Yay for discrimination in SL! \o/

That it'd be more honest than the current system is?



Answered in order:

That they were discriminatory and something to be avoided (which I do).

Maybe not the same level of discrimination as racial but discrimination none the less.

Yes.

I don't find that our different systems of morals are finding any common ground.

I do find it an interesting question as to whether the terribly impermanent and easily changable visual aesthetic of an avatar should be the base of such outrage.

All due respect, I'm really not sure why this seems to be such an emotional issue for you. Is there more to this than what's been said?



Er... no. For the cartoon you chose to represent yourself as on SL. It has nothing to do with who *you* are.



I'm not sure what you mean here. Restate it?



Well, there's discrimination of all kinds in the world.

Some restaurants discriminate against people not wearing jackets and ties.
Some businesses discriminate against people who don't own a membership card.
Some employers discriminate against smokers and won't hire them.

You can agree or disagree at will, but until you're footing the bill for said business/sim, it's really not your call. Just as you are free to set up your own place and make your own rules for it.



There's a simple remedy here. If you want to enter, conform to the dress code. It really is just dots on a screen. Either being in the sim is important enough to you that you rearrange the pixels, or it isn't. Your call.

My personal recommendation is to buy a sim and spend $200 a month on it and not allow Goreans. Or people named "Albert".


On a side note, it blows my mind how terms like "discrimination" get tossed around like so much confetti when the situation involves two groups of people playing Let's Pretend. One's playing cowboys and indians and won't let you come in the clubhouse when you're dressed up like a fairy princess. That's discrimination nowadays?

When I was a kid, my brother wouldn't allow my Wookie to play with his and his buddy's GI Joes. Later, when I was into GI Joes too, our sister's Barbies were not allowed to come in our GI Joe Fortress we'd built under the stairs.

We were Role-Playing, get it yet? (Not you Gabe - I know you do)

Hmm, I think so.

Your point was that you secretly wanted to be playing with the barbies right? ^.-

NOOOOOOOOOO! *tears hair out* In my universe, you are ALWAYS a dog! In my universe, you are a dog irl too! You cannot toy with my sanity this way! I say no no no Travis is always and only and EVER the white dog with the red collar!

coco <------- goes to quiet corner to have nervous breakdown

First off, let me preface this. Ani. <3. =^^=

Now. The subject of Gor specifically is a touchy one, to me, because I frankly dislike the culture, in SL and IRL. Having been highly active in the kink community in a number of cities, I found that I truely disliked the people involved. So what I'm saying here is not an emotional response. I'm also not going to focus only on Gorean lands.

Gorean sims are RP sims, and as such, are a sort of game, the fact that people turn them into more than just things to be played in those sims are a function of the people involved, not the sims or the sim owners. Therefore they need to be approached as an RP setting, a game.

First, staying away from Second Life situations, I'm an avid RPer, and more often then not am pressed into service as sort of the Default GM for my friends. This means i"ve run damn near hundreds of small or large games, in all times, settings, and worlds. I ran a game about a year ago, set in the 1100's. All the players were to play Crusaders, and the game followed them from the border into Italy, to the holy land. Now it was a fantasy game, but not high fantasy, and therefore I did not allow Elves, Dwarves, whatever. It also was as accurate as I could make it, with modifications for my own little twissts and such, and therefore I turned a player down flat when he asked me to let him play a samurai, simply because it wasn't in setting, and he wanted to play a character from the Sengoku Jidai period, whcih was about 300 years in the future.

But it was my game, and my decision what to let into my world. I did let someone eventually play a werewolf, because it fit into the myth setitng I had built up as a backdrop. So was it within the realm of the original Crusades? Hell no, but it was within the interpretation I wanted.

Thats hwat the Goreans want. My personal distaste for them aside, they are trying to play a game, in a setting they feel comfortable/happy with, trying to recreate a version of Gor and keeping out things they dislike. And though it bothered me for a long time, I realized something. in the Alliance Navy, we roleplay a military group, and expect people to act that way. If someone doesn't act like a soldier, they aren't wanted, because thats what the group and the setting is about. When someone doesn't stick to our rules, such as those about rank, its disruptive, upsetting, and annoying. Why shouldn't we afford the Goreans and anyone else the same right?

Lets say I dropped the cash to buy a sim of my own, and built a recreation of a section of Stalingrad. The purpose of this sim is to recreate World War Two urban combat during the siege of stalingrad by Von Paulus's 6th Army. Weapons and vehicles are all designed to work with one another in a combat system. Uniforms are given to recreate the army's uniforms. People are to roleplay memebrs of the Soviet or German armies. Its supposed to be an exercise in re-enactment, and therefore anything other than a human AV is not allowed, to help the immersion/setting.

Now my dislike of furries is fairly well known. But. I love my gothic skin. I love strutting around all pale and pastey, but even I woudn't try to do a WW2 re-enactment in it. Hell, I"m going tonight to buy a different skin for the Starfleet Roleplay I'm in, just to seem more accurate.

If its banning people from jhust a shopping sim, or a club or something, that's one thing. But these are privately owned sims, with a very specific purpose/setting. And as much as I hate to disagree with close friends/agree with goreans...
Its they're right.

And its not as though they're saying "We hate all Jews and will not allow the k***s (God I hate being called that =/) into our sims!"

They're going "Furries do not exist in the setting we have designed, so we don't want them in here. Take off hte furry AV, and you can interact." As is their right. *shrugs*

Just my two cents.

I was wondering the same thing? If the aesthetics of an avatar are so meaningless to you, then why the forcing people to look the way you want them to?

Lorelei... I don't think you've read all of my posts. As I said in the last post, I'm not contesting their right to do what they are, I'm contesting whether or not its an acceptable thing to do to someone. Like I said in previous posts, yeah, it's their sims, they can ban people that have blonde hair if they want to. That doesn't make it right.

Also, an I state my avatar as being "me". You're right it's not me. However, its and expression of who I am, and in my case, a very direct expression of that. I realize there are many forms of discrimination, but a) that doesn't mean this particular form of discrimination is okay, and b) arguing that many forms of descrimination exist in acceptable ways to this situation is as good as arguing the same to any situation.

And to the last, as I said in a previous post, yes, the solution is either to change myself, or not go to those sims. Since I don't consider supressing my right to self-expression an option, as I said earlier, the solution is not going to those sims. And, just so that I can on the record for saying this five or six times, I understand its their right to ban or allow people to visit and enjoy the sights at will. And, also for the fifth or sixth time, that dun mean its okay to do that to people.

And can the inflamatory posts, they're not helpful.

You be careful or Evil Gabe will bash you but good in the 3rd party forum

Strangely enough, despite having a non human avatar, Ive rarely had problems in gorean sims, I politely explain, Im simply sightseeing, wear a visitor tag, and go about my business. Only on one occassion have i been refused entry based on my avatar, and i had a reasonable and polite conversation with the fellow who asked me to leave.No hard feelings on either side.
Its their right to maintain the RP integrity of the sims they pay good money for. Although being involved in gorean culture holds no appeal for me, i have many friends within that culture, and respect their choices on how to live their second life.

I don't particularly care myself (you and your tail are welcome on any piece of my land), but I don't think they are engaging in a behavior that is concerning and I don't think they should be taken to task for it. Especially since many of the goreans get plenty of crap when outside the safety of their PRIVATE land for engaging in their choice of RP. Many people get on them for bringing their RP into the rest of SL. Now you are saying they can't have their own private playground either since you feel like a digital representation of yourself can't be compromised and somehow you have a right to be as you will on their PRIVATE land.

I think you're confusing "right" and "something I personally would have liked better".

Thank you Cory, I have been trying all day to come up with a way to state that.

If you don't want to comply with the rules of the area, move along, there are hundreds of other sims with worth while architecture to look at.

Harle, thanks for the input, that was actually helpful. Yes, you're right. They're free to present whatever environment they want. And you know what, if they don't want people in their sim that might appreciate the culture, the sights, sounds, people and interacting in the life of a gorean, simply because they happen to be slightly (very slightly) different than a human, then that's their perogative (sp?).

But here's where I'm fuzzy:

1. To restate it over and over again until someone explains this to me, I used to be welcome in gor sims. Somewhere along the line this changed. For this change to happen, there has to be a reason. And this reason, I hope, is a very good one.
2. All of the three major groups of people in SL I can think of, as stated above, used to be welcome in gor sims. Now only one is. While it is in their right to do what they will with their own sims, I find it wrong to discriminate against people that look different when in the past, all were accepted.
3. Telling me "you're not allowed in my world" when I used to be part of that world. I don't think I need to explain this one further.

Lucifer, I wish I had had such luck. So far every sim I've been told to change my avatar, then banned, caged without warning, or pushed across the sim without warning.

Gabe, that way of looking at it is, I'm assuming, exactly why this problem exists; It's true, goreans to catch alot of flak outside gor sims. So do furries, outside their own sims. And so do certain individuals, for no particular reason. But eye for an eye is not the solution. Because of this policy against non-humans, people such as myself are being alienated from a culture that they would love to appreciate, and possibly add to, if they were but given the chance.

*rubs her head* And again... I'm not telling them what they can and can't do, I'm not quite dumb enough for that.

And,
Nanao <3
Harle <3
Sorry for not saying that until now. :x

Oh, I have.



Look, if I wanted to go to a furry area, you can bet I'd get me an animal avvie tout suite. I don't care if it's demanded of me or not -- it has to do with respecting the environment that is being created in that place. And if they wanted an all-fur sim and I refused to play along, they'd be well within their rights to ask me to leave and/or ban me.

But that's where we seem to differ.

You identify strongly with the way your avatar looks; I don't. Which makes me think that this say a whole lot more about you than it does about the Gorean sim.



No one is trying to suppress your self-expression. They are setting limits on what kind of interaction can happen on a server ***they paid for*** You want to be a fur? Knock yourself out. No one is telling you not to.

Well, there *is* a very good reason.

Ready for it?

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The reason is that it's a private land and they can set the rules for it however they like without owing you or anyone else an explanation.

this seems to be more a question of respect than discrimination. if you were to go into churches in italy, you would have to respect their customs and have your shoulders covered, etc. if you showed up in a tank top and shorts, you would be asked to leave. the same principles apply to you visiting the gorean sims. it is a private area, where certain rules are followed. if you want to visit this private area, you should expect to respect their rules and follow them. if you are not willing to respect their customs, then i see no problem with them asking you to leave.

Yeah, unless anyone else has anything to add, I think this thread's done. I've expressed my frustration with a once-welcoming area of SL, other have expressed theirs, and its gone precisely nowhere.

Oh, and...



What, exactly?

it's gone somewhere...just not where you wanted it to go.

Okay, say I bought an island sim, made it a rp venue based on bronze-age Britain.

And banned anyone with a non anglo-saxon avatar, as there were very few black, oriental or asian people in bronze-age Britain.

Then I posted a sign by the telehub, saying 'If you are black, you are spoiling the atmosphere, please change to a caucasian avatar, it only takes a few seconds, this is all fantasy anyway'.

I can imagine the uproar now 'Nazis come to SL!!!!!!!' in the forums, demonstrations, everything.

Every avatar is pure fantasy, so discrimination against people with non-white human avatars is therefore perfectly acceptable. Or so that line of thinking goes.

I am guessing here. But I would imagine it to be because they have been the target of some nasty attention and had to draw the line some where in regards to who "could" be a threat to the continuity of the area. So perhaps a general rule was made to exclude all non Gor compliant avatars? I am SURE it's not a personal thing.

Maybe you should be directing these questions to the sim owner? Seems to me you would have a more concise answer than all of our speculative theories.

It's over because all that's left is people looking to pick a fight. Continue the discussion if y'all want, I'm throwing in the towel.

Well, that's what I'm wondering.

You may think it's done, but I blindly plow ahead while I wait for the last 3 hours of work (approximately 0.0009952% of my life to date) to pass quietly into that good night.

I agree that tit for tat is baloney, I was rambling a bit, but it is also nice to try and have a feel for where someone is coming from. I presume that is why you have let us know how important your avatar choice is to you. It helps me understand why this situation has offended you so much.

I do think you are hung up on the fact that you used to be allowed on the gorean land in full furry regalia. You also stated that they better have a good reason. A good reason would be that they felt like it.

And what Cory said, too.