and uniting feeling. Jenn Ramsey continues: "Through all this, what struck me was how the participants were truly understanding that this was, like Burning Man, a participatory, not a spectator, event. After a few months of celebrating, I could start to feel the energy fill the house. I'd hear orgasms from the different rooms echo through the house and through my spirit. It sounds hokey, I know, but it was hard to deny."
"The world," said Halcyon Styn, "needs an injection of focused, positive, sexual energy. If we all do it at the same time, we can build off each other and elevate the vibe to an earth-shattering level."
Since the advent of Webcam-based interactive chat programs, the determined surfer can find someone somewhere engaging in on-cam sex of some variety or other. And it's not just the pay-per-view Web sites offering "peek-a-boo." Amateur solitary strokers abound, but recently couples, too, have joined in the coming trend. Practitioners claim it enhances the act, adds spice, and allows them to share their sexual lives with other like-minded folk.
What made Globalgasm different was the organization and scheduling. Participants shared their sexual pleasures every first of every month. Another thing which separated Globalgasmers from the run-of-the-modem on-cam exhibitionists was their "no peekers" rule. You couldn't just watch, you had to come along, too. One further difference was that the majority of Globalgasmers had their Webcams broadcasting not their writhing genitalia, but their faces. That's where the expressiveness of powerful mutual global orgasming was most apparent.
A few hundred people joined together online on the first of every month, but hundreds more around the world participated simultaneously, and then posted their messages of communal orgasm to the message board.
Devotees of tantric sex practices, sex magick believers, post-1960s hippies, and those tuned in to the spiritual aspects of sex are using the new hi-tech medium to help channel their energies toward making our lives on the planet richer, more fulfilling. Globalgasm was their signpost, their rallying point, one shining apex.
Jenn Ramsey admits: "I was shocked and thrilled at how much people were willing to share, and how well most people handled the openness. Friends of mine who weren't comfortable on their Webcams would broadcast audio of their celebrations. Others would just log in before, and then add 'Gasmed' at the end of their online name after. Knowing so many people were involved, in whatever way they were comfortable, was a truly amazing experience."
Globalgasm took a hiatus for the last two months of 2002, promising to return on February 1st. But after attending some conventions in Las Vegas, Halycyon Styn decided it was time to move on. He closed down Globalgasm.com, and left a somewhat cryptic message on his previous personal Web site, cockybastard.com. He decided to shed the signature sexy pink, furry pants, to end the "come together" project, and to start out on another leg of his life exploration. We can wish him luck, surely, but, sadly, with a bitter taste of nostalgia for the Globalgasm that, for two years, let us all come along, too.
(01/29/03)
It was a wonderful thing, a beautiful dream, a cyber time and place where people from around the world could come together, literally. But now, it seems, it's over. What was a focus for believers in tantra, sex magick, and just plain universal climax has closed its site. This is how it began. This is how it was. This is how it ended.
Imagine you're with your lover. In a sex club in Amsterdam. As you engage in your various loving acts, you hear, through the thin cubicle walls, the sounds of other lovers -- some speaking languages you can't even understand. But you don't really need a translator. The moans, the cries, the urging whispers all convey the general, if not specific, event of the moment: orgasm. At that moment, what wondrous inspirational thought courses through your mind?
Well, if you were John Halcyon Styn, it would be that everyone ought to share that powerful moment of orgasm. Yes, everyone. Simultaneously if possible. And globally. For that was the origin -- only a couple of years ago -- of Globalgasm.com.
Some six and a quarter billion people share our whirling, orbiting planet. What if all of them came at the same time? Would the world suddenly shudder, gasp for breath, and yearn for that post-orgasmic cuddle? That was the hope, the belief perhaps, of the participants in a monthly digital orgy that was the brainchild of Halcyon Styn.
Maybe you heard Jay Leno mention it on The Tonight Show. Or you may have seen him a while back on MTV. Globalgasm was featured in a seven-minute segment in a documentary titled: "Sex2K: Naked on the Web." While reviews of the segment are mixed, those of the regular participants of Globalgasms are not.
Jenn Ramsey, host of her own Web site, HiddenSelf.com, is an avid advocate. "I've spent the last four years of my life helping people become more comfortable with their sexuality through my site," she says. "I've never heard of a tool as successful as Globalgasm to get people to embrace their sexuality. What a wonderful idea -- a monthly holiday, where across the world, people could bring themselves and their partners to the ultimate of bodily expressions, and know and share that there were hundreds of others throughout the world doing the same."
So, what was it like to hook up -- through modem, Webcam, and chat programs -- and get off in the cyber presence of your fellow worldwide orgasmers?
Most people reported that, at first, they were a little shy, spooked even, but once they'd done the deed, they felt liberated, in tune with their sexuality in ways mere "behind-closed-doors" folks cannot comprehend.
Jenn Ramsey explains -- "I had a lot of trouble adjusting to having sex, or even masturbating, on cam. I'm such a sexual person that it hurt me to the core to be uncomfortable with my sexuality in any sense, but the cameras stretched my boundaries to places I didn't know they could go."
"Fundamentally, I wanted to participate. It was hard for me to find the compromise between my desire to support the cause and doing so on cam."
"John (Halcyon Styn), my roommate at the time and one of the founders of Globalgasm, always stressed to me that Globalgasm was not a show, but a sharing of positive energy. The first few months I lived in a Webcam house/art experiment called TheRealhouse.com, I found something else to do out of the house in order to leave them and their energy-focusing be. Then, finally, I managed to participate for the first time, by myself, with wine in one hand and my favorite vibe in the other (and under 3 sets of blankets). Progress, right?"
So everybody wasn't just fucking. Some were soloists; some were in groups. Some used toys; some had partners. Some did it in the shower; some in fetish costumes. One married couple did it on separate floors of their house. The important thing is that everyone was "doing it."
The rush of orgasming in conjunction with so many people can be a powerful and uniting feeling. Jenn Ramsey continues: "Through all this, what struck me was how the participants were truly understanding that this was, like Burning Man, a participatory, not a spectator, event. After a few months of celebrating, I could start to feel the energy fill the house. I'd hear orgasms from the different rooms echo through the house and through my spirit. It sounds hokey, I know, but it was hard to deny."
"The world," said Halcyon Styn, "needs an injection of focused, positive, sexual energy. If we all do it at the same time, we can build off each other and elevate the vibe to an earth-shattering level."
Since the advent of Webcam-based interactive chat programs, the determined surfer can find someone somewhere engaging in on-cam sex of some variety or other. And it's not just the pay-per-view Web sites offering "peek-a-boo." Amateur solitary strokers abound, but recently couples, too, have joined in the coming trend. Practitioners claim it enhances the act, adds spice, and allows them to share their sexual lives with other like-minded folk.
What made Globalgasm different was the organization and scheduling. Participants shared their sexual pleasures every first of every month. Another thing which separated Globalgasmers from the run-of-the-modem on-cam exhibitionists was their "no peekers" rule. You couldn't just watch, you had to come along, too. One further difference was that the majority of Globalgasmers had their Webcams broadcasting not their writhing genitalia, but their faces. That's where the expressiveness of powerful mutual global orgasming was most apparent.
A few hundred people joined together online on the first of every month, but hundreds more around the world participated simultaneously, and then posted their messages of communal orgasm to the message board.
Devotees of tantric sex practices, sex magick believers, post-1960s hippies, and those tuned in to the spiritual aspects of sex are using the new hi-tech medium to help channel their energies toward making our lives on the planet richer, more fulfilling. Globalgasm was their signpost, their rallying point, one shining apex.
Jenn Ramsey admits: "I was shocked and thrilled at how much people were willing to share, and how well most people handled the openness. Friends of mine who weren't comfortable on their Webcams would broadcast audio of their celebrations. Others would just log in before, and then add 'Gasmed' at the end of their online name after. Knowing so many people were involved, in whatever way they were comfortable, was a truly amazing experience."
Globalgasm took a hiatus for the last two months of 2002, promising to return on February 1st. But after attending some conventions in Las Vegas, Halycyon Styn decided it was time to move on. He closed down Globalgasm.com, and left a somewhat cryptic message on his previous personal Web site, cockybastard.com. He decided to shed the signature sexy pink, furry pants, to end the "come together" project, and to start out on another leg of his life exploration. We can wish him luck, surely, but, sadly, with a bitter taste of nostalgia for the Globalgasm that, for two years, let us all come along, too.