ABSTRACT
In the context of the shift from identity tourism (Chapter 2) to body trafficking (Chapter 6), there is even greater concern about the inability to control (bodies within) virtual worlds. However, this should not generate a special kind of anxiety. Instead, medicalized cyberspace should be seen as reconstituting traditional questions about control, the individual and the state. Moreover, it is necessary to take into account that these processes of transforming bodies are imbued with moral narratives that imply a dubious obligation of fear. On this matter, we again urge caution over claims that would reinforce the rhetoric of moral panic about these developments. The two sets of claims about partial prostitution – that medicalized cyberspace is inherently a commodification of body parts and products and that it invokes particular kinds of moral expectations that are often founded in imagined media events or non-media events – give rise to discussions about what rights one ought to have in cyberspace. Should people be permitted to trade their bodies, identities or, indeed, their genes online? Are there specific kinds of regulations that ought to ensue within virtual worlds over this kind of practice? Alternatively, are the bioethical implications of such services different from those of non-cyber medicine, warranting a revision to both the legal structures and the ethical frameworks that govern the development of such facilities? In short, can we argue on behalf of a virtual exceptionalism to how bioethics is dealt with within cyberspace?
