Ageplay Banned?

I still await an official statement that this is the new Linden Lab policy on ageplay. Until then, I'm not prepared to take anyone else's word that this "really is true".

Broccoli

I personally believe "Ageplay", as used by general population, is a sexual term - although it usually does not refer to actual paedophilia, but to adults (who obviously appear as adults) acting in a childlike way. The Wikipedia page above kind of shows this bias, and seems rather weird to me as well (it seems that by its definition, if I shut down Second Life and go and play Monopoly with some friends, we are all "ageplaying" because playing games is a childlike activity).

The problem is that the sexual ageplayers have a strong tendancy to dilute terms to make what they're doing sound ok. Possibly the worst is the dilution of "Lolita", which has now gone so far that there are people arguing that the title "Loli" is OK because, they claim, "in Japan it just means a cute little girl". Besides the fact that most people in SL aren't from Japan, I would like to dare any of those people to walk up to a family on the street in Tokyo and refer to their young daughter as a "Loli"!

So maybe the best bet would be for the non-sexual ageplayers to choose a different name for their activity? Such as "regression"?



AFAIU, the argument is that if you claim to be an age less than 18, then under the TOS you are not supposed to be on the adult grid so you can be ejected. If you allow people to say "well, I was only role-playing when I said I was under 18", then anyone can say that and we have to allow genuinely underage users free reign on the grid.

Linden labs should definitely clarify this.

I think you should for now make sure your profile doesnt claim any under 18 reference at all, even RP - just for your own protection.

Should say this before this thread gets locked. -


It would probably be best for sexual age players and non-sexual ones to make sure their profile doesnt claim they are underage even in the RP sense until the policy is made more clear.

Might be a good idea for those in sexual ageplay groups to consider if its a good idea staying in them, since it would risk Linden scrutiny.


While Im against sexual ageplay - Im also against people being banned without good warning.

I don't disagree: this is why I dun use the term "ageplay" for myself - but like you said, terms get diluted, and likewise, a lotta folks who use "ageplay" IRL may not know dat SL has its own definition that is *purely* sexual. The onus should be on those doing bad stuff, not those doin good stuff, anyway - them, not us.



This I'm not sure of. If all furries say they aren't humans in real life in their profile, or make any statements about being something other than human, does this mean we should open the grid to all sorts of RL animals? A deliberately silly argument, yes I know - but then again, how many four (and a half!) year old kids do you know IRL who would be able to write what I jes wrote in this an the previous note?

No one else on Second Life is *required* to hold such a standard. Why should I? Who am *I* harming?

Mari

We shall now ban all productions of Shakespere's "Romeo and Juliette". After all, the romantic leading lady, Juliette, is only 12 years old in that play! And Romeo is an adult! Horrors! Furthermore there is all sorts of dialog in that play where the Mother and Maid talk of children Juliette's age bearing the children of their older husbands!

Never mind the fact that at that period in Itallian history, it was completely normal and socially acceptable for girls to be married as young as 12 years old, and those girls were fully expected to bear the children of their much older husbands. In many parts of the world, this is still true.

I will agree that posting graphic depictions of "child sex" in a "public place" is inappropriate. Any merchant that sells such material should, at the very least, ensure that you can't get access to it without intentionally agreeing that you want to see such material. If they are selling a pose set, they can set their vendor to dispense a sample picture to the prospective buyer only if a prim is touched, and the buyer consents to recieve the image.

However, I can not agree that consenting adults who chose to recreate scenes involving "children", when depicted entirely by and for adults, is some sort of criminal act.

If we hold that a text/visual depiction of a completely fictional encounter is criminal, then all authors of murder mysteries are guilty of murder, all authors of war novels are guilty of war crimes, all authors who depict any criminal act in their fictional works are guilty of those criminal acts. Where does it stop? Thought Police, anyone?

Get a grip, folks, and realize that there is a clear difference between fiction and reality.

Incidentally, whether you agree with or condone roleplay between adults and other adults posing as children or not, the items sold at such merchants do have perfectly legitimate uses. What about adult avatars who have a size discrepency? I have a friend whose main avatar is over seven feet tall. One of my avatars, clearly an adult female furry, with a nice figure, is only 4 feet tall. Attempting to hug him with a normal hug pose results in something obscene. But I could use a pose designed for an adult to hug a child, and he and I could hug chastely.

I also have set up an alt that is Ceera's daughter. Why? Because Ceera has a Partner in SL, and they do what adults do with each other, and the natural consequence of mating is reproduction. So my Partner and I have produced a lovely daughter, who I am pregnant with at this moment, and who will be part of our roleplay family. Now, I only plan to leave Reisuki as an infant for a month or so, as I am not at all into roleplaying all those diaper changes and the like. I went through that in RL with my own daughter. After that, I'll bring her back as a young teenager, who will remain a virgin until she is, in our roleplay, "of legal age". She is always played by me, an adult in RL. She exists so my Partner and I can act out the loving relationship of two proud parents who have a child. She is not some sick sex toy. She is family.

Personally I could care less about cannibalism; real incidents of it are spectacularly rare. Simulating it would verge on ridiculous, not creepy.

Not so for child abuse. It's common as dirt.



Three months ago, about a block away from my boy's elementary school and right smack behind my daughter's high school, a man tried to drag an elementary school girl into his car.

She screamed bloody murder, fought and got away. He's still at large. Think he's gone?

Thousands of parents in the area, me included, deal with this reality every day.

As I write this, I have just returned from dropping off my kids right at the gate of the school.

Think I should let my kids ride their bikes down to the park?



Here's a news article from yesterday: http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2007/03/07/conviction_urged_in_9_year_olds_death/

"Her body was found in a shallow hole, encased in two black plastic trash bags. She had suffocated and was found clutching a purple stuffed dolphin."


It's the one thing I read in the news yesterday that stunned me to silence.

Not rare-as-hen's-teeth cannibalism, not adult consensual BDSM, not even the usual gang reprisal murders.

Ah, folks, child abuse is deeply, truly, horrifically sick and wrong. Really. Really really.



Simulating it *is* going to feed the fantasies of many, and perhaps none of you have noticed but there are a *lot* of unstable people on the second life grid.

Is this another "think of the children!" argument that would restrict freedoms?

You bet it is.



I leave my office early every day to pick up my kids from at or behind the steel gates at their school. I'm lucky to own a business, such that I can do this.

There's already enough freedom for child abusers in our open society already, and *my* freedoms are *already* curtailed by their prevalence in first life.

Romeo and Juliet has literary merit and is not sexually explicit, so it's no problem.



Nobody is suggesting that ageplayers are guilty of actual child abuse!!!! What they could very well be guilty of, is producing and trading computer-generated child porn. Pictures or stories about murder, war, criminal activity, etc, aren't illegal - but pictures or stories about sex with children are; that's just the way it is.



Well, this seems fine to me. At no point are you responsible for including into SL's data stream, data which generates a depiction of a child having sex. The only tricky bit is that under the second rule above, your "daughter" character could not announce that she was under 18, as then she can be banned from SL because maybe, just maybe, the person at the keyboard really is. That does seem like an incredibly draconian rule to me, too, but I can understand why they'd make it..

Mari - I don't think there's anything wrong with child AVs and I don't think LL does either (though they need to clarify all of this officially). I think you're right though - some people are going to be completely uncomfortable with child AVs and will suspect there may be more to why you and others choose to represent yourself that way. If you think about it though, furries get the same scrutiny in SL. I don't pretend to understand why people make the choices they do in AVs - but I fully support the freedom provided it's not to depict sex between children, sex between adults and children or otherwise use violence against anyone else.

I still would ask though, why not also take a stance on depicted forced rape in some areas? I hope that one is next from LL.

@Desmond/106

If ever the phrase "Enough Said" applies to any discussion, that post is it. Can't get any more illustrative of the issue than that. I don't have kids myself, but I've also no lack of respect for parents like you. Thanks for putting that in here.

zk

This is a good question.

Since one of the big reasons to not allow sexual Age Play - is becuase it depicts such a offensive behaviour thats too common in Real Life.

Rape of Adult women is many times more common than sexual child abuse.

Hey let's ban everyone and let's close SL, we all are flying without a flying licence!!
LMAO

Erm, did any of you furs standing up and appluading this ever stop to think that WE'RE NEXT?

Think about it: LL's busy pushing people out that are seen as 'broadly offensive'.

How 'offensive' do you think we'd be to the mindless masses whose only exposure to us is in the form of sensationalist pieces that portray us as deviants only interested in boning each other while in 'mascot costumes' and RL animal @#$%ers?

We even stand out when among the 'average' SL crowd, making us a VERY easy target.

Anyone who fails to see how the above makes sense is being as stupid as the stereotypical ostrich burying their head in the sand to escape danger. It WILL happen, and I will be the first to come with the 'I Told You So' when it does.



This means you've got one of two choices:

Fight in defense of this intrusion upon the expression of OUR IMAGINATION in OUR WORLD (sound familiar?), no matter how tasteless or offensive you find it personally, or

Sit idly by and do nothing, and watch as LL whittles the population down to nothing.



I don't care if you're gorean, fairy, elf or human. Your turn under the microscope will come, and I can assure you it won't be pretty.

I understand how legal and business concerns can force LL to take this action. I also understand the strong reaction so many people have to sexual ageplay.

However, I think it does a terrible disservice to people who have been molested in real life when people rely more on fear than facts.

Think about it: Are there any documented cases of someone being hurt (physically) in RL as a result of a contact made in SL? On the other hand, there are plenty of documented cases of boys being molested when left alone with priests.

What folks need to learn from this is that intuitive reactions for this subject are often wrong, and focusing on unsubstantiated theories is not the best use of resources, nor the best way to protect kids. Teaching kids to avoid and report abuse is more important. Getting the church to change their errneous theories about sex is more important. (Part of the reason the scandal was allowed so long was because of the mistaken theory that repentance could cure sexual compulsions.)

Deal with facts, folks. Not emotions, not media hyperbole, not virtual worlds. SL is a game, RL is real, and for keeps.

does that still stand? so many stores seem to be open in manchester on a sunday thesedays. i remember the situation getting a bit surreal in the 1980s. a diy chain famously got investigated because, not being allowed to sell electrical goods on a sunday, they decided to sell fruit and vegetables for ridiculously high prices and throw in powertools "free".

"buy a granny smith apple for £130 pounds and get this black and decker drill absolutely free!" - that kind of thing. xD

re: the ageplay thing. (yeah, i'll get back to topic =D), the big concern for anybody in the uk is that controversial new(ish) offence: "making indecent images of children". don't for a minute think of dirty old men whiling away time making perverted images in photoshop because your browser just downloading an indecent image (even if you weren't intentionally surfing for that kind of content) and storing it (ie. making a copy of) in your cache is enough to put you on the wrong side of this particular law. it makes you wonder about those realistic child av skins you see for sale on external sites; whether the texture would be considered indecent if it was downloaded to your hard drive..just because some ageplay was taking place off your parcel, but within draw distance in the same sim.

Thank you, Colette for acknowledging this. It's far too common in RL not to be as reprehensible in terms of depiction in SL.

As I have said before:

Second Life is not a democracy that respects rights. It is an oligarchy that grants privileges.

Plus, Second Life is also a for-profit business.

The morality of a government outlawing certain forms of free speech, involving entirely consenting adults, is one thing. That is an oppressive restriction on freedom.

However, as a business trying to expand its customer base in the general public, banning the public display of sex involving virtual minors is a good business move. Avoiding expensive litigation in murky areas of international law is also a good business move.

And the focus on public display and advertising is a good move- I'm sure the Lindens have better things to do than follow around busybodies trying to root out all the hidden immoral activity on Second Life. They may say when appropriate, "Sorry, if it's in private, there's nothing I can do about it."

The Second Life sexual ageplayers will still find each other without advertising within Second Life. They will do it on their own websites and arrange to meet in-game.

The Lindens may have done many sexual ageplayers a favor anyway. Making it taboo will make it more fun.

I agree with your post its well said.

This last comment did make me shiver in disgust.

I think theres a real part of the Age play sexual activity thats scary on a very basic level.

As much as some of us can be logical and rational on the topic- even try to see both sides, A lot of people - many who are Paying customers; wont be at all

What worries me about all of this is that it seems like LL is trying to act secretly. I have a visceral hatred for secret publicity, secret legal settlements, pretty much secret anything that involves a public organization.

My preference would be for all Second Life policies to be published and distributed as widely as possible. If this is an official policy, it should be on the blog, in the forums, and in the Community Standards. If it is not, then it shouldn't be happening at all.

I don't see this as being about sexual ageplay at all. This is about the first blow to our freedms as SL residents: What's next? Gor? rape? furry? guns?

Where does it stop? Cause it won't stop right after sexual ageplay.

I've thought about this, Tiberious.

But the Company has recently made a basic furry avatar as an option for new players.

I'd take that as a good sign that no, they really aren't going to come after furs next.


I've never had a furry stalk my kid's school, I have never heard of furs murdering anyone and I certainly don't worry about my neighbour's dog getting raped by a fur when it's left outside at night.

It simply doesn't happen.

The only people I have ever seen going after furs or banning them are other small resident groups who have very little traction with the bulk of grid society and a lot less respect than furs.

I think it's rational and reasonable to draw a line at *some* point.

Simulating racial hatecrimes and child abuse is over the line.

Looking like a fox or a rabbit is not over the line, and deeply into 'so what' territory.

No, it's not. It is higher than one might guess if forced to be quantitative, but so are deaths from heart attacks and cancer.


This is very scary, but it's also just one data point. It's just as easy to come up with examples of a kid on a bike being killed in an auto accident in the next town over, or the carload of teens killed a couple of miles from my house. Do you understand why your experience is scarier, even though auto accidents are more common than child abductions?


Yes. Teaching kids to live in terror isn't nearly as serious as real child abuse, but it's still not healthy for them.

I do, however, hope you insist on them wearing bike helmets, know how to make sure they're worn correctly, and know how to teach kids to ride bikes safely.



Not quite true. Child abuse in general is more common than those others, but abuse and murder by strangers is much, much less common.


Nobody denies this, but we don't truly understand how it relates to virtual ageplay.


May I suggest looking at the Child Molestation Research and Prevention Institute web site? To be honest, I haven't put any effort into validating this web site, but from the little I've read there, they seem to be valid, and on the right track.

here here.

I'm a SL kid and I like being a kid. I don't do that kind of stuff that they're trying to get rid of.

This is a place where you can't talk about Second Life in the other real life place together cause they really aren't the same. If I did ageplay in real life, it would be obvious that I'm not under 18. Way not under 18. Me in pigtails an a jumper would probably more funny to look at than anything else

But in SL, I really do look like a 9 year old. If I'm just playin with friends or climbing a tree or skipping through the mall or screaming in an amusement park when we go over the top on a roller coaster then that's great!

But if someone does adult stuff that pushes a lot of different buttons. It's not the same as watchin an adult in real life. And in a lot of countries virtual child porn isn't legal.

I think Linden is smart enough to figure out the difference between a couple of kids playin on swings and hugging their roleplayed parents and the kind of stuff that people in SL call "ageplay." I just hope that they're going to take the trouble to let us stay.

As many posters seem to have ignored, there does NOT appear to be a ban on Ageplay, sexual or otherwise. There is a ban on *advertising* sexual ageplay.

So any adults who wish to engage in this fantasy can continue to do so, but they can't do it in public. Neither can they make it obvious to everyone else that they are engaging in these behaviors. And they have to make it clear that they ARE adults.

Frankly, given the extremely problematic and yes, blatantly offensive, nature of this activity, the restrictions are generous. If SL were my company, I'm not sure I could find it in myself to be that permissive. My respect for civil liberties hits a brick wall on this issue, as I'm most willing to confess.