A certain something left the grid this week - Good or bad?

One final though on this, and I think I will have said all I care to say in this thread..

I think there is something rather disingenuous about drawing parallels between society's view on homosexuality and society's view on fantasy depictions of child abuse. The former has always been "normal" throughout time. Perceptions to the contrary have been largely influenced by religion and ignorance, but the nature of homosexuality itself has *always* remained a constant. It is a given then, that as knowledge of the natural and social sciences progresses, homosexuality is better understood to be a "normal" trait that is neither moral or immoral. It just is. I highly doubt society will ever be so enlightened as to give child abuse, or even the depiction of child abuse, the same treatment.

I don't know "enlightened" is the term you want to use in relation to child abuse, even if you are aiming for a counterpoint. You cannot "enlighten" people to see the good side of abusing children.

I used the word deliberately, to make the point that you just made, because it was used in a previous post in reference to homosexuality.

"It just is" does not describe society's acceptance of a behavior. Murder "just is," too, and there were times and places where murder was considered a lesser offense than homosexuality. Indeed, real child abuse and incest by men against their daughters was once considered a lesser offense.

Post-Stonewall and all that's come between, we suppose ourselves more enlightened now, but if that's so, it's because--indeed--we've allowed "natural and social sciences" to inform our new-found ethics. It is precisely that which is lacking from most discussion of depictions of SAP, replaced by the religion of disgust.

For God's sake, everyone ... the abuse of children is disgusting. There is no discussion required.
Ban and jail the bastards who do it. And don't encourage age-play because it encourages people who have such desires to be predators here. Sorry, but true.
Stop pretending that virtualities like SL are liberal minefields filled with " I can be what I wanna be because I am free" - because it can't happen.
It ruins the nature of this place. This is not a playing field of the gods.

No. No such science. Might be true. Might not. Nobody has any cause to believe this, other than armchair pop psychology.

I've clearly stated that I'm glad this stuff is off the SL grid. But anyone imagining that even a universally successful removal of such depictions would have ANY positive effect on reducing child abuse is engaging in magical thinking.

"it just is" was intended to describe the nature of the behavior, not society's acceptance of it.

I understand where you're coming from here, but science enlightens and informs; it does not have the capacity to defend the indefensible, religion of disgust notwithstanding.

Actually I wasn't really referring to what you wrote. So apple-oggies from me there. No, I just meant that seeing people play at being kids (sorry to sound un-liberal here) is just a sad statement on what needs to be addressed in a real way. This is an adult place so any depiction of children - in any format - raises questions. I think this is an issue that sl has had for a long time and we must debate it.
The recent emphasis on Sl as an educational format is hampered by this - I think that is what was hinted at in the most recent statements by Lindens in general. No university or educational foundation - for example - is going to find a credible venue for debate in a place populated by children and bunny rabbits unless they are researching "Alice in Wonderland"
I am quite willing to open a thread on this since I love controversial debates.

With the exception of some of the hard sciences, most people in the university/education system are so divorced from reality that they would never know the difference.

Agreed. And considering I NEVER agree with YOU that is earth shattering. (mind you, my partner in sl IS an academic!!)

Except we can all kind of pre-cache how the debate will play out. For example, within the first score of posts, somebody will surely quote Martin Niemöller.

It does make my position in this thread pretty tenuous, given that I eagerly threw SAP over the rail in exchange for PR expediency. Why shouldn't I be willing to do that with kid avatars, small woodland creatures, and Asian avatars with an inconvenient sexual preference?

Because kid avatars, small woodland creatures, and even gay 20 something asians are not really considered by a majority of the civilized world to be reprehensible things.

Zaphod makes the valid point that there's a huge difference between homosexuality and child abuse. However Qie's argument was not about child abuse, but SAP -- where only adults are involved. Zaphod's point applies to Qie's only to the extent that virtual SAP encourages child abuse, which has not been established or even very well argued. It's simply stated as though it's an obvious fact, which leaves me unconvinced.

Regardless, this is an academic discussion: we don't need to discuss this from the SL point of view, because LL has already made the decision.

BTW, I'm happy to see such a controversial subject debated intelligently, rather than spinning down the usual rat-holes.

Lear, I don't really argue that SAP encourages or fosters real intent to abuse a child. I simply argue that the behavior, in and of itself, is reprehensible.

If someone in your real life neighborhood chose to place an "art" exhibit in their front yard, and said "art" was actually cartoon depictions of adult-on-child sex, I wonder - would you support their right to freedom of expression or speech, or would you demand, in the name of all that is decent, that they remove the exhibit? What if they simply took it inside their house? Can't be seen by casual passers by, but everyone in the neighborhood knows it's there, and knows what all these people are coming to see. I think the local community would be legitimately upset. Nobody wants that garbage in their neighborhood. That's where I come from with it in Second Life.

Zaphod, I'd object to public display even if it were depictions of men and women having sex. If it were in a club, I wouldn't give a damn, as long as no actual children were involved. I don't want any kind of club in my neighborhood, thank you -- we have better locations zoned for that.

As I said above, your reaction is an understandable reaction to your instincts to protect children. But I only accept that SAP should be banned to the extent that it harms actual children.

The "Nobody wants that garbage" argument applies to lots of things that go on in SL. Where do we stop? I don't like the idea of people sucking blood, so I don't go to vampire hangouts in SL. The difference between vampirism and SAP are these:

1) There is no RL equivalent to vampirism (at least, I sure hope so ... but if there is, it's not a major problem like child abuse)
2) Nobody asserts that vampire play leads to RL vampirism.
3) Vampirism doesn't push an emotional hot button: our deeply seated instincts to protect our children.

The "Nobody wants that garbage" argument is factually incorrect. There are lots of people who *do* want it, or we wouldn't be discussing it. And there are lots of people who don't object to it, even though they are uninterested in participating, or even find the subject offputting. I'm in the latter camp. I wouldn't recommend banning all the behaviours that I personally find nauseating. I'm sure I do things that some other people find objectionble (like, scripting at all hours of the night! )

IMHO, sex with animals is disgusting. Should that be banned from SL?

Actually, what really disgusts me are beets. They should be banned from RL as well. ICK! ICK!

Now I need to have a bowl of ice cream to get the idea of beets out of my head. ICK!

I'm sorry to be the one to alert you to this, since I hate beets too, but since it is possible to extract beet juice it is also possible to flavor ice cream with it.

Yes! There can be such a thing as BEET ICE CREAM!!!

Oh, the horror. The horror.

For a beet ice cream recipe and favorable comments on beet ice cream, see http://desertcandy.blogspot.com/2007/08/day-15-can-you-guess-flavor.html.

Ewwwww.

No one ever thinks about the kiddy-fiddlers. Won't someone please think of the kiddy-fiddlers!? They have needs too.

QFT.

ACK ACK ACK! Beet ice cream! What have we all COME to? ACK!

Any hope I had for mankind has just crumbled.

Your speculation is completely wrong. LL is just doing the legally and morally correct thing to do by banning activities of sexual ageplay, which is just a "polite" way of saying child porn. The RL definition of ageplay (one _adult_ behaving like a child) is completely different than in SL, where simulated children engage in sexual acts. This isn't the psychologically wholesome "self-exploration" activity that SL pedophiles claim, but a feeding of some of the darkest desires of humanity. I hope the people who do such things are arrested and brought to justice. Such people have no place in civil society.

Do we also arrest the people drawing, watching and collecting some types of Japanese animation?


You want to arrest people for simulating behavior you dislike? That is damn scary, even scarier than the SAPers.