Upcoming Changes for Adult Content: Definitions

Let's call this what it is, "explicit sexual content", not "certain Adult activities". There's nothing uniquely "adult" about it. The age at which society's young men and women begin to engage in explicit sexual behavior is many years before they've reached adulthood. The "manageable guidelines and definitions" is a very good start, but be careful of the end result. How explicit is LL willing to be in this definition? Is this area so black and white that a clear demarcation can be drawn through definition? Being "adult" has much less to do with participation in sexual practices, than it does with making responsible decisions for ourselves and others. So let's start over by being "transparent" and call it what it is, and lay out the guidelines and definitions of what someone must be willing to encounter should they cross these land boundaries.

Community Standards vary from community to community, and across cultures. The fact that this is a technology-based world does not separate these standards from the real-world and international boundaries of its inhabitants. To provide a truly global "adult" initiative would require localization of cultural preferences for dealing with adult and sexual content for each culture. The LL standards are Western based and will not satisfy the majority of world flavors. This fact alone leads LL down two paths, one of reduced interest from overly constraining guidelines, or one of more ambiguity, less clarification, and greater debate than in the past. LL, you risk becoming culturally-bound from this undertaking.

Finally, the impact that such decisions have on SL will be very hard to quantify. This poses a risk to the business operation itself. These upcoming changes do not reflect the real-world variances in sexual and moral beliefs across nations. The risk is that putting guidelines around behaviors and content will effectively create a primarily American-based audience; hardly in line with what LL's long-term goals are. As an adult, I would much prefer to make my own choices and decisions with regard to coming into contact with other adults. It certainly seems that the better solution would be to have smaller sections deemed PG, leave things how they are, and not try to culturally police the rest of the land.

Neither do I but it does make me think of an interesting point. The Lindens have stated it does not apply to what you do in your home ... but what is a home in SL? It is not like people *need* to sleep/eat somewhere (although they can), they just log off. A lot of people (myself included) have homes that blur the lines of a house and something else .... my houses look more like open parks than houses. So just as I prefer homes that look like they are forests, I am sure just as many people prefer homes that look like, oh, office buildings.

Or if you decide it based on personal property that blurs the lines too. Is it group land or what? Just about everyone I know that has a home forms a group for it so they can get the tier bonus, so that can not be used as the deciding factor.

BTW Mari, you raised a lot of good things in your posts, I am waiting to see them answered as well. Lindens?

What is the underlying assumption that imposing classifications on behaviors and content is addressing? While we discuss all the nuances of definitions, I want to challenge LL to provide the basis for having these rules at all.

Is it due to national and international legal issues? If so, then the policy should be one that addresses the legal responsibilities, rather than concensus of appropriate definitions for G, teen, PG, adult, mature, etc. That is just wasting time.

Is it due to the cultural or religious preferences of LL's leadership? If so, how do these beliefs mesh with corporate strategy and long-term goals? Will this continue to be a source of friction as more inhabitants increase the cultural and religious variety in-world?

Finally, how do we quantitatively, without bias, measure the financial effects to all stakeholders that such qualitative constraints have on SL's evolution?

Keep your eye on the ball, folks... It's all about the money. Mitch Kapor, the VC's, and the top lindens can't cash out. They want to move on to other things but they have millions tied up in LL and SL. They can't cash out until they do an IPO and go public to sell stock. Their LL and SL holdings are basically worthless until they do that. And they can't market SL to Wall Street with all this evil "sex" going on inworld. They need to purge SL of all sexually oriented content so they can do that. Sex Biz's will be first... and then they will go after individual land owners... It's a win-win from their perspective. They get to sell a bunch of new mainland on the new 'Adult' continent. And collect double tier fees while this 'transition' occurs. So, this is all about the money. Not about some people being offended by sexual content.

Cynical, but very likely close to the mark. What they fail to realize is that corporations won't flock to SL *even if all sexual content is removed entirely*.

The sexual content is only ONE reason that corporate America doesn't choose SL as a platform. There are other drawbacks from a corporate viewpoint. Stability, reliabililty, security, and bandwidth requirements, just to start.

SL is ill-suited as a corporate tool. But, it is an ideal ENTERTAINMENT platform. Why LL can't see this and embrace it with both hands I can't understand. Entertainment, after all, is big business. There's money to be made, LL...you're looking in the WRONG PLACE. It's not the corporations that will make you rich. It's US, the people who came here, and will continue to come here, for entertainment.

But if you kill the major SL entertainment (virtual sex), you kill off your major market and drive away your primary customer base. Not directly...not everyone here engages in cybersex, and those that do, may only do so occasionally. But a lot of the NON-sexual content supports, and is supported by, the sexual content.

Why does a guy buy a tux, a girl buy a formal, and they go to a romantic ballroom? One or both of them is at least THINKING of the possibility of sex, later on. Maybe that night, maybe next week. But that's why they are there, looking good for each other, in a romantic setting. Why does a person buy land, buy a house, furnish it with poseballs and a scripted bed? They might have sex there once a week, once a month...but the possibility is one of the reasons they bought that stuff.

You are doing a lot more here than just cordoning off some minor segment of Second Life content and activity. This will affect everyone, and everything, in some way.

I couldn't agree more. If the original intent behind the SL concept was to capture corporate clients hoping they would flock to SL as a virtual work/meeting environment, that design was doomed to failure the moment SL was opened up to non-corporate accounts. While I often ponder at the business case behind allowing free use of SL, I also wonder just what the profit margin is and who is really the financial backbone supporting the vast infrastructure behind our alternative reality?

I don't believe that everything we are being told or led to believe reveals the entire truth behind the motivation for this and other "changes".

You asked for input concerning ideas for what the definitions for "Adult" may be. So this post is my personal reaction to the issue. As a sexually active adult, I have no problem wandering into a shop that sells sexual animations, or seeing explicit clothing for sale, or sexual artwork, and other items. In most of the clubs I frequent, the women dress extremely provocatively. None of this has any detrimental effect on my SL experience, and in fact I don't mind it at all. And if I am in a sex animation store, I don't mind seeing dressed avatars testing out the merchandise.

What I do not like is seeing nude avatars having intercourse (cuddling and kissing is fine), in a public place. And I do not like weapons being fired at or around me. And I don't want to be approached by an "escort" (thought I'm female, so chances are slim anyway).

So for me, all in all, I don't think an entire "project" is warranted here. It's simply - outlaw public nude intercourse, such as in public parks and shopping areas, and no weapons firing in public, and job done.

As in real life, it's not hard to avoid what you don't want to see. Don't go into a sex toys shop if you don't want to see sex toys. Don't go into a club advertising "escorts" if your not "looking for fun" that night. And there are already weapons areas, so only griefers are running around shooting up the place, and should be handled via means already in place.

So that's my opinion to add to the mix.

Leah

I think the the choice of labels is a mistake and is going to continue to cause confusion and misunderstanding.

As I seem to understand so far, "PG", "Mature", and "Adult" are roughly analogous to Flickr's "Safe", "Moderate" and "Restricted" flags, with "Mature" intended to be the default rating for the majority of typical SL stuff and "PG" and "Adult" being the opposite extremes.

The problem is that for a lot of people, "Mature" and "Adult" are synonymous. So when someone asks "How about my skin store?", you get one Linden saying "That's not Adult" and another Linden saying "That would be Mature", and it already sounds like your contradicting yourselves.

I think choosing some less ambiguous labels would make this process a lot easier and less confusing. Flickr's "Safe, Moderate, and Restricted" would be much clearer.

Friday 13th, and Linden poke a stick into an angry wasps nest!

I think most people would agree that the grid should remain more or less as it is. It is already broken up into the private islands, and the mainland with its PG and Mature rated areas. The only thing that it would make sense to modify is the way the SIMs are arranged. I mean, it is possible to buy PG land joined up to Mature land, and then there is no avoiding being faced with something that might be offensive to a PG person.

A number of people on the forum seem to have gone into panic mode - believing
LL are going to merge Adult and Teen grids - this surely would never happen. The pitfalls of this are far too instantly obvious.

I really do not see the sense in what LL are proposing, though. It seems to me they are either trying to alienate the more "hardcore" fantasists, or trying to get fewer ARs being submitted to their understaffed Governance Team office. Or maybe they are just attempting to herd all the more "unsavory" characters into one place where they can get law enforcement agencies to monitor people easier?? ^^

Trouble is, there are many explorers among the residents and they are always going to run the risk of landing randomly smack in the middle of a sex club from time to time.

Most things should be easy enough to TP from without lasting mental scarring (I could have happily gone to my grave I have to say without being witness to nappy fetishists, although bukkake has been quite an education to me !!!!!!). What I am trying to say here, quite badly I admit, is that Second Life is "your world, your imagination", and there are always going to be people who are greatly offended by somebody else's actions. It is impossible to please all of the people all of the time.

BUT ... and its a massive BUT ... there needs to be clearer definitions on what is allowable under the Terms of Service and Community Standards. Child avatars for example. While I fully understand why anybody would want to relive life as a child, and would want to use SL for this purpose, I have seen far too many people sexualising children, and this is never right. Advertising children's skin and clothing, with nipples or otherwise, should NEVER be a problem. Good heavens, nudity, especially on children, should be seen as something beautiful AND INNOCENT. Unfortunately, as there is a cross-section of the worldwide community using Second Life, there will be an element of law-breakers within. LL need to be focussing more on those issues, rather than just trying to pacify residents with these barmy suggestions of segregation. Heck, like it has been pointed out by previous forum inputters, where will it end.... furries, religious groups, ginger haired people ... will we all end up having to remain in our own little segregated corners of SL?

I do not envy the Lindens who have the job of collating all this information, but Well Done on releasing the most controversial Blog so far this year!

That's funny. I thought when it said "Mature" that meant Adult.

How silly of me to think that.

Agreed.

How about these ratings?

P - Professional. What you would feel comfortable seeing in a cubicle farm or behind a cash register. Business casual.

F - Family. What you would feel comfortable seeing in a public park or on a beach with children around.

M - Mature.

X - OMG TEH PORNS.

In each case, the next level up is permitted in enclosed spaces. So your P sim can have "Booth Babes" in the exhibit hall. Sims with more than one difference in ratings would never be next to each other (directly or diagonally).

Well LL the case has been made strongly for why your attempt to "define” adult (i.e. legislate morality) are specious, ill-conceived, and at best unenforceable. With only 2-3% of SL being classified under your current “thinking” as adult, doesn’t it seem that this is hardly a problem? You know that you will never satisfy everyone. These arbitrary new rules then only serve a minority of your customer base. Why does this particular minority deserve to restrict the majority?

So let us see what seems to have you so unnerved. Please post your report detailing the complaints (surely there is a memo, PowerPoint, or briefing that was compiled and presented to upper management). Show us the statistics, who are these people (not their real names, of course), but what do they do, how do they contribute, how long to they persist in SL? What is making this minority so important that you are willing to piss off the majority of your customers? Let us see the comments, because they clearly aren’t posting in your forum…so let us see what they are posting to you in private.

I think you missed the gist of my post. As I stated, this can be solved by technical means - and it wouldn't be all that hard to do in the grand scheme of things. It wouldn't require rezoning AT ALL. It would cause significantly reduced impact to residents than the existing Linden proposal, which is really unworkable as it is an enforcement nightmare.

I think we should make everything that isn't covered by a burka 'adult content'! Given what censorship has done for stars such as Mae West and Madonna, we should be celebrating this as an opportunity to stimulate the economy! Just imagine the stampede to see the 'naughty' items! Just picture the mobs of people running to take a little peek just for the titillation!

"Once you decide to titillate instead of illuminate . . . you create a climate of expectation that requires a higher and higher level of intensity." Bill Moyers

"I believe in censorship. After all, I made a fortune out of it." Mae West

"The dirtiest book of all is the expurgated book." - Walt Whitman

Bring it on!!! Lemonade out of lemons! ... or in this case, perhaps, lemonade out of crotchless panties!

;-D

Wow, Coyle, well said! Bravo.

...is, and have always been, hypocritical. A stupid and inefficient way to try to control culture. All facist states have tried it one way or another and now the turn comes to Second Life.

It bears repeating that Second Life is VIRTUAL, VOLUNTARY and ADULT. There is a huge difference between SL and RL. Seeking to apply RL standards to a virtual world is silly.

VIRTUAL: There is no safer place on Earth than the privacy of your RL home. In SL you can:

- live without fear of physical injury
- retain complete RL personal privacy
- mute an avatar or an object
- teleport to a different location
- fly to a different location
- build house in the sky
- disable particle rendering
- log out

VOLUNTARY: One must sign up for an account.

ADULT: No kids allowed.

By definition, everyone in SL is an adult. That means one has passed through puberty, has learned to relate to people and become responsible for one's decisions - including the decision to be in a virtual world with other adults. As an adult, one recognizes and accepts that people have different styles and tastes and that rudeness or harassment should not be confused with sexuality. Welcome to adulthood, folks.

I think this is generally a good idea, and understand that some of this is a form of legal "heading off at the pass," but it doesn't take long to find the fatal flaw here ... Blondin and Jeska are mostly giving contrary answers to the same questions. Blondin has made mention to those selling sexual content or making sexual content available to the public (paraphrased), and insists that people's privacy will be protected, while Jeska has casually mentioned nudity ... nudity in your own home, as having the potential for being considered mature, under current guidelines.

Potter Stewart is dead folks, and he couldn't define it either. There are studies that have shown that what a person finds offensive today, that exact same person may see differently tomorrow, and vice-versa.

As mentioned, I'm generally in favor of this, but feel that less emphasis should be placed on the morality and/or immorality, which is completely subjective .. and instead concentrate on what can be defined. This is the tact that governments have taken ... you can't put a strip club next to a school ... You can't display a naked woman on a sign outside the door to a building, and at the same time must post notice that you will be seeing nude pictures if you step inside.

Concentrate on what you can enforce, by concentrating on what you can measure. Stay off the Potter Stewart definitions, that you will never be able to define.

the definition of what is adult has to much much better then what it now and also include
what type violence is allowed in pg or mature sims.

example: In the USA seeing a breast/nipple is sexual content but in Europe
we don't see that as sexual and in middle east seeing a girls ankle is reason
to stone a girl.

The hole discussion go about adult content but adult content is not only sexual but also pictures about war.

few weeks i tp by accendent in a 'art gallery' (PG sim) where they show pictures of war.
there where also pictures of car crashed (close up) where you can see that people had died
or seeing how they execute people

its much more annoying to see that kind of pictures then see a breast or something like that.

Well, for instance, there may be an area that handles mature information, such as a SIM that deals with counselling and touches on sexual health or issues of abuse, etc. This is technically "adult" due to the fact that sexually explicit terms will be in use. But it is not a sexually-based SIM. So perhaps there should be a further term:

Mature for those areas with adult content that is not typical of a sex club and Adult for those that are.

Still, the best defense is knowing were to go and where not to go. I think the bulk of the burden should rest with the individual. I'm a VERY conservative person in SL and RL, so I avoid places with inappropriate content. I have the right to not sign on if I feel SL is offensive, right?

Noorah

How can someone with more than 5 braincells think nudity is offensive?
Why are you so afraid of sex?
and even with that: how much of SL economy depends of the sex business? (and how much money is earning LL thanks the sex business?)
Why don't LL just stimulate another activities and attracts ppl interested in more than sex (censorship is an easier method than imagination, I know)
and finally: will we have to show our ID car before each sex session or only once? (if only once, why not during the registration process, so you can let the SL world remain free?)

Adult is a misleading name as everyone here is adult and we are used to "mature" meaning normal regions.

Instead please call it either "XXX" or even better "Pornographic"
This way there will be no confusion about what it means.

I have just seen this latest wheeze from Linden and, to be perfectly honest, it makes my blood boil! The question I find myself asking is, "Have they gone mad?"
I have no issue with the idea of keeping underage people out of adult sims. Every sane adult in SL would want that. However, I find myself questioning the way they wish to implement age verification.
What they are asking for is totally unreasonable, illegal in some parts of the world and just plain stupid. What sane person is going to be stupid enough to divulge personal informatin such as Birth Certificate details, Driving Licence or Passport data or Bank Account information?
So, Linden Labs, think this out properly. The idea of protecting under age person from viewing adult material is laudable, but your way of verifying information is extremely ill-vised. Most people are not going to give you sensitive information and if you insist on this you will have a revolt which will lose you business and damage SL irrevocably.
So, think again before it is too late!

I don't really get the point in asking people about their definition of what they consider "adult".

The definition changes according to the part of the world u live in.

As a European citizen I have often been surprised to see how some foreign tourists react when they see our adverts in town featuring naked men and women trying to convice you to buy a cell phone or a car )

What is completely normal and casual to us was offensive to them..

So what about people living in countries where showing your hair is considered offensive?
Who is going to decide if they are right or wrong ?
On what criteria?
Who would decide in the end what is "acceptable"?

Northern Europe considers nudity acceptable. U see naked people on beaches and even in public parks. Talibans consider that women must go hidden under a burka...
Who is right ? Who is wrong ?

I'm reading the "Maturity Ratings: an overview" page on the knowledge base ( https://support.secondlife.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=4417&task=knowledge&questionID=6010 ), and I'm baffled by the obvious disconnect between these guidelines (last edited yesterday) and a number LL comments about skins and casual nudity not being considered adult.

In particular: "Representations of explicit sexual conduct or genitalia, whether or not photo-realistic ("sexual conduct" will be defined inclusively, to include all erotic themes), Representations of intense violence depicting death, torture, dismemberment or other severe bodily harm, Photo-realistic nudity"

This is *far* more restricted (on the face of it) than the obvious PG and R ratings would suggest - as many others have mentioned, genitalia (photo realistic or not) is visible in nearly every serious art museum in the world, erotic themed literature is available in nearly every RL bookstore, erotic themes are at least implied by a significant number of children's movies, death is commonplace everywhere, and photo realistic nudity is commonplace.

I must assume that the published guidelines are trial balloons, as they're clearly at odds with the intentions stated on this thread, as well as the statistics that only a few percentage points of mainland content will have to move.

I'd suggest that the ratings be "general", "mature", and "explicit", where explicit means "intentionally explicit sexual and/or violent content", mature extends to anything you might see in a mainline movie theater (nudity, non-explicit sexual content and eroticism, non-explicit violence (yah, I know - R rated horror movies are very very VERY explicit)), and general would be safe for work and wouldn't make you uncomfortable to have the neighbor's kid watching over your shoulder.

IMHO, the goal should be to make it clear that art, skin and animation vendors at all realism levels, casual nudity, all combat, and most roleplay would not have to move.

Additional thoughts:
- consider having the adult continent have themed areas - I'm *not* suggesting required segregation, but rather have regions designed to support various themes and activities (dark sims for horror, etc) - maybe give sim design rights to the larger occupants as partial recompense for having to move.
- The guidelines must directly address child avatars, public roleplay, and other possibly sticky issues. People might not like the guidelines you end up with, but ambiguity and random-seeming policy changes have caused an awful lot of ill-will in the past.
- take this opportunity to rename the ratings to match the meaning. The current ratings terms (PG=G, R=PG-XXX) is confusing at best.
- consider separating violence and sexuality into different categories - many people have very very different tolerance levels for the two. Furthermore, pulling both types of content at the same time into the same new space draws a rather disturbing equivalence.
- you've got to deal with age verification before you do this - a beta solution that definitely doesn't work for large numbers of people isn't good enough when you will be impacting people's businesses