We just saw the trashy article by Marlon McDonald that ticked off a number of Second Life™ residents. We aren’t prudes about sex. What was upsetting about the article was how poorly it was done. We have had that grip for some time and it seems to be an ongoing problem perpetuated by dysfunctional journalists and reporters that have no idea what either profession is about, even if they did go to school and major in the subject. Sad.
Inara Pey made an excellent response rebutting the lame article. Please drop by and check her article. It is here: The Strange Stories about Second Life that Totally Miss The Mark! Please leave a comment and have your friends stop by. We would like to see the blog clearly conveyed the idea that good writing draws more views than trash does.
There is an interesting audio/video on The Verge about Sex in the Future. This brings up some relative points and points us in the direction of virtual sex. This ‘virtual sex’ is something Isaac Asimov used in his one of his series of I Robot stories. Elijah Baley is Asimov’s fiction detective that has to solve a murder in an off-Earth independent world, where people seldom encountered one another in person. Most contact, including sex, was virtual. The Naked Sun, I think.
The video heads the same direction.
Sex is alive and healthy in Second Life. Some may want to debate the ‘healthy’ part. McDonald’s portrayal was what I consider a salacious focus on sex as perverted. The blow back at McDonald came from portraying Second Life as ONLY about sex. Fortunately we have Drax and others showing the other sides of Second Life. Episode #24.
Whether virtual sex is healthy is a debatable subject. I believe there is no absolute answer that is true for everyone. The 3 to 5% of the world that is into LGBT preferences only begins to reveal the diversity of preferences. That LGBT exists is proof enough for me that there are no absolutes in sexual preferences and few rules about what is or is not healthy. Those few rules have more to do with physical injury, emotional abuse, and consent than which gender puts what where, how, when, and why.
In proportion sex and the rest of Second Life seem about as balanced as real life… or unbalanced, depending on your thinking. It is intellectually dishonest for any reporter or journalist to write otherwise. But, that is not likely to be something they are aware of or in any way inhibit them.
If we ever want Second Life to have a different reputation, we will have to positively engage and rebut the intellectually dishonest stories we see. Complaining about them doesn’t do much. Inara took what I consider a very positive, proactive step.