Upcoming Changes for Adult Content: Motivations and Goals

So far as i know, hanging a flag over a sex bed is not harassment of an ethnic group in any definition. It's pointless talking to you about it anyway. As I said what wasn't reasoned in can't be reasoned out. This is, in my opinion, racism on your part.

Take offense at that if you like, but when you pretend you have special rights that another group shouldn't have because of your ethnicity, you are a racist. You've admitted that you don't care about other people's offense here in SL, in several of your arguments.

"Gors and whores" need to leave because they offend your sense of racial pride. You're, as you say, just here for your own racial agenda. Sounds racist to me. If they are going to deal firmly with intolerance, i think you'd need to go too.

piffle... Fox News, just one vowel movement from the truth. And that's 2007, something would have happened before now if that was anything to do with it.

Well that about blows that theory out of the water. well someone high up some where had to have said something for this to happen. I really doubt if a few residents expressing their outrage caused Linden labs to suddenly enforce their rules on this type of content.

Now we know the kind of person who is really to blame for all this. You make me sick. This is just amazing that someone with your history would see fit to come into this world and attack others with your racist, intolerant attitude, and then to find out you're one of these people that apparently the Lindens actually listen to. I am more saddened and disappointed in the Lab than I have ever been before, and they've done a *lot* of disappointing things.

I hate to pop your little bubble of hate. But the vast vast vast vast majority of Gor exists on private sims - hundreds of them. Some Gorean's may have private homes on the mainland.

Private homes, we have been assured will not be affected by this.

Private sims will not be affected by this, they just have to mark as adult and carry on as if nothing had happened.

The majority of Gor in SL will not be affected in any way.

HOWEVER

A lot of Gorean roleplayers may be unable to verify as required. So you can expect more Goreans on the mainland exploiting the freedom of private households. Ooops


Now look at the situation above with community members being unable to verify to play in adult areas. will they just stop? Hell no.

Replace Gorean wih BDSM, or clubbers, or whatever. More scary adult ploeple on the mainland than before and a whole underground scene has been created. Tell me thats in improvent

Two questions....

1. Is this really about possibly joining the teen grid with the main grid? How will this improve anyone's experience? It seems to me that it just causes problems now, and likely ones in the future. Whats the real motivation for this as prima facia, it makes no sense for either grid.

2. Are you planning again to use social security numbers to verify ages? Last time it started with "we are uncertain how it will be done" to "you will be asked to give your social security number to an outside company". I don't think anyone is now more ready to hand over a social security number this time than we were last time... so whats the plan this time? Are we heading down the same path.... or is there some new magic way of verifying ages to make the lawyers smile again?

Okay...maybe that was more than two questions... but I have them nicely put together in two groups.

How about pedophiles? Should people who are offended by fantasies of raping children just go somewhere else?

What you people do to eachother in private isn't the issue. The problem is the effects of what you advertise and sell to the public with no adult rating applied.

I have said this several times.

I'd say yes, personally.

I'd rather it be fantasies than realities, wouldn't you?

No, I want an addtional choice. Fantasies of harming kids and realities of harming kids are not the only two possible options.

That is why this is the "Adult" grid

That is why there is a "Teen Grid."

Now we will have the "Adult Adult Grid"

or maybe it will be called

"Linden Lab Sticking It To You Again Grid" or

"Linden Lab Drives More People Out Of Business Grid"


Stop the madness............

Deltango Vale,

I am neither angry nor bitter. I feel pretty good about the way this debate has turned out, and am getting a lot of support in IMs.

I am very grateful to Linden Labs for allowing us to talk about this particular problem in this context. It's a perfect example of what their new policy is designed to fix.

Not for you and me, at least.

Haven't you ever had thoughts that you didn't intend to? Just sudden thoughts? You can't outright prevent some feelings, and in those cases, at least when it comes to pedophilia, I'd much prefer it to stay in fantasies.

ETA:: Anywho, since I'm speaking completely off topic, I'm done with this thought train. Have fun!

I've seen a number of people defend "ageplay" in these discussion threads now and it is disturbing. It isn't even an issue, SL banned it long ago and with good reason. If anyone thinks that a pedophile creating a child av and going to all the trouble to 'act out' with it, is harmless, I have some land on Mars I'd like to sell you.

At any rate, that is the one thing I do get judgmental about. Sex with kids is never okay, ever. (Even as 'pictoporn'.) I'm with Germany on that one.

I thought about that little quote from back in the thread about the college professor whose lawyers were warning him about requiring students to use SL because they may accidently see objectionable things. What I wondered was..

Hmm the internet is full of all kinds of material, there is no special zone all of it is pushed off to and grade schools.. not colleges.. grade schools require students to get on the internet for this that or the other, and if not require certainly encourage it as part of their curriculum. Okay so i thought I would do a little internet test and see how hard it would be for me to find objectionable content without typing anything on the keyboard, only link following and futhermore starting with a stock installed link. MSN.com if you have IE you have that link. I will admit I was kinf of 'looking for it' here. But this was just to see how easy it would be and to see if the legal liabilities for requiring internet usage would be more than requiring SL usage.

No typing!
MSN.com> (link on browser toolbar by installed default)
Front page article link - topic is what to do and not do if you run into your ex girlfriend/boyfriend in public.>
SideBox on that article - Hot relationship searches - links = dating=cheating(clicks cheating)>
Sidebox on that page - Related Searches - links = Cheating Wives(clicks)>
First result "F**k My Wife' (at 4 mouseclicks I have now been subjected to offensive profanity.. I click that link>5th Click!!)
Thumbnailed image page. Full on sex, extremely graphic, absoloutly XXX material. This page is one of these movie linkout ring pages, simple click surfing around from here will take you to content as extreme as you want to get or have the stomach for.

So at 5 mouseclicks after opening an internet browser I am looking at some of the most hardcore porn avail. Nothing ever asked me my age, and the only 'indication' I got that my virginal eyes were about to be smutted was the F word in the last link I clicked.

Elementary school kids are required/encouraged by teachers to use internet and web browsers, college students certainly are. This professors lawyers need to also warn him about requiring students to use the internet and an internet browser too.

It is just as easy in SL to click your way to objectionable content, but it is simply because of a couple of things LL has overlooked. If I pull up the search, (as a new user) the mature is unticked... bravo, cool. Now if I go to the ALL tab there are 8 'TOP PAID CLASSIFIEDS' links there.
I know from being a SLer that three of those top paid adverts are going to take me to sexbed sellers, and two of them are going to plop me down in a store full of phtorealistic naked skins. In fact the keywords in one of those ads that is presented to me.. by LL on the front page of ALL search when I have mature unticked has the keywords - sex balls,sexbeds,BDSM,sex beds in the ad. Why am I being shown that ad when I have show mature unticked? The ad itself isnt explicit no, but all of us here know what kind of store that is going to put us in.

Straw man argument. You have not, until just now, taken any position on pedophilia in SL. Next!

Let's see... so far in order to make your indefensible case that the mainland should be uprooted and thrown away because you found a couple people doing things you don't like...

You've claimed the ear of the Lindens.

You've claimed special privileges as a member of an oppressed minority.

You've repeatedly brought up ridiculous red herrings like "pedophilia" (which is already considered on the wrong side of the law and thus banned), and obscenities at welcome areas and such (also policed and banned).

You've claimed support from some secret silent group in IM's.

What other forum troll move have we left out? There must be a few.

*calls BS again on all of the above*

I have not seen any threads here defending ageplay. I have seen a number of posts in threads defending role-playing children. Two completely different things. Ageplay is absolutely revolting and has no place in SL (and, before Nany jumps me on this, I make that statement based on both universal societal norms and federal law in the United States). Letting adults unleash their "inner child" through a child avatar is perfectly innocent, and I've seen far too many child avatars in SL for me to believe that it is anything less innocent than that.

Katheryne, I did not say threads, I said posts. And because you have not seen it doesn't mean it isn't there.

*I have* seen a number of posts which state point blank things like, "I don't see anything wrong with a child avatar having sex in SL because it's an adult behind the keyboard." Sounds like defending ageplay to me.

You are talking about something entirely different in your post. I was not talking about anything other than ageplay, NOT child avs themslves. Show me where I said that a child av in *itself* is wrong. I have nothing against a child avatar, provided the use is non sexual. I also do not *assume* a child avatar is for ageplay, in fact I know of some very good roleplayers who play orphans for instance in a certain sim, totally innocent, it is WHY they say they play child avs, to avoid that whole side of SL.

*But* that hasn't always been the case, the stories are out there, some people/pedophiles DO misuse child avatar - everyone knows it. That isn't the issue here, the issue for me was people continuing to defend ageplay, or say it shouldn't have been banned, people who have posted that it is harmless or even HELPFUL! I finally had to speak up! I disagree that that is EVER okay.

Hope that is clearer. I think you have misread my post or something Katheryne.

You're right, I did misread it. I was not aware of such posts. Personally, I cannot see how *anyone* can defend such acts, even if it IS all virtual.

Well, in RL you can find novelty shops which sell fantasy schoolgirl fancy dress outfits for adults. If a married couple buy such an outfit to spice up their RL sex life is that wrong?

If so there are an awful lot of novelty shops on the wrong side of the law, and how St Trinians got past the censors, I've no idea.

Suppose an adult avatar buys a fantasy schoolgirl outfit in SL before having pixel sex with her partner - but regards this as an adult avatar in a fancy dress outfit having sex, not a child avatar having sex. Is this wrong?

However, would a casual observer be able to distinguish that act from sexual ageplay?

As for truely pedophilic activities, some have argued that allowing a pedophile to enact their fantasies in a virtual world can be a form of therapy allowing them to get their urges out of the system without needing to enact those fantasies in RL. I don't know how much evidence there is behind that claim, but if it were true would be a good argument for permitting such acts (albeit on a completely private grid with supervision, admittedly).

Not, that I'm saying that LL should change its stance on *sexual* ageplay (and please don't describe it as just ageplay, otherwise we have people ARing child avatars and even avatars for being too short!), just that this isn't necessarily so neatly black and white.

Matthew

I was a little confused here. I presume by "college" we are referring to institutions for over 18s? (since anyone younger than that shouldn't be on SL) i.e. those larger campuses where over 18s are resident for a few months of the year away from their parents, alongside over over 18s, and regarded by those institutions as adults responsible for their own actions?

And parents and their lawyers are only worried about what they may see or get upto *online*?

Matthew

Matthew "ageplay" means sexual ageplay. That is what people mean when they say that in Second Life. "Play" is a code word.

An adult (who clearly is an adult) in a cheerleader or other such outfit is not at all the same as someone watching virtual or other types of child pornography. Germany has judged cartoon depictions of pedophilia to count as child porn.

I have never found any credible study that proved a pedophile GIVING INTO their urge, by watching child porn, to be helpful in a therapeutic or prohibitive sense. I don't want to get off topic but it's disturbing to see people keep claiming that cartoon pedophilia is somehow a good thing.

No - that is how LL (or one particular Linden) used the word "ageplay". Up to then, people in SL playing child avatars in non-sexual ways had sometimes used the word ageplay to describe their activities. Moreover, (and you only need to ask those who play child avatars or even short avatars about their experiences) - some took the ageplay ban to apply to anyone playing a child, childlike or just plain short avatar (just because LL had not been precise with their language) - and I'm not entirely sure the G-Team were always consistent on whether ageplay meant sexual ageplay or all and any age related activities.

Even now, *you* might know what ageplay really means sexual ageplay, and *I* might know that, but would someone new to SL reading that "ageplay is not allowed in SL" realise that?



The problem is that in SL, it is not necessarily clear that an avatar is an adult. Some people have been accused of sexual ageplay just because they were a short avatar! So is that cheerleader having sex a tall child avatar or just an adult avatar in fancy dress?

As for therapy - well, I'm not prepared to be so dismissive without knowing the evidence either for or against it. However, any such activities should be carried out under psychological supervision on completely private virtual worlds run by the psychological facility or hospital. Where, I think we can agree is that there is no play on public virtual worlds for that, such as Second Life.

Matthew

JUST STOP with the sexual ageplay crap here. It was dopey enough that this thread wandered into some strange debate about ethnic heritage, seemingly hell-bent for a Godwin, but now enough with the utter irrelevance already.

What is currently against the ToS in M areas will be against the ToS in Adult areas, still. No change there at all, just a shift of the land (and non-Teen populace) to Adult-labeled areas.

If there is sexual ageplay or content intolerant to specific ethnic or other groups present on the Grid now, an AR of that material will be exactly as (in)effective now as it will be after the change. There's absolutely nothing that makes ToS-violating material any less permissible on non-Adult areas in the future.

The change to Adult-only areas simply means that the existing PG and M parts of the grid will be very much more vacant than they are now. And that may or may not be the actual goal of this whole exercise; no Linden seems willing or prepared to answer.