Second Life and Virtual Cybersex

[dr_mabeuse]

Been hanging out in Second Life a lot lately, and all it is over there is sex, sex, sex. Everyone's beautiful, and there's all sorts of creatures there, so there's anything you could possibly want in terms of cyber sex, and it runs the gamut from regular old 1-on-1 hetero to group to BDSM to cartoon bestiality (or I guess cartooniality would be more accurate.)

The catch is, you never really know the gender of the person behind the Avatar you're screwing. The Av may be female but the person behind it may be male. The Av may look male and actually be run by a female. They may look 21 and be 78. Or 14 (that's illegal, but you know kids). Anything can happen.

I don't think this bothers me. My Avatar's a lot more liberal than I am, and he doesn't mind taking part in open homoerotocism or subbing for a Domme, and I don't think I mind the fact that the female I'm having sex with is actually being run by a man. I'm getting over a lot of prejudices very quickly over there. You have to in a virtual world. But my own liberality surprises me.

How would you feel about this? Would you be able to handle finding out your virtual partner was the opposite sex of what you thought?

Or maybe not even opposite. Maybe something weirder...

 

[NoJo]

A close friend of mine met his true love there. They're a good-looking couple in r.l, not the naive-sterotype at all.

That same friend tried to get me into it but it ain't for me. But I can see the attraction.

As for the gender-bending masquerade element -- well, that's all been happening in chat-rooms for ages

 

[Stella_Omega]

I've never done second life, because when it first came up It didn't work on a mac, and I've never bothered to go back and check The last thing I need is one more way to spend time online!

But I have friends who do their co-writing via SL--n hanging out on a pirate ship and drink virutal rum.

ETA, needless to say, they write pr0n...

 

[NoJo]

drink virutal rum.

Now that's just fucking pathetic

 

[The_Fool]

SL is all about Sex and Shopping.

 

[tickledkitty]

SL is all about Sex and Shopping.

You say that like it's a bad thing.

 

[IsabellaKing]

Been hanging out in Second Life a lot lately, and all it is over there is sex, sex, sex. Everyone's beautiful, and there's all sorts of creatures there, so there's anything you could possibly want in terms of cyber sex, and it runs the gamut from regular old 1-on-1 hetero to group to BDSM to cartoon bestiality (or I guess cartooniality would be more accurate.)

The catch is, you never really know the gender of the person behind the Avatar you're screwing. The Av may be female but the person behind it may be male. The Av may look male and actually be run by a female. They may look 21 and be 78. Or 14 (that's illegal, but you know kids). Anything can happen.

I don't think this bothers me. My Avatar's a lot more liberal than I am, and he doesn't mind taking part in open homoerotocism or subbing for a Domme, and I don't think I mind the fact that the female I'm having sex with is actually being run by a man. I'm getting over a lot of prejudices very quickly over there. You have to in a virtual world. But my own liberality surprises me.

How would you feel about this? Would you be able to handle finding out your virtual partner was the opposite sex of what you thought?

Or maybe not even opposite. Maybe something weirder...

Your Second Life Av's got some serious morality issues. You need to get him into virtual counselling.

 

[The_Fool]

You say that like it's a bad thing.

Well you know what a prude and cheap bastard I am....

 

[NoJo]

Well you know what a prude and cheap bastard I am....

great speed-dating technique there, fool

 

[The_Fool]

great speed-dating technique there, fool

I know, for some reason I seem to be quite obnoxious lately. Need to take lessons on being suave and debonair.

so....you available? for lessons that is...

 

[NoJo]

I know, for some reason I seem to be quite obnoxious lately. Need to take lessons on being suave and debonair.

so....you available? for lessons that is...

Fucking A I'm a fuckin-vailable. Whenever you BURP want

 

[tickledkitty]

I know, for some reason I seem to be quite obnoxious lately. Need to take lessons on being suave and debonair.

Options for her escape from me
are limited to an unconditional surrender.
I let her know it,
I make her speak those words

I make no secret of my desire
as I grind into her,
Sharing a glimpse of my need,
of what might happen

Between the words I speak,
I listen to her breathing
and feel for her heartbeat
beneath my cupped hand.

You need lessons? I think not.

 

[Selena_Kitt]

The last thing I need is one more way to spend time online!

Ha! That was the first thing I thought. But I went to check it out anyway...

 

[3113]

I suppose this is a no-brainer, but I'll say it anyway: What people don't often understand is how much we play pretend. They think we've left it behind with childhood, but we play pretend our whole life long, perhaps every second of the day. And we're shockingly malleable...in our heads. Imagining is what makes us a success species after all--because sometimes we try to do make real what we imagine. And given that we're human beings, we imagine--or can imagine anything a human being can or has ever done, as well as a lot we can't or haven't done but want to. We'll imagine all sorts of things that we'd do or might want to do or try...in our heads. Murder, rape, being raped, torturing others, climbing mountains, sex with strangers in a dark alley, sex with mom or sister or brother or dad, sex with something not quite human...the list goes on. It's why Literotica thrives, after all. Because people crave stories to help them "pretend." And this is what we writers do, after all, create stories from our "pretend." (Pretend I'm a gay male Dom...how would he think? What would he do....) That's where there are no consequences, no responsibilities or no realities in our heads, on the page or movie screen--or in Second Life--is what makes it all possible.

I'm not at all surprised that people will try all kinds of things with cartoon characters who can't bleed, or feel pain, or hurt their loved ones if they do this, or ruin their reputations if they do this, or be gossiped about by neighbors if they do this, or end up in jail if they do this, or just find themselves in a complicated relationship that they can't get out of if they do this, or maybe get a disease if they do this...or likely can't do this at all because their arthritis won't let them

Nor am I'm surprised that you'll let a man play the role of a woman--and I don't know if it's homoeroticism at all when you do--why not? Because humans have allowed men to play the part of women for thousands of years in more than one culture, and gone along with the "pretend"...so long as it was "pretend." Dress up. On stage not walking into their actual bedroom where they actually have to deal with them and their actual penises.

Once we're back in real life, however, in our first and, alas, perhaps only life...we do take into account that other stuff. If we don't, then we're considered delusional. Including the fact that we're likely not that pretty, limber, healthy, young, brave and daring. And that we can get sick and we need to eat and such. Second life isn't "real life." If it was, it wouldn't be so popular.

 

[The_Fool]

You need lessons? I think not.

Maybe merely reminded.....

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Your Second Life Av's got some serious morality issues. You need to get him into virtual counselling.

I did. I'm virtually cured.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Once we're back in real life, however, in our first and, alas, perhaps only life...we do take into account that other stuff. If we don't, then we're considered delusional. Including the fact that we're likely not that pretty, limber, healthy, young, brave and daring. And that we can get sick and we need to eat and such. Second life isn't "real life." If it was, it wouldn't be so popular.

I don't see it quite so black and white. There are people trying out roles in SL they wouldn't try out in real life, and maybe taking these behaviors back into RL with them.

The sim is heuristic and it's fairly hallucinogenic. I've been transferring images back and forth from one world to the other. I have to say, I had a serious case of writer's block until I started hanging out there, and the richness of the environment has cured that.

It's a bitch to learn though. I had joined years before and gave it up as meaningless and too complicated. Then someone showed me a few basic things, and it's been great ever since.

To put it in McLuhanesque terms, the medium is much hotter than books or movies. If the army can teach people to kill other people using simulations, who's to say you can't learn to be homosexual from a sim?

As to sex and shopping, yeah, there's that. There's also a big combat subculture I haven't looked into. And I found a place set up specifically for fantasy abduction/kidnapping role play: a nice, noir, rust-belt town called Dead End City.

They also have open-mike poetry reading at the Blue Angel Poet's Dive on Sunday nights with streaming audio, and some of the poetry is very good.

 

[3113]

It occurs to me that I probably didn't answer the actual question as usual

I guess what I was trying to say in that long-assed post is that while it would be wonderful if such play led to people being more liberal minded--as you suggest might happen--I don't think we can count on it doing so. Not that it can't or won't period--there are always people who read a book or see a movie or just imagine something and are transformed--but that it likely won't in large, significant numbers. Because people have engaged in such play before, and it hasn't changed their minds once they left the brothel. In the past, men had black mistresses, this doesn't mean they had any qualms at all about making laws against interracial marriage.

Or how about a New York Politician who has a prostitution ring even as he's working to shut down prostitution? Shouldn't he be trying to legalize it? But that would risk his political life, yes? So, he wants to have his cake and eat it, too. We all do.

We're wonderfully adapt at having two lives and maintaining two contradictory ideas, and they usually go like this: "It's allowed, so long as it's not in my neighborhood." Second life is the ultimate red light district. People will allow themselves to do it, and let others do it in that part of town (meaning on the internet with cartoon characters). Try to bring it into the real world, and they'll slap it down, even if it's something that they, themselves enjoy. People, I think, are at heart cowards. What they'll boldly do in pretend is something they'll run from and condemn if faced with in reality.

 

[Selena_Kitt]

We have a novella out today at eXcessica, "Do Unto Others" that explores what happens in this sort of virtual world... and what could happen if it became "real." It's an interesting thought!

 

[impressive]

We have a novella out today at eXcessica, "Do Unto Others" that explores what happens in this sort of virtual world... and what could happen if it became "real." It's an interesting thought!

Alternity.

 

[Huckleman2000]

This story is strange on so many levels, but it kind of puts a lot of issues into one story. Maybe a bit too conveniently, but still...
Excerpt:

I caught my hubby virtually at it with a man
Wife wants divorce after his Second Life 'gay affair'

By Matthew Acton, 08/02/2009
A WIFE has dumped her computer-mad husband for having virtual sex with another MAN on his laptop . . . while he was in bed with HER.

Lisa Best woke up one night to catch John, 34, with his online trousers round his ankles—having gay dungeon romps in the web world Second Life.

The van driver was sitting up beside her at 4am tapping away frenetically—living out his fantasy through his avatar, or online character, called Troy Hammerthall when Lisa opened an eye and caught sight of the screen.

“I saw John’s little person having it off with another man in a dungeon on the screen,” said horrified Lisa, 28.

“I just froze with my head on the pillow, silently watching what he was doing. I felt sick to my stomach.

eta: my favorite quote: “I can’t believe it. He’s not Troy Hammerthall—he’s John Best, from Derby.”

 

[CharleyH]

Been hanging out in Second Life a lot lately, and all it is over there is sex, sex, sex. Everyone's beautiful, and there's all sorts of creatures there, so there's anything you could possibly want in terms of cyber sex, and it runs the gamut from regular old 1-on-1 hetero to group to BDSM to cartoon bestiality (or I guess cartooniality would be more accurate.)

The catch is, you never really know the gender of the person behind the Avatar you're screwing. The Av may be female but the person behind it may be male. The Av may look male and actually be run by a female. They may look 21 and be 78. Or 14 (that's illegal, but you know kids). Anything can happen.

I don't think this bothers me. My Avatar's a lot more liberal than I am, and he doesn't mind taking part in open homoerotocism or subbing for a Domme, and I don't think I mind the fact that the female I'm having sex with is actually being run by a man. I'm getting over a lot of prejudices very quickly over there. You have to in a virtual world. But my own liberality surprises me.

How would you feel about this? Would you be able to handle finding out your virtual partner was the opposite sex of what you thought?

Or maybe not even opposite. Maybe something weirder...

I always had the notion that no one was what they seemed. I am hardly ever surprised about this (as you know). When I post to Lit? I want to seem stupid, insane even. I want this because in RL I need to be sane and intelligent and it's hard to be the strong arm all the time. I want to let loose as an avatar and that is what I do to extreme. Men who pose as lesbians? Same thing. I fell in love with an avatar. He doesn't have that gorgeously shaved pussy I thought he did, he knows I still love pussy, but we are married now and our life is fantastic!

 

[CharleyH]

Bump for interest

 

[dr_mabeuse]

My original question was about how people would feel if they found out an on-line lover was a different gender. Would it seriously bother you, or would you be able to roll with it and even possibly accept it.

My own feeling that is that I couldn't deal with someone misrepresenting in an on-line relationship normally, but 2nd Life is different. It's different because (1) you don't have a commitment to honesty, and (2) you have these very sexy avatars running around, and even if the girl you're screwing on your sex bed in your oceanside estate is run by a male, she's still apparently a girl on screen. It's easy to separate the gender of the Av from the gender of the person running it and treat them as separate. Up to a point.

The result is, it's a much more gentle introduction to gender-bending than normal cyber sex.

I'm not saying 2nd Life is going to change the way we think about gender or it's going to change the world, but it might change some of us.

 

[redpaint]

OK I must be living under a rock. This is the first time I have hears of SL.

I have got to get out more in the virtual world.