Musings on Goth Hoochie Bling Collars

As an example: anyone remember the TV show "The Pretender"?

The description above sounds like Mrs. Parkers wardrobe throughout most of the series except the skirts were somewhat less than mid-length most of the time...

"Yowza, yowza, yowza!" - Happy Days

Racer P.

Hi Racer, I don't know the show ... probably because it ran under a totally different name in German TV. I only hope, that this Mrs. Parker was not a totally neg character

btw: that was the first comment by a male on that issue (and my taste in clothing) that was not totally negative. You sure, you're a male?

lol Kim, I completely agree with you BTW. Gimme a well-cut, stylish and **classy** outfit ---- yowza! sexy!

Sapphire,


I logged into SL 9 months ago, in june 2004. Sex was very visible then, and still is now. I don't think it has changed much in the interval. It IS one of the reasons newbies are initially knocking on SL's door, but I think (hope) that people who stay on longer than two months have found other reasons to stay in world.

As for clothes and jewelry and skin... Those are not sex related. Much of the value created and sold on SL belongs to these categories. It populates the landscape with shops, which are getting better designed that they once were, and provides income for many residents. Those objects are shaping the economy, the landscape, and the relationships in SL. As a derived activity, the modeling and fashion industry is providing entertainment for many others, especially (real) women.

What did you expect people to do? Not everyone is going to shell out the money to build Simcast or collect yachts and motorcycles.

Also, your assessment of the median age group for SL is wrong, at least for the more active members: I find that most of the residents that are active, social, and spend a lot of time online are older, 35+ to 60, with a high proportion of women. Actually, the emphasis on clothing, skins and jewelry should by itself tell you that .

Sigh. Any ideas what we could do to get some of the better designers on our side. I actually believe that it could be a little like in RL: that you can sell real high quality, classy outfits maybe not in large numbers - but at a premium! Could be quite a market for a good designer who would build a brand for that target group.

BTW: I like your tagline ('Has SL Addiction Problems'). Could copy that right outta the box

Kim, successful designers already do just that. Shyriu Mushashi, Vindi Vindaloo, Nonna Hedges, come to mind as the most obvious ones.

Sorry, silly me. I was not precise enough. I know all of the three designers you mentioned. Actually spent some money with two of them, LOL. And yes, they already achieved premium brand status - like some others too. Its just ... what they do ist mostly formal wear.

And that was not what I was looking for.

What she said. Everday, casual, street clothes.

Re. sexuality -- I see little difference between SL and RL and it is not becuse A) I live in Vegas and B) I run in wild circles. Media and entertainment constantly push the envelope to see what they can get away with that won't be considered morally outrageous. SL does not have those barriers so there is very little for us left to push. Which, IMHO, is a good thing.

Also, someone mentioned stylish clothing and the need for more. Our market is supply and demand. I have seen a great deal of stylish women's clothing (men's clothing sucks with the exception of my Gucci suit). Unfortunately for you fashionistas, the majority of people like to walk around in leather and mesh with everything hanging out while displaying titles over their head that read, "Very horny ___."

I've been running a decently successful club since August called the Shelter.

The pretence behind the Shelter is creating a place with no sleeze/sex.... no meatmarket... someplace that's more concerned about being friendly than making profit.

Yes, buisness gravitates towards sex, and it probably is profitable. But it's not a prerequisite for success IMHO

Travis

It is - and I am (very) far from condemming it. Its just ... large parts of RL are not that totally dominated by this very provocative 'fuck me' style you see a lot in SL (maybe Vegas gives you a different perspective); which I enjoy sometimes. But there are other times too. And that 'over-sexedness' all of the time actually takes a lot of fun out of sex; even the virtual variant ...

LOL. I understand supply and demand very well. I am not sure, what the real demand in SL is. But, maybe you are right -- because SL is more like Vegas than San Francisco to a lot of people

The Shelter is great. And I great example that there is a lot of interest in other styles of entertainment, too. Look at the Shelters ranking in the popular places ...

And there is no reason not to make a nice profit that way (and nothing bad with that). And I sincerely hope that the Shelter is a business succes too

Yep, I'm male.

A little wierd, I'm told, but _definately_ male.

Yes, I do like the little lacy things many female AVs are weaing in SL. It just gets old seeing the same thing repeated ad nausium (just slightly different stiyles and colors, etc). It's like going on vaction and walking on the beach seeing all those georgous girls in bikinis. It gets boring after a while... Oh all right, who am I kidding. Bring on the beach babes 24x7!!!

Anyway...

Miss Parker starts off the series as a complete bitch / hell on wheels type but over the series, they rounded out her charcter a lot and she got to be much more human and interesting to watch.

Here's a few pages I just googled on 'The Pretender' and Andrea Parker (who plays 'Miss Parker' in the show) that have some pics.

SciFi channel UK program guide...
http://www.scifiuk.com/data/shows/pretender/gallery.asp#

This is on Patrick Bauchaus home page. Another Pretender star but she's in many of the shots.
http://www.bauchau.com/career/pretend/tpimages.shtml

Some wallpapers someone made of the show...
http://www.celebritydesktop.com/actresses/link.cgi?ID=1481

I stopped looking once I stumbled across an Andrea Parker winamp skin... Shiesh! And I thought _I_ had no life...
http://www.celebritydesktop.com/actresses/link.cgi?ID=1893

Racer P.

LOL. The first part is exactly my feeling. I like those sexy clothes a lot (even though with some of them I really feel not very much 'me'. Even playing dress-up has its limits, it seems).

But too much of a good thing ... Actually I feel much more sexy and attractive after I am wearing just some classy casual stuff for the most part of my SL day - and then slip into something slink and sexy; or grandiose.

Exactly like me

Thanks for all the links. And yes, she seems the type I was describing: stylish, classy, not slutty in any way but definitely attractive. Even though she's a brunette

So 'slutty' is a form of dress now? Odd, I always thought it was a way of behaving.How someone dresses does not define who or what they are I'm afraid,thats neanderthal thinking.

Sex is no more widespread now than it was when I came into the game thats for sure,but thats all going to change with 1.6

Your going to see XXX movies all over the place and I for one think LL have made a huge mistake with this because now SL becomes a whole different ball game.How long will it be before some deviant is showing snuff movies do you think?If you venture into some of the darker places in SL you'll find these kind of people DO exist,I've ejected one particualr group from my club after catching them making a 'snuff' movie using avi's.

Avatar/cyber sex is one thing, but movies?

How long before you can settle down to watch clips of hostages being executed?How long before this becomes the kind of place you REALLY dont want to be?Someone over at LL is sure as hell running out of ideas because this is without doubt the worst one I've seen since I've been playing.

One thing I've always found here in Second Life is that for every 100 responsible adults you come across there is ALWAYS one nutball - movies? - appaling idea that could well be the first ring of the death knel for Second Life.

Hi Sox, it's good to see that the style of discussion in the forums comes back onto a civilized level.

Actually, I am not a Neanderthal (even though I live somewhere in that vincinity) but a Cromagnon.

Sox, 'slutty' is just a word that describes a style of womens clothing and is used rather ambigiously. It describes NOT the behaviour of the woman wearing it. There are a lot of examples for the developing use of a specific word in another context from what is was used originally. It is not even judgementally used - at least not by me. I own my share of slutty clothing too

And .. with regard to your fears with 1.6. I aggree, that we will see a lot of sex and porn in that video streams. And I don't like that very much. But - do you really think the Lindens should have omitted this feature, which has a lot of other interesting applications, because some assholes are using it for porn?

What is your opinion on the invention of photography? You know, before that they had to PAINT the pictures of naked women ... much harder to do ...

People make choices about how they dress. Thus, their style of dress is a reflection of their personality.


It's more widespread now than before the introduction of player-authored animations.


The Internet has video. Still seems to be chugging along just fine.



Again, ain't nothing you can't see on the Internet at large. We are adults here, no? Why do we need to be protected from the outside world?


I think the ratio is even higher in real life. There's always a nutball on the bus, and that's 1 out of maybe 20 people total. The Lindens give us the tools, and we make the choices. That is how it should be.

And before that, they were chipping them out of stone....

-Racer P.

heh, if you liked forseti's quote, you should Definitely check out his suits (for males and females, skinned and furred). I love mine! it is recolourable and very stylish. Much better for teaching SL classes than my usual bling hoochie wear. hehe.

"Neanderthal" is a stretch, Sox. Slutty has long been recognized as a form of dress. I'd say going back to the caveman days




I agree with you here. The blow to LL will be things like kiddie porn and the aforementioned snuff films. Everyone knows those things exist on the Internet but they also know that scumbags are responsible for not only creating that trash but hosting it as well. No matter what LL says, if these types of things appear (which they will) it will be bad PR for them to have to explaing why their little world has become a haven for whack-jobs that are into kiddie porn and snuff films.

It will be interesting to see how The Supreme Court rules on the MGM vs. Napster case. Although the case is about music and movie piracy on P2P networks, the impact will be felt throughout the world of technology. If MGM wins, it may well become possible for the creators of a technology product (such as SL) to be prosecuted if their users employ it in an illegal manner.

At any rate, if I were going to screen illegal videos of that nature, I sure wouldn't choose Second Life to do it. There is no real privacy in SL; it lacks even the relative anonymity of the Internet. And as these forums prove, the members of SL are all into each other's business. Just ask Pete Fats.

As I said in the original post, if you open your eyes a bit, these kind of people are already here in SL.I love the 'hey we're all adults' thing, that really works for me everytime - not.As if being over the age of 21 makes for responsible people.....I do seem to recollect that Charles Manson was an adult and so was Adolf Hitler.

EVERYTHING is taken to the extreme in Second Life.as you've corectly pointed out with clothes,and if you think it's going to be any different with movies then I'm afraid your faith in the 'adult' population of this place is sadly misplaced.

Whether your an adult or not its not going to make a shred of difference once someone airs child porn or snuff movies, because the very first time someone gets caught doing this shit its going to be all over for Second Life.

Yikes! Hyperbole much? Anyway, the point I was making was not the one you so helpfully framed. I know perfectly well that adults behave like children sometimes. My point is that as an adult I do not need to be protected; if the Lindens can implement a cool new feature, why shouldn't they? Because someone may broadcast content that offends my sensibilities? Not a good reason, and counter to the things that SL stands for.


Again, you've badly misunderstood me. I know that some residents will push the boundries of decency. They do that already, it's not a news flash to anyone here.

One thing I do have faith in is that most SL citizens, confronted with illegal content of the sort you are talking about, would report it without hesitation.


Yes, by all means raise the terrifying twin bogeymen of child porn and snuff films. They go so well with your earlier summoning of Hitler and Manson. First off, how do you know somebody hasn't already uploaded illegal images into SL? Should we stop the uploading of textures in SL just because someone could upload a child porn image?

As Second Life becomes more robust, these are the growing pains our world is going to have to go through. Stop trying to keep SL an infant.

Kim,

I did recently see a vend by Fairie Muse of very classy female clothing. She has a store that can be found in the store listings or under her picks. The outfits were not formal dress but more working classy, suits, casual evening wear, stylish daywear. I would have bought a few myself if they were priced lower. Grant it, the suits come with multiple pieces but even then the cost is still higher than the norm. *chuckles* I peruse many shops so am very familiar with clothing prices. If the prices are ever reduced to be more in line with what is currently found in SL even amongst the top-selling highly-talented clothing designers, I would be more than willing to buy them.

I know some designers limit length of purchase for some clothing and/or set the price exceptionally high to make them more unique. Perhaps, that is so in this case. Regardless, the clothing is very well designed. I suppose I've simply reached the point where I'm not willing to encourage the inflation of clothing or other goods in SL, so simply will not pay some prices no matter how wonderfully made something is. Anway there are alternatives out there in SL for a classy, sensual well-dressed lady.

Whoah, I'm leaving Hitler and baby-killers outa this reply.

I'm new to SL, just stumbled across it last week, and decided to try it because it looked like one big playground. Electronic digital tinker toys. I like those and enjoy "sculpting" with the computer.

Then I started sculpting my AV. Yes, lots of fun, and lots of possibilities started bubbling to the surface. I ran with them, the clothes ran with them, I met a few others, and next thing you know I'm getting into the "goth hoochie bling" thing.

I did and do ask myself why, and I think it's because in 1st life I am and do one thing, and as others have pointed out SL gives you a chance to do something different. I ain't goth hoochie in RL and could not have predicted that I'd veer off in that direction. Sounds like a lot of others have had similar experiences, and that probably says a lot about what our respective cultures encourage you to bottle up and hide.

It also seems to be self-perpetuating. I hang around where I hang around because there are others to engage, and I enjoy the engaging. If they're naughty (haven't at all seen 'nasty' yet) I cut loose and go with it. Then more new people show up and get into the naughty.

As for the casinos and Tringo-traps, I don't get 'em. They don't seem to invite interaction like the clubs and... *cough* "fashion shows." People seem engrossed in their big floaty cards that I can't figure out what to do with. So if I start seeing the cards rez up I start flying the other direction.