What, if anything, is sex in SL?

Very well said Marilyn

Why in a 18+ game for adults Sky Diving is considered acceptable by everyone, but sexual expression isnt - is beyond me.

I know quite a few people that have sex in halo 2. yes, halo 2.

sex in SL is considerably better animated though.

I agree... will you marry me? *chuckles*

I dont think discussion of rape belongs in a discussion about consensual sex. I play a game which specifically labels virtual rape as a bannable offense, while they dont discuss cybersex at all. I think their policy on virtual rape is more appropriate.

I assume your arguement is not however an attempt to claim virtual rape and murder are acceptable becuase theres no actual rape and murder involved. I think you are more trying to argue semantics for some reason. Like Jake said - a tasteless analogy- becuase rape as a subject will carry a huge ammount of negative emotions for many people reading this thread.

I think instead you are trying to point out its not sex unless you touch. Perhaps the real problem is there arent enough words to describe this means of errotic/sexual expression becuase its a relatively new phenomena.

Basically i dont think im making any real revelation that when 2 people who are sexually attracted to each other form a relationship , sex is often a by-product. If they cant have physical sex they will have phone sex, or cyber sex, or mutual fantasies. What have you. This predates the internet, predates phones, predates many things, I assume people are aware of the Song Of Solomon in the bible as an example.

Now then, there are, and always will be people who enjoy sex and sexual expression OUTSIDE the confines of a relationship. There have also always been people willing (perhaps for money, etc) to provide that to them.

If someone does not think Av Sex/ Cyber Sex/ Virtual sex is really sex - thats their own opinion. Yes its a fact its not Actual Physical sex. But beyond that people do not get to decide for others when the errotic/sexual experience people share is "sex" or not.

Ignore reality or ignore Second Reality?

To ignore the reality that cartoons having sex does not equal real sex.

I am not married, so I am not using this as an excuse to feed my wife.

All I am saying is that it's no more having sex than is driving a car in SL driving a real car.

Would I be happy if I was married and my wife was having her avatar run anims with another player? No. This is because it is still flirting.

Flirting only requires the spoken word, and not physical contact.

heh.

um when you drive a car in SL you dont play with a RL steering wheel in between typing

you can figure the rest out.

Its more real than driving a car in SL for many.

I ABSOLUTLY AGREE THER IS NO DIFFERENCE BETWEEN RIDING A BOAT OR RIDING ON ANOTHER AVATAR. ITS ALL IN THE MIND OF THE BEHOLDER. SO IF YOU DONT AGREE WITH SL SEX DON'T DISCOURGE OR LOOK DOWN ON THOES THAT DO.
WE ARE ALL HERE FOR OUR OWN REASONS AND WE ALL HAVE OUR OWN SENCE OF WHATS IS RIGHT FOR US. WHAT FEELS GOOD TO ONE MAY NOT FEEL GOOD TO ANOTHER THAT DOES NOT MAKE IT WRONG.

AND IF YOUR REALLY LUCKY YOU JUST MAY GET TO KNOW THE PERSON WELL ENOUGH AND THINGS CAN MOVE ON TO BIGER AND BETER THINGS LIKE A WEB CAM ON YAHOO

sorry about the caps to to lazy to go back and retype it

The key point you forget is that, in SL, we have two very nice tools called "Teleport" and "Quit". You cannot ever be forced to participate in something you do not choose to participate in.

Because human beings are primarily visual animals, the visuals in a virtuality like SL can have varying degrees of impact on us. I know people who can play Doom3 at full speed and are never effected -- my first try at it left me shaking because the damned zombies kept jumping out and startling me

What the anti-av sex crowd *AND* the "avie sex is harmless" crowd both tend to forget is that there are people behind those pixels. You might think your fling is little more than a harmless bit of byte-diddling. But your partner might be internalizing it in an entirely different way and read things into it that you never intended. You can also spend so much time at it that your RL relationship suffers, even to the point of losing your real partner. (The one who actually touched you and held you).

In that respect, avie sex does have many human qualities and that qualifies it as a form of sexual encounter no less than phone sex or hot-chat on AOL. It's not about the words. It's about the emotions behind the words.

You don't get to decide what is appropriate. Just as Hiro doesn't get to decide what is an appropriate classified ad. If you don't think it's appropriate, report it and let LL decide. The failure to do this by one person is what led us to where we are now.
If you don't mean "not appropriate" in the ToS sense, then please stop trying to parent me, and regulate the forum as if you were some sort of moderator.

The word "rape" does not appear in the ToS. This is why I brought up sexual harrassment, because it certainly fits the bill if some jerk corners someone, and starts spouting mature verbiage.

Key word being "assume" and you assume wrong. More wrong than you can possibly know, and this type of assumption makes what you are accusing me of look like Sunday School.

Know this, I have been in management most of my adult life, and have had to deal with sexual harrassment from time to time. I take it very seriously. I have fired people because of it. I hardly see that as a cavalier attitude towards the topic. If you don't believe that based upon your interpretation of my motives whilst employing an analogy to illustrate why "avatar sex" does not equal real sex, I don't know what to tell you.

It is not tasteless, because it's analogy, nothing more. It's your choice to read further into it, as you have done here.

You don't know me, and using my analogy to attack my character is not ok. I find this statement utterly offensive. I do not take real world and/or online sexual harrassment, or real world rape lightly. This is something that has touched employees of mine, friends, family members, and two women I have been in long term relationships with. It saddens and angers me to no end, so you're really taking things out of context, and barking up the wrong tree.

Which appears to contradict the assumption about me you've made in the above paragraph. By the way, virtual murder is legal in non-safe areas like Jessie, so I fail to see a point in mentioning that, unless you are simply trying to stain my character further.

As far as this means of erotic expression being a relatively new phenoma, not so, it has been going on for at least 15 years that I am aware of, and probably longer.

Sure, but I still believe it is a misnomer to label such activities as sex acts. Let me specify, I am speaking of a sex act, not talking about it, not flirting, not courting. Certainly all these activities can lead to a sex act - but, in my mind, they are not an actual sex act. We apparently disagree on that. That's life, and it shouldn't make you angry because we disagree on this. I am getting the distinct feeling that you are angered about my views, though I could be mistaken.

No doubt this is true, and I don't see how it's relevant. Also, sexual expression does not always involve a sex act.

Let me explain this to you. I do not have a problem with the fact that some regard 2 avatars running animations as a sex act. What I do have a problem with is when someone who believes this tries to impose that belief on others, when it has no legal standing as an actual sex act. So, in essence, I am stating what you are stating, only in reverse - those who feel it does constitute a sex act do not get to decide that it does for others. The legal definition of a sex act backs me up on this. Maybe someday this will change, however, I for one hope not, because as i mentioned in several posts, this will open a pandora's box. Anything done in a virtual setting would then be subject to that same scrutiny - which is THE ONLY reason I brought up virtual rape and murder, despite your attempt to paint things otherwise.

Someone's got my number today.

So logging out erases what happened up to the point of logging out? Interesting. You claim "emotions" when it suits your argument, then all of a sudden, it's as easy as logging out, which, in effect, ignores the emotional trauma that may have already occured prior to logging out.

What I am trying to say, through all the character attacks, is that emotions do not constitute a sex act. That's all. I find it interesting that you accuse me of being mired in semantics, whilst participating in just that.

Please contact me in PM or in-world if you want to further discuss this. I am not going to answer each of these posts, as you comb through my posts looking for things to blast me on based upon your interpretations and opinions.

Whoever said there would be no emotional impact? A lot of things can affect you emotionally in SL, including sex. That wasn't my point.

In RL, rape is not as easy to avoid as logging out. I don't doubt that someone could be frightened (?) by an avatar attack, although there is no way to (a) restrain the victim without their consent, (b) remove the avatar's clothing (c) prevent them from Teleporting or quitting and, perhaps most importantly, (d) Actually inflicting physical harm on the victim. That gives the victim far more power over consent than it does in RL -- thus your analogy was not a usable one.


Who is attacking your character, Nolan? It wasn't me. I was picking up on your comments and offering a counterpoint. That hasn't been outlawed on this forum, has it?


Who blasted you? Was her name Cindy? Do you want special permission to post comments without having anyone debate you?

My statement very clearly said I DONT THINK discussion of rape belongs in this thread. It further stated I THINK the tos in another game which spells out virtual rape as unacceptable as more approriate.

I think that is very clearly my opinion I didnt tell you what not to do , I told you what i thought about your comments. Theres quite a big difference.

I will go further in saying that you brining up rape in a context of a non related subect, you may offend people.

Rape is offensive to many people.




I am wrong in assuming you were not implying virtual rape and murder are acceptable???

This makes me more wrong than ill ever know?? - please read my post again. I was assuming you had better motives than that virtual rape and murder were okay becuase they werent real rape and murder.

This is incorrect?

It looks like you missed the "NOT" in my statement which is why you thought my next paragraph copntradicted my assumption.

I thought i was fairly safe in assuming you do not condone virtual rape and murder. That was why i stated that as i replied to your thread.



15 years in the history of human sexuality isnt even a blink of an eye.




I agree - however, i was not under the impression this Thread was about the sex is in the eyes of the law.

I dont really personally care what is legally sex. I dont even know-think-care what a governement would call sex. Its none of their business.

The only government involvement in anything sexual would be the prevention of involuntary sex acts such as rape and child molestation.

No, I don't, and it was due to a mistake. Apparently, I am either gun-shy now, need glasses, or both, as I thought I was replying to Colette, hence the "somone's got my number" comment. My apology for that.

I do think you were trivializing, by stating that you can log out. Logging out is not the answer.

For me, that is like saying that if someone is harrassing you in RL, you should stay in your house, after all, no one is forcing you to go outside.

Point of procedure:

We have voting and forums, and Lindens routinely will implement requested changes and additions to SL and policies. So, I think what you're saying is not accurate.

Im sorry Nolan if your read my statement as mean you meant to say that virtual rape and murder were acceptable-

I actually was stating I did not think you were.

I may have been not clear enough about that for a quick Post skim to pick up on.

I didnt like your anology - I still think it was tasteless. There was no reason to bring virtual rape as opposed to real rape into this thread in my opinion.

I dont mean it to imply I think you have bad character. Im sorry if I came across that way.

You're missing the point Hiro. Of course they do, however, they don't do it because someone turns an ad into a debate. They do it because people coin propositions, report bad posts, or make feature suggestions.

No, in fact, in the past they've stated that reforms were due to overwhelming voice of opinion in the matter.

Clear examples:
- Preview time before major releases increased, after 1.5 had major issues and residents complained
- Changes to forum policy about alt account abuse, do to ... well, you know.

To say that a company does not listen to complaints of its customers, and only listens to positive suggestions, would not be correct.

Well, Co and I do have things in common


It takes less than one second to press CTRL Q. Take a 5 minute break. Log back in - even logging back in to a different sim if one uses START->RUN secondlife.exe//simname/coord1/cood2 ... Remove the attacker from your friend list. Mute them. If nothing else, petition a Linden.

It's not trivial at all, but my point was that the victim has more power in SL over the level of their consent.


In RL you can call the cops. In SL you can call the Lindens. In either case, you may have to screw up the courage to defend yourself -- an easier task in SL than in RL.

Thank you for demonstrating that sense works, even for a senseless subject like sex.

To me, what it's about is caring enough not to get into a situation that might hurt the person you're supposed to care about more than yourself.

Yes, I apparently am reading too fast today, I have too many things going on here (I work from home most of the time) and that is no excuse. I am sorry for having missed that. I should know better than to discuss touchy subjects when I have other pots on the stove at the same time.

I still feel that you think I am cavalier about the rape issue. if so, you are mistaken.

The reason I am talking legal definitions here is because that's where we were in the thread that spun this one off. At least myself and a couple of others were.

Now, about talking about rape offending people - "We" (Women's Entertainment Network)? They dramatize rape all the time. they are not the only station that does so. If so, are you offended by those programs? Is it a "fun" subject? No. Should it not be brought up because some folks are offended by just the mention of it? Personally, I don't think so.

I felt it was germaine, because I do not not believe "av sex" constitutes a sex act. Whether it be consensual or not. It was simply a mechanism to make a point, and to get people thinking. I think some of you are ignoring the point I was trying to make by using that analogy, and getting hung up by being offended at the mere mention of a word.

You are right that many dramas have rape as subject matter on WE or Lifetime - but they arent making analogies they are directly related to the subject of rape.

I feel theres a difference in that.
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the rest of these comments I mean in the general concept of this Thread and not in reply to Nolan's post(s)
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As far as the sex not being sex. Of course its true there is not physical sex, no one will end up pregnant, or get a STD, or feel the warmth of the other.

Many howerver will feel arroused, even bring themselves to orgasm. Some will fall in love, real or imagined. I Think its fine to always qualify it as Cyber Sex or Virtual Sex if necessary. since that is very specific to what it is. But it shoudlnt be dismissed as unimportant to people.

But its pretty real for people. and many do enjoy it. Sure some find it funny or ridiculous. I dont find that very sensitive to others.

I am fully aware how to log out, and how to log back in somewhere different.

In the case of logging out - some folks are very affected emotionally by being sexually harrassed. Some may have things that have happened to them in their past which add to that, and that is a valid concern. Logging out does not undo that. Nor does calling the Lindens or the cops, that is just seeking justice after the fact. The damage is already done.

I apoligize for contributing to the semantic debate, however, I do think the very nature of this thread nearly mandates such a discussion.

I also apologize for misreading.

At any rate, I have stated how I feel on this issue, I do not think two SLers running anims constitutes a sex act. With that said, I am going to retire from this thread, as I have generally thought that both yourself and Collette are articulate and well reasoned individuals, and I do not desire to argue with people whom I respect.