Is it Safe to Have Therapy, Baby?

Are they all different from one another? How would you know? How on earth do you store them? And how find the one you want?

I can see how you would think someone using a child avatar is off their nut.

I spent some time re-reading the original question. It seems to me that if using a child avatar is NOT therapy at all, the question falls apart.

Wow. I have like...8-10.

I have three in real life and only one in SL.

Yes. Those 8-10 jeans include my "skinny" size 2 jeans which i can only fit in up to my butt, and then forget it.

You need to keep them for the day when you can slide them all the way up and close them and do the happy dance.

That is exactly why i still have them!

Fixed.

Jig, usually I find your posts quite interesting, but this I find to be judgmental and patronizing. I find the tone no different from the "Why furry/gorean/BDSM/tiny/cross-gender/blob of gelatin/etc.?" threads, which all share the "I don't like this, therefore you shouldn't either" mentality.

God forbid I should live my SL "without proper supervision". Um, we ARE talking about the adult grid, aren't we? Whatever my reasons are for being whatever I want to be in SL (which changes all the time), I am an adult and capable of "supervising" myself.

Perhaps the real question here is, why does the idea of roleplaying a child disturb you so much?

NOTE: Am drinking wine this evening, so please take rant with large dose of salt....

FWIW, I wish more folks would ask themselves that question, an not just about kid avvies.

Thank you, that was exactly my point, wine notwithstanding.

yeah, and also, why do nthey feel compelled to impose their view on everybody?

On a serious note, I have in fact asked myself this question and pondered it fairly deeply; why does it bother me so much? What is it about seeing kid avi, role playing the innocent things that a "normal kid" would do; running, skipping, chasing a friend, etc... squick me out so much? I just don't know. But there is something about knowing there is a grown adult typist controlling the child avi... it just really creeps me out on a very visceral level. The feeling is immediate and undeniable.

In 3 years I haven't felt this way about any other Avi I've come across. When I think of these; dragons, dinosaurs, tinies, various animals, robots, nekos, vampires, fairies, zombies (and on and on) none of them have had that same affect. I've often thought "awww" or "omg", but felt no real discomfort.

*shrugs and sighs* I'm at a loss. It distresses me that I feel this way too, because I truly believe in live and let live, especially in SL. But short of spending some time on a therapist's couch, I don't expect I or anyone else who feels this way will figure it out.

"I don't like toddlers being disemboweled and their entrails used to stimulate the sexual organs of the disemboweler, therefore you shouldn't either."

"I don't like Labrador retrievers being sliced open and turned inside out and noisily and messily consumed, therefore you shouldn't either."

"I don't like clerics of various religions being stripped and pelted with offal and forced to denounce their deities and their congregations on-camera, and therefore you shouldn't either."


...............................................Everyone draws the line somewhere. We won't all agree on where that line should be drawn. One person may feel that SL scripted garbage trucks that offer purchasers the opportunity to enjoy 'raping' a female avatar and then throwing her into the grinding teeth to be macerated are good clean fun, and another person may not see them as 'fun' at all. Consensus on these matters will never occur.

But...it is, frankly, witless to classify all who have reservations about some particular practice as 'judgmental', 'patronizing', or as victims of a 'mentality'.

To assume that it is never legitimate to have reservations about what happens in SL (or anywhere else) is, quite simply, intolerant.

See, to me that's fair. You thought about it, and something is just disturbing to you. You own it, it's still there. But it seems a lot of people just go "I don't like it" and stick there without ever thinking "why," or passing it off to the avvies (or people) who bug them.

1. "I don't like toddlers being disemboweled and their entrails used to stimulate the sexual organs of the disemboweler, therefore you shouldn't either."

2. "I don't like Labrador retrievers being sliced open and turned inside out and noisily and messily consumed, therefore you shouldn't either."

3. "I don't like clerics of various religions being stripped and pelted with offal and forced to denounce their deities and their congregations on-camera, and therefore you shouldn't either."

4. "I don't like anyone running around with a kid avatar online and therefore you shouldn't either"


* * * * *

Sing it with me now...

One of these things is not like the others
One of these things just doesn't belong!
Can you tell which thing is not like the others
By the time I finish my song?

Did you guess which thing was not like the others
Did you guess which thing just doesn't belong?
If you guessed # 4 is not like the others
Then you're absolutely...right!

There is an easy answer to that, as I have pointed out before: I find it impossible to relate to the massively conflicting combination of kidspeak/avatar appearance and adult behaviour (playing ring-a-roses before setting off fireworks, for example) and find it a huge distraction, even in comparison with those that are able to present themselves consistently, if unintentionally, as semi-literate.

Pep ("I iz a prodigee" doesn't cut it, sorry. )

I certainly don't expect you to read all my posts, much less remember them, but if you are going to accuse me of having expressed either one of those clauses (the first containing your claim that I "don't like anyone running around with a kid avatar online" and the second containing your claim that I believe that "therefore you shouldn't either", then you are going to have to have to come up with at least some particle of support for your accusation.

And of course, you cannot.

Because not only have I not said that people "shouldn't" have child avatars, I've said, flat out and explicitly, precisely the opposite: that I do NOT call for child avatars to be disallowed.

So in the post to which I reply, you would appear to have no point, other than to demonstrate that you somehow managed to miss my own point. I believe that point is fairly clear from my post, but in case it is not: the incessant attempts to label those who express reservations about any practice---in this case the use of child avatars in SL---as "judgmental", "patronizing", or easily "disturbed" (to name three attacks employed in the post to which I was replying) constitutes intolerance for the viewpoints of others.


And of course my further point was that this intolerance is not admirable.

When I first came to SL, I didn't like seeing the child avatars. I didn't have an articulated reason for not liking them -- it was just a visceral reaction. Maybe in part it was a fear that they were actually children and in part the knowledge that they weren't. It just *felt* wrong, so I avoided them.

Then one day I ran into an avatar who was ostensibly ten years old. She was adorable, and I was in just the right mood to react as I would in real life. I cooed and awww'd, asked about her doll, and so on. She was a very good roleplayer: spoke like a real ten-year-old. It was clear that she was looking for parents, but the friend I was with dragged me off before I made an impulsive commitment.

After that, I talked to most of the child avs I ran into. Some I liked, some were pushy and tough.

At the same time, here in the forums, I'd occasionally see the pictures Immy would post of her teen self. I found them unbearably cute. Though her sense of style is more radical and much younger than mine, I couldn't help but wish to be that cute too.

Still, I didn't do anything about it.

The turning point for me, after which I started making Julianne into a teenager, was just after Zindra opened, when a certain blog posted a hateful diatribe. It contained a conversation between three or four people about how creepy child avatars are. And not for any particular reason. These people just kept repeating, "They're creepy, you know?" and "Oh, yeah, I was just going to say that! And they are SO creepy! It creeps me out."

Of course, that conversation itself was VERY creepy. Far creepier than anything they spoke of. That kind of social control by gossip really gets under my skin.

It made me angry. I didn't actually state to myself, "If people like that are against it, it MUST be good" but my feeling was very similar.

It was in a sense the final permission I needed.

And so I started whittling down my avatar from 20-something (already a fraction of my RL age) to 16.

I've never reacted badly to a child av ... the only feelings they elicit in me are maternal ones and I love to engage with them on that level.

In an earlier SL incarnation I had a 5 year old son (played by my rl partner) and we had such fun exploring SL from that viewpoint - the fairgrounds, the zoos, the seaside .... with him riding alongside me on his little tricycle.

And no there was nothing "icky" ... I didn't even change my clothes in front of him ... they were some of my happiest times in SL.

For me, seeing child avatars can be a little freaky in that we are sort of trained in RL to worry about unsupervised kids. We are also trained to believe that kids should not be in certain places or doing certain things.

When I see child avi's in SL, it triggers responses 'learned' in society, reactions such as 'those kids should not be there, or should be supervised.'

It is true that other avatars (furries, fantasy or science fiction based avi's) also seem out of place, but they are sufficiently different that they do not generate the same responses. You are not likely to see a Dragon or Cat shopping or driving a car in RL, and in the unlikely event you do you are much more likely to think it a movie shoot/publicity stunt/someone in a really good costume.

Note, that is not an arguement against child avatars, just an explaination as to why they might bother.

And there is also the issue that some people simply find children annoying regardless of setting.

As for the OP's question, anything can be therapy. What works, works and what doesn't doesn't, but the human mind is still a wierd and mostly uncharted thing especially if you are talking about any given mind.

Anyway, that's my opinion for whatever little its worth

Ponsonby, you are reading too much into it, and no, it's not all about you.

If I have to spell it out, it goes like this:

Killing toddlers, dogs, and throwing waste at clerics while they are forced to recant is not even in the same league as going around as a kid in Second Life. In what world could it be!?

Sure, everyone draws a line somewhere, but it's just inconceivably *crazy* to make such an analogy between those acts and kid avatars... on par with Godwinning a thread.

Hey, I'm a small rabbit on the grid sometimes... if someone *honestly* found that in the same league as a messy murder, how quickly would that qualify them for the nuthouse?

My guess: just one short psychological evaluation by a professional, and off they go...

Seems like the answer to why you feel that way is in that sentence somewhere.

You have absolutly no need to worry about being judgmental or patroinizing. I make these statements NOT to upset but simply to arouse. Everyone here is an intelligent and thinking person (otherwise they wouldnt be on such an intensely private forum) and I realize we dont please everyone by what we say or ask. I am serious when I say to you to feel free to be disapproving of what I ask. I want to stir things up because ONE thing sl lacks when we go in-world is a forum liek a House of Commons or a "Question Time". \
Please drink GOOD wine - bad wine sent me to rehab. (And tequila in a favourite Bahamas bar - and then ...) LOL!

Yep, you qualify, you crazy bugger. Rabbit? Hmmm, is it pink? Don't worry, we wont tell on you. Lol!

Yes, it is Desmond. It's all about Ponsonby. The forums are all about him. He cant read "too much" into this - it's all - ALL - about him. Muaahhahahahaha!!