Upcoming Changes for Adult Content: Main Forum Thread

May i suggest that everyone concerned about this issue place a prim on their land (if applicable) containing a notecard linking to the forums and floating text alerting possible changes re Adult content? Snooze you lose and people need to know the implications and get their voices heard. Also IM all groups you belong to to make sure people are aware.

I saw this many times over banking and gambling (albeit after the event when several businesses had to close) and in a way we knew sex had to be next.

Nah to be honest, when I hear brown bag I think about people using it to throw up into and I get that image each time I hear it... I don't know why, it's just what comes to mind. I vote 'brown bag' should be moved to the adults-only land.

Allow people to decide for themselves what they are & want to see. Mark in the Profile, or in the Preferences that you are PG, Mature, then land owners can mark the land so you can or can't enter. Seems simple enough.
Something to consider: SL is a work of art in and of itself, and as with any work of art, you are going to run into legal problems when you start trying to control it.
Per a note I read earlier someone has banned an Artist for their creation, I hope that person is hanging their head in shame.

I think everyone has a designated "default" or "failover" tp point.

Had that happen to me more often than I can count. I am more than half-tempted to just rez a permanent tip jar in my designated failover spot. "Hiya, everyone! Sorry, I'm kinda stuck here until my inventory reloads and allows me to access my clothing and my landmarks, but I'll try not to be long. In the meantime, please enjoy the show and don't forget to leave a tip!"

I have been on SL since January of this year. At present I don't own land or have an established business in SL, but I planned on doing all of that sometime in the future. Many of us myself included come to SL to escape the doldrums of every day life, meet with our friends, fulfill our employment requirements or simply put to have a good time. The thing that I found most fascinating about SL was the fact that you can do virtually anything that you can think of, literally.

It came to my attention just last evening that some radical changes are taking place in the very near future involving adult content. I work in the adult content community and I am very disheartened that we are being viewed as the minority and shuttled off into our own corner of the community like SL's dirty little secret. I am all for age verification, changing the way seaches may be conducted and so on. I wouldn't want a child exposed to such atrosities. In the real world or RL as it's loosely referred to inworld people make the same types of decisions each and every day. If you are driving down a road near your home and there happens to be a strip club on your commute you either choose to patronize the club or you do not. If something comes on the radio that you dont like you simply change the channel. You either subscribe to playboy or you don't and so on and so forth. This is called " Freedom of choice". If you are on a Mature content sim and someone opens a business in some form or fashion that you don't necessarily approve of and you protest the opening of such a business endeavor then why are you on a mature content sim to start with?

Anyone that has sought out real estate either in RL or SL has done it under one set of guidelines location first and price second. Why do you feel the need to take that freedom of choice from a business owner to set up shop in the location most appealing to them or thier needs, just because it is a business that caters to the sex trade or some other facet of the adult content community. We pay our subscription fees, our monthly tiers and every other required expense to keep our virtual dreams alive. If these changes take effect and they radically effect our ability to express ourselves freely as individuals many of us will be forced to re-evaluate the value of our own existence on SL.

I think that if you send out a survey to each and every resident's e-mail you will find that those of us that either serve or patronize the adult content community are in fact the majority not the minority. Just my two cents worth... thanks for reading !!!!!!

DonJuan Correia

What difference does it make? Blondin stated that strip clubs WILL be moved to Pornodelphia if on mainland, or will require their host region to be flagged as adult if on a private estate.

I'm a 39 year old adult male, that is disabled. I work as a DJ in SL, many of the places would be considered "adult" entertainment. I earn my way in SL with my work, yet because of this I would lose roughly 2/3rds of my income in SL, making it impossible for me to own my own sim (which I do, a full sim through the fantasyland estates) it would also cause me to be unable to patronize several clubs and stores that I spend a couple K a week at because I don't have a credit card, debit card or checking account. I'm not the only person I know of in this situation, and I can guarantee that we're definately NOT the minority. The United States Supreme Court has been unable to define what Adult Content is for almost 70 years.. yet a software company in California has decided they are able to do what the US Government has been unable to. This is a gross violation of civil rights, freedom of expression and freedom of speech, as well as infringing on a person's right to religious freedom, as there are many cultures that practice nudity and sex as part of their religion. To me, that sounds like Linden Labs is saying that we HAVE NO civil rights, that the United States Government, with all their years of making and enforcing laws, do not know what they are doing (sometimes I would agree, but not with this situation) and the ACLU is a bunch of loudmouths that have no legal footing to stand on. hmmm....

Ravin Cox
Kennith Downing (RL name and proud of it)

Linden Lab does what Linden Lab wants...

No amount of "discussion" will defer them from implementing this change.

Anybody that has been here over a year knows this.

So everybody bend over cause, "Here Comes Da Lab". AGAIN

I really wish that people would actually inform themselves before getting involved in a debate...

For those still reading: a status of "Payment Info On File" will validate you for Adult content, according to the Lindens. If you choose not to do that then you can use the Aristotle system (which I will not).

Private residences will explicitly NOT be rated adult, according to the Lindens. Yes there are all sorts of loopholes in this, that need to be straightened out) but the ground rule is there.

Private Estates that are considered Adult will not have to move, but will have to flag themselves as such.

Skin stores, animations and the like will NOT be rated adult, even if they depict nudity. The implication being that if you sell sex animations you will only be adult-rated if you have a "sex room". Trying out animations in the store while full-clothed will NOT be rated adult.

To all those people that come up with the "brillliant" idea of forming a PG continent - it's been suggested 100 times before, at least and the Lindens have said that they're not going to do it.

OK, that having been said. LL own this world. They have the right to shape it exactly how they want to shape it. I can very much understand why they would want to do some zoning for the "public" sexual content in-world. They want to have areas where sexual stuff isn't "in the face" of residents (and this isn't about teens, I'm talking adults). You may not want a world like that and that's fine - it's not your world.

If LL were being "puritanical" or the other "Christian" characterisations that have been made, they would be banning the content, like they did with Casinos. They're not. They are actually talking about how to best promote this.

As for the claims as to the 3%-4%, may I present a different way of looking at this? If they have said that this is how much of the world will be affected by this move, and the definitions are unclear, maybe this is the goal - set the definitions so that 3%-4% are affected by this.

And the Private sims - I think the goal is that LL want Adult content to nov be visible by camming (for whatever reason) - this is why they want to put it on another continent, rather than just flag in-place. Splitting a Private sim up and having it part Adult and part Mature would defeat that object. Not saying whether it's right or wrong - just trying to understand what their logic could be. (and yes, Argent, I know of your JIRA, you're being quite clear about how you feel this should be fixed.... I actually think that if this solution were possible, then LL would do it, because it would be a lot less work for them than all of this upheaval.)

I am far from a prude, and have been a "user" of adult content, and very much support its existence in-world, but I am not against this move, and I think that in the long run, it may actually help adult businesses get traction in-world by creating one-stop-shopping for that type of activity. As I have posted before, I think there are some very major questions which LL need to answer, though, to put people's mind at ease on this.

When it all comes down to it, though - this IS Linden Labs' world - and we have the right to decide to participate or not. And that is about the only right I believe we have.

There - I hope that's not too "troll-like" for y'all. Thanks for reading (assuming you are)

Touche, and follow your own advice, the list you gave has been couteracted by various Linden comments and FAQ's.

Nobody knows where this policy is heading or what it means, there have been no clear definitions, none, not one, zilch zip and nada.

Here's what would happen with that line.

Many people unable to verify would resort to having their intimate cybersex scenes in poseball stores.

Then LL would decide to change their minds, and force the poseball stores to move too.

If that was their goal, they would not be permitting sexual activity in private houses to remain on the Mature continents.

The original FAQ's suggested that was their goal, they pulled them and pretended they weren't ready. Personally I think it's pretty damn obvious from those original FAQ's that that is their goal but they realise they're going to have to go slowly.

I have the entire chat log from Blondin's last office hours. I can point to several places where Blondin specifically mentioned strip clubs as being considered adult.

Heavily-edited excerpts from the chat:I can post the entire chat here if anyone would like.

Thank you, you're my new heroine, you haven't got a wonder woman costume or a pirate outfit have you?

Men's room; second stall on the left.

just dont go in there if you have a wide stance....

Censorship is stupid and unethical and a violence by itself for any historical, sociological, philosophical, pschological, political, multi-cultural, individual, biological, anthropoligical and multiple other reasons.

After eras, centuries and decades of censorship of all sorts, mostly by cults, churchs and totalitary political systems, now most parts of the world reached a status, where is now more sociological and individual self-design and self-expression/self-experiment as ever before possible, existant and growing much more, than ever before in humans history. I talk about real life. Same counts for a thing like second life.

This to confuse, to irritate, to opress und to restrict is totaly wrong. I don't accept it. Especialy not, since I was grown up from a 1968s european freedom movement and democracy movement society.

I say no, a strict and loud NO!, to any sort of censorship! Especially since it goes about censorship for people over 18. From an age of 18 on I do not accept any censorship, rating, or whatever restrictive ideas. Not for fake-moral, not for fake-ethics, not for money and not for: cartoons.

But we have here now the worst case: we have now not only censorship, we have now dishonest fake-censorship. Because it is not Linden lab who likes to censor us. They made all money all the years out of our pockets without any harsh censorship, because as money-makers they are so or so far away from any moral and ethics, because the biz world knows only one god and one moral instance: the Dollar (or Euro, Yen, Pound, etc.).

There are interests from outside of Linden Lab - who drives Linden Lab so crazy to act as kind of self-declared Censorship of Publications Board for all nations and cultures and individuals of the world, because there is money at horizon, or the hope and wish that there would be more money at horizon, involved into the game, if they start a censorship campaigne.

And they do not tell us the truth about the firms, the biz and whatever interests, who wants them to censor us.

No moral and no ethics driving them, It is all about specific interests, from specific firms and groups at the door or recently in game, wich are too stupid and too uneducated and too fake correct bigot.

I am angry. Again and again and again, because this behavior of LL touches my highest political and individual value-system and my freedom to do self-design and self-experiment on a technical platform wich was standing once for: freedom of expression and announced that as: your world. your imagination.

And now they do censoring the imaginations to death, for poor, stupid and cheap in background hidden reasons.

...

Let's face it, no matter what we say or do SL will never be the same again, EVER. like I said earlier, the place I call HOME would be considered adult content, therefore since their damn verification won't accept my DRIVERS LISENCE I cannot be age-verified, I can not go HOME. way to go ll, you sure know how to ruin what makes SL great.

I beg to differ, and completely resent this accusation. We *have* asked these people , especially one poster in particular, why they were in favor. All we got in response was self-serving, sanctimonious drivel; and that's what sparked the flamewar. We even got unprovoked hatred, hostility, racism, and bigotry from one respondent in particular.

We asked, and got shit on in response.

depend on what you mean by adult.. i sell kinky sex toys etc and it seems i can stay on my mature land under the current linden thinking for this new policy.. if i take a word out of my shop description.. except he didn't tell me which one it actually was..

I assume that Blondin will be the one actually making the policy since he's the only one who seems to be taking any responsibility for this on their side.

At the moment I've gone from assuming worst case to being cautiously optimistic. However past performance does indicate I am being a little pollyanna here.. lol

As well as all the land-swap issues that have been mentioned here, my real issue is with the role of sex as an important "social glue" on SL.

Here's an example. This is an "old chestnut" example that I've used before, but I think it remains relevant, so bear with me: cheerleader costumes. Certainly in previous posts, people have been pretty clear that the main reason to buy a cheerleader costume in SL is sex. It certainly isn't to lead cheers, because nobody does that, since you'd just be running an animation and that isn't much of a performance. There are one or two groups which infinately "practice" (but never perform) but they are largely closed or invitation-based groups of friends.

This applies to a large number of other fields too. (Type any keyword into Search and count the number of sex builds, and shops (sex or otherwise), compared to everything else).

LL have said that the majority of areas on the grid aren't "adult" (by its definition), but have they fully considered the relatively high permeance of sex and adult behaviour in the social and enabling life of the grid?

I highly doubt it, since they picked out such a lowball figure.

Back in good old 1820...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dream_of_the_Fisherman's_Wife

They weren't there when I created mine, because you could make more money from the reputation bonus even if you weren't gaming it.