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KEARNEY — Diane Kholos-Wysocki wants to know what women are doing online.

Are they looking to find a lover? Are they chatting with potential dates? Are they using the Internet as a place to fulfill their sexual desires?

Kholos-Wysocki, a sociology professor at the University of Nebraska at Kearney, has been researching sexuality and the Internet since the early 1990s.

Her research recently culminated in an extensive survey with users of The Ashley Madison Agency, a Web site for people seeking extramarital affairs.

The company, whose motto is “Life is short. Have an affair,” claims to be the “world’s premier discreet dating service.” The site has nearly 4.8 million users, according to owner Noel Bidderman.

“More and more women are going to find what they want. They’re taking control of their sexuality,” Kholos-Wysocki said.

Bidderman and Kholos-Wysocki created a survey on sexual behavior, and nearly 9,000 Ashley Madison users responded.

So far, Kholos-Wysocki has compiled data using surveys from 853 women.

“The average age of the women in this group was about 32 years old,” she said. Kholos-Wysocki added that the average Ashley Madison user who answered the survey is educated and has a medium to high income. The median income of those who took the survey was $46,812.

Her study found that younger women are about 1½ times more likely than older women to find sexual pleasure in viewing explicit Web sites. However, they are also very likely to be anxious about being caught and to try to remove their cyber trails.

While younger women who took the survey said they’re more likely to use the Internet to view pornography or explore their sexuality, older women are a bit more likely to use the Internet to find real life dates and/or sexual partners.

Women older than 51 years old are more than twice as likely as women younger than 24 years old, and 1 1/3 times as likely as women 25 to 50 years old to use the Internet in these ways.

Women ages 26-50 are a bit more likely than either younger or older women to flirt, either online or in person, while in a real-life relationship. However, women ages 36-50 are a bit more likely to cheat online while in a real-life relationship.

“Infidelity has always been associated with opportunity,” Bidderman said. “The first jump, historically, was when women entered the workforce.”

Bidderman said technology has created a new opportunity for women to cheat, making an extramarital affair just a click away.

The study also found that the younger a woman is, the more likely she is to use sexually explicit Web sites as a way to fulfill fantasies.

“What I think it says is that women are more willing to explore their sexuality, and they know what they want or they use the Internet to find what they want,” Kholos-Wysocki said.

Using the Internet often makes it easier to find someone with the same personal or sexual interests, she said.

“Sex texting is becoming really popular, also,” she said. “I have a concern with the amount of females who are sending naked pictures of themselves over their cell phones.”

The study found that 47.6 percent of the women ages 18-25 who took the survey admitted to sending a nude or nearly nude photo of themselves via e-mail or cell phone, and 46.1 percent of women ages 26-35 and 39.8 percent of women ages 36-50 admitted to sending nude photos of themselves.

Kholos-Wysocki said this can be dangerous because the photos can be passed along to others.

Although sharing photos may be dangerous, Kholos-Wysocki says using the Internet for dating is safe.

“It’s a way to make it easier,” she said. “Most professional people aren’t going to go to bars. Where do you meet people? The pickin’s are slim.”

She said the most common problem with online dating is people aren’t who they portray themselves to be online.

Kholos-Wysocki also looked at how income, race, education, work status, religion and living with a partner affect the way women use the Internet.

The results of the survey showed that the more money one makes, the less likely they are to take risks such as having nude pictures of themselves on the Internet.

Women of color who took the survey were twice as likely as white women to have used the Internet to look for someone of a different race, but are only a bit more likely than white women to view pornography or visit sex chat rooms.

The survey also showed that women with the least education are almost twice as likely as more educated women to visit sex chat rooms or to flirt online or cheat online when in a relationship. However, more-educated women are a bit more likely to find real-life dates on the Internet.

Kholos-Wysocki’s survey also found that Catholic women and women with no religious affiliation are closest in behaviors. Both are more likely to have received sexual pleasure from viewing explicit material and both are more likely to use the Internet to learn sexual techniques, view pornography and use sexual chat rooms. Women who took the survey who are Catholic expressed the most anxiety about getting caught using the Internet for sexual viewing.

Kholos-Wysocki believes many women haven’t had a lot of education about their own sexuality.

“They’re waiting for this magical moment with this partner,” she said.

The Internet can be a resource for women to experiment sexually, she said.

 “I don’t see the Internet as anything bad,” Kholos-Wysocki said.

Some results from the study were featured in SELF Magazine’s November issue.

Cheryl Childers of Washburn University in Topeka, Kan., worked as Kholos-Wysocki’s statistician. Kholos-Wysocki is now compiling the data from the Ashley Madison surveys for a book.

Bidderman said he hopes to use the results of the surveys to refine his product. He said the results of the survey, “give us confidence in how we built the service.”

e-mail to:

sara.giboney@kearneyhub.com