 | Second Life wrestles with “age play”April 12th, 2006 |
170,000 players, 20% growth a month, and adult players with child avatars soliciting sex.
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Sick and wrong. Should be classified as child-porn since it is the portrayal of children involved in sexual encounters — it shouldn’t matter that the actors are adults. It’s a problem if we consider children sexually attractive. I have the same issue with “furry sex”.
I mean, I love sex, and I have no problem with people getting kinky, but there ARE lines, and making the excuse that they participants are adults doesn’t–to me–change the fact that they are promoting sex with children and animals (even if it IS cartoon animals).
And, again, with the wide-open world of opportunities to create in SecondLife, why does everything come down to sex. So many people have created amazing things in SL, but still the world is littered with porn. Again, I have no problem with adult entertainment either, but can we try something else out for a change?
Put the playerbase of A Tale in the Desert in there, with ATITD’s legal system, and it would get solved right quick-like:
“It is illegal to occupy a Mature-themed sim with an avatar less than 4′ tall.”
You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.. if the Behavior is supressed it will manifest.
I mean The whole idea on virtualization is it gives your an instant on effect and then it “supposed” to give you a instant off unpluged powered down. with little carry over if things get or go bad.
But the reality.. is the metagamming effect where you go outside the box, and when you leave the confines of thegame and take it into reality.. This is the control aspect any gamer faces and must come to thier own terminal decisions.
Hell I happy to like to think what happens on-line stays online.. if I discover.. I have residual virtual feelings.. I usually have enough self control to “take a break” from a situation.. But I’m not the norm.. at least I like to consider I’m above the noprm with virutal delusions of gradeuer.
Ok.. I’m an addict.. which if I fall into cybering.. it must be a reflection I’m not getting enough or I have real life issues with my mate…
speaking of which.. anyone know a nice shrink?
Um.. I’mm just stop typing now..
Arrgh I can’t.. This is one reason embedding camera and voice links.. Might not be a good thing becaus eyou break virtual into reality and you begin to have clear undisputed personalization on whom you ar einteracting with.
Now I’m completely Freaked out.
So many people have created amazing things in SL, but still the world is littered with porn. Again, I have no problem with adult entertainment either, but can we try something else out for a change?
Probably the same reason there are really awesome movies, and then there are porn films. There is some fascinating fan-fiction, and then there is fan porn (I don’t even know the appropriate term). There is great writing in every genre, and every genre has a bit of porn. There is wonderful artistry, and there are images of naked people.
It’s just… there. =P I’m not saying that it should be; just saying that it is. If you’d like a change of scenery, I recommend Virtual Suburbia.
Probably the same reason there are really awesome movies, and then there are porn films.
My complaint isn’t that the porn is there. My issue is that, imo anyway, porn is a lowest-common-denominator … it’s “easy”. It’s banal.
And until the marriage of the Internet and my neurons, I will find it strange that people get their jollies from watching ‘toons doin’ it.
How is this different than many of the sexually explicit anime? Cartoons of children in sexually explicit poses and such.
And just where do you draw the line? Who gets to set the line? I like the way they said that if the Community agrees that it is inappropriate then it will be controlled somehow. Much better than some administrative fiat.
Still, this particular form of sexual arrousal has always been troublesome. I am a member of a board which would show any and all kinds of porn. Anything legal on the web would be brought there and shown to the other users. But, when one guy showed off a “comic” of a 16 year old “sexpot” and her sexually deviant father it was at the same time, applauded and condemned and eventually was banned from the forum.
Even the degenerate have their line, I guess.
So, while we sit here and debate whether it should be ok for two adults to pretend to have a pediphelia fantasy Americans continue to (wink wink) at the idea of young girls having sex with old men. From the music industry (Britney Spears and many others) to the late night talk shows who routinely make jokes about underage but sexual girls and the host always makes some kind of lewd or sexual comment about any girl who is between the age of 15 and 21 who he is interviewing. Not to mention the producers who dress these “girls” like porn stars.
We live in a dysfunctional society. Excuse me if I don’t see this particular aspect of sexuality to be among the worst of offenses.
Considering that Americans early in the development of this nation married and procreated with who we call "children", I don’t view this issue in a negative light. By the way, in the 1800s, Americans also happily devoured mummified corpses imported from the Middle East believing in the magical properties of these human remains… I just thought I’d throw that in there… 
People need to question their morals and ethics to which they are subscribed and prescribed. Moreover, people need to consider how they communicate their morals and ethics. Questions, in the form of "Why do I think this way?" and "How can I communicate my beliefs responsibly?", are important questions to ask.
"This is one of those cases where you might want to limit the rights of a few people," Rued said, "to make the majority of the people happy."
And that’s something Linden Lab would consider — if its community demanded such an action, said David Fleck, Linden Lab’s vice president of marketing.
"With technology, we can do exactly that if we felt it was necessary or important to do so," said Fleck. But "the data that we have doesn’t support that that’s a necessary action at this time. The other thing to remember about ‘Second Life’ is that it is a free-form canvass. You can do what you want, and be what you want, and that’s what attracts people. So as you soon as you create restrictions, including about what you look like, that in itself causes different kinds of problems because of censorship."
The problem with enforcing such restrictions is the blatant disregard of other social groups. This behavior seems to be prevalent in the United States — where we are willing to wage war or restrict civil liberties to force our beliefs upon others — but I’m reasonably certain this behavior all-too-human.
U.S. Declaration of Independence: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
As long as these unalienable rights are not violated, restrictions on "adult players with child avatars soliciting sex" should not be enacted unless the user community approves. If the decision is preventative, rather than prohibitive, we may as well commit genocide to prevent the possibility of any conflict of perceptions from ever occurring.
I just want to say that I’m running for Grand Inquisitor. Vote for me. The New Inquisition is going to be a blast!
Until the world realizes that a virtual environment isn’t a money-maker but just a place to make money, we’ll just see silliness. (Same as the internet in the 90s).
Make it open source (like metaverse.sourceforge.net), have organizations and communities host their own servers, and we have a winner.
From the article:
“It would not be (illegal) under child pornography laws because no actual child was used in the act,” said Jack Balkin, a professor of constitutional law at Yale Law School and an expert on legal issues surrounding virtual worlds.”
While this might be true under US law, in the UK it is an offence to view real *or simulated* child pron. As the offence is deemed to take place at the viewers computer this means that a person in London England who *inadvertantly* wandered into a situation such as the one described would be commiting the offence of making an obscene image. IIRC the law is couched in such a way that SL and the people involved in creating the scene could also be prosecuted.
Owners of virtual worlds have got to be aware that they are playing to a global audience.
(Have just checked on this and I was recalling the Protection of Children Act 1978. Section 7(7) of the 1978 Act gives a legal definition to the pseudo-photographs by stating:
“(7) “Pseudo-photograph” means an image, whether made by computer-graphics or otherwise howsoever, which appears to be a photograph.”
I’m unaware of a prosecution involving a virtual world / 3d generated image, but it’s only a matter of time, especially as there is now media interest.
I’d venture there will be some debate as to whether an adult-controlled, 3D avatar that has the approximate appearance of a human child is sufficiently similar a “photograph” to make a case. Seems as if what’s needed are new laws; not attempts to graft old ones onto new technologies.
What I have to wonder through all this uproar is: why would a pedophile bother going into an adult space like Second Life when the real children (and a lot more of them) are in places like Disney’s Virtual Magic Kingdom? I recall reading that there was a kind of language emerging from VMK; something to get around the sex filters. So it’s not as if Disney or anyone is going to stop anything.
If I were looking for hot babes in 3D spaces, and I had a choice between a place that had avatars that looked like women but which were all controlled by men, and another space that had avatars that looked like men but were actually controlled by hot babes, I’d be in the latter – pixels be damned.
Don’t believe everything you read. The CNet journalist did little to no research. There might be age play sex going on but it really isn’t as visible as the article might have you believe. What there are, are adults who like to roleplay as children. No sex involved. There are also people (such as the person named in the article) who cannot understand why an adult would want to roleplay a child without wanting sex. So they make a big deal about it and they email CNet. CNet thinks this is a fantastic thing to write about so they send a journalist into SL to find some of this sexual age play. Alas, the journalist is unable to find such a thing. So the guy finds an ‘anonymous resident’ who ‘works at a sex club’ and ‘see’s this sort of thing going on all the time’ and even gives concrete examples. Then the journalist gets a quote or two from the person who emailed him in the first place. After that, just to make it look real, he takes a quote made by Robin Linden (Harper) entirely out of context — failing to mention that the quote was made in response to a series of very active threads where one or two people were upset about all the supposed age play and the majority were unconvinced it was a problem.
Shame on you Raph for spreading rumors like this. You wouldn’t like it if someone did this in one of your worlds. Don’t do it to others mmmkay?
Hmm, SLR, I didn’t editorialize, but just point to the article. At the point that it’s on CNet, I think it’s beyond the rumor stage, it’s news to comment on. The only other choice would be to let it pass without comment, and frankly, it opens up enough interesting discussion (see the comment thread) that I don’t see any reason to do that.
I definitely do agree that the media will grab hold of this sort of thing and sensationalize it — and yes, it HAS happened to me, and I didn’t like it. But stuffing the genie back in the bottle never happens. Having discussions like the one here seem to me to be perhaps the best way to deal with it: knowledgeable people discussing it more as a harbinger of the future or practical administration problem, with no fingerpointing or accusations going on.
Thanks Raph, I am glad people are discussing this outside the usual sex in games folks. I was interviewed for this article and know quite a bit about how the article came about. Daniel was not emailed directly by anyone- someone posted about this issue on CNET in reply to an article he wrote about SL securing new funding for expansion. This person (largely rumored to be a person booted off the SL forums for a similar line of posting against “child avatar sex” or whatever) sparked editorial interest in the story at CNET. Daniel then did at least a week of research (from the initial point he contacted me through when we actually spoke at length about this) and in our conversation he cited numerous sources (and many people I know got contacted refused to participate or told him that just because they hadn’t seen any of this in their short time in SL that it didn’t exist).
I was hesitant to do the interview (and told not to be no less than 3 people, lol) but I felt it was fair for discussion and newsworthy. Everyone in virtual worlds deals with these issues differently and no approach is perfect. I salute SL for their bravery in trying to give their players unfettered freedoms- freedoms that far exceed what the average company is willing to be involved with. It’s to their credit that they operate this way and give players that kind of world. It’s part of why I’ve been an SL evangelist and resident since early 2004. But it is a newsworthy topic worthy of public debate. We are better off for the dialogue and consideration than we would be leaving topics like this in the shadows and hoping it all works out for the best.
But, Raph, you did editorialize. You said “170,000 players, 20% growth a month, and adult players with child avatars soliciting sex.” That’s not “adult players are talking about child avatars soliciting sex” and its not “Second Life residents spark a discussion about age play”. It sensationalizes it, it is not a question but a comment. Its “hey look over here! virtual kiddie porn!”
Kelly how about when its your game people discuss it in relation to that? Oh what? You don’t want the kiddie porn tag associated with your game? Yeah I bet Linden Labs is just thrilled about it being associated with theirs.
So it was a post and not an email. Big deal. What was known, and not said in the article, is that the person who posted was booted off the forums for a similar line of posting. There’s ONE line in that article, early on, that reads that there isn’t any age play sex going on that anyone has actually seen. But after that, the author goes on to make you think its rampant. He has an interview with Kelly who, again, has never actually seen this sort of thing but she’s making a game that will allow it so instead of confirming what isn’t, the author can write to what will be.
The author finds ONE person who will give her SL name that speaks out that of course she’s seen it. The author fails to mention that a) the person is not a native English speaker and b) runs a sex club. He writes “while pretending to work in a sex club” — there’s no pretending here. Usagi runs a damn sex club. Consider the source, y’know?
Also what was not mentioned was that the author’s interest was posted in the Second Life forums and um, well TWO whole people contacted the author. Wow.
Yet, now, because Raph’s sensationalized it, because CNet has sensationalized it, there’s a fair amount of people running around thinking that SL is all about the kiddie porn. This is misrepresentation of the highest order and Raph, you participated and so did you Kelly.
Second Life isn’t ‘wrestling with age play.” One or two strange people that seem to have a problem with adults playing child avatars and can’t keep their minds out of the gutter are ‘wrestling with age play.’ That’s the truth of the matter. But that’s boring and doesn’t bring in many readers.
Also here’s a link to a better article, an interview with the CNet author:
Hmm.. Second Life can thank their own ambiguity for this. They are trying to create a non-roleplay roleplay world. Which adds a layer of real-world implications to what might be roleplaying acts. If they actually had a true roleplaying world then this could’ve been “policed” IC and been a fictional asset to the world.
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it bottled up inside of you. (assumptions – adults having sex with people under the age of 16 is always a bad thing – there are those who disagree as age is dependant upon maturity and awareness, not calendar years – and that’s a whole ‘nother debate) (via
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