Inclusive Communities and Representations of Violence against Women

To me, Second Life is a community. Or, perhaps more accurately, a community of communities. I value that diversity enormously, just as I do the cultural diversity in the city in which I live in RL: I think that new perspectives, even those that challenge my own views, are a vital part of a pluralistic and democratic society.

But communities DO need to establish "rules" for themselves. For a pluralistic culture to work, most importantly, every voice needs to feel welcome. This is why most free and democratic societies have rules against hate speech: it is not about banning free expression, but rather about preventing intimidation and threat from silencing those who are the targets of hate. If I see a hate message directed against my ethnic background scrawled on a wall, I (naturally) feel unwelcome, and as though my voice and perspective are under threat. If I see a representation of violence committed against an ethnic group, I know that there is an implied threat there, too.

In this context, I have a question about the continued prevalence of representations of violence against women in Second Life. Here, I am expected to encounter, and countenance, the depictions of graphic and often gruesome violence against women all the time. I see a number of cultures that devalue and degrade women, or that make "games" out of simulating torture, mutilation, and murder. But I am not supposed to take this "personally." SL does not allow swastikas or racist slogans; it doesn't permit sexualized age play. Nor should it. So why is it permissible to express hatred against women through representations of this kind?

Most importantly, how can we make our "community" here work in such a way that NO one feels censored, repressed, or unwelcome? I would really value your thoughts on this.

In order to forestall the inevitable stock responses, let me say the following:

-- I am not equating SL depictions of rape with RL rape. Yes, SL rape is a sim; yes, in most cases it is probably consensual. I am concerned about the REPRESENTATION of rape, not the whether it may or may not be actually occurring in SL.

-- I am not anti-sex. In fact, I'd prefer to see representations of consensual sex in the "Mature" areas, rather than on Ursula. I actually like sex. And it likes me.

-- I am not pro-censorship. See above. The only kinds of self-expression that worry me are those that contain an explicit threat of violence and hate, and an associated implication that other voices should be silenced.

-- I am not the "thought police." I have absolutely no interest in your private fantasies, fetishes, or prejudices. My concern is when your PUBLIC expression of them degrades and silences others.

A place for everything and everything in it's place. Simulated violent activities are and should be fine in violent themed sims. Don't want to happen upon violence... Don't search for or visit the sim. Don't want to stop virtually beating the crud out of people, keep it in your sim. Like our ever-annoying bloodlines players. If they kept their bite requests within the boundaries of their sim, I say; more power to'em. (^_^)

I have a personal skinnydipping pond. Does that mean I'm swimming the Linden waterways with my lolicooter exposed for the world to see? No. It means that I have a place I can sneak off to with friends and enjoy a dip while listening to crazy Anime music. If you cam in and spot me... It becomes your problem... Not mine. =^-^=

Yeah, I hear this response a lot. Do we have special places in RL where it is "ok" to be a racist? Do we want them? At the risk of sounding flippant, why didn't that pesky Rosa Parks just not try to sit in the front of the bus in the first place? It was her insistence that she should be able to go ANYWHERE on that bus that started all that civil rights fuss, right?

I do take your point, and I am not completely dismissive of it, but a truly welcoming community doesn't have places where I should be afraid to go. And, the fact that I don't "see" these representations of VAW doesn' t mean that they don't exist, or aren't in force. They are still very much there. What you are REALLY asking me to do is turn a blind eye to messages of hate.

The only thing being depicted is violence against avatars.

I smell a troll

Were that true, Viciously, they such depictions would hardly be much fun for their users, would they? I MAY of course be wrong about this, but I am rather guessing that people who are getting off on watching or participating in the rape of an avatar are fantasizing that it's a real person being victimized? Surely this is true of all porn? If you find a centrefold "sexy," its not because you like the arrangement of ink on the page.

What's a troll, Tremaine? And what does it smell like?

Ralektra!!!!!! More boots!!!!!!

I believe you will find there is very little, if any, actual "hate" in any of these roleplay sims.

The places I've seen with an overtly hateful message have not involved sexual roleplay.

Actually.. We do have special places in RL where we can be racist. We have plenty of fine examples in congress, the senate, religions, and then some. Does it mean ~I~ accept the notion or feel comfortable visiting those places? No. At the same time, will I leave U.S. because of it? No. (^_^)

So... I'll focus on one thing...
That's very solid and true. But, SL isn't any one community. SL is many people, places, communities, and gatherings. To umbrella the SL "community" in a way that combines Disney-esque child avatar regions under the same hat as Demonic-rape-fest-dungeons is a disservice to the service as a whole. SL is too big for that. SL is a world of nations and tribes. Tall avatars verbally hack&slash at shorties. Prim builders and sculpty builders both think their methods are the best. There is no one way to SL. So, if my parcel, sim, estate is fashioned to fit my lifestyle in a way that discomforts you. All I can say is that you're not invited to visit. (^_^)y

I am sure . . . I very much HOPE you are right about this. But whether hate is INTENDED or not, that is still the message being conveyed by the actual representations. Again, to reiterate: I am not (here, anyway) worried about what is ACTUALLY going on between two people who hop on a couple of "rape" pose balls. I am concerned about the impact of the representation.

What about the person being "victimized"? It takes two to tango in SL, no one is forced to do anything against their will. This is where your hate speech analogy disconnects slightly.One doesn't have to agree to be verbally assaulted in SL, but they do to take part in a "violent act." Now if you are referring to the RL images that get plastered in many places, I will agree with you to a point. Seeing them unsettles me as well sometimes.

Wecome to life (plural)

There are places in RL where it is just not safe to walk if you are of a certain skin tone, age, gender, creed, or wear the wrong shoes.

In SL as in RL you have the option not to go to those places.

The thing this community requires is personal responsability. It is your responsability to decide if you want to stay in a location if the locals do or have things that offend you.

The price of freedom to express your views and thoughts is to hear others do the same even when you don't agree to them.

This could be George screaming that purple people are better than any others, or Sarah talking about how everyone needs to be on a cocktail of drugs so they can be at peace with the world, or Tom & Tina talking about how sex is bad m'kay...

Odd that you only pick up on violence agaisnt women, what about against men and small furry animals?

Odd too that this comes up after someone else had a similiar topic and got torn to shreds...

To whom?

It is an interesting issue, one I think about a lot.

I actually don't think that depictions of violence against women are much more prevalent in Second Life than they are on television.

Based on the assumption that many female avatars are controlled by real life men, I would expect to see a lot more degradation of women in Second Life. But I am not actually sure that happens. And a theory I have is that a man who is serious about "roleplaying" a woman may actually gain empathy for women and understand gender issues better.

The most prevalent form of degradation of women I see in Second Life comes not from violence, but from sexualization. My guess is that both men and women are complicit in that, though.

The key to having a safe space on Second Life for women- or any group- is to give residents the power to associate in their own spaces under their own rules. With as many things as Second Life does wrong, I think it does a fairly good job of letting small communities of people carve out their own spaces under their own rules. Giving residents power over their own environments is far more effective than any sort of legislating about what kind of content or speech is allowed in Second Life.

I am currently co-owner of an SL strip club that caters in part to transgender and non-heterosexual persons. As far as bias and discrimination and ugliness goes in real life, transgenders and non-heterosexual persons have trouble finding any safe spaces. Not even at real life clubs catering to them. In my SL club, however, we rarely have anyone intolerant to our customers or dancers come in; and when they have, getting rid of them has been quite easy and painless.

I do cringe a little when I see some of the slavery-type play. People pretending not to have personal freedom blows my mind. But, if you look at the slavery-play in SL, I'm not sure that the male-master, female-slave is even predominant. I'm not so sure that the people involved in that play really are expressing anything about rigid gender roles; I suspect that the attraction to that type of play, in large part, is about something else.

So, I am not so sure that there is anything that needs to be done to make Second Life a safter place for women, in terms of exposure to violence against women. However, I am interested in seeing what ideas others have.

Banning black avatars from a sim would be racism, not a simulation of racism. I don't know what a simulation of racism would be... banning furries from Gorean sims, maybe? I know there's some furry sims that ban humans, and that makes me uneasy.

You make a valid point; in my original posting, I did suggest that I saw SL as a community of communities. But you are also, I think, confounding two separate issues here, the first being the notion of a diverse communities, and the second being the importance of the public/private distinction.

With regard to the latter, I will concede (for this context, anyway) that what you do within the confines of your own skybox or SL rental unit is outside the purview of my discussion. Anyone who cams behind your walls to see what you are up to deserves whatever they get.

But when a sim IS public . . . when, for instance, it advertises, or appears in people's profile Picks, that is a different issue. Would Americans tolerate certain towns where blacks or Jews weren't allowed? Would they accept the argument that "people here just don't LIKE those damned people"?

I can give my view as someone who sometimes explores the darker parts of her imagination in SL. The impact is akin to riding a roller coaster, seeing a scary movie, or some other andrenaline rushing activity. A thrill, being on the edge, taking a risk. And when it is done, it is done. And life goes on.

Yes it is. I didn't even have to read the rest of your post. Why is it that every would be censor starts off their new proposal for more monitoring and more repression of free speech, with a "I'm not against free speech".

Newsflash. You are not for free speech. You are for free speech that you want to hear. There is a lot of crap in the world that I don't want to see or hear. Usually I can avoid it, but from time to time, I will see something that offends, insults, or hurts me.

So I just suck it up and move on. Or even better--use more free speech to challenge the content. Not mind you to urge that it be removed or restricted, but to fight bad speech with more speech.

Considering the number of people in this world who have quite literally died for such freedoms, I think that is the LEAST I can do.

The answer's simple, Scylla: don't go to Ursula when it opens

For everyone else, the delivery guy just brought something:



/me wonders what's worse: the rock or the whirlpool?

"...they writhed
gasping as Scylla swung them up her cliff and there
at her cavern's mouth she bolted them down raw—
screaming out, flinging their arms toward me,
lost in that mortal struggle."

Brenda, I think I addressed this in my original posting, which I'll just repeat here: "I am not equating SL depictions of rape with RL rape. Yes, SL rape is a sim; yes, in most cases it is probably consensual. I am concerned about the REPRESENTATION of rape, not the whether it may or may not be actually occurring in SL."

My point is not that an actual rape is occurring in SL; it is that the depiction of a rape is itself a message of hate. Just as a depiction of a racist lynching would be.

Extra butter on mine, please. And a large Coke, plenty of ice.

Followed immediately by your censorship proposal...



You have been explicitly threatened with violence? That's a crime. You should report it to LL and the appropriate RL police authorities. On the other hand, if you just saw something that upset you--then that's just life.



So it is okay to come out and say other voices should be silenced (like you are doing now), but not to imply it?

MortVent, are you suggesting that the fact that women are vulnerable to being raped in certain places in RL means that they should just stay off the streets? Frankly, this is exactly what I was talking about when I suggested that this sort of imagery, these depictions of hate, silence their victims. Don't want to be raped? Well, don't go out at night! Does this mean that women who ARE raped are to blame for it?

I am very concerned about violence against men and furry animals. The prevalence of rape against males, for instance, is far higher in RL than most people recognize. It's just that in SL, those damned pose balls ALWAYS seem to be pink!

I understand, but studies show a surprising number of women, or men for that matter, have some sort of rape or forced sex fantasy with them as the "victim". I don't think many fantasize about being lynched. I think there is a difference