a rape in a real cyberspace

As I now sit on a low couch with my friends laptop located on a table a bit too low for my taste I have to admit, life is really exciting...
In my American Century class me, and the girl currently responsible for making the very soil of the earth tremble every time she utters a damn word to me, chose to make our 20 minute oral presentation on Julian Dibbels, A Rape in Cyberspace. The story tells of an incident in cyberspace, in a virtual reality named Lambdamoo and the incident, as the title gives away, is a rape in the "living room" of given virtual reality society. It debates wether or not crimes committed in cyberspace, meaning that said event did not actually take place in real life, should be punisable by a real court of law. It also asks us why people invest such emotions in a place that doesn't exist. This is clearly shown in how the characters react to the rape. They flip out and tries to kill the rapist, a lonely university kid from New York called Mr. Bungle.

The story itself is a whopper! Propably the best short story I've read in my entire life and you can imagine my surprise when I realised that A rape in cyberspace is not a work of fiction at all, it is real. The rape of four avatars did actually occur 15 years ago. That means that Lambdamoo is real...I've seen it.
I don't know why, but it scares me a little. I mean, I can't for the life of me figure out why the users back then flipped out over the rape as it did not happen, but now, it seems just that much more real and I'm beginning to understand it. That being said, it doesn't change the fact that they overreacted and a such reaction would have been much more justified today, in 2008, when computers long since have stopped working as a tool, an asset, but is functioning as an extension of the human being. These days we have Facebook and Myspaces, and before that we had those MSN Livespace things. Pictures, blogs, videos is put out there for every one to see. A big part of ourselves blending with the thoughts and ideas of others way across the planet. If someone were to rape an avatar today, with so many personal info and ideas attached, it would certainly feel real, and why we've allowed ourselves to come to this I can't figure out...