New controversial kid-avs-in-Zindra thread!

People have just explained, though, that you need to test anims to make sure they suit the avatar's size. I don't know if you are familiar with the store in question, Bits & Bobs, but it's a big place, selling a wide variety of PG anims on the ground floor and with two departments, one of which is the adult one, upstairs.

Yes, the presence of child avatars in the adult department might well be a valid cause for concern, but do you seriously say you're worried about child avatars in the PG department, testing sit poses and things for chairs?

Is that the same avatar you were suggesting -- minus the ball gag, of course -- children should use were they to be admitted to the main grid?

Adult land is better protected against griefers. That's a legitimate reason to set a sim "adult" without having any sexual content in it.

And a staged picture set up by her boyfriend that shows a guy in a penis suit stalking Mari. The thing is, I'm right in the middle of the picture (in a Tiny Mecha avatar) and I didn't see the penis suit... so he must have put it on and taken it off VERY quickly. Blatant fraud.

There's all sorts of things I find offensive, in RL and SL both, but that doesn't mean I think they should be banned. I very much doubt Immy's picture (fully clothed female avatar, apparently in her mid to late teens, with a ballgag and not seeming too bothered about it), would, were it a RL picture, meet the prosecution standard here in the UK, and our laws on child pornography are pretty strict (and rightly so, to my mind).

I have (another) question. My apologies if this seems to be a derail, but I played with the idea of opening a separate thread for it, and the prospect of yet ANOTHER "child avi" thread was just too much, so I crave your indulgence.

I find the whole notion of using physical appearance as a means of judging whether an avi is representing underage or not rather suspect. Of course, most child avs are unquestionably depicting children, but in the case of teenagers, issues of height, boob size, hair, and facial features seem to me largely moot: there are so many variations on all of these things within SL that I know I would not feel very comfortable using them as a guide to depicted age.

On the other hand, though, we have language, which is much less ambiguous. I mean, in particular, the occasional tendency for some people to declare with complete clarity that their avis are "barely legal" or "18 years old." Immy, I know that you are one of these, but I have met others as well: it is a not uncommon practice.

It's the liminality of this that bothers me, the notion that this is a declaration that the avatar is JUST barely "legal" with regard to sex, but so close to being underage that sex with her/him would be virtually the same as sex with some one who IS underage. It seems to me a polite fiction: one declares that one is of age to hoodwink the "authorities," but it's said with a leer and a wink. And I should note, too, perhaps that the ONLY people I have met in SL who will specify an exact age for their avatars are those representing children; I've never met an adult who insisted that she or he was "25."

So, I'll just throw out the question. Perhaps their is an explanation I am not seeing.

Why "barely legal"? If one IS "legal," why not 19, or 20, or 21 years old? A few years would make no difference in your appearance. How is this NOT a way to get around LL's prohibitions against depictions of underage sex?

don't forget explicit violense that lia(r)s keeps ignoring, a guilatine is already adult, especialy the kind that sprays blood and makes a head roll

That actually opens a very interesting question at this time of the year: do halloween places need to be on adult rated regions? I mean, there often are bones, blood, representations of death and so on?

Or no sign at all even.

The policy says Adult Content (as defined by LL) must be on adult-related land. As Ceka correctly pointed out, the policy also says that if we want to advertise, list in search, promote, Adult Content then we can do this if it is on adult-rated land.

The Barely Legal porn industry is a pretty thriving facet of adult entertainment. There are filmmakers and groups who's entire careers are based around getting girls on the night of their 18th birthday and making a legal movie/photo spread of them while they're as young as possible. It's an industry that existed nearly at the dawn of age-of-consent laws and FAR pre-dates Second Life. (^_^)

Like any other facet of the porn industry, there's an audience for it in SL. And, with the freedom of never aging avatars, one person can fulfill that role all day, every day. (^_^)

Even outside the porn industry, there are film events that involved waiting for an actress to cross her age of consent to create a certain scene. For the movie The Godfather; they had to wait for actress Simonetta Stefanelli, playing the role of Apollonia Vitelli, to turn 18 for the crew to film the honeymoon scene with Al Pachino playing Michael Corleone. So, even in the broad film industry, "Barely Legal" is a not uncommon aspect. (^_^)y

I asked Blondin about "unlucky chairs" and he promised to look into them, but never did.

Thanks for this, Immy. I think I might have had a vague notion that this was so.

I'm not sure, though, that it answers my question, really. What IS the appeal, in SL or out, of the "barely legal" trope, if not a kind of workaround for underage sex?

(Incidentally, I should note that while I might, depending on circumstances, view an older man having sex with a 16 or 17 year old girl as a case of statutory rape, I don't think I would personally classify it as "paedophilia."

I don't know the store, so I will only answer in general terms:

Because the 3D environment of a store is projected onto a 2D screen, it is fairly easy to position a camera in such a way that the relative distance between avatars looks shorter than what would be seen with a default camera position. Removal of objects in the view is both possible in the viewer or post processing of an image.

Since depiction of child like avatars in relation to sexual /adult situation is illegal in many jurisdictions, it could both incriminate the store owner and the avatars if such images are produced by a malicious or predatory individual, and spread on the internet or by other means.

This is also what the Linden Policy clarification refers to when stating:
"If you are in doubt as to whether an activity may be interpreted as ageplay, we request you err on the side of caution and desist. Please note that some countries’ laws may impose penalties for graphics, drawings or anime that resemble child pornography, even where no children have been involved."

Zindra (or any adult region) is problematic because of the relatively high density adult content where production of such images could be done with ease if an adult place also is visited by child like avatars.


On a side note, if this store has a large selection of animations suitable for a PG and a mature audience, the store owner would probably be in a better position having a branch store outside of an adult region offering the animations to a wider customer base.
One of the things that has become very evident lately is that no matter how PG or Mature your store is, if located on adult land, it is completely invisible to anyone who is not account verified.

if someone is going to doctor a picture, the avatar does not even have to be in the offending place or even around anymore making the whole point moot

The fact that you feel posting the picture of a 'teen' (which is obviously a picture of a young child - but let you keep your deniability) in a thread about child avatars - and that 'teen' is being contained by a BDSM ball gag in her mouth shows you have very little understanding of what LL meant when they used the phrase 'broadly offensive'.

Some posting claim the child avatar 'community' is not one with an established leader and followers - yet all posting here circled the wagons and agreed that the picture of the young person with a ball gag in her mouth was NOT inappropriate. That picture is a prime example of pedo -play. And all of you are quite fine with that.

And this is a underlying theme running through out the child avatar wearing community" We can do anything as long as we do not have sex. You debunk anything anyone says is offensive and carry on as you please. THIS is the problem that is getting worse and needs to be addressed.

Of course you cannot address it because you refuse to admit it exists. So do not be surprised when the discussion takes place without you.

The same questions can be raised for all forms of hair removal, skin exfoliation, and some plastic surgery. To a limit, I know. But it really is all about youth. (^_^)

Barely Legal porn covers the desire to experience someone as young as possible without breaking any laws. Considering aspects of BDSM and slavery, spousal abuse, and imprisonment laws... It's all a matter of legally being "bad". (^_^)

Just like my sigline says: Somewhere in this world; someone is having some good clean fun doing the one thing you hate the most. I know that's an extreme tangent from the discussion here, but, given the context I'm sure you can see the loose parallel. (^_^)y

Oh my, you might show an image of a kid toon with a tiny picture of a solid textured blue or pink dummy in the background!

It's. Not. Even. Vaguely. A. Potential. Problem.

That avatar is 18. No reason to NOT be fine with it. (^_^)y

This is a good point.

It does highlight how really really fuzzy the lines we are trying to draw in SL are, though.

In the UK it wouldn't be illegal at all, unless the adult were in a position of responsibility vis-a-vis the 16 or 17-year old (e.g. a teacher) though it would be illegal to take nude photos of her.

That's not as bizarre, most of the time, as it might sound; the idea was, as I understand it, to make sure indecent images of under 16s were well and truly caught. Unless the age of the model is actually known, there's generally a lot less "reasonable doubt" about whether an image of someone who may be 15 or 16 is, in fact 18 or over than there is about her actual age.

Having said that, when this change was brought in a few years ago, it didn't half amuse me that the Sun newspaper (owned by one R Murdoch), which delights in leading campaigns against "pedo scum", had, a decade or so previously when such things were legal, launched Sam Fox on her nude modelling career shortly after her 16th birthday.

Try to explain it like that to the law enforcement officers, judges, politicians and media, and see how they agree with you. Good luck on that.

"If you are in doubt as to whether an activity may be interpreted as ageplay, we request you err on the side of caution and desist. Please note that some countries’ laws may impose penalties for graphics, drawings or anime that resemble child pornography, even where no children have been involved."

Ick. Yeah.

Clearly the whole statutory rape/underage thing requires some discretionary judgment to make a call. I think that a law that focuses on the issue of authority (or power) rather than mere age is probably on the right track.

This is not a 18 year old. This is a child. Any adult would see it as that - and it is all about depicting children in situations children should not be depicted in - which is the number one activity of the adults in Second Life masquerading as small children.

Banning the use of child avatars in Second Life seems to be the only way to pull you folks back in and send a clear message as to what is broadly offensive to adults.

As soon as you allow for post-processing a 'screenshot' in SL can show pretty much anything, whether it actually happened or not. In fact, you just gave an example of something that had not happened but was made to look like it did.

Everything in SL is just pixels. Given that, how is anyone to know if a given purported screenshot is what actually happened or a fake?

To me, Lia(r)s that encourage people to break the TOS in order to make up fraudulant AR's against law and TOS abiding residents are broadly offensive. Wanna do a vote on that?