Bulletin Board Sexploitation

by Lloyd B. Abrams

I bought my first computer, an Apple IIe, in 1984. The $2300 I spent was roughly equivalent to $5800 in 2020 dollars so it was a sizable investment for our young family. But learning how to proficiently use the computer subsequently changed my career and my life.

I soon installed a 300-baud modem card and then I was in heaven. There was nothing sweeter than those tones on my computer indicating a hand-shake with a remote host.

I was able to dial out from my computer to connect with various bulletin boards. I had to make sure that the local exchange I was dialing was a free call because those nickels and dimes per minute quickly added up. I even cut out a list of free exchanges from the phone book and scotch-taped it to the edge of the screen. All this was long before free unlimited domestic and Canadian calls became the norm.

I explored a number of local bulletin boards, but stayed away from those that charged a subscription fee. The Long Island Computer Association’s bulletin board had a Garden City phone number and free access. There were several other open ones but the best ones, the ones with the largest collection of pictures, music, programs and games to download, cost real money. And I wasn’t in the mood to spend any extra money.

One fee-based bulletin board was located in Rockville Centre, a free call. When I dialed in, the sysop, the system operator, had been logged on and was monitoring incoming traffic because he responded with an onscreen greeting. I always preferred to sign on anonymously, but he claimed that his board required a name. I didn’t want to reveal my real name, so I typed in “Francine Tucker.” I got immediate access, gratis, and we started chatting by text, long before texting became a common word.

For a while longer I continued to sign in as Francine but his site was hardly content rich. It was also becoming more tedious and uncomfortable flirting with him, so I stopped dialing in.

But for me it was an aha moment. I realized it would be so easy to tempt men online to gain an advantage. Once they got a sniff, once they got their hopes up, men were malleable and incorrigible. I hardly had to look past the upstairs bathroom mirror to reach that level of understanding.

And then there was another thing I learned. One has to eventually pay up or shut up. And I obviously wasn’t in any position to pay … anything.

Approaching someone under false pretenses was clearly wrong, but in the computer culture, it was more nebulous. I don’t think that anyone was hurt though I would have no way of knowing. But back then I felt, in the inestimable words of Rhett Butler, “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.”

Now, though, maybe I do.

– “On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog.” … Peter Steiner’s cartoon in The New Yorker, July 5, 1993

Originally written / June 12, 2016 .. Rev 6 / April 10, 2020

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April 10, 2020 … Copyright © 2020, Lloyd B. Abrams