Amid all the talk about Adult content in Second Life (helpfully illustrated by Nylon Pinkney), Cindy Bolero makes an important point:
This is the reality: Many, if not most new users heard about the sex, log in, and are looking for it. It's up to greeters at venues or attractions to understand that. You can be mean and ban them, or you can tell them to open the search window and/or suggest an ideal Adult place to go.
Why be helpful to these rude characters asking for sex? Because some will eventually get over that curiosity and become customers and contributors. The SL economy needs all the help it can get.
She speaks from, ahem, personal experience:
I will admit, cybersex was one of my first curiosities, because I was trying to get my boyfriend interested in SL.
Luckily a greeter avatar gave me an introduction in an adult shop she worked in. Shortly thereafter, I was much more interested in the build tools, shopping, making friends, and buying land. After my first 10 years in SL, my multi-region land group had paid over $250,000US in land tier to Linden Lab. And I shudder to think what I've spent in Marketplace.
I may have some Adult curiosities my first week, but my avatar moved on to other interests, benefiting different communities.
This is probably a common experience -- there's a novelty interest in virtual cybersex, sure, but for many, that quickly wears off. And in all honesty, cybersex in Second Life -- in all its technically cludgy, graphically rudimentary non-glory -- is probably SL's least compelling use case for most users.
Pictured: An SL "rent a date bot" shop, of which Cindy sagely noted: "Sex has always driven technology. If it weren't for the backend credit card payment technology for porn sites, the commercial Web may have been much slower evolution."
agree with Cindy. Bumping pixels gets a bit uninteresting after a while
and agree with how Cindy deals with people wanting to explore the sex. Tell them which tick options and keywords to use in Search
Posted by: irihapeti | Monday, March 18, 2019 at 05:17 PM
I came for creating & community and left cuz the cybersex
Posted by: Adeon Writer | Tuesday, March 19, 2019 at 08:08 AM
I came for the building, and then I found pixel sex. Now, I build, I socialize and I still like pixel sex but it is a lot of typing. :)
Posted by: Danger.Gunner | Tuesday, March 19, 2019 at 12:18 PM
The first things I explored were related to pixel sex, the first "a-ha's" I had about building, were related to pixel sex.
Then I became a kid avi and ignored pixel sex for years and years and built
Now I'm bored with the whole lot and bounce between pixel sex and building and being social -but I can multitask so typing isn't so much of a problem. :-P
Posted by: Han Held | Wednesday, March 20, 2019 at 01:36 AM
I think people need to stop being coy about the adult aspect of Second Life. There are adults in Second Life, they enjoy doing adult things. Get over it. With 2 seconds of effort you can also find amazing sims to explore, art, zombie hunting, roleplay, communities to socialize, new music, land, decorating, board games, live music, sailing, and everything else out there on the grid. But of course, continue to focus on the more salacious aspects.
Posted by: Noirran Marx | Thursday, March 28, 2019 at 07:20 AM
I came for something, left cuz of the lag and endless empty sims. I think I saw some people having sex, but they were all AFK.
Posted by: Mokekvim Lomimqum | Monday, June 03, 2019 at 06:56 AM