Growing Pains

Cindy Kesey wrote another great blog post venturing into the subject of SLove & SLex (no I don't do the trademarking stuff). Although I agree with her conclusion that cheating on your RL spouse in SL is more a symptom of an already flawed marriage then a cause I think there is more to it. Albeit true in some cases it is too easy a conclusion as it relies on a few givens I'm not so sure of.

Given one: the notion of eternal romantic love.

A marriage, even in the legal sense, is a contract, a contract that will hopefully be beneficial for both parties. Looking back at its historic significance one could debate the merits of such contract in this day and age where women no longer depend on their husbands to provide for them and their children or where the careful planning of strategic weddings to keep family fortunes together or alliances intact is no longer a real issue. Still, you don't have to look far to find cultures where, to this day, it is absolutely normal for parents to decide who their children will marry. Anyway, whether it be now or in the past, marriage and romantic love are two different things all too often confused in our western culture these days. Fact remains though that no one wants to grow old alone or be alone period. So I do believe a marriage can last forever but I am not convinced the same goes for romantic love.

Given two: getting caught with your pants around your ankles in SL is just as bad as it is in RL.

Hate to burst your bubble but it isn't. If I simply count the *hugs* & *kisses* or variations thereof I have received in my time in SL they by far exceed the number of RL hugs and kisses I've received in RL to this day. Face it: they are a convention; a way of expressing you like a person for lack of other, more subtle signals we have at hand in RL where a look can say more than a thousand words. I won't push it as far as to saying that doing the "pixel polka" is meaningless but to compare it to RL sex is selling RL short.

Given three: there is such a thing as a perfect marriage.

Need I say more ?

Now, if you accept above givens are not as factual as they appear in the first place what is the problem with SL relationships? Why do people still get their knickers in a knot over them?

What I do see is that SL in many ways acts as a magnifying glass for emotions, fooling a lot of people into seeing things that simply are not there. I believe it has a lot to do with the limited way in which we can express ourselves online. It leaves no room for subtlety and forces us to be very explicit to avoid all kinds of misunderstandings. By doing that the message sent becomes a very powerful statement. The reaction will be equally strong and the ball starts rolling... Looking at it from the outside and comparing given conversations and/or interactions with RL ones can be very easily misinterpreted. You can not compare a RL relationship with an SL relationship because the whole frame of reference in which they exist is completely different. Trouble usually starts when people start mixing up the two and start judging SL actions within a RL frame of reference or the other way around. I guess the main question is where you draw the line between the two because the are inevitably intertwined and most certainly related.

This is not an exclusive SL thing. I've seen the same issues in chat rooms many years ago. It will take time for people to learn to put things in the right perspective. If you look at how teenagers, who grew up with all this technology, have made a whole new frame of reference that includes both online presence and physical presence I think there is hope for the future. In the meantime we'll have to deal with the growing pains.

On a side-note: I'm no ogre, so yes, I left out some of the grey in between for the sake of argument ;-)

The Naughty Eleven: SLex Invitations

Once again I got tagged by my dear friend Vint. Eleven questions (I noticed the list has been growing, seems Veyron added number ten and Vint added number eleven) this time about who I would want to have SLex with for various reasons. No a very Christmasy subject but a bit of fantasising never hurt anyone, not even on Christmas day.

I have to admit it was more difficullt then I thought at first to come up with names because inevitably you sort of wonder how people will react to being nominated as a potential SLex partner. If you're on the list, don't worry, in most cases I wouldn't have even thought about you in that way if it wasn't for this list ;-)



Name the avatar that you would most like to have second life sex with for…

1. … their avatar: This one is easy. Luna Zolnir has one of the most beautiful avs I have ever laid eyes upon.

2. … their mind: that's a tough one. I actually have two nominees I can't choose between. Silverdrake Sparrow is a long time friend and definitively fits the bill but even though I have still to meet Cinderella Kesey in world I have been very charmed by her writings.

3. … their poetic/mystical/creative spirit: Nephie Eerie without a shadow of a doubt.

4. … their social success/success in SL: I'm not too sure how to interpret this one but I'll go with fashionista extraordinaire and jewelry designer Caliah Lyon.

5. … their libido: Tricky one because you don't want to nominate someone because you consider them oversexed. I'll pick my dear friend Jaxi Morrison because she is someone to whome SLex comes natural as in "it is just a fact of life".

6. … wanting them to go against type for you. That is, if they are normally a top, you would want them to be your bottom, if they are straight and you are same sl gender: From her pictures I take it Gabrielle Sinatra has a bit of a submissive streak but she can be my mistress anytime.

7. … and you would go against type for this: I'm no neko lover but Vint wouldn't have to ask twice.

8. … and you would most want to do a nothing-but-sex week with, who you are not currently having sl sex with: See questioon 9

9. … and you want a threesome, which two. They don't have to be from the above list, but can be: Ryker Beck & Keiko Morigi and can I please combine this one with question 8 ??

10. … "The forbidden," the one that, you'd like to publicly confess to, but the consequences would be toooooo awful. Examples would be your best friend's partner, a professional contact, someone you know rl who is here… Someone who you want, but have never been able to confess it too. Don't post… Just answer with whether they are online right at the moment that you post your answer: not online

11. … nostalgia reasons: Shiloh Minogue

Now who to tag? I'll go for Ryker, Cinderella, Jaxi, Luna & Joonie

Merry Christmas all!

Turbulent times

These seem to be turbulent times. In the last few days two of my friends told me independently they and their significant other are splitting up. The situations are rather different though. In one case my friend, let's call him Fred, decided to leave because his long time girlfriend Ginger admitted to him she fell in love with someone else. In an other case my friend Eve's husband Adam is about to leave her because she confessed she "knew" someone in the biblical sense. Wait a sec ... didn't I say the situations were quite different? Well, in Ginger's case the proverbial green grass on the other side of the fence is a RL person in Eve's he is a Second Life avatar.

So is there a difference? After all, the net result is the same; two couples who have been together for years are about to split up. Does it matter whether Eve fell for an avatar and Ginger for some real life person? I think it does for a number of reasons. When we fall in love with someone we're always on our best bewitching behaviour to convince the other party we deserve a chance with them. How much easier is it to hide behind a flashy avatar than is to hide behind your toothpaste smile? I would say a lot. Sooner or later inevitably the smile will show some cracks but you can hide behind the av reasonably comfortably forever unless and until you decide to meet up in person. In SL there will always be a larger degree of wishful projections about the other party and their feelings even though it rarely feels that way.

Now there is also the matter of sex and adultery. Here I think things are a lot less clear. What is worse, Eve looking at pixels exchange bodily fluids whilst having a racy conversation or Ginger going out with her friend for a beer, holding hands and exchanging dreamy looks knowing all too well what they both rather be doing? I think the clue is in that last bit "what they would rather be doing", because basically that's what it is in both cases; the expression of a longing, not the act itself or lack thereof. Both Eve and Ginger respond to the social rules of their environment and we all know those are a lot more liberal in SL than they are in RL. Ginger is held back from the next step by her own morality and/or social constraints whilst for Eve there is no next step but to take things out of SL into real life.

That's why, if I was in Fred's shoes, I would probably leave as well. Ginger has decided she wants to devote her love to someone else. If I were in Adam's shoes I wouldn't and I know that for sure because I'm still married. Eve explored some fantasies and satisfied her curiosity in a limitless fantasy world. Don't we all fantasise about that new and exciting stranger at one time or other or of indulging in that kinky thing we would never even contemplate in RL? SL provides the sandbox to experiment with those fantasies. Does that mean you want to give up on an existing RL relationship? Of course not.

Fantasy and creativity are what makes us human and sets us apart from your average chimp. SL gives us the space to experiment without fear for consequences other than a better insight into what makes each of us tick. Consequences usually arise from the fact many can't deal with the newfound freedom or because of judgemental people that don't understand the nature of SL. So does experimenting make us adulterous? Of course not.

Right now my heart bleeds for Fred, Ginger, Adam and Eve although for different reasons.

Now before you shoot, I respect the fact we are all individuals, situations vary and a multitude of factors can come into play. Human emotions are not an exact science, I see that all around me on a daily basis. SL provides us with a unique chance that, if used wisely, can help us gain an insight into aspects of ourselves that might otherwise remain hidden.

My opinion until proven wrong...
may it never be ;-)

SL vs. RL Promiscuity Index

After reading Vint's blog on the SLex / RLex ratio a while ago in which she tries to catch the differences between people's Sl sex life and RL one in a formula, I was left with the feeling some things in her math didn't add up. Math is not my thing either, but being a bit bored today I started thinking about it. Since it doesn't always have to be serious stuff, this is what I came up with:

A sort of "Promiscuity Index" so to speak...

(RLA -216) / RLP
-------------------- = PI
(SLA x 5) / SLP

where:
RLA = your RL age in months
RLP = the number of RL sex partners since your 18th Bday
SLA = your SL age in months
SLP = the number of SL sex partners since rezz-day
PI = Promiscuity Index (I wonder is someone is going to turn up with 3.14 *grins*)

Now let me explain why I think this is a more accurate way of calculating or if you want more indicative of the differences between yourSL sex life and your RL one. First of all there is the fact that her calculation doesn't take in account we are more or less active during certain periods of our lives be it in RL or SL. At some stages in both our RL and SL we tend to experiment more. So I thought I should divide the time we are sexually active by the number of partners over that time in both lives. To compensate for the fact you can be active inSL from day one and not so in RL I decided (rather arbitrarily I'll admit) to deduct 216 from the RLA thus starting the count at 18 years of age.

Another thing that had me thinking is the fact that there is a difference in pace between SL and RL. Face it, what is the average life span of a relationship in SL? So based on my experience I set the value at 5. Meaning the pace of life in SL is imho about 5 times faster than in RL. I agree it's debatable and any good arguments to change this value are more then welcome.

What do we get out of this? I think it makes for a nice comparison of your promiscuity in SL as opposed to RL. Let's look at an of course completely fictional example:

A male 42 years old has had 15 sex partners since he was 18. In SL he has had 5 since he rezzed 19 months ago.

That makes:

(506 - 216) /15
------------------- = 1,02
(19 x 5) / 5

The conclusion in this case would be that his promiscuity in SL and RL are fairly the same.

index > 1 = RL promiscuity < SL promiscuity
index < 1 = SL promiscuity < RL promiscuity

This says nothing about the frequency of SLex or RLex. I guess if you would like to hazard a guess at how often you've done it in RL since you turned 18 and the number of times you engaged in SLex in SL you could replace RLP and SLP by those values but I'm not going to venture there :-)

On a side note, this equation also solves the problem Vint had with her calculation that could lead to an illegal "divide by 0".

I'm as always curious to hear your thoughts and reactions!
And your Indexes of course ;-)

PS In case you were wondering, no, it's not me in the top picture ...