Are escorts next?

That's true with any online chatroom, be it SL, AOL, Yahoo etc. If LL would figure out a workable Age Verification Plan, then we all could be reasonably sure that whoever we interact with is an Adult. I'm not a follower of Gor, but I really feel they are being persecuted excessively due to the content of their activity. It may be offensive, or puzzling or downright laughable, but the way some are calling that type of RP the apocalypse is ridiculous. But it will be an interesting legal debate as in Europe sex is much more open than here, while here it seems violence is more widely tolerated. What will it be Kinder, Gentler Sex? Or Violence and Chastity?(Which I guess equals The Inquisition)

Yes that would be good (verification). People do get caught in chat rooms, and here in the USA that could mean a registered sex offender tag for the rest of your RL.

Those looking to make R$ could also run stables of escorts and cash out the L$, and in some countries children are often exploited for sexual purposes.

Escorts going away? Say it isn't so. The Escort was a very affordable automobile and a bread and butter car for the Ford Motor Company. It enabled the masses to putter around at 40mph on highways all around the world. Why, with a few rolls of duct tape, you could keep one on the road for 30 years. This is an outrage! Just because that uppity Focus came along, we shouldn't be throwing away our Escorts. I say we should...

What? Oh, that kind of "escort"...

Forget what I just said. Escorts, or E-hoes are going nowhere. It is the world's oldest profession, right?

Well - My thoughts is the sex trade definitely might take a bashing.

That does not make SL Prostitution equal to RL Prostitution and therefore illegal though.

It is not necessary for something to be illegal for LL to ban it.


As someone said - Advertizing will probably be banned.

An advertizing ban is basically 90 days notice that the activity will be banned .. theres precident.

Unless LL are prepared to ban all text based cyber sex then i would imagine escorts are pretty safe here,afterall a little disclaimer in clubs or in an escorts profile stating that money paid is for companionship or time spent and anything else that occurs is between consenting adults would make everything legal..at least that is the case in europe.

This post is ignoring a few things.

First of all those who are arested "from chatrooms" are arested becuase they arrainge RL meetings with minors. Or for exchanging Child Porn. Not for what they say in Chat rooms. I do not see how this applies to normal SL activity (unless some weirdos are doing one of those two.)

Second - Theres no need for child labor to get cyber prostitutes - Plenty of adults are willing to do it. Many even enjoy it.

And finally there really isnt all that much money in it.

Even better, create a "Gift" option on the Pie. "You have given Honeydew Harlot a gift of 1000 Lindens. We hope it was good for you".

Good points. Most arrests are made when an actual RL meeting takes place.

I'm not sure how it is in the usa but webcamming and phone sex are legal in europe,the cyber sex in SL is much less graphic than those,hardly hard core using text and animations

On what grounds? Gor is just roleplay. There are no laws against it, unlike gambling. SL violence? It's no more violent than many XBox games or R-rated movies.

The sky, contrary to some reports, is not falling. despite the apparent deep need of some to believe that it is.

Good points. I concede, except that part about weirdos. Plenty of those about in SL Hard to say what they might be up to.

It doesn't have to be against the law to be banned. The sky is falling stuff is just kind of fun speculation on my part. We may see a big push to clean up Dodge City just prior to a sale of SL to a larger entity such as Yahoo or Sony for instance.

No, I am not starting a rumor. All things are possible and profitable mergers and sales are a cornerstone of internet and tech economy.

Think you are right about those, Those ones (child porn and child sex hookups) will likely get arrested -

SL isnt any different than Yahoo chat as far as that goes.

On the grounds of a Robin Linden office hours meeting where she said that it was likely that more than ageplay would be hit and that did we really want SL to be a world where slavery and extreme violence were a part of it.

Ageplay between consenting adults is not illegal.

On the broadly offensive grounds.

On the grounds of id verification.

On the grounds that a Linden Labs spokesman said with regards to the gambling ban that they were looking " "to broaden the acceptability of the platform globally."

When they do clean it up it will be interesting to see how they go about it.

Will they try to complain it is Broadly offensive and the community has cried out - (nonsense)

Or will they try playing to silly "Becuase Prostitution is illegal in RL" idea (more nonsense)

Or will they claim its becuase they cant stop minors from doing it - this one is the scary one since then it would logically follow all sex would have to go.

Well they dont need a reason .. Its their sandbox.

Its just how aggrivating supposed reasons are that get to us.

Sorry officer, she said she was 18!

On a more serious note, the *legal* ramifications of sexually oriented content on second Life covers virtually all state/local/federal laws in the US with it's current verification system- are you over 18? Good, proceed... if you've lied we'll ban you. Additional moves to safeguard are optional, but may be in the companies best interests.

I don't expect further legislation re: pornography in the Us or California any time soon given how popular it is with the immoral majority.

I'd be willing to make a bet that LL has already had their conference meeting on banning sexually mature content. There are 2 measures to tighten security on it in response to bad press- make it bannable in game- or institute a more stringent age verification process. They chose the former regarding sexual age play given how volatile of a topic it is in the press, and appear to be going for the second with everything else.

Lets be blunt, "Second Life allows child pornography!" is a much splashier headline than "Second life allows slavery!" or "Second life allows people to kill each other!" Anything dealing with children invokes a gut response in virtually anyone with kids (and the majority without). People are much more willing to overlook deviance between adults. And yes, agePLAY was between consensual adults, but if it looks like a child and acts like a child, people will respond to it like a real child. I saw the cutest kid while shopping earlier today and my first gut response was to grin like I do at all kids. I don't *get* that immediate response from meeting adults.

Age Verification, regardless of how slow they are to getting around to it, is there so pixel sex can continue unmolested. I don't expect it to go away.

Sadly there was no verification process available to legalize online gambling. It's not a question of the age of gamblers- it's a question of the practice itself.

This is a great post.


However, what about the case of more RL businesses involved in Second Life?

Some exectutive goes "OMG my employees are messing with virtual hookers when they should be working"

I see eventually some sort of further segregation. Something very clear so that companies can keep their employees out of it on work hours, like they do with Internet porn.

This would seem to agree witht he verification plan, But im not sure that set up will be strong enough becuase its voluntary and parcel level.

Worst case being an advertizing ban - then a total ban. Since thats their MO.


Addionally as SL becomes more mainstream they dont want all the reviewers seeing sex, sex ,sex - Phil Linden has already said that.

So Definitely there will be a little spruce-up of some kind coming I think.

If they ban pixel sex they should also definitely ban pixel violence - this would put an end to weapons and combat in SL and would also finish off all those nasty combat PS games!!!!

All those idiot "journalists" find sex because that is all they look for. Clean it up and they will call SL "Dull, boring, too mainstream".

Maybe dull, boring and mainstreem is the eventual goal.

We should probably get all the broadly offesnive stuff out of the way before that happens.

Let me know where you are going to hang out when that happens. I'll meet you there.

I think an important thing to keep in mind is that "escorting" and "sex" are two VERY different things.

I've got no real problems with a ban on escorting. None at all. That's simply a ban on somone charging $L for their cybersexual services.

Even in RL, in places where prostitution is illegal...sex isn't. You just can't charge someone money for it.

Frankly, I'm a bit mystified why someone even PAYS an SL escort, seeing as there are plenty of venues to slap digital pixels without cracking open the virtual wallet.

I think key to this is the exchange of money...the context in which the sex takes place...rather than the content of the sweaty, one-handed keystroking between the two avatars.

Violence occurs at very precise locations in SL. You need to go looking for it, or face a serious whupping from LL if caught practicing elsewhere. Sex and escort services are almost universal, and even occur in the PG sims with little interferance (so far) from LL.

Unless they have really good filters to scan our IMs and people to sit and monitor them, banning escorting will never work.