Why are there G rated skins with genitalia?

[Melita Magic]

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Jacki Silverfall wrote:

Finally someone actually answered the OP post.

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I answered it too - but I thought everyone knew what G rated skins were. That might explain why I see so many around, even on G land sometimes, that have full frontal nudity. I even once saw some that had the full nude photo in the shop, as well. 

IIRC I posted or asked about it here or in a group chat in world and was shot down. (ETA this was some time ago, not long after the ratings system changed, Zindra opened, etc.)

So yeah to make it very clear, G rated skins have undies painted on. Like the system avatars everyone has in their library. (ETA: I suppose technically they could also have no nipples/genitalia/hair, like a Barbie or Ken but - not sure on that. If it were my shop I'd not go that route. I recall a certain regular forumite saying in the old forums, that on the teen grid, they just wore the parts on an underwear layer to get around that - how they knew that, I didn't want to ask. Anyway, with the undies painted on that isn't very possible.)

If a shop is on G land selling skins, it HAS to use those type of skins. 

That is why I asked her if she bought it on G land.

[Melita Magic]

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GothGirl Demonia wrote:

I really wouldn't worry much about basic skins and nudity.

The reason is becuase if a Teen 13 years of age is playing the game for example and doesn't know Male/Female anatomy they shouldn't be playing the game if such is going to shock them I mean as in viewing the skins art wise seeing it when they are dressing for example or such.

AgePlay, and walking around naked everywhere being nude is a different story, or roleplaying exposing those under the age of 18 to adult content.

After all World OF Warcraft has nude patches, and so do a lot of other games.

Some people forget that nudity, or nude is also a part in Game Design, and Art.

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The point is not your or any of our opinion about nudity and age appropriateness. The point is the TOS for SL.

 

[solstyse]

I think the barbie/ken look would actually be ideal for a G rated skin. Although I must admit, I never bothered to dig that far into the TOS to find out if lack of ugly censoring would push it up to an M rating.

There are plenty of g rated clothes out there which I can imagine would allow the painted on underwear to show through. Not much of it, but enough to know it's there, and to do some damage to the realism that most people are going for. Maybe a wasitband poking over a swimsuit or something.

Considering the OP's real age, wouldn't it be against TOS to spend naked time anywhere other than a private dressing room anyway?I guess the painted on underwear would offer some protection against accidental occurances, such as your viewer crashing and someone else entering the room and getting you ejected before you could relog, or the soon to be extinct bake fail. But really, since the avatar will be clothed, nobody but the OP will realy know about the existance of anatomical details anyway.

If the skin or template is editable, then the barbie/ken look shouldn't be too hard to achieve. It's as simple as a healing brush or blur tool in whichever picture editing software the OP shooses to use.

[Melita Magic]

I agree the Barbie/Ken doll approach would look better and be more practical. I'm not sure what the rules are about that. I don't think there are rules against it. 

I had the only dressing room place that ejected intruders as far as I know. It was on Mature land in part because of the rules against G rated and nudity. As far as I know, people on G rated land can't be nude even at home. They can never be nude - not in a realistic way. 

Many skins are photo sourced, and there are strict US laws about minors and images of actual nudity. If I owned a company minors could attend, I wouldn't want to hedge my bets legally either.

Anyway at one point I also had G land and I considered, briefly, opening a changing room annex there. But, I didn't, because it could've been a legal or TOS nightmare. Most people don't know the specifics against G rated/SL nudity, and this topic kind of reflects that. Even skin makers don't seem to be clear on it.

If there were any RL minors at my former changing room place, they weren't there officially because if they are registered with SL as a minor, they can't go to Mature/Moderate land. That sim and the surrounding ones were M. Just FWIW.

Back to the skins, the rule is probably more about a company's and perhaps residents' protection than aesthetics. I guess the undies (painted on a G skin) could be tiny and the clothing mor emodest, though, in those cases.

I'm still curious where the OP found a G but not G skin. Lol. (That can be edited, to boot.)

 

[Pussycat Catnap]

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Innula Zenovka wrote:

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Pussycat Catnap wrote:

The "I wouldn't really worry" argument won't go over well when somebody gets banned for violating a TOS.

Patches like that for those MMOs - when found, result in deleted accounts.

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It would appear, though, that normal skins have been available to teen accounts since the merger of the teen, and sold in G-rated lands and, one must assume, worn by teens.

Do we know about any vendors being returned to the merchants, or merchants being told to re-rate their land, or anything that would suggest LL are at all concerned about this?

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My shape in my shop was disabled because I rated it as M. So I shanged the MP image to not show nudity.

My skins were at one point because I had them at G, so I've moved them to M or A.

My note on patches was in reply to the comment that 'planty of games have nudity patches' that mentioned WoW - and people lose accounts over hacking the graphics of that. What should also have been said is just because something is done in one game does not mean it applies to what will happen in another "game."

 

 

[Innula Zenovka]

I'm getting a bit confused about whether we're talking about shops in the marketplace or shops in world.

My point is that, as so often, it doesn't really matter what you and I think the rules mean.   It's what LL make of them, and how they enforce them, that matter.

There's certainly no explicit prohibition in the ToS about wearing anatomically-correct skins underneath your clothes on G-rated land (just as well, really), and if LL wanted to add "possessing anatomically-correct skins" to the list of things teen accounts may not do, they could have, and still could, do that easily enough.  

Similarly, if LL wanted explicitly  to prohibit the sale of anatomically-correct skins on G-rated land, they could do, as they've explicitly banned the sale of sex beds there (a rule that is certainly enforced in practice -- I know people who have been told to reclassify their sims or move their shops).    

The fact that at least half the major skin-sellers have their HQ shops on G-rated land, and always have done, tells me that LL doesn't, in practice, object to the sale of anatomically correct skins on G-rated land, whatever those employees of LL who run the marketplace do or don't do.   Their choice of venue certainly restricts how they may advertise and display their products -- again, I know that is enforced -- but doesn't, it seems to me, restrict what they may sell.

Where does this leave us?  LL don't -- though they easily could do -- say that anatomically-correct skins may not be sold on G-rated land, or sold to teens.    Nor has it ever been their practice to to prohibit this.  

I infer from this that LL don't have any general issues with who buys anatomically-correct skins or where they buy them.   If they did, we'd know about it soon enough.     It can't be news to LL that there are lots well-known skin shops operating on G-rated sims and that teens can, and do, access them.    

 

[Drake1 Nightfire]

My personal opinion is: If teens cant go anywhere but G sis they dont need skins with parts. all skins that have parts shuld be sold on M or higher sims and set to M or A in the MP.

[Innula Zenovka]

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Drake1 Nightfire wrote:

My personal opinion is: If teens cant go anywhere but G sis they dont need skins with parts. all skins that have parts shuld be sold on M or higher sims and set to M or A in the MP.

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And my personal opinion is that it would be a waste of everyone's time and money to force skin-makers to create skins that are going to be discarded anyway in a year or so, if the buyer is still in SL,  for a very small market, and to force half the skin-makers in SL to move their shops (or reflag their sims),  simply in order to protect 16- and 17-year-olds from cartoon representations of the human anatomy,  particularly as the present system has worked perfectly well ever since its introduction, 

However, neither your nor my personal opinion matters particularly in this instance.  It's what LL make of it that's important.

[Qie Niangao]

How many under-18 accounts actually remain?

My hunch is that LL knows there are simply too few to worry about; as long as they have some policy to point to, sensible or not, why bother with enforcement?

[Qie Niangao]

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Melita Magic wrote:

I'm still curious where the OP found a G but not G skin. Lol. (That can be edited, to boot.)

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Yeah, this puzzled me, too. Back in ancient times, there were modifiable skins... not fully opaque, so one could actually tint them. One problem with those was that the base avatar's nipples would show through. Hmmm. That's an interesting thought. I bet a skin texture that's 100% alpha would show nipples. If that's right, the Default Alpha Texture should require a Mature rating on Marketplace.

[Pussycat Catnap]

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Innula Zenovka wrote:

 

The fact that at least half the major skin-sellers have their HQ shops on G-rated land, and always have done, tells me that LL doesn't, in practice, object to the sale of anatomically correct skins on G-rated land, whatever those employees of LL who run the marketplace do or don't do.   Their choice of venue certainly restricts how they may advertise and display their products -- again, I know that is enforced -- but doesn't, it seems to me, restrict what they may sell.

 

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The current ToS did not always exist.

And when its changed in past, people who did not change with it have been punished.

It just takes an AR to have it happen. When I found my favorite skin shop moving to G land, rather than AR, I sent them a note about it and a week later their land had changed its rating to M...

So they're safe from a jealous competitor now... Which is likely who will shoot off the first AR when and if this all ever plays out.

 

 

 

[Innula Zenovka]

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Pussycat Catnap wrote:

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Innula Zenovka wrote:

 

The fact that at least half the major skin-sellers have their HQ shops on G-rated land, and always have done, tells me that LL doesn't, in practice, object to the sale of anatomically correct skins on G-rated land, whatever those employees of LL who run the marketplace do or don't do.   Their choice of venue certainly restricts how they may advertise and display their products -- again, I know that is enforced -- but doesn't, it seems to me, restrict what they may sell.

 

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The current ToS did not always exist.

And when its changed in past, people who did not change with it have been punished.

It just takes an AR to have it happen. When I found my favorite skin shop moving to G land, rather than AR, I sent them a note about it and a week later their land had changed its rating to M...

So they're safe from a jealous competitor now... Which is likely who will shoot off the first AR when and if this all ever plays out.

 

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It would seem, then, that none of the competitors of the skin businesses who are still located on G land is sufficiently jealous to shoot off an AR about their rivals.   Since at least one of the skin businesses thus located has been -- still is -- involved in a very acrimonious dispute about intellectual property rights, their opponents are to be commended for their restraint in this matter.

[Melita Magic]

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Innula Zenovka wrote:

 

Similarly, if LL wanted explicitly  to prohibit the sale of anatomically-correct skins on G-rated land, they could do, as they've explicitly banned the sale of sex beds there 

Where does this leave us?  LL don't -- though they easily could do -- say that anatomically-correct skins may not be sold on G-rated land, or sold to teens.    Nor has it ever been their practice to to prohibit this.  

 

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Actually it is prohibited. It's been a while since I had read the TOS, as the print when it updates in SL is so tiny and I do need a new vision Rx. Anyway, here:

"A region designated General is not allowed to advertise or make available content or activity that is sexually explicit, violent, or depicts nudity."

Pretty plain what the rules are. 

You can find them here.

[Innula Zenovka]

Yeah, which I have always understood to mean that, if you're selling skins on a G-rated sim, you can't use nude pictures on your vendors or adverts.

Seems to me that we have three possibilities here.

First is that LL is unaware that all the major skin creators with shops on G-rated land sell "photorealistic" skins.   That's completely implausible,  though.

Second is that LL is aware of this and that it's against ToS but,for reasons best known to LL, they don't enforce the ToS on skin-makers in the way they do on furniture makers.     Possible, I suppose, but it lacks the elegant simplicity of the third possiblity.

The third is that, in LL's view, there's nothing wrong with selling photorealistic skins on G-rated sims, and that any reading of the ToS that suggests otherwise is mistaken.

The third explains the known data to my satisfaction,  but, one way or the other,  it's undeniably the case that half the skin-makers in SL have been selling their products on G-rated land quite openly and without difficulty ever since the Adult content policy was introduced.    

Since LL can hardly be unaware of this, the only possiblle inference, to my mind,  is that LL is content with it.

[Melita Magic]

All kinds of things are illegal in the real world, yet proliferate. It can't be assumed that law enforcement is on board with the occurences.

The TOS rule says they cannot make content available which contains nudity. Skins with nipples, certain body hair and genitalia, contain images of nudity. Especially the photosourced ones, which most skins are. Photosourced from real life nude models. Most skins makers subscribe to content providers for that.

As I understand it, it's forbidden; but I agree that it's basically not enforced. Nor are many other things I'm finding upon a closer reading of TOS. I can only guess the reasons.

[Drake1 Nightfire]

Could it be possible that under 18 in RL avs have an underwear layer permanently baked on any skin they wear?

[Cerise Sorbet]

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Drake1 Nightfire wrote:

Could it be possible that under 18 in RL avs have an underwear layer permanently baked on any skin they wear?

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Pretty much. Wearing underwear was enforced by the software on Teen SL, and that restriction is probably still in place for under 18 accounts. Wearing smaller (or transparent) replacements might or might not work.