gd04102008

=04/10/2008= Lots of interesting adventures today which I will write about (and provide lots of photos) later. BRASIL HELP BRASIL - SPECIAL SKIN 60% OFF http://slurl.com/secondlife/Brasil%20Help%20Brasil/165/89/27

Ah those Brazilians. Before you start thinking that I have decided to turn my part of this project into a search for digital genitalia and smut, let me assure you that there is some method behind my madness. I was going to use the above image as part of my critique on the parallel between body image and avatar image in Second Life, really, and I think it kind of speaks for itself. Sex and the internet go together like marshmellows and hot chocolate, so it should come as no surprise that in an open ended three-dimensional digital environment like Second Life sex is everywhere. And it is. The sight of a big black penis on a white torso is comical, to say the least - and I've noticed that female genitalia for sale on SL does not resemble the genuine merchandise on most grown women that I've seen. There's something disturbing that strikes you when you realize that most of the vulvae for sale are of the kind found on teenage young women. Ephebophilia: At least it isn't pederastery! You can't look very far without seeing pose-balls and giant genitals for sale at varying prices. I am writing this a day after this particular adventure, so I can't remember the exact prices for this stuff, but you can be assured that it was cheaper than the SUV's and motorcycles shown below.



And why not get a digital replica of a disgustingly polluting status symbol like a Hummer for your avatar? If you feel guilty about having one in real life but still think that you would look pretty badass in one, go for it. Buy the biggest, ugliest, most ridiculous car (or genitalia) that you can find. Seriously. These cars were sold footsteps away from the flesh shop, and they stand for very much the same thing - now how does digital status differ from status in real life? Sociologists divide social status between ascribed (that is, inborn) status and acquired (that is, earned in one way or a nother) status. In SL we can see both types of status at work. You can either come into SL with some ascribed status in the form of extra money, which you can then use to pimp your avatar with clothes and skins, buy some property, a house, and furniture, and get a bitchin' Harley-Davidson to ride around on. Or you can acquire this status by building and selling clothes, skins, property, house, and furniture. If you are REALLY patient, you can acquire status like this:

Camping! Yes, do nothing for something - mind you, it is an infinestimally small amount of something, but after a while those L$ may add up to buy you something cool. This status system can go and has gone awry, however, in that there are many freeloaders and even more free distributors. That is where restraints can come in. This was my first venture into Second Life where I actually saw such restraints, and I think that they appeared because I stopped fearing what I might find if I sought out the seedy underbelly of SL. I finally started to see things that really brought Lessig home to me: Notice at the bottom of the sign "Copy... Modify... Transfer..." - meaning that whoever chooses to buy this product has permission to copy, modify, and transfer it freely. This might seem like an imposition to Second Life commercial relations, but since these properties are largely absent of their owners and operators and populated by campers who draw in curious people like myself eager for people to talk to and interesting things to see, there is still money to be made here. Clearly the product above is a 'Sex Room', a cubicle containing a few sparse furnishings and a bed with 2 pose balls on it which two avatars can use to do whatever freaky things the poseballs will allow them to do. This kind of stuff is a big draw on SL - almost anywhere that a large group of avatars can be found involves this type of behavior. I still don't understand what is so interesting about SL sex, or cybersex in general. How interesting or special can it really be without any real physical contact? It just seems like a way to digitally portray male masturbatory fantasy to me. Speaking of male fantasy:

http://slurl.com/secondlife/ATENAS%20store/196/65/27

Yes, side-by-side at last, sexy hot dicks and pussies, and cars, just as the good lord intended. At the bottom of the photo are examples of the 'Sex Room' I talked about above. In this particular place there were no barriers between the sex items for sale and the cars, so you could literally get yourself a penis and a Harley in one-stop shopping. This area was side-by-side with the Brasil Help Brasil area I discussed thoroughly above and, from the looks of the products offered, was made by the same people. I decided to leave as there wasn't much of anyone to talk to, and there would be time for studying SL sexuality later. I brought up the map and found a new link of interest, a Tibetan Goods store.

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Growl%202/79/126/24

As with most commercial areas on SL, there were campers outside, blissfully absent from their computers as their avatars racked up the bucks. One problem with this behavior that I can see is all of the kilowatt-hours of electricity that are being burnt away from people choosing to camp while they go to work and class - this produces nothing for their communities or their families, it is a completely and unabashedly selfish act. In disgust, I decided to go into an area which looked like an abandoned lot (behind the direction my avatar was facing in this picture): And I found another furry hideout! Furries are perhaps the second most distrubing social group on SL behind the lolis. These 'wind-up' keys are popular with both groups - worn on the back of their avatars to make them look like mechanical dolls. Why would a sentient person what their digital projection of self to look like an automaton? It would be like if Neo from the Matrix imagined himself to be a can-opener. A sexual can-opener, at that, because like almost everything else on SL, what furries are really interested in is sex. They have formed ad-hoc 'societies' based around simulating animal behavior. All types of animal behavior. I decided not to wait around and risk running into any more furries. These wind-up keys were not the only things for sale in this area, if one so desired one could also purchase collars, short-shorts, short-skirts, animal ears, paws, fur skins, water-and-food bowls, and a pet-bed with poseballs for yourself and your partner. Yeah. It was time to leave.

I was getting close to the Tibetan goods store, but I first passed by a t-shirt shop and had to see what they had. I'm a big fan of clever t-shirts. I have one that says 'Black Death: European Tour' with a dead rat and the approximate dates of the epidemic on it, as well as a list of cities and the year when it first arrived in full force on the back. I love that shirt, almost as much as my 'SPAM: The Miracle Meat' t-shirt. These shirts, however, weren't nearly as cool as those. Many of the previously discussed themes in my journal are well encapsulated here: obsession with sex and sexual metaphors, sarcasm and anti-social behavior, and general foulness. Second Life actually resembles a High School with no class (pun intended), no teacher, and no desks - the overall maturity level is about 15-years-old. A male 15-years-old. Onto Nepal Trader, the 'Spiritual Store' for Tibetan Goods. Nepal Trader was not all I'd hoped for. It certainly was quiet. The absentee shopkeeps in Second Life are somewhat disturbing, to say the least. It feels like you could reach out and take anything you come across. It is almost surprising when the dialogue box comes up asking you if you want to spend your hard earned (or otherwise) LindenDollars on this crap.



As you can see, the Nepal Trader folks are a little confused as to what is actually Tibetan and what isn't. Something tells me that this shop is run by one of those people who likes the idea of Buddhism, and likes what eastern materials look like, but are not actually Buddhists themselves and don't really know the first thing about what they are putting in their shop. This kind of inauthenticity is rampant in Second Life - you'll see a Union Jack flying in an Irish pub, for example, or straight people wearing the PRIDE rainbow or pink triangles on their clothing. The symbols that we recognize in real life are becoming distorted and changed in Second Life and their origins and historical significance is not as relevant as it once was. It is like seeing our real-life culture through a glass darkly - some of the more unfortunate things about human culture, western culture in particular, are hyperbolized, in particular our need to turn everything into a vehicle for profit and homogenization of otherwise meaningless symbols in that process. At the same time, some of the good things about Western culture are lost - there is little opportunity for Democratic/pluralistic political development in SL because its power structure is set in stone and impossible to extract. Now that Linden Labs has opted for the more traditional corporate structure, this problem will likely be exacerbated. I need a breath of fresh air. Relaxation. To commune with my digital self. Ahh. That's much better. Now it is time to get some exercise: Yes, in the same exact area you can meditate amongs 'Tibetan goods' and go pole dancing. Sometimes, Second Life is so ridiculous it RULES!

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Alady%20Island/91/77/23

One cool thing about Second Life is your ability to tailor your own image. If you are skilled at the SL tools available, you can make almost anything yourself and be a completely self-made avatar. If you don't have the good computer and graphic design skills, you're stuck buying stuff from other people. You can buy entire skins for your avatar to wear. A skin within Second Life is literally something you can put on your avatar to change their shape, clothing, species, and size. Your avatar retains its name and its indentity as yourself remains the same, but its outward appearance is totally changed. This shopkeep had aisles upon aisles of custom skins, and skin dealers have a tremendous web presence too. The sign above offers custom alteration of these skins. These were all realistic human skins - however, if one so desired one could buy or create skins as almost anything within reason. The customizabiltiy of avatars in Second Life leads to a very fluid concept of self-image - if someone feels self-concious or unhappy about the way they look, they are perfectly capable and competent to change that image by tinkering with the settings or purchasing a new skin. It seems a lot of people are sold on the possibility of doing this in real life - that is why we have gastronomical surgeons that make hundreds of thousands of dollars performing bariatric surgery, plastic surgeons performing tummy-tucks and face-lifts on 14 year old girls, and the semi-annual new crash-diet fad. These were just some really neat wall decorations. I didn't have any other reason to post this picture except I figured that I had posted plenty of upleasant stuff and ranted about it for several pages now and whoever decides to read this deserved a break. After this it was on to the omnipresent dance floor (every area has one):



This was billed as an 'urban' dance floor, and the presence of Tupac Shakur and Ice Cube certainly made it feel this way. However, when black Americans are portrayed on Second Life, I have noticed that these are the images most commonly chosen. The recent Vogue cover controversy comes to mind. It is interesting that 20 years after NWA started rapping about this issue we are still portraying black men as violent criminals, thugs not worthy of our trust. Even more disturbing is that we then turn around and hold up the 'gangsta' lifestyle as something to admire and aspire to. Furthermore, aspects of the black communities in this country have embraced this identity as their own, thus completing the circle. Moving on, I found another Brazilian area: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Sex4All/57/62/22

And it was no less disturbing than the last. I take it you remember East of Eden, that hideous Anne Rice book made into an even more hideous movie? Imagine that but with cartoons and full-frontal nudity. These were the Campos do Jor Here on Efes bottomless dancers, and none of them were actually here. For some reason full-frontal nudity isn't quite as interesting when it is on an avatar, so I moved on to the sex zone:

This is me, Garbage Dumpling, assuming the position (I am actually bent over a construction barricade). As you can see, there are 'male' pose balls in front of and behind me. I think you get the idea. This is the standard set-up throughout the area. More interesting than the set-ups of various sexual pose-balls in this 'outdoor' setting, though, was their choice of camping apparatus:

Both avatars seen here were actually camping. So right in front of the outdoor orgy zone they have campers strung up from gallows and beaten to death on the ground. Brazilians are weird. I decided to go shopping. The next stop was a store selling 'sex beds' and 'sex showers'. Here are your standard sex-bed and sex-showers complete with male-female pose balls for all of your second-life activities. This store also sold do-it-yourself kits. Note the permissions listed. When you click on these boxes you are purchasing the animations and pose balls to engage in sexual activities. The construction and design of places to put these poseballs is completely up to your imagination, however. Some of them gave permission to both modify and transfer the products, while others only gave permission to modify. Since I lacked the L$ to get any of this stuff I am not sure how these permissions are enforced - whether there is some architectural prevention against trandferring these items or whether the creators of this stuff just trust people. I'd imagine that with all the code-hounds out there that it is very possible to architecturally protect created items in Second Life somehow, but I would imagine that it would be difficult to program. Barring that, I can't see how these permissions could be enforced. Furthermore, someone could just as easily hex these things out and find out how to reproduce them and start little businesses of their own. That is the wonderful and dangerous thing about the internet - no matter how strict the enforcement is and how tough the 'rules' individuals build become, someone will have the time on their hands to undo all of that hard work. Therefore, as much as content providers and publishers try to implement the modalities of constraint, they tend to lose significance anyway the longer the content exists.

Second Life porn and sex are very amusing and interesting to look at, but I felt like I should find something else to look at for a while. There is no appropriate eye bleach for the things I have seen, but my next teleport took me to a game zone.

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Hantal/172/164/26

Welcom to the weird world of Zyngo. Zyngo is a lot like BINGO but it is a solitary game that does not encourage community involvement. In fact, with the exception of the multiplayer role-playing environments on SL, most of the games here are for one player only. There used to be more casino type games in Second Life but Linden Labs' legal department feared that this would leave SL open to lawsuit, so the closest thing you get are games like this - game pots increase as they increase in price. There are whole grid sections filled with games like these, and as you can see below Zyngo (this being the WYLD! variation of the game) is not the only game like this. A little net research confirms the popularity of these games, though apparently Linden is having some problems with some states and countries who forbid even these kinds of skill-based mass gambling games. This is one of those instances where the lines between real world and Second Life become very blurred due to legal concerns. Apparently Second Life has also struggled with this problem concerning currency speculation and private banks, and child pornography. The rules of real life do apply in Second Life - that is easy to forget in a world where you can so easily shed your skin and look like a whole new person.

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Belith/140/125/303

On to the strip joint! Welcome to Club Arsheba! This transparent, hard-to-read rules sign was posted above the entryway. Believe it or not this is a serious place of business with real, live avatars dancing, not just the absentee/camping models I found in other sex shops and sites. Of course, it goes without saying that this is aplace where serious conversation is discouraged - these folks want you to have fun and then pay them some money for dances.

The dancers, shown above, were about as interesting and stimulating as real-life strippiers (not at all). A club DJ enthusiastically encouraged these 'girls' while playing a continuous mix of thumping techno music. There were very few customers in house (of course, this was at 2:15 in the afternoon EST, so that didn't come as a surprise). There were things of interest to be found here, however.

This is a more clear posting of the rules, including information on how the club and its dancers make their money. Each dancer has a tip jar, and to 'convince' them to shed their clothes you put L$ in the jar. Once the jar hits a certain point, an article of clothing is automatically taken off. So, in other words, this system would work perfectly well with programmed 'bots' dancing on stage - however, the dancers took turns - while some danced on stage, others circulated around the club offering lap/table dances. The Club Arsheba House Rules were also interesting - rule #7 prohibits 'freebies' for the crowd - if Garbage Dumpling, in other words, had a anatomically accurate body to show up he could not do so. Rules 1 and 2 should be familiar to anyone who has been in one of these places in real life - if the distance between dancers and customers isn't regulated by rules, there are no incentives for people to buy lapdances. Rules 3,4,5, and 6 are to make sure the animations in the club run smoothly and that its patrons are well behaved.



Every day the club has a different schedule of events. I was here at the end of the Boots & Booties event - I'm willing to bet that despite the sleazy business, the retro 80's night is a lot of fun.

More modalities of constraint show up in the shops adjacent to the club - this clothing is strictly no modification, copy, or transfer, and it is quite expensive. I wonder how well it sells and how the constraints are enforced. Alas, I may never know.

This is just another picture of ridiculously huge genitalia. Penis.