Red Sonja and Lessingham in Dreamland

Jones, Gwyneth. "Red Sonja and Lessingham in Dreamland." Originally published, Off Limits: Tales of Alien Sex, 1996. Anthologized Rewired: The Post-Cyberpunk Anthology, James Patrick Kelly and John Kessel, editors (San Francisco: Tachyon Publications, 2007).[1]

Mentioned in Sandor Klapcsik's review of the anthology in SFRA Review #284 (Spring 2008): pp. 15-16, which see for psychotherapy is cyberspace.[2]

From "'Red Sonja And Lessingham In Dreamland'” by Gwyneth Jones: A Rewired Review" by Alex Willging, 26 June 2012.[3]

Our unnamed protagonist is a woman who uses virtual reality to take on the persona of Red Sonja and traverse an ancient landscape of bandits and horses like her namesake. She gets involved with another VR-user, who takes on the persona of Lessingham, a magic-user from the Zimiamvian Trilogy by E.R. Eddison. Over the course of the story, we learn that “Sonja” is using the virtual reality sessions as part of her ongoing therapy with Dr. Hamilton, who tries to help her improve her real-world interactions. [***]

Virtual sex in this setting is more visceral than the cybersex of our time, but they both come down to the same thing. The author even acknowledges it as a kind of mutual masturbation in cyberspace. (Willging) </blackquote>

See for VR and cyberspace and a variety of superimposition of the cybernetic upon the psychological and sexual.

RDE, finishing, 7Jan21