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

I agree. I don't want to be featured on the news with a string of four letter words coming out of my mouth, either. I have avoided that problem so far by not standing around with a string of four letter words coming out of my mouth.

It seems like you have no problem forcing others to put up with your foul language and potentially inappropriate conversation. I don't want to hear any of that, but if you and I were in the same place, even if we aren't talking to one another, you would impose it on me. I don't see how you can complain about child avatars forcing certain rules of conduct on you when you have no problem doing the same to those around you.

Don't take this wrong. I'm not picking on you or anything, and I don't care what you do and say in SL - it's your world, too. If you are around people who don't care and aren't uncomfortable or offended by your comments, then you should be free to be as vulgar as you want. I'm just trying to point out that you are just replacing one set of rules of conduct with your own set without regard to others around you - sort of like what you are saying kid avs do.

I speak of what I 'know' from experience, not anecdotes or assumptions. I am not saying: I 'think' that somewhere in the world it is happening. I know it. And I know the sim, and I know the sim owner, who works for a major RL corporation that has a large investment in SL, who I defriended, but what else am I supposed to do? There is not anything wrong with it, as much as I am, as a mother, put off by it. I think the entire issue is a Witch Hunt. This is after all a mature world where we are all pixels and no one is really been murdered, or raped, or eaten, etc..

Just to be clear, I was actually making a different assumption: that however strenuously the kid AV objects to the jerk's harassment, it would carry less weight with our hypothetical newbie than a chorus of jerk-disapproval from the crowd. That assumption may be wrong too, not sure, but that's what I was thinking.I hope you're right. If so, I wish you'd have a few words with the G-Team about adfarmers.

Oh, I wasn't referring to said sim owner with major RL corporation, etc., simply that people assume that *I* and other kids like me do such regardless of what might happen elsewhere.



I suspect the first two words you would hear is "That's different!"

I agree, I think more people should try being kid avs, so they'll understand what it's really like. I was only a kid once, and felt pretty awkward, but I did make a 'sullen teenager' version of my av just last night; it feels odd to be so different. I'm looking forward to seeing how my behavior changes as a result.

Sorry to hear you're still having to put up with this, Mari... I suppose you're right, the best defense probably is to just be very visible doing regular innocent kid things. Honestly, I don't see how anybody who's met you could believe all that crap. Some people are just too willing to believe the worst when there isn't any evidence of it... it really annoys me.

Very much so. If you check the usual kids places, you'll find great stuff for girls, but only very little for boys. Amongst all the kids stuff, maybe 10 percent is for boys (and that already is quite optimistic thinking). You could check out "A Boy's Place Mall", or if you are looking more for the (emo) teen stuff, there are some shops in Undercity.

As for the avatar mesh: I'm using a female based shape now, that at least takes care of the sticking out shoulder blades you get when shrinking a male based shape.

'tis true! I recommend A Boy's Place, Loki's, and Livingtree for boy's stuff, m'self. Not sure where one could find good boy hair, though.

My child avatar happens to be a pretty friendly and outgoing girl most of the time. I must say I have a huge problem with adult male avatars approaching her. I happen to think that probably the majority of them are people out to trap a kid av into doing what they are not allowed to do. I don't think there are that many avs out there actually wanting to recreate pedophile acts.

Which causes a huge problem for the community. 100 children avs can say no to these idiots and it only takes one bad seed to say yes and it paints a negative picture of the rest of us. It is ridiculous for the majority to be judged on the actions of a very small minority. If somone just wanted to AR and report avs they find are doing acts agsinst TOS fine, but to us it to say all kid avs are about sex.. grow up. I am going to start getting much harsher with my own AR button.

Look for hair that can be resized automatically. Damselfly has some, and I know there are others.

Mari, I am sorry what happen to your friends and you.
I think there are people who are extremely bored and have nothing better
to do then cause problems and see what they can get away with.
Also I do believe there are people who do act out on sexual taboo fantasies not
sure if they are true pedophiles but they like role playing those fantasies
and they are creepy and they really bother me.
I have met one and this is one of reasons why I will never do anything
sexual in SL again nor take out my child avatar.
I don't agree with TOS when it says people are good, yes there are people
here with good intentions who are kind and good people. Yet I also believe there
are lot of people here who aren't here for the good of those who reside in SL.
I am not sure what the numbers are of troublemakers but I will say there is good number who aren't here to do good.

I figured you would have done this already, since it's a clear first step. But once you've tried to explain yourself, or get rid of the jerk, or whatever using courtesy and logic, it's time to turn the knob the way it goes - only farther.

That basically means being ready to AR anyone harassing you, and include a chat log. Make sure you ask the griefer to leave you alone - and catch that in the AR. These people are attacking you. Treat it as an attack. Defend yourself with the weapons the griefer hands you.

That would be his own bad behavior and lack of respect for you. It's intolerance. That's against the TOS.

AR, mute, move on. It probably won't hurt, and it might do some good.

Looking over this thread I had a small thought which might be relevant.

One aspect of SL I've always had a little concern about is the "irrelevance" of avatars. That is, I believe that for a large proportion of SL users, their avatars are irrelevant because their main activities are the generic ones like clubbing and camping where you are treated the same pretty much no matter how you look. Note that this doesn't mean those people don't _care_ about their avs, they might well do so - they just don't affect their SL experience outside of their own self-perception.

Now. Imagine you are one of those people. Now imagine that you are one of those people... who, in turn, is imagining what it must be like to play a child avatar.

You immediately get an idea of the perspective they'd have. Since, for them, SL is "just" clubbing anyway, the only reason to play a child is because you want to visualise yourself as a child in those identical chat situations. It must be, because their experience is that the chat and situations are the same no matter how you appear. (This is absolutely freedom turned inside out - you're welcome to the club as anything you want to be.. but that means no one cares) They won't believe it's anything to do with feeling like a child or role-playing a child, because they've never experienced that with their own avatars.

Even for the people who've tried it - just because someone has a child avatar doesn't mean they're part of the child av community which Marianne advertises so much - unless they have orbital satellites checking every av's bounding box by now So, imagine you'd put on a child av, found there was nothing to do, then switched back to head to your regular club... what are you going to think about the people who kept the child avs on?

Ya, I've totally seen this. To some folks, the "S" in SL means "Sex" an that's how they view this world. The idea that people can not participate in some romance here is, well, unthinkable. It's not in their very notion of SL. It's hard to folks like that to see SL with any other eyes. I have sort of the opposite, in fact, because I often forget there is sexual content.



ow you know what's hidden in the blimp!

There even site that connects you to second life if you type sexondlife.com
thought that was pretty funny.
So even someone is paying for sexondlife to be connected to second life.com

Apologies for the minor thread necro, but something happened to me a few minutes ago that shows how weird things can get.

I was at a really big store exploring and looking for cool things (three massive levels and I did find some cool stuff way up in the attic). I was in my teen shape, which is about 5'4" and I had my regular dirties on. A little on the punk side. Normally I'm in full jungle boy 4'6" Lord of the Flies gear, but generally not a good idea when in places that don't me.

In a really good mood with money to burn. Since I'm hardly in-world, my stipend adds up to decent chunk with plenty left over after uploads. Maybe even in a good enough mood to buy somebody something. On rare occassions, I have been known to buy things for a wayward newbofile.

I see this little girl with a big DEMO box on her head. Probably her hair, but you never know.

I ask her about it with "pardon me" and all that. Just one question all polite-like.

She doesn't answer immediately.

Next thing I know, this boy comes running up and starts hollering at me and accussing me of being a SICK PERVERT.

Whatever. Wander away without a peep from me and my good mood slightly trashed.

I don't know. It's weird all over the place.

I would LOVE to meet those kinds of kids some day and give them a piece of mine... (=_=)

Of all the rotten things I do to people inworld, It's always done for the LULZ, and really, falsely accusing people of stuff fails greatly. It always drives me nutzo to see people get paranoid and hypersensitive about stuff. I bet they wouldn't last a second in Waterhead before they're crying their eyes out. (>_<

Yeah... You ran into some serious goofballs. The kind that gives kid avatars a bad reputation. And... Coming from the likes of me; that means A LOT! (>_<

Honestly, I would have had some serious fun berating them in IMs for the remainder of the day. (^_^)y