According to anecdotal information about Second Life (SL), about two thirds of the women are men and most of the men are women. Is it true? I’ve no idea and neither I suppose, does Linden Labs, because until recently there’s been little attempt to verify your sex, age or inclinations in SL.

This makes for some curious scenarios, where real life intersects with SL. For example, in Britain there are laws against harassment and also the sending of malicious messages, both of which are possible to achieve in SL. But is it harassment if a 14 year old girl pretending to be a 21 year old male is stalking and making outrageous suggestions to a 35 year old building worker who’s pretending to be a 25 year old supermodel? Maybe she/he is even rubbing him/herself up against her/him (a common cybersexual practice, apparently) in a forcible way.

Virtual Crime and Punishment

As the terms and conditions of entry to SL prohibit harassment, the 14 year old girl could get thrown out on her 21-year-old-virtual-male ass, but is she guilty of a crime? Actually, yes. Some (poor, sad) SL users become almost as emotionally involved with their avatars as they are with themselves in the real world. Stalking in the real world rarely involves violent attacks, it’s mostly about emotional attacks and mind games, which is what can happen in SL. I rest my virtual case.

If you weren’t aware, the first Second Life/Real Life divorce has already occurred. In December, an Arizona man in his fifties, was divorced by his wife of less than a year after she found out he was having frequent sex with an SL avatar. She maintained that his having virtual sex with a Playboy-model-looking avatar (who could easily have been a 65 year old transsexual from El Paso, for all anyone knows) made her feel that he did not enjoy real life intimacy with her. So it was emotional rather than physical unfaithfulness.

This (I’m guessing) explains why there’s a BDSM (bondage, discipline, and sadomasochism) community in SL. It’s counter intuitive – especially given that no matter how securely someone ties you up in SL, you can still leave your PC and get yourself a coffee. No matter how hard they torture your avatar, you are not going to feel any pain – unless you have genuine psychosomatic powers. But, if the emotional identification is there, then maybe it’s a similar thing. (Feedback on this from a Psychology Professor is welcome).

It seems that all human life is there in SL. There’s a virtual porno magazine called Slustler and virtual prostitution abounds. Click here if you want to read about Tiffany Widdershins, who runs an SL bordello from an SL office, made to be a replica of Bill Clinton’s White House Oval Office, complete with cigars.

The Darker Side

If you think that none of the above is particularly dark, then consider what is called “ageplay” in SL. Authorities in Germany became concerned when they were presented evidence that a 54-year-old man and 27-year-old woman were engaging in simulated SL sex, one with an adult avatar and the other with the avatar of a child. The two managed an SL ageplay club called “Jailbait”.

Unfortunately, there was also evidence of a real child pornography image having been downloaded from SL. That put a Cheshire Cat amongst the virtual pigeons.

Is ageplay fundamentally wrong? There are SL users that claim that “ageplay” has helped them recover from being molested as a child in real life. There are also claims that such “ageplay” between consenting adults may help deal with pedophile tendencies before they become dangerous – which is a replay of the long running debate about whether pornography reduces sex crime or increases it.

However, actual child pornography is a horse of a different color. No-one’s ever going to tolerate that. It’s criminal in every country in the world. The question is “when does virtual child pornography become actual child pornography?” When SL or some other virtual world has better graphics we’ll get an official opinion, but they answer is surely going to be that if it looks like child pornography, it is.

Linden Labs (the company that runs SL) isn’t taking chances. It points out that “ageplay” has always been banned in SL, and since the German episode it has closed down “ageplay” areas. They recently published plans for age verification so that SL “land owners” would have to flag adult content and request proof of age before access to adult content was allowed.

The Size of the Sex Business

About 18% of the land in SL is devoted to sex in one form or another. That sounds as though it’s just under one fifth of Linden Labs business, and that’s probably what Philip Rosedale, CEO, Linden Labs would like you to believe. But I suspect that the real percentage is an awful lot higher than that. Technology companies that discover they’ve found a seam of gold in the sex business are usually very coy about admitting it.

“Aw shucks, yes, maybe that kind of thing does happen, but only late at night between consenting geeks, who code their own algorithms”.

See also: The Campaign For Real Life