They, themselves, the person typing, would become offended were I to type a sentence describing my hand resting against their cheek. However, I haven't actually touched them. I'm here in my apartment, they are there in the computer lab. The sensation of my virtual hand, however metaphorical, has crossed the boundry between the merely described, and the actually real. D isbelievers might argue that people this involved are just taking it all too seriously.
Rape is first and foremost an issue of violated consent.
Because TinyMUDs are only as real as you want them to be. At any moment you can stop believing in what's happening around you, and it loses its reality. Action on a TinyMUD has to be mutually consented to in order for it to occur. It is the same with TinySex. W hile FurryMUCK is an oasis, and unique, it is not a paradise.