Response to a Comment II

On February 11, 2008, this was posted as a comment to my "Great Evils" post on age players. I will respond point by point.

"You probably will not post this, And that is ok. I know you will read it."

My policy for this blog is to allow you, the reader, to post comments of whatever flavor you want. I do not see your comments, there is no moderation. When you click post, it goes immediately into the post itself without me seeing it. This saves tremendously on my time and fulfills my belief in the freedom of speech and freedom of discussion of ideas.

Also, I do make an effort to read and think about comments. This involves a lot of back checking my archives for comments such as yours that get buried in the past. But I honestly believe that everyone should have a fair say in whatever it is I'm ranting or tripping about at the moment.

Hmm, come to think of it, I don't believe I've ever stated that before as my policy. But now I just did!

"I play a child avitar in second life. And while yes there are many there who are not innocent, let me assure you that I know many who are. My child avi acts and speaks in a Pg if not G rated manner. The sim she lives on is a pg sim, and anyone who suggests she do otherwise is reported immediatly."

Good!

"There are some there hon who are only doing in Second Life what many many others are doing. Something you can do in real life and that is be a child again. I had a horid childhood, sl provides a safe and sane place if i am careful where i can have a fraction of that, that i missed."

I'm sorry, but I have to disagree on this point. It is a release, certainly, but it's not treating the source of the problem, the horrid childhood itself. That is something that will require some serious therapy and playing a child on Second Life is something like repressing this rather than confronting it. Perhaps you have already done this, and in that case I'm something of an ass for suggesting it.

I am going to be honest, life is shit. Life sucks. It's short, horrid, and brutal. But I try to live in the future and look ahead, I personally don't try to go back and rewind my life to that point. Again, I may be presumptuous on your life but I only have your Second Life to judge this from. Please forgive me these assumptions otherwise.

If you believe this to be true, and it helps you, then more power to you.

"Also let me assure you that the innocent child avis are at war against the not innocent pedos as much as the next person."

That's great to here! Keeping house in your community is vital, precisely because it was ignoring the problem which brought age play to the forefront in the first place. It's great to hear that your community is taking steps against this.

"You dont have to understand, and I will not loose any sleep if you do not even try. But you do need to remember that there are real people on the other side of that screen of yours, and we reserve the right to play our game in any way that we choose."

And I respect your right to choose how to live. I understand perfectly the direction from which you are coming from, and I also understand the people on the 'other side of the screen'.

"Everything I do there is legal in rl, i would be more focused on those who do things in sl that would NOT be legal in rl. Such as rape? verbal assault, harassment."

Verbal assault and harassment are two things which in SL are easy to solve. Mute the person, ban them from your lands. It's very simple and I do not understand why they will stand there and complain that so-and-so person is IMing them lewdly when there is a mute button right there. This is a RL problem where you can't mute. But in SL? Something of a non-issue. I've been harassed in SL, and I mute them. If they're a (former) friend, then I turn off 'see my location' and 'see my online status' and destroy their friend card if they get annoying enough.

"I am signing this anonymous, because i really do not care to be harassed by you in game. I go there to have fun not deal with grief. Open your mind and eyes a little. You just might be surprised. =) Have a great day."

I would never think to harass someone just because of their beliefs or comments. I'm sorry you got that impression. It hurts me a little that I scared you to the point where you could not give your SL name for fear of harassment.

Having said all that, let me explain myself. My great evils posts were, at their heart, tongue in cheek. I really don't care about what people do in SL if, as you say rightly, they remain in RL laws.

The Great Evils Posts focus upon communities and people who people seem to always scream about as bad or not acceptable. When I wrote that Great Evils of Ageplay, it was just before the age player ban, when people at that time were calling for age verification (strange, they don't seem to like these days) and banning of child avatars. I was just more than a little disgusted and so wrote a post describing all the 'evils' of child avatars. I wrote it in the manner of a 17th century naturalist, even ascribing latin names to avatars. My idea was to write about age players doing and being something so over the top, that the reader would come to grips with the fact that perhaps the hype about age players was a little overblown.

I'm not saying I'm a saint, and you could probably dredge up a few posts of mine where I submit to this scandalizing of child avatars. That is my own faults of character. However, all the Great Evil posts were intended as comedy and not taken seriously. If people have, that makes me sad. I'm sorry if I offended you in any way, but please take consolation in the fact that I actually intended it to show off the overblown fear of child avs present at the time.

I honestly thought that the bland picture of the child av labeled as "hideous", that a herd of them would be called "Bunch of snot nosed brats", that they eat avatars by mimicking children and lowering your guard, that I would even need to warn an avatar having sex to check to see if their partner was an age player in the first place, was funny and a mockery of the taboo people placed on them.

The Great Evils was going to be a running series, but I stopped because I forgot about it and it was tiring to think of unique ways to make someone 'evil'. I only covered child avatars and griefers, and I had posts written about Nude Newbies and Copybot. But between Real Life (school finals), Second Life, and writing the Nunchuck Bible, I just stopped. Maybe that is just a little unfair to griefers and age players.