*scratches her head a little* Why does everyone care all of a sudden?

Oh geez. All the references are copied from the URL above. The site behind the URL tries to establish that pornography of any sort is evil, because pornography leads to STDs (?), unplanned pregnancies (??), sexual addiction (?!?) and even child molestation (wtf???). You can find the same sort of "evidence" for the "fact" that masturbation leads to blindness. Or that an invisible god created the earth in 7 days, roughly 10,000 years ago.




No one would argue the fact that pedophilia is a disorder / sickness. A serial killer is also insane and sick, but a person who "kills" lots of "people" in a computer game is not.



Of course children have to be defended against pedophiles. I'm all for it. Everyone is on your side in this case. But there has never been any pedophile act going on in the cartoon world called SL. No murder, no rape, no child abuse. Not only is it technically impossible, but the people roleplaying these things are a) adults and b) give their consent.



Sorry, but a website which states that pornography causes STDs, pregnancy and pedophilia can hardly count as proof.
As for logical holes in your argumentation: it was never logical to begin with. You argue with RL cases of abused children, without giving a single reason why roleplay between consenting adults can somehow be dangerous. You try to establish a connection between online and RL behaviour, which is as logical as claiming that people who fly around in SL might think they can really fly in RL and jump off a roof.

Actually, what I supplied was a group of evidenciary links supporting my statements.

I haven't seen any provided to counter those that I supplied.

And one thing has become abundantly clear here...that people are far too emotionally invested in this issue for most of them to argue with any degree of rationality.

In spite of the fact I've been an ardent defender of RP in all its forms on SL, I've been disparaged and attacked for taking part in what I clearly defined as an intellectual exercise.
People pay very little, if any, attention to context, it seems

Just to set the record straight, Sophia started a thread calling for some rational debate on the issue. I thought that seemed like a pretty good idea, and agreed with her conclusions that so far no one had approached this issue with anything resembling a shred of evidence.

I did a five-minute google search, found some links, scanned them for relavance, and posted them.

And so far, no one seems to have been able to do the same to support whatever argument they're advancing.

So, before you decide to demonize me any further, I suggest you take a deep, damn breath and take a long hard look at the issues raised here before you decide to judge my worth as a human being.

General question I've asked before, but noone seems to want to answer: you were referring to sexual ageplay, but why would your argument be limited to that? (You didn't talk about legality so that's outside of the scope here).

You can replace ageplay with sexual assault, rape, snuff, cannibalism, "cheating" (someone with a signficant other having virtual sex with someone else in SL), murder, battery, and a whole other range of activites that are commonplace in SL.

If ageplay appeals to an actual pedophile (or a potential one) then why wouldn't rapeplay appeal to an actual rapist, or drive someone to commit an actual rape, or desensitize them to the actual horror of it?

I'm not looking for a defense in favour of ageplay, but rather a defense for putting the bar at ageplay and not include a whole other range of horrible and traumatizing actions. I don't see how you can condemn (sexual) ageplay while at the same time defend the right of other "damaging" forms of sex/interaction to keep on existing without falling back on legality.

Supply a definition of proof, and then tell me what precise bit of support for my claims needs to be "prooven".

I do hope that this was not directed at me...

You stated in your first post that you wanted to "play devil's advocate." I played along. You conducted an argument in a logical rhetorical way. You've done what i've asked and i thank you for that. There really is no such thing, though, as "proof" when it comes to these arguments. It's Mostly oppinion and logical support or support from authority (authority being someone or something that is credible to great number of people). I've only seen two people able to seriously carry this on in a very good manner. That's you and Mickey McLuhan. I admit, I still have a long way to go before I can carry on a good conversation with support. If I was given a week I could write a nice little peice filled with neat things.

However, my oppinion stands. I still feel that there's no good reason to ban pedophilia in SL.(oppinion) Pedophilia does not directly and technically harm someone. (Oppinion as fact) And the harming of people and property is the only good reason to impose regulation.(oppinion as support from patterns of laws in the USA)

The gang violence leads to actual damage and harm, which is not the case with sexual ageplay, rape play or any other form of roleplay in an adult online environment. No one is being harmed by it. Worst you could say about it is "I'm not involved, so I don't see the people who roleplay the 'victims' creaming the seat of their chair and moaning while they're having fun at their keyboards".



How does this sound: "You can't tell me that pseudomurder, as commited each day by every WoW player, does not harm people in RL." It doesn't harm anyone. I never saw a WoW player running through a shopping mall, swinging an axe. What people do online and in RL are different things. Even if they desire certain things, there's a great chance that they only act out their desire online, because it would be illegal in RL. Did you never do anything in SL that you wouldn't ever dare to do in RL?

But let's assume the worst case. Let's say that a person engaging in sexual ageplay within SL attempts to do the same in reality: finding another adult ageplayer, just as they did in SL, and playing dressup. Where's the harm? Believe it or not, there are a lot of ageplayers in RL too, and it isn't illegal. Same with rape play.

fact In japan Loli, Shota, Violent Rape, Tentacle Rape, bondage, and may other Sexual Kinks are represented By Animation and Comics *Anime and Manga sense I probably won't remember to be specific for the rest of this.*

Fact Even with taking into account the Population density difference Between the US and Japan, Japan has a lower rate of sexual Crimes

Admittedly that is reported crimes, And It is always possible that crimes go unreported, How long was it until we started to hear about catholic priests. It also doesn't take into accounts the possibility of a child being up set at a step parent and making up stories (it dose happen). but is the only Reliable source for the fact so the possibility for error must be accepted.

So IF Japan has porn that is condemned, And they have a Lower Sexual Crime rate.
Then The porn that is condemned Lowers the Sexual crime rate.

That is the point right.

As for acedental exposure to what is legal in your area or not. It is your responsibility to know where you are going. When I go to find the newest Japanese anime episodes on a site like the pirate bay. I am exposed to porn, dating sites, and other such not with out me looking for it, I am just looking for the newest episode of naruto. If this was a problem I would not go to the pirate bay even if it was the only source for what I was looking for. I honestly think that the decency laws that where passed in the UK recently are horrible and the people who wrote them have no idea what they where talking about, it just sounded good at the time. When I read about it I told 3 of my friends who live in the UK and I talk to in SL that I thought there was a problem there. The thing is I do not live in the UK why should I have to deal with UK laws. You may not live in the US so why should you deal with US laws (like gambling) I make the choice to not go to casinos, if I ever thought that my going to SL would get my in trouble with the law for gabling I would stop going to SL. Not tell everyone in SL that ohh the US is going to come after me for gambling everyone close the casinos or I am going to have to do what I have to do to get you banned.

Right now all the sims are owned by linden labs, and because of that they do get to dictate to us what happens. The question is why are we attacking each other on this. You attack people doing age play, age players attack casinos or gor sims, they attack furries, furies attack political parties, political parties attack homosexuals, and then who is left? no one that will be worth the money that keeps secondlife open.

Now if LL had Legal Reasons to do something (Like is the case with Pictures of RL Child Porn) then all the power to them to delete it, and more power to them for banning the people to keep there servers from getting sieged and SL coming down. LL is only bound By there City, County, State, and country laws where there servers resided, If they have to chose to not have a server farm in the UK because of some of the content then that should be fine there are other places that are not as strict, Like possibly Germany that would do the same thing, lower the traffic that is required to go across the Atlantic ocean.

The problem is there is no transparency, LL doesn't seem to have to answer to anyone who uses there service. who cares about privacy when you are actively telling the zealots to go out and find what they don't like and report it.

In this situation I would put out the sim code without anything that can't be redistributed and with note saying this is what the excised part of code did, and let the community replace it. Then it would no longer matter because we could all just open up our own sims
Each having to deal with our own laws just like we would with a website. I seem to remember seeing the idea somewhere that LL wanted SL to become a possible replacement for the web. and I have to say that is the current stick point. They are taking away freedom, yes right now it is not your freedom but it may be some day.

Edit: Links
Not the best ones, and the suporting links here seem to be down.
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=3231

Population of Japan
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/print/ja.html

Japanese Crims stats
http://www.nationmaster.com/country/ja-japan/cri-crime

US Population
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/print/us.html

US crime stats Big huge DOJ Report
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/soo.pdf

Someones Paper that is related to if Pron causes sexual crimes
http://www.hawaii.edu/PCSS/online_artcls/pornography/prngrphy_rape_jp.html

Are we talking about porn or are we talking about pedophilia? I guess pedophilia is porn but is pornography pedophilia? We are mixing things here.

Sophia, where are you?

As far away from your wierd arguments as possible. xP

We're talking about Two consenting adults dressing up as children (one or both) then engaging in sexual activities.

Sexual ageplay on the grid can, at worst, be called porn. Not pedophilia. Those people are doing nothing else than a japanese manga artist, or the director who produced the movie version of "Lolita". Since the exposure to manga porn depicting minors that engage in sexual activities obviously doesn't lead to an exceptinally high rate of pedophile crimes in Japan, there's no reason to assume that SL ageplay would.

There's some good evidence, peggy. It didn't come from me, though. I don't have all the answers for everything. xP

Sorry I was Busy adding Links to data I was able to find with quick Google Search, trying to keep to government and Educational Institutions.

But yes that is what the data seems to be pointing towards for quite a while as some references go back to 1970's

Here we go again.........using movies as comparisons. That age old classic, "Lolita". But someone tell me the similarity.............please I want to know.

"Lolita" was a movie, put on film and shown in a theater. People sat in an auditorium and watched. They walked out with whatever it was the got from the experience of watching a film. They had no part in the developing plot. They could not participate in any way except maybe critiquing the movie in whatever fashion they thought needed commentary (after the fact). Sexual ageplay ("pseudopedophilia" is quite different since the "viewers" have some control over the progression of the plot.

Do I have to state the obvious difference?

How is it different, You don't see the movie, You teleport somewhere else, Sounds good. You never have to sit there and watch, unless that is you type of fetish, To be Forced to watch what you think is taboo.

It is not real, There are not real people on you screen havening sex. And that is the Line that Live Journal decided to Not cross (They happened to do a bunch of suspensions the same day as SL made there Blog post, and that worries me for a different reason.)

while LL sits there and Dose nothing, Not even a we are sorry that you don't like it you can take your fantasy somewhere else. They make blanket statements and then getting any response from them is like trying to get blood from a stone.


Acidraven Harrington
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Height detector 1.0.4: AcidRaven Harrington is 1.191803 m
(3 feet 11 inches) tall. (counting your shoes)

Yo, ho, haul together,
hoist the Colors high…
Heave ho, thieves and beggars,
never say we die.
Freedom is for Everyone.

Your one opinion of fact, is only true if no one is at risk for having or viewing cartoon depictions of pedophilia. The United States has actually convicted someone for possession of cartoons such as this, and other countries are at this moment playing it out in their judicial systems.

Same for me, I would like to see links to the evidence especially this line here:

"every such action removes through desensitization the actual very real horror and trauma which are the end results of such things in Real Life."

Please show me evidence where something occuring on my PC screen "desensitizes" me to things occuring in RL, because I'd love to read what Jack Thompson has idioticly posted once again.

It could be true. One day I was watching Hilarity Clinton yak about something. Now every time I see her I burst out into uncontrolled laughter.

I'm not talking about me being forced to watch anything. I know perfectly well where the TP button or the off button is (been playing this game long enough for that). I'm talking about the participants in this "harmless" sexual ageplay thing ("pseudopedophilia".....sorry can't get over that new word ). The likelihood of one (or both) participants being actual pedophiles is great..........the "acting out" of their "harmless" fantasies could (could meaning may) lead to taking it to next step. Now that is a fact........and even if it only happened one time, that is one time too many. Sick, perverted people are just that......you cannot apply that "consenting adult" to people like that. Adult generally means a mature, rational human being. Pedophiles don't fit that catagory.

Funny how all you "concerned" people conveniently overlook the very real possibility of serious and tragic harm coming to a real life child. All for your "precious rights of free experssion". Freedom does not allow a platform or place for criminals to gather. And your tacit acceptance of something as perverted as pedophilia (yes, even the "mere" depiction of it) shows me your just as sick as they are...........or stupid. I hope it's the latter and not the former.

All reaseach done by government and educational institutions disagree with you Fantasy != reality.

Now there are Messed up people in any group. But Just because I see a white man in his 30's pick up a Black trany hooker off the street dose not = that All white men in there 30's want to have sex with back trany hookers. Let the community in question go WTF and police it self if such people express there selves in SL. I will personally report and try to get the location of someone by havening them check a innocent website while pretending to be there friend, if they ever mentioned wanting to do things with a real Child. But I have to say there is a difference between what happens in Sl and what happens in reality.

Where exactly are you getting these "facts" from Peggy? It might also be "possible" that someone who participates in a warfare RP sim "might" run out in the street and start shooting, should we ban that too?

Two very broad statements. Show me those studies. Convince me. I can show you studies contrary to those just as easily as you can show me yours. Tacit acceptance of anything vile gives the participants license (small, maybe...........but license anyway) to engage in that activity. It's condoning it. Your idea of "it's their thing, it doesn't effect me" is telling those who have the perversion that it's "okay with you".

It may be "okay" with you........which I will forever condemn you for. But it will never be "okay" with me.

Ending my arguments.........I will not argue with idiots.

I have 6 supporting links where I made refenced between the fantasy of Japanese Anime and manga and sex crimes compared to the US.

I never ask for it to be ok with you, Just leave me alone and let me live my life the way I want to till I do something that hurts someone (and prove that I have hurt someone).

In the civilized world people are innocent to proven guilty. No matter what Group that may be part of. Any time that people have made blanket statements about you are part of this group so you are guilty they have regretted it. Mc Cathisim, natisism, Jahad, The Japanese Camps during WWII. All evils because of a generalization. BTW sorry for my spelling.

Your logic that it will never be ok with me so you must be punished causes so much pain, destruction and evil in the world. You are not part of my reglion and the only right one is mine so you are evil. Is one of the first that comes to mind.

You say that participants in sexual ageplay are probably pedophiles. Well, that possibility exists. It's also possible that people who engage in SM (sadomasochism) activities in SL are sadists. It's a sexual urge, one that you possibly also find sick and perverted, not mature and not rational.
It's funny though that the vast majority of not all of those sadists who even go as far as engaging in virtual rape games never hurt anyone in RL. Why? Because there's another side of the coin. People who happilly engage in consensual SM games. Same is true for sexual ageplay; there's an RL scene for it. And BOTH is LEGAL in RL.

If someone feels an urge, finds a like-minded adult person to act it out in a safe and sonsensual way, jerks off, sinks back into his chair with a happy smile - do you think he is more likely to abuse someone in RL after his needs are fullfilled, or less? If that person realizes: "Wow, I can get satisfaction in a harmless and safe way" - do you think they'll be more likely to break laws and risk ending up on the electric chair, after finding another outlet? I'm neither a pedophile or a sadist, but I know for sure that one is less likely to desire sex after having an orgasm, and less likely to frantically search for a sex partner in RL if the safe and easy alternative cybersex is available.

I think the worst that can happen to people with these urges is that everyone around them calls them sick and perverted, and that they never get a chance to get in contact with like-minded adults who act out their fantasies together with them. If that is the case, they could suffer and supress their urge for years and finally really harm an innocent person. Why do you want to force them to commit crimes by denying them any safe and harmless satisfaction?

Ageplay is not padeophillia. Where I have a problem is with child avatars, to me that's paedophillia. Two adults with adult avatar's, engaging in ageplay, is not paedophillia.

When you bring a child avatar into it, it's not an ageplay issue, it's a paedophile fantasy.

The two should be separate issues.

There are always going to be fringe activities in Second Life, putting pressure on the outer edges of what the community as a whole, as well as what Linden Lab's policy makers deem acceptable. The closer to the edge the fringe players move, and the harder they push against it, the more likely it is that they will find themselves on the outside of the grid, unable to get back in.

Business Case:

Linden Lab management have an obligation to their Board of Directors, as well as their investors, to shape the Second Life platform into a product which is desirable by the mainstream mass of consumers, both corporate and individual. When media gets wind of something sensationally scandalous such as the sexual ageplay scandal in Second Life, they develop a hunger for more dirt. The very same media who highlighted Anshe Chung's admirable success late last year are now highlighting simulated adult-on-child sex in Second Life.

I've already shared in various other threads over the past few weeks my personal views on the matter. In a nutshell, I think it's disgusting. It does nothing to advance the platform's success, and everything to hinder its ability to move forward and solidify its leadership position in the emerging virtual marketplace. It is for the latter reason that it is right to ban the behavior.

Sohpia has attempted to lead the witnesses in this thread along a course of argument which will never result in a conclusion which satisfies anything more than the most singular, and selfish of interests.


Community Case:

In such a broad, diverse community that is Second Life, I believe that there must be accomodation for various avenues to explore human sexuality beyond that which is possible in First Life. As a gay person, I'm actually very conservative in terms of the choices I make for myself. As I grow, I must respect the fact that other Residents aren't so conservative, and actually fancy ideas that I personally wouldn't entertain. This is part of the makeup of the community, part of its character, and is no more or less true of the Second Life community than it is the First Life community. "CEO by day, BDSM Master by night".

Save for the few fringe players whom the media would want to seek out and expose, and the relatively few who actually engage in it, the broader community would likely agree that there is no value added by those who would portray "adult/child" sexual scenarios in Second Life. It's just too close to real world situations, where children every day are hurt and abused. There is enough of it in the real world, we don't need it in Second Life.