Duck and cover: it's one of "those" threads

I, of course, recommed Kick The Can in Livingtree. There are others, though. I also suggest stopping at the Stillman Free Bazaar, Avatar Central in Aqua, or in my store in Bay City - Imaginario (I forgot to put this in Livingtree, but will fix this later today) and get the "So you want to be a kid?" notecard. You'll find a load of handy LMs and info in it.



[RESOLVED]

Good post, Lindal.

Hi Mari! I admire your continuing advocacy for child avatars. A couple of ideas:

> LL's PR department is not going to do a story in the public media about how great child AV's are. HOWEVER, they are always on the watch for good public interest stories about how SL has helped someone in their RL. If you know of any examples of RL individuals being helped by their experiences in SL as a child, that person may wish to bring that to the attention of LL's PR department. I remember a blog post many moons ago where LL solicited story ideas.

> Familiarity breeds indifference. The more people see child AVs in public areas doing innocuous things, the more they will just ... shrug. I have a couple of AVs that I use for debugging scripts, building in sandboxes, and shopping (1 male, 1 female). (I like to build in sandboxes sometimes just to have a little different experience.) I'm not willing to spend time making child AVs; but if there are child AV freebies somewhere that are decent, I'd be totally willing to wear one and adapt their (mostly empty) profiles. Shoot me a LM if you know of one!
.

being a kid again. My previous partner and I made kid alts once and for 2 weeks we had so much fun. We laughed till the tears rolled down our cheeks. It was the almost the best time of my SL.

Immy said,

"" I decided to pull out my old tactic of copy/pasting his best choice statements to be shouted in open chat. Needless to say... He didn't make any new friends last night. (^_^)""

I've seen that tactic a few times and I think all you kids and ladies should do it more.

I've sent leads there way, but to little avail. :-/



This is part of why I tend to be as visible as I wanna be. That an I make a lousy target. Too small.



I know I've got a couple shapes in the ol'inventory. Not sure if they're any good, but who knows?

The average resident of Second Life is too dumb to have the power to file an AR.

In reference to the one telling of a friend who felt intimidated somewhere when using a child avie - it really is odd how the avie can influence how you see things. I made my kid alt mainly to use when exploring "scary" locations, inspired by the fact that I was a pretty morbid kid myself. it didn't take long before he wanted to see more of SL. My alt is neko or zombie, since he hasn't seen a kid skin he likes yet (including the ones named in the thread). When he wanders around he sometimes sees stuff that make him pause and wonder if maybe that's inappropriate enough that he should take off.. But then he remembers what kids are exposed to in malls etc in RL, shrugs and moves on. He also feels strangely uncomfortable around adults using crude language - even though he could very well use the same language when talking to a friend of teh same age.

It really is

My Partner and I went through the "morphing" thing on the kids sim at SL5B and that day had more fun being children.

/me makes note to do that more often

Oh man, Mari I'm sorry, people are such idiots.
I never understood how people could be so closed minded, about everything in general. One of those things that would be hard to break out of most people, no matter how hard you try.
I've had the furry brunt of it before, and like I said, I don't understand it.
I wish I could help, good luck.

I once had to file an AR on a child avatar. I saw him in a location that was on the Popular Places list back when that existed. He had all kinds of sex and incest groups in his profile, including a group that said in its description that child avs could join. Also, a friend of mine had a problem with child avs having sex on the mainland parcel next door to his. He ARed and all that happened was the landowner got a warning. The behavior continued and LL did nothing. He finally bought a private island to get away from it.

I have to admit I am not a fan of child avatars, but it's not because I think they're in SL for sexual purposes. I know that most aren't. My problem is that SL is an adult world, but having child avatars around forces adults to censor ourselves. I am not in SL for teh sexx0rz but I have a mouth like a sailor and I like to discuss sex, drugs, and other adult topics with friends. Lots of reporters go undercover and I don't want to be featured in their cover story with a string of 4-letter words coming out of my keyboard while some 40 year old who likes to pretend they're 4 is standing next to me. I also don't want to be blamed if child av sex is going on at one of my renters' homes. With a blanket "no child avs" policy I can easily defend myself should such a thing occur.

I don't like being forced to participate in others' roleplay, no matter what kind it is. It bothers me just as much when Goreans RP slavery in public chat in non-Gor sims, and if I need to IM someone I will never IM their "Master" or "Mistress" instead no matter what their profile says. Do what you want, but don't expect ME to participate - because I won't, especially if doing so forces me to compromise myself or my beliefs.

I don't see you having a problem with that here. And it's not really a child av issue. You need to censor yourself in PG areas, even with no kid avs around. Conversely, I see no problem with a teen av using that sort of language (in an appropriate mature area). It's realistic and, as far as I know, not a violation of the TOS.


I don't see any difference between people doing Gor RP in public chat at some store versus people discussing some article for sale 10m away from the ones I'm looking at. Or discussing the same thing I'm looking at in a language I don't understand. In all cases, it's just someone else's conversation that happens to appear in my public chat because that's the way chat works. If there's too much of it to ignore, I'll mute the people - not because of any complaint against them, but simply to improve my experience.

And would you do that in any location within SL? I know plenty of places that frown upon such language - mainly adults there.

Do it in IM please. I don't want to hear your *#$%!! obscene talk about broadly offensive topics.

Thank you for your consideration.

Bet I know where too. You wen't the only people ARing it.



I make no requirement that anyone change their behavior around me. Many if not most do, but I'll be the first to excuse myself from a situation rather than expect someone else to change. The other night I hung out with a bunch of folks in Radio. amongst the people there was a cartoonish fur who was humping the leg of everyone there (this did not include me, , mercifully), others who used adult language, and at least one who seemed to be interested in killing things in gory ways. I was there mostly because these folks and I had a mutual friend. I don't think anyone felt they had to change on account of me, and if they did, then I'd be afraid to see them otherwise! Ditto with Burning Life, where I was often within, oh, 10m of nudity and even some mild sexual contact (those who were at the burning of the man know what I mean) They did not feel the need to change who they were, and I was always free to leave if I felt uncomfortable. Easy-peasy.

Further, your land, your rules.

That's not what I was asking about, though. I'm really looking at how to educat those who -- unlike you -- seem to think kid avvie = pedophilia, or at least some form of kiddie sex. That's what really bothers me.

Same here. If I'm in a store and see two furries shopping for example, I don't take that as they are forcing their RP on me, they are being their SL selves. Or a dragon may walk by. Or a Nekko. Or a Gorean If they wish to engage in their RP betwen themselves and not try to draw in unwilling participants, fine with me. As long as they aren't engaging in behavior inappropriate for the sim, like open sex in a PG area for example, it's none of my business. We all are RPing to some degree when we are in SL. People really do need to stop worrying about what others are doing.

So, basically, ARs of verifiable sexual ageplay went without penalty, right? This obviously doesn't help public perception of kid avatars.

Of course, it also doesn't help when kid avatars who aren't engaged in anything sexual get an account suspension... and I can anticipate the G-Team response: "Well, which way do you want it? Shall we be strict or shall we let things slide? There's just no pleasing you residents." As if accuracy weren't an option. *sigh*

Do we know if the ToS intolerance clause has ever resulted in penalty against the filer for an AR submitted for the purposes of harassment? Or has any other non-sexual, specifically anti-kid-avatar behavior been penalized?

It's one (good) thing to speak up for kid avatars, but that's mostly preaching to the choir. To reduce the incidence of harassment, it's necessary to visibly punish behavior intolerant of kid avatars.

Where's that agree button?

How does following someones profile request that you IM his/her Dom(me) first force you to compromise yourself or your beliefs. You are definitely compromising their immersion with IMs sent to the wrong person.

You are not participating in anything special just because you "respect" the wishes of someones request in their profile. It is not a big deal. It is not like they are telling you to only refer to them as girl or boy or beast or something - they are simply redirecting the course of messages. it could be for a number of reasons.

Is it role play for me to have it in my profile to IM my partner for customer service questions when i can just as easily answer the question myself? I do not see that any differently than someone requesting you IM their Master/Mistress instead first - maybe that person has stress issues and not only does it fulfill RP but makes that persons life easier to have their love - who is also their Master/Mistress, screen their IMs.

Damn, people can be so freaking hateful.

And this thing about child AVs is a killer because there are LOTS of people in child AVs who put "NO SEX" etc..etc.. in their profile and still when among certain circles, look for sex.

Ultimately the no child av sex thing has to be one of the dumbest things LL has ever done since changing the way we sit on the ground. This is a Mature world, 18+ only, and to police mature people RPing as children is just asinine no matter what they are doing.

Live and let live - stop thinking people are trying to pull you into their RP just because they are living a lifestyle in SL that sometimes has a small rule or 2 to follow such as 'who to IM first' when dealing with them.

It's coming, soon. (tm)

Mari-
i would absolutely not engage them in ANY conversation. none. never. mute, ignore and AR if necessary.

i'm sorry this happened to you.

I'm an adult avatar and I've come across people in-world that appear to have joined SL purely to go round telling us all that we're a bunch of saddos or worse and that we should get a life! I imagine child avatars get this sort of unwanted attention even more.

I ended up at a party at the Burning Life kids camp more or less by chance. It was great fun, just exuberant, innocent and humerous with very funny music.

What is funny with some of these self-appointed intolerant enforcers is that when you check their profiles they often belong to some rather dubious groups to do with extreme politics, or sex slavery or something!!

Mari, if your main concern is educating the clueless, you might try this:

Create a no-mod notecard explaining what child avs are and why people use them. Mention your RL age and the 18+ restriction in SL. Make sure you say that you are not interested in sexual activity as a child av, and that you resent being approached for sexual purposes.

Give this out to anyone who makes that sort of approach to you, or who questions why you take the appearance of a child.

This does two things: it covers you, and it informs anyone who can absorb information from a notecard. The others can go hang.

MAKE SURE ANY NOTECARD YOU MAKE IS NO-MOD!!!! you don't want someone changing your words and passing it around.

It is all about perception. There are those people who see the world one way, and *know* that everyone else sees it just like they do. You will never get them to understand, since that would mean *gasp* their perception is wrong.

Then there are those who see the world one way, but realize that their perception is good for *them* only, and that each and every other being in the world has different perceptions - they will try to at least acknowldge there are different perceptions, even if they can't agree with them. Those people you won't have a problem with.

There isn't anything you can do about the monoperception people - they are mentally unable to even admit there are perceptions other than their own.

There are many names for those people.. I just call them targets.. *impish grin*

What good is that?

People use them for fun, escape, and plenty more reasons, including sex.

It is not like all the child-av sex having people disappeared. They just do the sex thing around those they can trust.

I was going to say something wise and pithy but Love beat me to it. QFT.