Second Life and Adult Sex

This week there is flurry of postings about the Atlas Obscura article about Second Life™. Strawberry Singh Ziki Questi is disappointed in Hamlet’s New World Notes post I think is attempting to put things into some perspective and warn of the problems with the type of posts that unrealistically spin the nature of SL. She Plurked: …read this ill informed post… referring to Hamlet’s post.

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Unavailable by Mr S. is looking at you, on Flickr

Hamlet’s post may be annoying to many, but I can’t see where he is misinformed. See: Reporter Who Only Gets Expert Tour of Second Life Only Gets Part of Second Life’s Story Right

It seems people want to spin things and avoid the truth. Think about how you feel when you find out something has been misrepresented to you, when you are lied to. Seems to me this is what Hamlet is warning about… think ahead.

We may not like it that Second Life’s sexual nature is the main headline of many articles about Second Life. The fact is there is a significant portion of SL that is about sex.

The same is true of real life. This last Sunday at least three shows I saw running in or near prime time on major channels had a sex scene with a couple engaging in copulation. Sex is everywhere.

To invite or entice anyone into SL without some warning of what to expect can be considered misleading and dishonest. Just as it is a misrepresentation of SL to JUST talk about the sexual side, so too it is a misrepresentation to spin a word picture of SL without dealing with pixel sex. To be intellectually honest is no simple undertaking…

UPDATE: 5/13/2015Hamlet has posted about his original post. He is a bit surprised by the blow back. See: Why the Second Life Community Needs Positive Media Coverage (Comment of the Week). I still think most people are suffering from the current misconceptions about free speech, ignoring intellectual honesty, and have no positive alternatives to how diverse ideas can be expressed.

4 thoughts on “Second Life and Adult Sex

  1. Old Hamlet lives off of –not in –SL these days. He’s like a Washington talking head who yaps about what people in the Midwest think when a 2 hour layover in Chicago is the sum of their Midwest knowledge.

  2. That’s not my plurk Nalates, it’s Ziki’s. I do agree with what she said in it though. It’s not about spinning things and avoiding the truth. It’s about taking a very rare positive article about Second Life in the mainstream media and making it seem like it’s an incorrect representation of Second Life. Like Ziki said in the plurk comments above, he did speak of the sexual aspects of SL in the post, just didn’t focus on them. Why does the focus have to be on sex every time Second Life is mentioned? People already know it’s there. Can’t an article talk about the beauty and art of SL without bringing sex into it?

    • Thanks for the correction. I thought it looked like you Plurking.

      We all see the original story a bit different. I think it is positive and fine as is.

      Hamlet thinks it is way too rosy. His point is articles need balance and intellectual honesty. I agree. Most are attacking Hamlet and complaining rather than addressing the substance of the two posts and providing positive alternatives.

      Those of us familiar with Second Life know there is sex everywhere, SL and RL. Those that don’t know SL have no idea if there is sex in SL or not. Some gamers have never thought of there being sex in a game. A friend of mine (heavy WoW player) was stunned and surprised by the sex in SL.

      Articles like Atlas’ can portray SL however they wish. That is free speech. They are limited by Libel laws. Hamlet can say whatever he wants about the article in the same framework. So, yes, both can write without any mention of sex in SL. Whether that is intellectually honest depends on what they are intending with the article.

      People have sex in Yellow Stone National Park. But, we hear very little about it unless it is blatant exhibitionism. So, yes, people do write about beautify things without mention of ALL the other aspects. Hamlet knows that. He is driving traffic to his site. Everyone talking about this is helping him.

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