So, really . . . who IS that nice man "raping" you?

Ok, so where was I? Oh yes, Des . . .


Hmmm. Does a victim have to be unwilling? The line is often pretty blurry: a woman or (yes, Pep) man who stays in an abusive relationship because of psychological, emotional, or financial dependence is in some senses "willing," and yet still a victim.

The way that most feminist activist tend to approach role playing involving sex in SL, and especially simulations of violent sexuality, is as a form of pornography. I think, personally, that this is a wholly inadequate description of what role playing is like and does, but, given the apparent absence of RL "damage" (i.e., bruises, cuts, lacerations, corpses . . .) it is the closest analogy we seem to have been able to manage to date. More and more research is being done on RP right now, however, so we may have a new and more adequate model in the future.

In any case, the pornography model suggests, essentially, that the victimization that goes on here isn't "real" victimization (I have some problems with that, myself, as I think do you, given your comments below), but rather a representation, akin to an extreme porn mag, web site, or movie. So, feminists and researchers tie the virtual activities of RL sex offenders, potential or real, to their RL behaviours much as researchers have attempted to find a causal relationship between porn usage and sexual crimes. Given this model, the focus here is upon, not the SL victims of virtual abuse, but rather the impacts of activities in SL upon the psychological makeup of the offender. In other words, does being a "virtual rapist" make you more likely to be a RL rapist?

I think that there is something to be said for this approach, but, as I noted above, I also think it is in many ways an inadequate model. Which brings me to your next point . . .


You are essentially implying, deliberately or not, a parallel between these behaviours and their impacts in SL, and the way that the analogous relationships are played out in RL. And I think you are dead on. The emotional damage done here is absolutely "real." I have friends who insist upon calling "RL" either "First Life" or "Physical Life," precisely because the EXPERIENCE of SL is very very "real" indeed also.

We DO need to find a way to describe emotional abuse in virtual environments, because it is so prevalent, and so damaging. And we need to get away from reductive responses that blame the victim, like "It's just a game, for god's sake," or "Clearly she should have just logged out." People (yes, Pep, men too) are hurt here, and unable to escape from the abuse, for many of the same reasons that the abused are unable to escape from it in RL, emotional dependence and lousy self-images probably being the prevalent ones. To blame someone for being vulnerable to abuse within SL for these reasons is like blaming someone for being physically ill: these conditions have describable pathologies. No one is "born" a victim, and no one "deserves it" or is "asking for it."

How does this relate to the sex offenders thing? Well, sex offenders are generally masters of emotional manipulation. I'm not talking about "jump out of the bushes" random rapists, but the vast majority of violent offenders who prey upon those they know, be they family, friends, or lovers. Hooking up unawares to someone with that kind of skill set in SL is a recipe for pain and abuse.

How do you codify, in law, emotional abuse? I don't know. I do know that, illegal or not, we need to do something to address it.

ETA: A case in point of "blaming the victim":

Agreed, to an extent. Crime IS a fact of life. And safe practices are absolutely vital.

The problem with this approach is that it lays all of the onus on the potential victim. The ultimate way of being safe from random sexual attacks if you are a woman in RL is to avoid going out alone at night. So, we institute a kind of self-imposed curfew on women, based on fear? Safe practices are only part of the solution.

And yes, the number of sex offenders is RELATIVELY small compared to MySpaces user base. It may even be relatively smaller still in SL, for all that I know. (The more recent figure, btw, is not 29,000, but 90,000, for whatever that is worth.) So, how small a chance of being victimized by a sex offender online is "acceptable"? It's hard to quantify that, given our lack of hard data, but I think I might argue that our caution about giving our RL details in SL is based upon a similarly small chance of such information ever putting us into actual danger. Similarly, the actual chance of being randomly raped by someone you don't know is pretty darned small: but as any woman knows, it's not so small as not have an influence on our actions in RL, is it?

So, yeah, we need to not exaggerate the threat. But I think it would be foolish to dismiss or ignore it too.

Absolutely, Pep. I am ALL "activist feminists," and they are ALL me: absolutely you can judge the ENTIRE movement from your analysis of me.

And we are ALL "hysterical" (yes, I do know the etymology of the term, tyvm, and find your usage of it particularly offensive); can't you just HEAR the emotional irrationality screaming from my prose?

Your "logic" is infallible; clearly YOU are a man.

These numbers would be more helpful if they were accompanied with percentages of total accounts, at a minimum. There are other questions with regard to duplicates, reliability of their identification mechanism, as well as the issues already raised about the definition of sex offender.

This is more a problem with the original articles, and a general problem with reporters who don't think in terms of statistical meaning. It ought to be obvious that 90,000 MySpace users doesn't mean the same as 90,000 SL users, but there's an aversion to throwing out too many numbers, even when they're necessary for a decent interpretation.

ETA: A case in point of "blaming the victim":

Yep, you are entirely right. Again, as I've suggested above, I am not trying to make a "hard case" based on these stats. We just don't have enough data; not about the incidence of sex offenders in MySpace, and certainly not about their presence here in SL.

What I am trying to suggest is that the probability that there ARE sex offenders in SL is another factor that we should consider in our interactions here. Generally, I don't think that this is something we tend to think about.

Wow Pep. An actual point. And a good one.

See my answer to the second half of Des's post for my thoughts on this.

An interesting thought. The patterns of porn usage generally suggest an escalation: soft porn, to harder porn, and then finally to "extreme" porn. I'd have thought that downgrading to mere cybering while dancing would not fit this pattern, unless they saw it as a sort of entry strategy. But honestly, I don't know. Are "addicts" and sociopaths this clever and calculating? Maybe.

(And before people think that I am implying a kind of "reefer madness" model for porn use, I am NOT suggesting that soft porn leads inevitably to harder stuff for most users. But this IS the documented pattern among sex offenders.)

Laws are different enough, but I do remember once looking at some generalized stats for a 4 or 5 state area around us and the breakdowns were similar, but did vary some.

Part of the issue is that many states have added a lot of the more minor offenses in response to public outcry about trying to catch, or at least identify, the folks before they do more harm. Granted, if I still had young kids, I want to know about the guy that is flashing and peeping in windows, as well as the ones that are committing more serious or violent acts. But I am not sure that a teenager caught peeping into the neighbor girl's window should be labeled for the rest of his life as a sex offender -- and that does happen very frequently. Also, as someone else mentioned, some teen girls sent nude pics of themselves to their boyfriends via cell phone and they were convicted of a sex crime and will also wear the Sex Offender label for life now. To the best of my knowledge, in all states, the label is for life.

I think that when we are abused repeatedly, especially starting early in life, we have a tendency to become more vulnerable to being used/abused in general - at least until such time as we finally get some psych help.

I've often wondered about it.

I don't disagree, generally. But the qualification to your statement is important: "play rape in a completely consensual environment where there's not actually any physical contact or danger or consequences." Is this REALLY always the case? I know for a fact that there are doms who seek, sometimes even through direct advertising in SL, to bring the D/s relationship into RL. I think it would be naive to believe that those doing rape RP aren't trying, in some cases, to do the same.

I think I would also query your suggestion that there are no "consequences." There may not be PHYSICAL ones, but I am very far from convinced that there aren't psychological or emotional ones. I don't know why we can acknowledge, on the one hand, that role playing has powerfully POSITIVE impacts upon us, and deny at the same time that it can possibly have negative ones. If you "get off" on RPing a particular kind of behaviour, you have already demonstrated that it IS having an emotional impact. Why should you think that it is only a positive one?


It's not, actually. It relates to the idea that there is a causal connection between simulated sexual activity (through porn, or RP), and real life behaviours. See my response to Des's post, above.

Please don't apologize, Ceka. That's a powerful story, and very very much to the point.

Your own experiences are a good model. I think it IS about empowerment (oh god, I used that word . . . I HATE that word . . .). It's about giving people the tools to NOT be victims. And again, this is why I think bannings and top-down models of enforcement are iffy solutions at best. The reason that education, and discussions like the one we are having now, are so important is precisely that it arms men and women, and gives them the tools to avoid victimization.

It seems to have worked with you. I hear strength when you speak even about this.

Most men . . . the VAST majority of men . . . ARE decent. I think that is statistically verifiable, probably, but it also relates to my own experiences as well. Any view that demonizes an entire segment of the population -- be it a particular form of "feminism," or misogyny -- is just reductive and indefensible.

But trust has to be tempered with caution too, because there are just too many real victims out there to ignore.

PS. I'm sorry I didn't get your message in time to IM Hal. I'm glad to see that Chris got it done for you, however.

Thnk you so so much Chris. That's really kind.
It breaks me up when I think of him standing by those azure Zindran shores, tossing garlands upon the waves. I'll be there soon.

I agree completely.


Again, agreed.


It's hard to know, really. As I've pointed out elsewhere, there is a link between extreme porn use and sexual offences, even if the exact nature of that link is uncertain. If SL offers something analogous to the experience of extreme porn, then it might well attract a breed of person known to be seeking that kind of thrill.

But, again, we don't really have enough evidence to do more than speculate.

Probably the same reason why so many men share similar fantasies.

Anyone who thinks the desire to be "victimized" is strictly a feminine one is sorely mistaken.

We must also be aware that we enter this strange world valiantly but with some trepidation. We're gonna encounter all manner of creatures. And I mean that term loosely. On teh other hand ...

why do men wear women's skins - are they prepared for and inviting rape also?

What complexities we are! So men dressed as women will become false victims in order to empathize with genuine victims? OR, by our slicing of our personalities into so many alternates should we be wiser to turn our back on any rl connection and be women as women, men as women and vice versa and men and men and all the othe rinfinite parallels and explore our true natures?

I dont think I've ever been a "victim" but can we ever recognize it in ourselves? God, this is complicated!

Dont worry Hal will get the message.

info about the 90,000:

As of the end of Dec 2008 total users for MySpace was 76,000,000 with a growth of 0.8% per month at that time.

so of the 90,000 blocked over 2 years, 0.118% were sex offenders

Source:
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/01/13/social-networking-will-facebook-overtake-myspace-in-the-us-in-2009

to put it into perspective, there are 510 level 2 & 3 registered sex offenders in my city, with a population of about 175,000 makes it 0.291% (note this does not take into account all registered sex offenders that lived here over two years, it also does not include level 1 offenders, nor does it include sex offenders that did not register, all three of which would increase the % of sex offenders per population in my comparison).

Thanks for this, Kira. It does help put it into perspective.

I am assuming that Level 2 & 3 represent more serious offenses?

It is a good reminder that one should not give out identifying information to people one meets over the internet. As long as one doesn't give out the identifying information, one is physically safe from the predators.

There are plenty of people who are on sex offender registries who don't belong there. On the other hand, there are a lot of sex offenders / potential sex offenders who aren't there either because they weren't caught, or because they weren't proven guilty of a crime beyond a reasonable doubt. And that doesn't even cover all the violent people who are violent for reasons that have nothing to do with sex.

I don't think, however, that banning registered sex offenders from online social networks has any beneficial effect. For starters, such a ban only covers the ones who were caught and found gulity- that leaves plenty of predators who can get online.

Not everyone found guilty of a sex offense necessarily has a propensity to be a repeat offender. Some offenders are psychologically or sociogically driven to commit offenses, but some offenses are products of unique circumstances that are not likely to be repeated. (Lots of cases of statutory rape were both parties are teen close in age fall into this category; many cases of first-time peepers fall into this category- many teen boys aren't peeping because of a mental compulsion, but because they saw it glorified in a movie like Animal House.)

Further, it is a core principle of justice in the United States that, once a person serves a sentence for a crime, that person may re-integrate into society. Banning someone from use social networks runs contrary to re-integration. Courts have the power to order offenders to not use the internet as a condition of release; offenders with mental defects can be treated as their doctors find appropriate. A social networking site is neither a court nor a doctor's office, and shouldn't be making the decisions of a court or doctor's office.

Finally, let's not kid ourselves. Sure there are dangerous people all over the internet. There's no reason to think that you encounter a lower percentage of dangerous people in real life. Unless it has changed very recently, the majority of sex crimes are perpetrated by offenders who knew their victims well (family member, friend, intimate partner) rather than a stranger.

I believe so, according to my state's reporting system, no info on Level 1 offenders was available

Everything you say here is imminently sensible.

I don't think one can, or perhaps even should, ban sex offenders from SL, even were LL to have the RL registration information that would be required to implement this. I do think, however, where some kind of ARable sexual offense takes place in SL, that it would be more than useful to know whether it was committed by someone with a record of analogous activities in RL.

The main point of this information about sex offenders online, such as it is, is precisely what you articulate at first: "one should not give out identifying information to people one meets over the internet."

To this I would just add that the possibility that one IS RPing with a sex offender is another thing to weigh when we make the decision to undertake certain kinds of activities. This possibility shouldn't rule the decisions we make, anymore than the possibility that I might be assaulted by a rapist on the way to the corner store at night is the only or even most important determinant about whether I should do so. But it is another bit of information added to the mix. And the more information we have, the better able we are to protect ourselves.

Useful for whom to know?

1. People of all proclivities seek RL out of SL

2. You are at risk meeting anyone in RL if you don't take the proper precautions (friend call-in, etc)

3. You need to prove that people who are into D/s, BDSM, rape fantasy are any more a risk than the "perfect gentleman" who apparently enjoys dancing with you (I'm a firm believer in BDSM implying SSC. Otherwise you've found a nutter who's posing as a BDSM'er - or posing as a perfect gentleman - see what I did there?)

In fact, comparing BDSM with someone who non-consensually rapes women is a complete disservice to a responsible form of sexuality.

So yes, IF a potential victim is willing to leave the safety net of SL, and IF they don't protect themselves when the do, and IF they run into a psychopath, then YES, something bad could happen.

But you can't save people from themselves. And you can't condemn (if you are) this aspect of SL because something bad could happen to the unwary. That logic makes pretty well the entire internet (and crossing the street) something to be banned.