Ageplay

Back up and answer these simply put questions:

If a grown man is masturbating to an video of a small child giving oral sex to an adult man, even if that child is now an adult because the video was taken years ago, is there a crime being committed?

What if that same man is masturbating to the image of his grown avatar giving oral sex to an 8-year-old boy avatar, no, no crime is being committed... does that man find sex with children exciting and if so, why? Is the fact that that man is spending every evening masturbating to SL imagry of child sexual abuse, cause for concern?

Only if you are sane and care at all about the safety of children.

Funny thing is, Kendra, I *HAVE* seen the stuff you describe in SL, Albiet furries. Kinda disturbing, they have a whole sim for it

THe Green-screen sex studios were also wierd there. Poseballs on a flat colormatched green background.

I agree with you on this point (and you actually made me laugh out loud with the oshkosh b'gosh reference).

Of course they are crimes --REAL children were exploited in the producing of those videos.
The crime of pedophilia by definition must involve an actual child.

I don't know if the man finds the idea of sex with an 8 year old exciting --or if he finds the idea of an adult who is acting like an 8 year old exciting --and neither do you.

I'd be concerned about any man (or woman) masturbating to any SL imagery ever night to be cause for concern.

Please, if it's so dangerous, point me to an actual study done by a reputable health or justice organization that shows this correlation. Otherwise, it's "obvious" to me you are pretty much blowing smoke. You might think my position is silly, I think your tone of guilty until proven innocent is even sillier, and much more potentially dangerous.

Don't get me started on things I've seen in furries :::hudder::::

Woah... IN furries?

How is it you people find this stuff? In my entire year in SL I've never stumbled upon what's come up in these threads. Yet in mere days...

I have zero tolerance for actual pedophilia in SL or any online service, but the question then becomes what does one do about it?

I posted earlier to bella in another thread to back away from the forums and address her concerns directly with LL. I'm an abuse survivor myself --clearly she's been triggered and is experiencing a re-trauma of the original event(s)

People should definately be more respectful of her pain on the forums and frankly I think one of the reasons LL opened up a teen grid had much to do with this problem.

I, myself, wrote LL many letters of concern before the teen grid opened, and I'd like to think in some small way I had something to do with it's creation.

The harder problem is adults who fantasize about being with children --on that point I have zero clue what to do, but then I'm used to id'ing with the victim.

Kendra, I left out RL part of age play, because I was trying discuss the SL part of age play. I am well aware of RL age play, matter of fact I have known about RL Ageplay, AB/DL for 10 years now.

You find what you look for.

Me, I haven't been in a single sex club in SL. I haven't seen furries mating. I haven't seen kid avvies having sex. I haven't been looking for it.

To the OP: I have a couple of child avatars. I'm not trying to recreate my childhood, and I'm sure as hell not interested in my kid avatars having sex. I don't claim to have a degree in psychology, but I can tell you pretty plainly why I have them. I'm a roleplayer. Tabletop games for several years, a couple years in City of Heroes, and now for a bit in SL. I enjoy being something other than myself. I'm not a child, nor am I a faerie, nor am I a vampire, nor am I a hexapodal superpredator from a high-G world. I've roleplayed all of 'em though.

"My degree is in psychology and I can assure you from everything I know that pretending to be a child in SL who is interacting with other adults pretending to be children is not going to cure any childhood psychological issues or give someone back a lost childhood. I am someone who lost my childhood to sexual abuse and the last thing on Earth I want to do is to create a child avatar and allow strangers to interact with me in hope that I will be treated as I should have been when I was really a child."

What sort of psychological training do you have? What's your degree? How many other psychiatrists/psychologists/mental health researchers agree with you? I believe this is referred to as an 'appeal to authority' argument. So is your use of your own experience with childhood abuse; not everyone reacts to it the same way. In your case, I could easily suggest that your submissive tendencies and obsession with simulated sex acts stem from that trauma. I wouldn't, because I don't actually know you, and unlike you, I do not claim to have a degree in psychology.

"As an adult woman exploring SL, I can't enter a building without at least a couple of sexually charged comments. As it so happens, I not only am okay with that but enjoy it because I am an adult and the people being suggestive are also adults and therefore it is appropriate. I dress very provocatively and I say thank you if someone comments on the beauty of my avatar. Does anyone really think that in a game as huge as SL, I could fly around as a child avatar and not attract the attention of people who view children as sexual objects?"

I've never had sexually charged comments aimed at me; not from strangers, at any rate. Then again, I do not hang out at sex clubs, and I'm not sure if I dress provocatively by your standards. I might or might not be okay with it, depending on the nature of the comment and the apparent intent behind it. As for flying around as a child avatar and attracting the attention of those who view children as sexual objects... I can't help that. I might fly around as a banana and attract those who have a paraphilia involving fruit.

bella, in a nutshell, you're overreacting. You saw someone in a child avvie engaged in questionable activity... not cut-and-dried pedophilic activity, questionable activity. You are, in return, apparently calling for censorship. I believe your outrage at what you perceived, as well as your own fixation on SL as a sexual medium, have combined to convince you that you have to save us from ourselves.

God save me from the people who want to save me.

Better question, how do we know the claim about having a degree isn't just unsubstantiated warmed leavings of a male cow?

Like the saying goes, on the internet, noone knows if you're a dog... or in this case a BS artist making a false claim to some kind of certification or other authority that doesn't really exist.

But then I'm a cynical, skeptical bastard (figuratively, my parents were married to one another before my conception, thank you ), which may well be skewing my perceptions just a wee little bit...

Well stated!

I saw what I saw in a what I thought was a general interest dance club, not a sex club. The dance club was sexually charged as most of them are.



So now I have to upload my college degree to make a point?

And who said I had an obsession with simulated sex? I tend to get the real thing on demand. In SL, I like the flirtation and the positive healthy exploration of adults.



So what if you attract a person with a paraphilia involving fruit... the fruit won't have its life ruined later that night when daddy creeps into the bedroom after watching your banana avatar ingage in sex with an adult.



I couldn't care less about saving you, I'm interested in saving children. You may want to ignore the reality of what this behavior signals but anyone who cares about anything other than their own personal gratification can't simply stand by.

Censorship is not always a bad thing. Racists and hate mongers are censored in SL, why not paedophiles? Is it worse to call someone a racial slur than to rape a child?

Sex is only for procreation. As this is not currently possible with Second Life all sex should be banned. Please think of the children.

That's cute... maybe you are right and I am a prude because while I think all sex in every variation between consenting adults is fun and healthy, perhaps I'm just a fuddy-duddy prude for thinking we should draw the line when it comes to including children or lifelike visual representations of children.

Sex is usually the process by which those children come about. Therefore, thinking about the children would actually be *pro*-sex.


Instead, think of all the puritanical dogmists who think natural processes that might end up being enjoyable should be considered evil. That'll be more appropriate


- Newfie

Addressing one point at a time....
1) So every time people dance its a sexually charged atmosphere? PEOPLE create their own moods... you might be feeling sexually charged out there on the dance floor, but it's unreasonable to assume everyone else is. But lets say for a moment that it was, that the child avatar was dancing with another avatar and there was a sexual element to it. Granted I dont find that ok either, in fact it makes me shudder at the thought... but it is dancing, they are not having sex in front of you and therefore there is nothing illegal happening to report, merely uncomfortable and unpleasant.

2) Pedophiles will do what they do regardless of what they see or don't see on their computer screens. Adults are not MADE child abusers because they witness abusive acts.... they seek out abusive acts to witness because they are ALREADY abusers.

3) If you really want to save children, focus on helping those who are actively attempting to weed out the ACTUAL children posing as adults in this adult environment. They are the ones at risk of being damaged by what they are exposed to.

4) The censoring of racists or hatemongers or any other censoring that occurs are cases in which the criminal act was obvious and the motive clear. By censoring adults dressing as children you are punishing them for an ASSUMED act and ASSUMED motive based on your own perceptions. You can't possibly know what is inside their minds and therefore you are censoring them based only on what YOU think they might be up to.

When there are no real children involved, censorship is a bad thing. There are no children being raped in SL. Your appeals to emotion and authority fallacies are just that - fallacious.

What kind of college teaches people that age-play automatically makes people paedophiles?

I feel for you that you were abused as a child, I really do, but that doesn't give you the right to label people who engage in pixelated role play as criminals, and to try and dictate what type of RP consenting adults can engage in.

No children have been included in anything you saw. You saw adults, over the age of 18.

Lifelike visual representations of minors are not legally pedophilia in the United States. If the acts depicted are all performed by adults aged 18 or over, its not child pornography. Child porn laws exist to protect children. No children involved, no child pornography.

If you personally dislike it, then you have every right to avoid places/websites/books/magazines that depict it.

If you are trained in psychology, as you claim, then you're fully aware that pedophilia is not a direct cause of visual stimuli that depicts the acts in question. Anyone engaging in age play, while potentially distasteful to a third party, is still fully within their rights to do so. A better avenue for your protective energies would be to support or get involved with domestic abuse counselling, sexual abuse counselling, etc. - things that stop the cycle of violence and that actually help. You're attacking the wrong monster.

I've addressed your other points in other posts.

But #4 here means that I can wear a KKK outfit or a swastika on my forehead and it should be just fine with everyone because while it might LOOK like I am a person with a seriously dangerous agenda, as long as I don't actually commit a crime in front of you (which most paedophiliacs tend to try not to do because of that whole jail thing...) you can't act on it.

Funny tho, something tells me I wouldn't last very long in SL dressed as a Klansman or a Nazi... even if I argued that my fantasy is only to have sex with other people just pretending to hate.

As i pointed out before you do have a tendency to take one person's statement and blow it up to huge proportions to make your own point... that being hardly close to what I said, i'll go ahead and bite anyway.

The answer is yes. As much as I personally dislike it, it is in fact not illegal in my state in RL, nor as far as I know in SL (someone correct me if i'm wrong) to walk around with a swastika on your forehead or a KKK robe on your body. It offends me. I don't like it. I myself am not the blonde haired blue eyed pale skinned object of societies idea of perfection and therefor those things tend to offend me VERY much. When I see it, I have every right to tell you personally that I don't like it. But complaining about it will not get you arrested. For that you have to commit an actual crime.

Now let's look at what I DID actually try to say.... "By censoring adults dressing as children you are punishing them for an ASSUMED act and ASSUMED motive based on your own perceptions. You can't possibly know what is inside their minds and therefore you are censoring them based only on what YOU think they might be up to."

You are assuming that people dressed as children are doing it for sexual reasons and that is unfair to them. My partner/Master/Husband in SL desires me... my mind, my body and probably even the pretty cartoon body I've created for him there. When I change my avatar into a giant skunk, I'm still me. We dont go jumping up and down on pose balls because it isn't our thing.. but if you see us out and about and i'm dressed as a giant skunk, do you have the right to assume that he's busily imagining sex with me? Certainly not. Not everyone is here for the same reasons you are and not everyone is thinking about sex every moment. My point was to assume that they are and then censor them based on your assumption is wrong and unfair.

Pretty much any dance club is going to be sexually charged. You've made your position clear, as to your belief that SL is more or less a venue for simulated sex. Ergo, you were looking for sex, in an area whos real-life equivalent would possess a sexually charged atmosphere. You haven't refuted my point there, bella, you've reinforced it.





Anyone can claim a degree in anything. I make no claims, and therefore have no need to provide any proof of validity. You made the claim, and nothing in your posts has betrayed anything beyond an eighth-grade education and access to the internet. As for your obsession with simulated sex, I'd suggest that you've made it fairly clear that that's what you're here for, and you seem to assume that that's what we're all here for. Here's a shoe, it seems to fit.




Nor will my child avatar. Since it's not real. And the pilot behind the avatar's father isn't alive any more. See, here's SL, and over here's reality. Way over here. You should acquaint yourself with it.





I'm perfectly capable of perceiving the reality of what such behavior can signal. I'm also perfectly capable of remaining somewhat civil about it and using appropriate channels for dealing with it. You are the one sitting in a theater yelling 'fire', and then getting upset when people call you on it. Nice implication that anyone not in perfect agreement with you and acting just as you are is your moral lesser. What was that degree in, again?




Censorship is never a bad thing, 'til something that you don't want censored is censored. I can agree that it is sometimes a necessary evil, but I'll never hail it as a panacea.

Child molestation is horrible. You seem unable to recognize that everyone... everyone who has stated an opinion on it has agreed to that. You also seem unable to recognize that you are behaving erratically, violating rules, and alienating people who would support you. I've come to the conclusion that you either are in need of serious psychological counseling, or you are simply one hell of a determined troll. The reaction you're getting so far is 'bella, you've lost your mind, hon'. From a lot of different people. Naturally, all of them are wrong, and you are right. What would someone with a degree in psychology make of that attitude?

For the record, I am very sorry you were victimized as a child and it is clear that some of the things you've seen in SL have triggered a very emotional response. That is understandable and I'm sorry it is happening to you. But the people who have responded to you here for the most part have not tried to trivialize the impact it has had on you, nor has anyone actually said real victimization of children is ok... Quite the contrary. Everyone here seems to agree with you that it is wrong and sick and we should always do everything we can to put a stop to it. But what you are dealing with in SL is consenting adults NOT actual children. If you want to help and I think it's noble that you do, work to help real children in the real world.