The Lord of the Flies - Child AVs and the Nursery Syndrome

If you are willing to bet then start a poll.

Pep (I'm confident that those who play kids are childless)

Oh god, Pep. Must everything be a CHALLENGE??????

Oh god, Pep. Must everything be a CHALLENGE??????

YOU start a poll: I'll happily chip in by serving coffee and doughnuts to those who stop by to vote.

I am willing to bet that Pep is wrong about this ( ):

Oh god, Pep. Must everything be a CHALLENGE??????

That's a silly question.

Hypocrite.

Pep (Physician, heal thyself. )

People are understandably emotional about the safety of their children. I respect people's desire to protect their children. I understand that people, when they feel their children are threatened, can sometimes go "over the top" to defend them.

However, being a parent does not confer special rights on citizens that empower them to interfere with other adults' personal and private behavior. Parents, like everybody else in society, must keep their overt behavior within civilized limits. In particular, they must not attempt to violate the civil or human rights of others in their efforts to defend their children.

Starfish are not stars. Stars are not fish. The fact that things have similar names does not mean there is any sort of real relationship between them.

It is a fundamental principle of science that correlation does not prove cause and effect; in fact, in the strictest sense, it can never be proven that A caused B. The fact that some criminals have the same sexual fantasies as a much, much larger number of people who are not criminals does not prove that Fantasy A causes criminal behavior B, or predisposes one to it. It's the same as the fallacy that marijuana is a "gateway drug" for heroin addiction. Yup, you can easily find a hundred heroin addicts who smoked marijuana before they used heroin. You can also easily find 100,000 people who smoked marijuana but never touched heroin. You can find 100 Irish people who are alcoholics and claim "All Irish are alcoholics", or you can find a few million Irish people who don't drink at all.

People have a tendency to violate sound principles of reasoning when their emotions are involved. It happens, we understand it. It's still wrong, and it's very, very wrong to make public policy on the basis of unsound reasoning.

The most important words in the phrase "sexual fantasies among consenting adults" are "consenting" and "adults". As there are some heroin addicts and alcoholic Irish people, some people engaging in these fantasies have issues that are problematic or disturbing. But whether you're talking age-play, dominance-submission, or anything else, the vast majority of people doing it are in full command of their faculties, are doing it because they like it and have freely chosen to do it. And they are only doing it with other adults. There is simply no rational basis for connecting this fact with the behavior of criminals who have very different reasons and intentions for their behavior.

Thoughtful people ought to be making that point more often, rather than going along with the crowd. Every generation has these battles between safe, ignorant orthodoxy and truths that scare people. In my parents' generation in the USA, it was McCarthyism and the communists under every bed. I think in my generation in this country, it's the myth that pedophilia is widespread and has some connection with adult sexual fantasies.

That's the really scary thing, to me. That instead of learning from the McCarthy era, we just keep doing this witch-hunting thing over and over, and even very intelligent and thoughtful people feel compelled to permit it to go on, because to do otherwise can have very real and devastating consequences when somebody jumps up, points a gnarled finger at them, and cries "WITCH!"

I'd been thinking hard of an appropriate and/or witty response, until it occurred to me that sometimes the simplest answer is the best.

PPPPPFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFTTTTTTT!!!!!!!!

As one of the school's claims to fame "Lord Of The Flies" was sometimes, but not often, used as an example for whatever point was being made. Yes, generally, we were made 'aware' of what it meant but it was no big thing. I think we were too busy being teenagers to worry about mob rule Please also note that Bishop Wordsworth's school is state-run, not private.

PS: In this picture on wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Headmastersoffice.JPG) the Carpenter library, where Fielding wrote the book (and I did my homework), is the ground-floor bay window.

This

Handy

Oh know I remember who Lias is.. okay.. yeah, that whole thread about that during the demo weekend of Zindra. Yep that was bozo-filter material alright.

Looking carefully at this thread and making some huge assumptions, it appears to me that, in general, those who want to play or play with child avatars are probably childless themselves, and those that don't want anything to do with child avatars in sl have their attitude because they have had enough of their own rl kids!

Pep (Except Jig, who doesn't want anything to do with kids in either SL or RL )

The thread seems to mention two very different things: Child Avs, and Child Avs in compromising scenarios or locations.

I havent seen a thread that hasn't mixed the two, and I have no idea why.

I'll hang with the SL Kids any day. I usually do anyhow ;P

But this other thing you bring up is ageplay. Vast majority of SLKids don't go there.

Your second point fails. I, and several others whom I know have kids in RL, enjoy interacting with SL child avatars.

And, some people cannot conceive of an adult creating a child avatar for any other reason. Probably because they are obsessed with sex themselves.

Nothing wrong with being obsessed with sex.

I won't call out who said it as they have likely changed their mind now.

I haven't changed my mind at all. The whole "OMG Child Avatars in Zindra" panic is due to fuzzy thinking.

Pussycat, there are two types of people who play child avs.

The majority of them simply want to "be kids".
A small minority wants to engage in sexual ageplay.

While I don't disagree with you that a child av on Zindra could raise eyebrows, and would be a point against them for anyone suspecting them of looking for sexual ageplay, I would argue that there are legitimate reasons for allowing child avs in adult regions.

The story of the child growing up under difficult circumstances has a long and respected history. Two famous examples that come to mind are Dickens' "Oliver Twist" and the comic character Little Orphan Annie. These kids routinely rubbed shoulders with pimps, whores, thieves, and other unsavory characters. I think that this scenario holds a lot of possibilites for fun roleplay in SL.

As long as the child avatar *does not engage in sexual conduct* I don't think they should be banned from Adult areas. And, after all, each child av has an account verified adult behind it.

LL's rule is "account verified? You can access adult content". Their OTHER rule is, "child avatar? You can't USE adult content."

And, some people cannot conceive of an adult creating a child avatar for any other reason. Probably because they are obsessed with sex themselves.

The ferret said "fuzzy thinking" Hehehehe

As long as the child avatar *does not engage in sexual conduct* I don't think they should be banned from Adult areas. And, after all, each child av has an account verified adult behind it.

LL's rule is "account verified? You can access adult content". Their OTHER rule is, "child avatar? You can't USE adult content."