Cyber Cheating?

After reading Sherry Turkle's article "Who Am We?" I thought it was interesting to read about the controversy of  spouses "cheating" on MUDs and MOOs. What was happening was people married in real life would be engaging in inappropriate conversations with other characters in the virtual community of the MUD or MOO. Some of the spouses were angered by this and considered it to be cheating. I can understand both sides of this argument. At first when you think about it, these people will never meet in real life so it may not appear to be cheating. On the other hand, spouses are having intimate conversations with real people through a virtual character.

In my opinion, I think that this should be considered cheating. Even though there is no physical contact, there is still a real conversation between two people that should only be kept between a married couple. This situation to me is the same as having an inappropriate conversation through email or texting. If I found out my spouse was having a sexual conversation with another person through texting, I would consider it cheating even if they had not been together in person. It is still a real person that is having an inappropriate conversation with your spouse and I see this as cheating. These adult conversations should not exist between a married person and a person other than their spouse in real life or in a virtual life. Cheating is cheating in any realm or universe.