WebCam and Voice = Sex Acts/Porn in SL?

Agreed. SL is doing nothing Yahoo and MSN having't been doing for years, except SL is probably a better value as you get a custom made dream girl doing things to your avatar with poseballs, that you don't get in voice or even webcam. Personally I see it as far more intimate than regular chat clients, thus more bang for your buck.

However, IMHO, only an idiot risks showing their true image for a few cents per minute, regardless of what webcam client they use. People, particularly men, verify things visually. While it's not impossible for voices to be recognized, hearing something doesn't have the impact that seeing it does. Very few people have access to the software used for positive voice identification, while anyone can take a cellphone picture and then compare it to a photo on the web.

While one could argue voice really is only valuable in verifying gender, not appearance (and even that can be fooled by someone who can throw their voice well), to me, it's too much risk for too little reward. I've heard arguements about porn stars being recognizable, but porn stars can rake in 10's or even 100's of thousands of dollars per film. Even nude models make a few hundred per published photo. $1 per minute just isn't worth it. However, if it's worth it for another, more power to them.

HEH! Any womyn wanna see me nekked on webcam??

No?

Your loss.

You have a fiancee in a 7 year holding pattern. Nuff Said.

DAMN! Someone remembers!!!

I thought a RL pic was the easiest to fake...
I could post a pic of Ron Jeremy in my RL section, would that get me more girls???
My roommate has been going through this same thing, she told me that she had thought about putting a pic of Nikki Ryder in her RL section as they both have long black hair...
Does anyone think this would stop the idiots saying "yeah so RL pics can be faked, turn your cam on, and show us your pussy."

thats terrible !!!

Webcams have been around since 1991.

1991!

This is nothing new. There is no cause for alarm that hasn't been there for over 2 dog years already.

And women, being a thousand times more gullible than those tech-savvy men, would of course immediately say "yes", drop their panties and wriggle seductively; at the very least newbie women, who do not know better when they enter orientation island with wide-eyed wonder.

Sarcasm aside, I personally find web cams and even voice in SL pretty pointless, but that's just my SL. It may be useful in some situations, like performances and education, but even then, the parcel streams are usually a better option. (And incidentally, they too can be used for porn).
To answer the OP directly, no I do not think SL will be a "red light district". There will be porn, there will even be crime, and there will be all the day-to-day users doing all kinds of things; no different than the internet.
Alternately, one can push for SL being a sanitized, controlled game environment, where people are only allowed (and able) to do specific tasks hardcoded into the system, but then why be in SL in the first place? -However much it is a Linden buzzword, SL is a platform; people make their own uses of it.

This is on the lines of what I was raising my point about. I was NOT interested in the morality but more in the unseen dangers.

When web cams are associated with porn sites on the internet that is one thing, but when it is associated with Second Life, a big grid, trying to pitch to real business, that is something else.

People have been catering to porn, and the sex business and sex in general in SL to make money. Pimps or whores. Even land sales and rentals are connected to it. (just as the above escort blog says)

Second life is NOT the internet. It is even less private then the internet. It is free so anyone can enter it from anywhere. It is a place where scammers flock and will flock even more. Quick buck sex trade is the lowest common denominator. SL will be/is Nigerian scam, Currency farmers, spam emails and the wasteland of internet porn all rolled into a big 3D morass that crushes itself from it's own weight.

The regular 'residents" are incidental to all of that but many of them try to cash in on it. There are more organ sales. then you can shake a stick at. Wurlitzer or Donor Organ banks would be envious.

And to make it even juicier, SL is insecure and Open Source and code given away, so free labor, international hackers, nutty teens and cyber terrorists will sneak in, have a field day and take everything. There is so much illegal stuff about SL, that when it all comes out, everyone will be washing their hands of it and LL and anyone championing SL will look like idiots. Its just a matter of time before private chats and IMs will all be available for public consumption.

Pleasure Island.

In effect it is just like the internet! All you need is an isp account to gain access, free hosting and all sorts of services available.

I mean you got open source web browsers, chat clients (that work with the paid services even!)... and the number 1 webserver software is open source Apache!

Email , websites, etc all geared toward scams too!

The difference is LL has rated areas on the grid, unlike the internet.

Don't want to deal with the mature stuff, don't go there.

And this is where many disagree: There are no *unseen* dangers. You turn on your webcam, you choose what to record and send over an open line to an unknown person. If there's any *unknown* danger in that, you seriously need education about what the Internet, or even modern society as a whole, is.
But this is really bordering on a larger, more general discussion about the whole Web2.0 exhibitionist craze, where you publish detailed information about yourself in all but realtime. Much, perhaps most, of this has come to stay, and with search engines based on face recognition in public beta currently, and geographical information on the rise as the next big data stream available to the general public (GPS in mobile phones, for example, and if you live in a big US city, Google Streetview may already have put your face on a specific street), society *is* changing, however hyperbolic it sounds. We cannot, and should not, turn the wheel back on that, but we do need to learn to deal with this rising availability of data.
This *is* largely a question about education (as well as fighting for some consumer rights and protection, but that's another discussion), but SL is just a little corner of this.

The idea that webcams and voice are risky for women is totally wrong. What possible risk could there be?

Webcams reveal the RL looks of a person, and it's up to each individual whether or not they want tp reveal that - which could enhance or ruin the image. They can't be used in SL, so the webcam question isn't about SL.

Voice in SL is excellent. There are some reasons for people to shy away from using it, such as fake gender, but your idea isn't one of them.

As for voice and/or webcams being used for porn (I am sure you mean sex, which isn't porn), it happens between willing participants, and it's nobody else's business, as long as it isn't illegal.

Just coming on to see what comments have been made - NO risk for women? Well, risk for anyone who may have a job who is in public "eye" in any shape or form. That is why I never use webcam or voice in sl. And MANY people do have a public "persona" that would be poorly served if a foolish moment in sl were to become even more public.
Voice is "excellent"? Why so? I can type almost as fast I speak. So can many of us.
I have been on sl for a long time and I have seen many changes. Sl tend to be a barometer of public viewpoints (just as commentaries tagged onto newsitems on many websites happens to be). I came here looking for that and sl has never disappointed me in "reading" a certain section of the world.
I dont think I am unique in having found SL to be a fairly safe outlet for relationships in a busy life that doesnt offer the opportunities for personal relationships I wish it did. But I am sorry that our silent avatar world is being invaded by people who insist "you are safe, and it's progress to be able to speak to - and "see" - the real "you". They sound like salespeople to me for something we dont really need.
We are members of an interesting place - I just wonder how long (as one person has suggested) we can stay here without risking condemnation for even having sl on our computer.

So I fire it up and so them pictures of my 4 cats playing... yup.. got four of them... ;P

He he. There are times I wish I wasn't a dog person

Completely derailing this thread, I have to say that that is quite appropriate and similar to what I did way back when that MS Meeting software (can't remember the name) came on the market and everyone was using it for erotic exchanges.

I was bored one day and set up the user "Pussy Galore", and of course, placed my webcam on my cats who were sleeping happily. Then I just listened to people log in (I had autoaccept on). I'd say about half the people were irritated (and logged out) and the other half laughed. One gent from Australia couldn't stop laughing and I actually talked to him for a while. It was an amusing way to spend the afternoon.

But in the end... you get what you pay for. ha ha ha.

lol... God, what year was this? Oh Noes!!! Webcam!!

Damn, I'm trying to remember the name of the software now... NetMeeting!

That was you?

pawned!

http://icanhascheezburger.files.wordpress.com/2008/06/funny-pictures-mom-cat-teaches-kittens-about-captions.jpg

now there is a blast from the past And I am ROFL laughing at the
"pussy galore" heheh.. how original.

I wasn't aware that SL had a webcam option.. i have taken notes and will be exploring soon

I think the point is, webcams do not magically turn themselves on and strip poor helpless women of their clothing. So there is no "risk". If people are going to get naked and don't want others to see, they should do it in private - not in their front yards, not on the bus to work, and not in front of video cameras.

Now you tell me.....

Don't listen to him.