"Age play" in SL

One time, I got really pissed at this guy. I vented my frustration by logging on to steam and playing HL2DM for a couple of hours. My other option was to put my boot to his face in real life. Obviously I am aware of things like karma and police officers, so it was not a hard decision to play HL2DM instead.

I can see the argument that this play could foster real life crime, but many have also said that about violent video games, and no one has been able to show a positive correlation between the act of virtually shooting people and the act of physically shooting them in real life. Personally I'd rather people abuse, beat up, and kill each other online, than in the real world. Of course, you can point at Kliebold and Harris and say that they shot up Columbine High, and what did videogames and Marilyn Manson songs have to do with it, etc., but I can just as easily point out that humans have been doing wretchedly evil things to each other since time immemorial, without the help of Counterstrike and Marilyn Manson.

Also, a note about this particular subject area. A few years ago I was browsing an oekaki board. (Basically, a forum, but it centers around pictures people draw with Java applets.) I came across a picture this Brazilian lady had drawn of a prepubescent Harry Potter with his pants off and a pool cue up his ass. I posted, saying, "Please don't have any children." It backfired. Everyone jumped down my throat about it. I decided to leave the oekaki board after that (and also because the Harry Potter picture wasn't the only one I disliked.) That was the best solution. Expressing dislike of the way someone else likes to assemble pixels online is generally an exercise in futility. You won't change them or what they like through criticism, any more than you will change any aspect of any person through criticism - humans do not work that way.

You should have. If more people got the odd boot in their faces maybe there would be less rampant asshattery. As long as people do not have to suffer the consequences of their actions they will always assume the worst possible behavior. Humans are just animals. They learn how to behave through reward and punishment.

If I had acted on that impulse, I would only have been inviting problems into my life. I could have gone to jail, he could have defeated me, the violence could have continued to escalate until one or both of us died, etc. That is just not the way to go about living in civilization. I still don't like him, but karma will do much more damage to him than I am likely to.

It's so easy to imagine yourself getting into a fight with someone and beating the shit out of them without taking even a scratch in return. In real life, it doesn't work that way. Sometimes one of the combatants leaves in a body bag, and more often, they both leave in irons. Because I played HL2DM, I got to sleep in my own bed that night.

I think the paedophiles have landed in SL.

Along with sex slave traders, masochists, sadomasochists, bestiality folks, BDSM folks, gorean kids, and furries.

What's your point? SL is a cornucopia of sexual deviance. One man's fetish is another man's jail sentence.

Clean all of it up or none of it at all.

LF

Interesting point. I'm going to just stay on the sidelines and see how things pan out for the moment...

Umm.... huh? About the biggest sacrifice anyone would have to make is refraining from virtual child moestation. Was that your point? About making a sacrifice? Or was it that you don't want children? Or was it that since your not a parent, no one's concerns but yours matter?

/me pulls out gibberish sifter in an attempt to make sense of this

Desensitization to violence has been going on for quite awhile. I don't think a video game will make anyone more likely to shoot someone. In bits and pieces, throughout the years, acts that used to be abhorrent to people have become mundane. Pedophilia is one of the few abhorrent things that has managed to stay abhorrent. Giving it an outlet online to "play" at it seems to be a poor plan IMHO.

You need to read the arguments presented in this thread more carefully.

The difference between this one behavior and all of the other sets you have described is the relative vulnerability and powerlessness of the group of human beings (children) who are subject to it - and who cannot make a choice.

Your argument is false and destructive. To allow for this sort of pedophilic adult behavior is to encourage an environment recreates the child as an object of abject sexual oppression without recourse. And that is less ethical than the worst features of forced slavery.

Again - for about the fifth time in this thread - the difference between the behavior under discussion and the ones you've mentioned is the status and condition of children in human society. All other people have choices to make regarding their own participation in sexual behavior. Children do not. It is necessary therefore for adults to have different standards when it comes to issues relating to them.

There's a few things I do unquestioningly, and one of them is to protect Children the world over, and ensure they get to live their childhood in peace without adult crap like sex and stuff getting in their way. I agree, children are vulnerable and need the adults around them to work together as their collective guardians.

Just curious, Seth - are you in the group of people who believe that women who are victims of rape "invited" the crime?

(edited to add) Oh, and, um... bestiality - animals make the choice to allow people to have sex with them too?

There are many other roleplayed sexual behaviours that mimic a situation where one or more participants have not made the choice to be there. Not just age play. LF's comment is valid.

1. No. I am currently the chair of the rape crisis team at the institution where I work. I know better.

2. Perhaps you'd like to make a worthy comment about the issue at hand, instead of a deflective and suggestive attack? Frankly, Lisse, I thought better of you.

As for your edited comments - I refer you back again to the status and condition of children in society. If you want to understand the issue in its entirety, you need to think in their terms, as well as your own.

Are you really equating animals with children?

I've seen this whole issue thrashed out over and over again, during my 14 years in the internet, mostly concerning MU* behaviours. The arguement is the same each time. No-one changes their point of view. Age play isn't going to go away. I've really not wanted to get drawn into this, but your singling out children as the only part of society worthy of special protection rankled with me.



Yes, Seth - I am. If you think less of me because I do so, so be it. I have owned and worked with animals for much of my adult life, and I do not see why they deserve less protection.

You have not addressed my point that you appear to be okay with people roleplaying sexual violence against women, but not with people roleplaying a sexual relationship with a minor. That's just wonderful that you're on the rape crisis team, but the arguments put forward here (that age play would lead someone to perform RL child molestation) can equally be applied to quite a few of the other items in LF's list.

Vince, are you suggesting LL actually has a plan to provide a specific outlet for people who engage in age play?!

There is a big difference between encourgament and prevention. In this case, LL neither encourages nor prevents such behaviour. And were they to take any steps to try to prevent such behaviour, it would simply be taken elsewhere. People who enjoy age play are not going to just disappear. There are many, many other venues for them to roleplay to their heart's content.

And as for all the people who believe that age play is far more likely to lead to RL child abuse than roleplaying other illegal, non-consensual, and icky behaviours - I'm more inclined to believe you if you can point to scientific studies that have proved this, or your own credentials in the field of behavioural medicine. So far, all I've seen is "gut" feelings that this is the case.

Agreed on your first statement. Your second statement about "singling children out" is unsupported. Given the evidence, and who children are - why would you not afford them special protection?

(A level-headed answer to that question, btw, is what I would term a "worthy response".)



I thought less of you because you introduced a personalized, deflective rhetorical device involving the rape of women - instead of a point. You probably knew the answer to the question before you asked it. You're usually far more balanced than that. But I see now that you have a "stake" in protecting animals - just as I have a "stake" in protecting women and children. So if I were to say that these are both issues about which we feel some passion - I suspect you'd agree with me.



Yes, I did - in my previous response, and in this one. You've trivialized it in the paragraph above. I won't dwell on this - except to say that I am not happy with a lot of behaviour I see toward women in real life, and a lot I see modeled in Second Life.

However, you're making a false analogy. My point remains - and it is one that you have avoided: women have choices, privileges, and powers in society far beyond those of children - especially female children. The standards that we apply to children are necessarily different than those we apply to adults, for obvious ethical and practical reasons.

Okay, one last post to present my own feelings on the matter, and then I'm outta this thread for good (I hope!)

For all of you who share the OP's point of view, are you really telling me that (hypothetical example):

A person has a crush on one of their high school teachers when they are 13, 14 years old. (It happens. A lot.)

Later in life, when they are much older, and in a stable, happy married relationship, they think it would be fun to roleplay out what might have happened if that teacher had reciprocated and acted on those feelings. (It happens. A lot.)

They discuss it with their spouse, and in the privacy of their own bedroom, roleplay the situation to its sexual conclusion. (It happens. A lot.)

...that this would mean they have now opened the door to their spouse being tempted into actual child abuse?! And that both participants should now be shunned by society?!

Oh, puleeeeze..... this is all we're talking about here. Consenting adults roleplaying something that is fun for them that may or may not have roots in their experiences while children. Classic psychology tells us that this is where most "kinks" come from, whether we like it or not. We are not talking about people going out and abusing actual children! We're really not. You're just drumming up the same hysteria that has historically led to mass violence against gays, communists and jews (oh wait, that's the Hitler reference, must be time for the thread to die).

All I can say at this point is that I'm not sure whether you're trying to respond or vent - or whether there's a personal thing going on here that I don't fully understand - and is none of my business, anyway.

One small point, however - the example you've related concerns the personal history of two consenting adults inside a marriage relationship who have a past together that relates to age differentials. It is not, IMO, relative to the subject under discussion - although I'm sure there will be people who will claim that it does, and talk about "slippery slopes", intervention into the bedrooms by Sex Nazis, and such.

The original post in the thread was an insincere troll and everyone is doing just what the guy wanted, right?


He's just looking for likely prospects I take it?

And for the 6th time - Excellent!

In the end, the solution will be a compromise which has nothing to do with whats fair and everything to do with what's practical.

That being said, the conversation is still truly interesting.

Should we be arrested for the crimes we commit in our head? What if we speak those crimes out loud, alone? What if we speak them out loud in our bedrooms with our partner? What if we speak them over a telephone? Over a computer?

Seth, I was going to PM U and let U know that U have, more eloquently than I, stated exactly my feelings on this, in many ways. And many of the issues brought up are NOT the same as the original posters intent. But I decided why PM U...I will say it here....well done AND well thought out...TY

o rly.

Okay, let's go through my list...

BDSM -- a sexual form which usually entails the use of bondage equipment, meaning the tying and "bonding" of someone down at the whim of another person. They are usually, indeed, helpless, with only a particular "Safeword" given when the pain is too uncomfortable. This "lifestyle" is usually dependent on pain, or the sensation of pain, for sexual gratification. Again, this is usually absolutely dependent on someone being "helpless" for the duration of the sexual experienc.

Dominants/submissives -- this lifestyle is an offshoot of BDSM, and may employ many of the same practices, with the added twist of one person acting as "Master" and the other person acting as "slave".

Take a look at that word again -- "slave". Generally, it's meaning in the classical sense (someone forced to do another's bidding) applies, only sexually (or in some cases, an entire lifestyle). Different strokes are for different folks; some "slaves" only liek to be told what to do, while others insist on being punished, slapped, beaten, tied up, whatever. Once again, most D/s relationships rely on power exchange, and the use of a "Safeword" in order to ensure the safety of both participants.

Gorean culture -- a further offshoot of D/s, this one usually employs an entire lifestyle and living choice on those involved. Instead of simply being played out in the bedroom, Goreans tend to live out the Gorean "lifestyle" in full -- that is, generally the women are treated as property, and the men are the "masters" in this world.

Bestiality -- fucking an animal that has no idea what the fuck is going on is the epitome of helplessness, wouldnt' you agree?

Now, what's age play? You know, the point of this thread?

Two consenting adults roleplaying a situation in which one person is substantially older than the other, sexually or not.

Is that worse than slavery, donkey fucking, or domestic violence? Or is it just the same?




So binding a human being to be a sexual slave, acting out rape roleplays, and so on, is "better" than a teacher/student scenario? What's your logic there? It's entirely subjective.

One kink is no worse than the other.



Children are no more special than women. Both should be treated with the utmost human decency. To simply dismiss virtual slavery as a harmless kink while rallying against age play scenarios is hypocritical and short-sighted.

Either get rid of it all, or keep it all. Your choice. There is no middle ground here.

Decide well.

LF

I think people are uneasy because most if not all kinks are based on consent, but child kinks are based on non consent, and do in actuality border on the simulation of rape. By definition a child cannot give consent for something they have not the mental resources to understand.

If it were a six year old on the other keyboard, I'd agree.

But we're talking about consenting adults here, just like in BDSM, D/s, etc.

The power exchange is the same. The kinks are different.

LF