New World Notes

Why Some Women Gender-Bend in Online Worlds - Classic NWN Quote

Similar to how some men roleplay as female avatars in MMOs to meet the real life woman of their dreams, or to explore their gender dysphoria, some women roleplay as male avatars for reasons of their own. In Rebecca's case, for instance, to experience the dynamics of heterosexual flirting and seduction from the male point of view:

"I used a few other lines the players of my past had told me: 'I have been out of Second Life for awhile because I had been in a relationship earlier a woman who ended up cheating on me and broke my heart". Or, 'I have no money because I hardly come on here, so I have to wear this demo skin.'" The lines worked so well, the woman began giving her free clothes, effectively trying to make Rebecca's Second Life male even more attractive. "I could tell she was becoming attached, so I told her I had to log off."

Apparently crushed by Rebecca's male, the woman persisted, sending her several offline Instant Message. But Rebecca decided not to respond, or explain who she really was. "I think telling her the truth would have freaked her out."

... By being a virtual male, "I learned about some of my own weaknesses at the time, such as my tendency to believe what every male avatar told me, especially if they had a good looking avatar. I think the visual aspect of Second Life somehow tricks the brain into taking our past experiences and cultural expectations and placing these experiences and expectations onto others within Second Life... I think a lot of women have the same type of thinking when they go into Second Life and tend to become attracted to good looking avatars, and overlook the avatars who are not particularly attractive."

Good thing to keep in mind, next time you're in a virtual nightclub.

Does Sexual Content Enforce a Negative Stereotype of Second Life? (Comments of the Week)

Interesting conversation over the SL machinima I posted last week, which I warned readers ahead of time: "While it has no graphic nudity, it's very male gazey throughout and gets decidedly porny toward the end." For the record, I asked the creators if they had a less porny version, but failing that, decided the visual quality was so good, and showed how great SL content can look, it deserved an audience here.  Reader Taylor had a terse reply to that:

...wants to show that SL isn't what people think it is
...turns into softcore porn

Stereotype affirmed!

Reader JohnC  pointed out a larger issue of branding:

This is a great problem that Second Life has. This sim and all others, are personal experiences created within the platform called second life. It is up to anyone who creates there to create whatever they desire. This freedom is what makes SL special, far more special than the restrictive RL world of games. If someone creates a porn game with Unreal Engine people do not label Epic with a porn label. SL is a free space for anyone to create what they will...

That's a pretty good analogy. However, Unreal, Unity, and other 3D engines are better able to distance themselves from sexual content created with their tools, since after all, unlike Second Life, that content isn't hosted on their company-owned servers.

Reader Madeline Blackbart points out how this has hurt SL's reputation in the public eye:

Why Some Men Gender-Bend in Online Worlds - Classic NWN Quote

Eboni Khan has a fascinating theory based on her many years in the Second Life social scene:

The men pretending to be women are more into dressing themselves and admiring themselves-- and attempting to build relationships, which is interesting. The men that I know [who] are women here, are very feminine. And strive to have loving friendships and relationships. Which leads me to believe a lot of men think they can't accomplish the same thing [while] being a stereotypical male.

Sensitive and tender? Pretend to be a girl, then seduce the girl of your dreams. Then tell her you are a man, and hope for the best. I think the majority of these men just want to be tender and loving, and think a female avie makes it easier for them to do it.

The "My Real Gender Is..." discussion is a genuine topic in online game worlds, so I'd say there's some truth to this. Read my whole profile of Eboni, full of insights like this, here: The Freeform Identity Bebop of Eboni Khan.

Pictured: Image from an equally notable post, "Cheating In Second Life Relationships Extremely Upsetting To Many SLers, Study Finds".

Couple Turns Their Business Selling Virtual Sex Toys Into a Real Life Romance

A classic NWN story for Valentine's Day:

It’s not often that two people who've spent so much time creating simulations of passion get a chance to engage in the thing itself, together. So later on, I ask Snow Hare about the impact of their avatar lovemaking on what eventually became a real relationship.

“It wasn’t the only reason that we decided to move onto real life,” she tells me. “As everybody knows, there’s more to a relationship than sex. But I would say yes, it did have an impact, positive, in such a way that I knew what to expect… before real life, I knew what he liked and enjoyed, and vice versa. Since we were honest with each other and were very compatible, it was easy to know what to expect in real life.”

“[I]t was almost like meeting an old friend and a lot of the nervousness of a first date wasn't there,” Phil tells me later. “This medium definitely lets two people share their feelings and desires for one another and that is a powerful thing in itself.”

Read the rest here.

Cajsa's Choices: Seven Second Life Screenshots Turned to Tasteful Erotic Art

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

A friend of mine once insisted there was no difference between erotica and pornography, other than the class of the consumer: “If you’re rich, you enjoy erotica. If you’re poor, you’re into porn.”

I disagree. For me, pornography is boring. It leaves nothing for the viewer to imagine, and has no other purpose than arousing sexual appetite. There is no wonder, no pleasure at how very human it is. Of course, this is subjective and non-binary. After all, there is also the merely aesthetic, such as Michelangelo’s David, a full-frontal male nude that is neither erotic nor pornographic. For me, though, the erotic is interesting. How do virtual world artists imbue their digital work with the emotional context that divides the sensuous from the sexual, the erotic from the pornographic? (Even if Google’s content filtering AI may not care either way.)

Forever for now (above) by Just Eve might be close to aesthetic than erotic, but I think tenderness is very erotic and there is so much tenderness in this photo. This looks like passion to me.

Many more examples of virtual world screenshots turned into erotically-resonant art after the break. (Warning: While none are pornographic, some are mildly NSFW.)

SL's Rent-an-Avatar Dating AI Bot Fills Me With Admiration & Sadness

Popular SL vlogger Lexy Nexen recently made an in-person tour of a Second Life store selling hot male and female bots you can "date" by the hour, and yes by date I mean they come equipped for virtual sex or perhaps even better, you can also take them out dancing and even shopping, and are supposedly connected to a server which imbues them with enough artificial intelligence to chat with you and respond to the renter's behavior and I'm both astounded and impressed and also feel a touch sad and depressed by the state of humanity but here it is and there you go.

Second Life Users Anonymously Discuss How They Juggle Real & Virtual Romances at the Same Time

Really interesting anonymous thread on Plurk*, a social network popular with SLers, which starts by asking Second Life users how they're able to manage both a real life relationship while also spending lots of time in a virtual relationship. "I can barely keep up with one relationship in one world," the thread creator notes. "No idea how you manage both."

Communication, communication, communication:

For me it's emotionally fulfilling to have both and I do agree that I love each person differently. The heart has this amazing capacity when you allow it... My relationship with my SL partner is fully separate from my relationship with my RL partner. They are friends and speak openly though... I have a RL partner who understands my SL relationship. My SL partner and I had very similar needs so we have worked well together for years.

... with some pointed commentary:

I look at everyone who tells me its not real, like they are a bunch of liars and I just want them to admit it is real. Like when my friends tell me about it I'm like, i need you to stop bullshitting me if we're going to talk about this and stop telling me "oh it's not real because it's SL." I wasn't born yesterday.

I think a lot of married couples are inconsiderate of the RL people behind the SL relationship. At the end of the day, that person is alone and the married couple isn't. Just seems wrong to string them along.

And helpful advice:

In Academic Study of Sex in Second Life, 60% Enjoy Virtual Version Over Real Life Thing

Just came across this WTF factoid arguing that virtual reality will kill porn as we know it:

In the journal Psychology and Sexuality, Gilbert and his team investigated the sexual behavior and attitudes in Second Life. He and his team looked at 217 participators in the virtual world game — about 51 percent who were in a real-life relationship and 49 percent who were not. Within the game, 43 percent of the players had sexual experiences. In Second Life users can purchase and attach virtual genitalia and engage in sexual relationships with other players. They found that 60 percent of the subjects actually had more satisfying sexual sexual experiences in Second Life than in real life.

That from an academically rigorous study from California university researchers. Which is notable partly because a recent informal survey suggested two-thirds of SLers prefer the real thing. I continue to be stunned how many people, when given the chance, prefer the simulation of what's fundamental about the human experience at its best than the thing itself. Even happiness.

The study [.pdf link here], which was published in 2011 (academic results often move out of academia at a glacial pace) does have some consolation for the reality biased:

Why Second Life Users & Linden Lab Need to Honestly & Openly Address SL's "Weird Sex" Branding Problem

Above is the top upvoted comment on that Reddit "Today I Learned" topic about Second Life I mentioned yesterday. It's yet another illustration of why I don't think it's realistic for either Second Life users or Linden Lab to pretend like SL doesn't have a "weird sex" branding problem. Reddit's /TodayILearned group has nearly 9 million subscribers, and a good percent of them (perhaps 10-20%) are reading this comment. And so, if those millions aren't already like this Redditor "kidamy", and they don't remember notorious, widely-covered "weird sex" incidents from Second Life's 12 year history, comments like his will be their first impression of Second Life. (But really, thanks to countless "weird sex in Second Life" memes like this one, any extremely active Internet user is going to have that brand association already.)

Which brings us to a very important realization about product branding:

Once a brand is associated with a divisive or deeply negative connotation, it's nearly impossible to remove that association from the general public perception.

Note that I say "divisive or deeply negative". Because many Second Life users will think, "But there's nothing wrong with weird virtual sex, you're just a prude if you think otherwise!" Even if that were true, however, the fact remains that many or most of the public does indeed believe weird virtual sex to be strange/offensive/etc., and that assumption isn't about to be changed any time soon.

In fact, there's generally just three ways to remove a bad branding association:

Debate Over Media Coverage of Second Life Sex Continues

Nalates Urriah has an interesting post on the debate over how the media should cover sexual content in Second Life, largely based around an interview I gave to Vice about Twitch banning SL, entitled (of course), "Second Life Is Banned From Twitch Because Cocks Can Happen at Any Moment". I didn't bother mentioning the Vice article when it ran last Monday, partly because I'm fairly weary of beating that topic (heh heh he said "beating"), and partly because it's difficult to have a calm conversation around it. As Nalates notes:

Politicians know they can stampede a significant number of people and achieve their goals. So, I never know if someone skilled at emotional manipulation is believing what they say because they are in it or if they are just working the crowd. I do know, either way, it can draw out the haters.

"Haters" seems a bit harsh (as does the Saul Alinsky reference), because I do understand why the topic makes some of SL's most passionate defenders so defensive. But seeing as I've basically been in that role since 2003, I'll just offer my own perspective: