Also, while it’s harmless sexual play when it’s between consenting adults, actually putting up a banner to advertise it will draw the creeps, who will populate and cross the line until pedo porn becomes the main feature. I’ve seen it lower the tone of a few clubs that were formally for healthy adults.

Btw, Dave, if you’ve only scratched the surface of Gorean lifestyle and come away with a snap impression of it, then you’re no different than those ‘Goreans’ who believe themself to be engaging in it. It’s certainly not for everyone, not even for most the people who think it is for them.

1) The “ZOMG PORN!” reaction didn’t start from me until very recently, when I actually went into SL. And frankly, although I could have done without finding out about Goreans (for some reason they *really* creep me out), I don’t care that much. It just annoys the shit out of me when SL residents act like ageplay doesn’t even exist anymore, and sexplay is some fringe activity that *isn’t* all over the place in SL.

2) Before a few months ago when I found out about the ageplay, I didn’t concern myself about what was *in* SL at all. I stuck to discussions of their business model and the theory of a virtual MUSH. At one point, we even considered using SL as a platform to build our games.

3) Yes, every virtual world has its seedy side, but in the games it’s much more hidden (from everyone but, say, a GM character with /snoop capability). So that isn’t the big deal. In SL, it’s not at all hidden.

4) I do know some of the Lindens, certainly far more of them than Blizzard employees. And I’m not particularly happy that they set off this particular PR shitstorm, and we probably will talk about it at a conference someday soon.

5) If you want to talk about age verification, you’ve got to talk about the porn and the sexplay, because without them nobody would care about verifying anyone’s age. I’ll go a step further, if it wasn’t for the ageplay and the kiddie porn, it wouldn’t be happening. LL is trying to get themselves out from under some serious legal consequences.

6) SL is not the web. Everything in SL is on LL servers, using LL bandwidth, and LL storage, paid for with L$ purchased with real money from LL. It’s a commercial venture operated for profit, where everything single image and polygon is monetized, not a technological capability available to anyone.

7) We’re about to see a media frenzy over the sex in SL, a backlash triggered by ageplay but primed by LL’s deliberate courting of media attention. The results will mar the public perception of virtual worlds for *years*, and quite probably damage *my* business. So don’t make me the bad guy.

–Dave

SWG and The Sims were all about the porn. Oh but they were real games. There was oogobs of cybering in DAOC but again, it was a real game.

I’m not denying that ageplay is in there. What I am saying is that its not prevelant, not accepted and completely not what SL is all about. And while there is oogobs of sex stuffs in SL — there’s a huge amount of very cool stuff too. But while the first words out of yours and everyone else’s mouths is “SL is all about sex” then it just spreads the perception that sex is all it is.

On this thread alone, the first post you make is about how common ageplay is — when that isn’t the truth at all. Sexual age play is hidden, in their own little areas, and you have to go looking for it. Granted before the crack down you didn’t have to look very hard — just type age play into the search function. Now its more difficult.

Other than when I called you on it in this thread, I’ll bet you’ve never made a comment about SL that didn’t include something about how it was all about the sex. Yet you’ve done other stuff in SL. Why not comment on that? Is it because then you don’t get to be sensational and righteously bash someone else’s product? And of course the LL developers aren’t part of the MMOG developers clique and it isn’t like you’ll have to eat your words while sharing a beer with them at some GDC or anything like that.

Age verification (what the original article was about) is a huge issue with serious ramifications for a lot of residents (like Canadian citizens may not be able to verify — they aren’t on the list of countries the verification product supports). Yet given an opening, you decide to go for the most sensational most fringe element on the grid — as if age verification will somehow stop the sexual ageplay practice. The two are completely unrelated and the former will not have any impact whatsoever on the latter.

Vivianne, I can accept that there is some cool stuff in SL. Can you accept that there is some really sick and twisted shit in there as well?

I’m a pretty liberal guy on sexual issues, even the stuff that personally creeps me out I don’t want prohibited.

Except for this one thing. They start even *pretending* to fuck around with little kids, and as far as I am concerned they need to be exterminated as a public service. Yes, the people, not the SL avatars.

So don’t fall into a trap where you feel you have to deny or protect ageplay in SL to save your metaverse. Because way too many people feel the same way as I do, and they’ll tear the whole thing apart to get at them.

–Dave

Midian City, City of Lost Angeles, Lost Gardens of Apollo, Svarga, Underwater Caverns of Rua, Future Perfect, Caledon, Neualtenburg, Nexus Prime, Rennaissance Island…

All just a few of the roleplaying/cool sims I can name that are completely open and free and you don’t have to join a group.

That’s probably the most interesting thing to look at, the way these things don’t cleanly separate into separate communities, but merge into each other (well, sometimes, the Star Trek stuff is pretty purist).

So there’s cool stuff in there, but most of it is invitation-only (to keep *out* the sex-play, which tends to squat any public space that isn’t policed), you’ve got to join the right clubs.

–Dave

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6638331.stm