WebCam and Voice = Sex Acts/Porn in SL?

I doubt this will happen. Voice has been in SL for a while now and its use is still quite low in general, despite the many newcomers to the grid. I don't think that text sex is going away anytime soon, really.

For the hell of it and my two cents...

Don't find a damn thing wrong with either one of them- cams or voice - can't see that cam directly with SL has any use though- can't see much point to watching the avies if you can watch the real people. So in that aspect - for me at least- it would be moot. As for voice- oh yes - leave voice alone- as glorious as well communicated cyber is...oh voice And that does work WITH SL.

The merits of voice have been discussed ad nauseum here in the past year. There are many reasons to use it, none of which I have. As for Webcam, it kind of defeats the purpose of an Avatar, in my opinion.But to each his own. But for me, If were interesed in what you looked and sounded like in RL I would just meet you in RL.

FIRST: What's the #1 Industry? Skin and hair? I honestly thought it was sex. heeee

SECOND: To the OP. What everyone said really -- webcams and voice used for pr0n encounters has been in SL for quite a while. It's not going anywhere. And I can't imagine what would happen to SL if the sex industry had to up and leave! That's a lot of lost money and people. SL likely would go crash and boom without the injection of the sex industry.

Sex sells.

Sex is necessary.

Sex has a vast impact on other industries whether we see it or not.

Here's an example: In Tokyo there are Hosts and Hostesses. Hostesses tend to put out more, and Hosts sell the illusion of love and their customers are mostly Hostesses. Hosts spends inordinate amounts of money on clothes, hair care products and their bars are stocked with tonnes of liquor available at inflated prices. Honest to god, if Japan decreed that Hostesses were no longer permitted to work, the cascade effect would be detrimental right down to the high end fashion designers who sell massive amounts of clothes to the Hosts.

I've always felt that people should be left to their own devices. I'll support any kind of sex between two (or more) consenting adults where no one gets hurt emotionally, mentally or physically.

Let the sex industry in SL flourish if it wants to. SL is large enough and vast enough that even those of us who don't want sex can live very happily in SL.

I don't see the harm.

Oh, and one other thing -- sex is what pushes new technologies. Always has and always will. It's hardly surprising then that sex is in SL, a leading new technology. Just you wait until the full VR suits and goggles are integrated and widely available for all -- don't tell me that the clever purveyors of sex items in SL won't be all over that in seconds and thousands of people suiting up to get that real sexual feeling.

Cams/voice are not going to kill Second Life. They just allow SL to cater to different crowds. If you go to any of the high-traffic/low-rent sex areas in SL today, the majority of men will not cyber with female avatars without webcam confirmation. Those guys are simply looking for masturbation material.

However, if you go to most of the "adult RP" sims, webcams/voice are rather uncommon because the participants are more interested in creating imaginative scenes than in getting off in real life.

And then you have the folks who don't engage in any sexual stuff in SL at all. It's different people with different goals, but SL is big enough to accommodate them all.

By the way, Lillie Yifu's (excellent) blog - http://sexsecond.blogspot.com/ - has had some interesting posts on the subject of the use of voice and cam in the Second Life sex industry. I'm afraid I can't remember the exact dates, but they will be in the archives.

Omg.. snorted soda on that one

I'll share my twisted view on this.. When it comes to webcams and voice being used during sex in SL, I say good! Let em go to town on that if they want to. The more they do that the less chance there is that some rogue german reporter's going to print out-of-context chat snippets under a big misleading headline. The visuals aren't likely to cause any media stir, not compared to what's 10 times easier to get on the web. I also don't see SL as a very good way to distribute RL porn because web links will always be free, and upload charges add up quickly.
As for streamed media, the whole point of paying too much for one of those big screen fingertainment TV's is to have it to share with someone, not because its anything close to a good way to get the media itself.

Voice for gender verification? Again, have at it, but don't expect me to partake in that nonsense. As long as a partner is someone who's important to me, has a hot AV, and says the right things, I could really care less who/what they are in RL.

As for webcams, Brenda's right.. there's not much point to it in SL really. I would assume people just get a charge out of it, sort of like escorting in SL for cheap. I don't see webcam requirements becoming the next SL fad, that's for sure.

If masterbating in front of your computer was illegal in 49 states of the Union, then yes SL would be in trouble..but as far as I know this is a perfectly legal activity. Even if money is exchanged I dont think it would be considered Illegal. The only time it falls into illegality is when Child Av's are involved... and even then its kind of a grey area as the "children" are really consenting adults.

I mean if it was Illegal, the police would have a very easy time catching the perlioners as I imagine most who pay for web cam cyber would have payment records on file as they would need a fair pile of Lindens, so all the Police would have to do is set up a sting operation on a sim, coerce payment from the "johns" and get linden labs to send the persons Credit Card information to the local authoritites so they can be charged .....

But it wont happen because no laws are being broken as far as I know.

It may hurt SL's reputation with the general non-playing public as it could be seen as nothing but a porn site, but that's about it.

And the Internet has survived as well despite being 45% pr0n, 45% cat content and 10% other.

(yes, percentages have just been pulled out of thin air and do not resemble any factual basis... speculation only)

Given the Lag of SL, a webcam here would be like watching a slide show.

"Oh Baby! You make me so..." *BING* turn to next slide *BING*

i feel put under alot of pressure to use both cam and voice. if i dont agree to at least voice i am literally griefed, bullied and verbally assaulted. called a liar and accused of having a penis. people assume its ok to have orgasms on voice around me and i have to mute people to avoid hearing it. they have a voice sexabitionist group now and apparently thats all these people do it moan into their mics in public areas for everyone to hear. i dont have a problem with the group but i think there should be a designated area for it and that the rest of us are not forced to participate. because even tho i can mute them, i still hear the beginning of it and frankly its traumatic for me. maybe im old fashioned or maybe im a bit uptight, i dont know. but i dont enjoy hearing strangers in sexual situations like that. its upsetting for me.
i feel men in general are taking advantage of new features in sl to exploit females and worry web cams will be enabled next in world. its all just too much real life without any real life responsibilities. and i am not ok with it.

Just a small question, because I really can't see....what's the point of having a complex rendered avatar, with all the skin and clothes and hair and stuff, if you are going to use a webcam? Isn't it cheaper to use MSN or the video feature in Skype? Just curious, because voice, I can understand using it sometimes in a chat with friends, I would never use it for "gender verification" because, hell, as long as the avatar is HOT and she acts feminine, which means at least for me that their spirit is female, to me it doesn't matter if behind it lies a guy in New York....but webcam? Sex in SL can be very hot and exciting without cam or voice, I know because I have experienced it, so PERSONALLY I don't see the point of webcam.

By the way, to the guys "demanding" voice as a way to feel sure they are with a woman....have you ever heard of "voice changers"? Come on, people, LIVE THE FANTASY.

A person who is physically impaired, or has deformities, can dream of being an extremely hot woman or man, until somebody ask for cam...think about it.

Peace

Thanks for this discussion, You've given me some AWESOME ideas to incorporate adult affilaite programs into my business plan for more RL income! toodles!
Ive been constantly bugged by two or three RL websites to provide them material of myself and have been dragging my feet because I didnt see how Id make money at it.

Now I do.
Yummy.
No Shame here!
Personally I could care less about porn on way or another, I never watch it. I dont even own a porno dvd. But I've been doing a lot of research on the adult industry cash programs and we here at SL have a lot to learn from them. If you want to expand think outside the box.

Ciera Spyker
The Preggo Goddess

Not forgetting those that are painfully shy or insecure in RL, but who blossom when they have an avatar to stand out in the world for them.

Hmmm...You know...I really don't get this "exploiting" of women in this thread. Are women today, in this computer, information super-highway age, so naive about the dangers of putting themselves on the internet that we have to take extra measures to protect them? I am a 49 yr old woman who is WELL aware of the potential dangers of the internet and safe ways to go about using it. I DO use web cam and voice with certain friends and my fiancee that I met through SL by the way and don't feel exploited in any way shape or form. If I felt pressured at anytime to web cam or voice with someone...the simple solution is to tp away from the place, mute the person, simply ignore them, or even step away from the computer. You have to really think women in this day and age are very ignorant of any news or other information out there. Or perhaps they feel "it can't happen to me", in which case if they take no interest in protecting themselves, I have no motivation to do it for them.

-Blu- (Back to square one)

Well, webcams are enabled now, for certain values of "enabled." But yeah, they could in theory become ubiquitous, and then some of us would have to find somewhere else to hang out.

Which is my general response to the whole thing about men "taking advantage of new features in sl to exploit females." No, it's females (usually) choosing to exploit themselves. And if that's what makes them all tingly, cool for them. Seriously, it's a big, wide SL where the kind of crap described Just Doesn't Happen; anyone who subjects themselves to it is doing it for their own purposes. Worst case, one can just leave SL behind; being "exploited" by one Internet social platform is in no way similar to something abusive or compulsory in RL. But that's beside the point because the description is of some obscure hell hole of degradation, not of SL in general.

It's reasonable to want to defend from decay a platform to which one is attached. But the description is of a situation vastly too far gone for anyone but the most depraved. And that's just not recognizable as SL.

The red light district of SL is known as a red light district. I suppose the areas where non-profit organizations hold virtual conferences on how to make the world a better place could be called philanthropic districts. And areas where universities conduct classes, education districts. And the shopping districts, entertainment districts, etc.
The same "districts" exist on the internet as a whole and in most cities of the real world. To me it is perfectly understandable that SL sex activities and businesses exist but I have no interest in it and I am barely aware of it.
It is a sad truth that some people are surprisingly easily bullied and persuaded to do things that are not in their own best interest, and those people need rl help but that's nothing to do with the platform of SL.

Why is this revolutionary? Should we be quivering at sex acts/porn being associated with Yahoo! chat or MSN chat? People are going to use these devices exactly for this purpose whether SL is there or not. There is nothing new about this. It's not mandatory, and some escorts use this to "get an edge." These people would already do this anyway.

Hi there,
Correct me if I am wrong, but from the way I see it the problem that will arise is from the know-it-all computer geek, who videos a webcam show off of SL..Then copies it and sells it to his mates and whoever..Making the unsuspecting woman some blokes jerk off material...Now how do you think the woman would feel if this material got into the hands of people who she associates with or her family...How would a woman deal with this kind of problem..

unless you can prove a law is being broken, myob. the end.

I can see where this is going lol

YES we need to ban any sex in SL sex and porn is evil

Jig if you dont like it dont do it tp out of places that do have it and stop trying to ban things that other people do use and like.

Pron AND sex has been on SL from day one I think its time to get over it and act like an adult and let others act like it to.

I personally do not use webcam.. for anything.

I seriously think this thread is going to be locked.

They made the same arguments when the Polaroid Land camera was invented. Since the pictures didn't need to be taken to strangers to be developed men with such instant picture cameras could talk their girl friends into posing for pictures which would later humiliate the girlfriends when the boyfriends passed them around. Some people wanted to ban the Polaroid cameras because of this.
But the fact is that weak people are going to be exploited by unscrupulous people no matter what the technology is.
I'd like to protect weak people from predators but I think the only realistic way is to help them be stronger.

Probably not much different from if he was circulating a VCR recording she had done and sent to him. It's not like you hack random people's webcam, turn it on and point it around in people's house without them knowing.