Simulated intimacy in SL vs the world ..

[Scylla Rhiadra]

7 minutes ago, Cinnamon Mistwood said:

No, we are not all here for sex.  However, if all sex animations disappeared tomorrow, my SL would be much less.  I have many friends who are very active that way and I would miss them if they left for "friendlier" platforms.

Absolutely, Cinn!

Coffee says just this, and she's absolutely correct. Sex is important here, even if (like me) you're not engaging directly in it. It's a huge part of the economic engine, a vital part of the social puzzle into which we (most of us, anyway) connect, and undoubtedly important enough to a great many people that they'd wander away without it.

But that can be said too of a great many activities here.

[Love Zhaoying]

6 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

prolix

TIL!

[Kathlen Onyx]

14 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

   I doubt the folks in Second life now in their 70's stuck around primarily for "the Slex".  There's so much more to Second Life. Heck, I'm "only" 57 and hardly ever think about the Slex, except people on the Forum keep talking about it.

 

LOL really? I actually think it's the older people are having the most SLex on the grid.  There is no reason for an older person to have a lesser sex drive than younger people. The issue is opportunity for RL encounters. I'm 61 and my sex drive is just as high, if not higher.  I just don't want the bother of having a RL partner. Been there and done that twice and I am enjoying being single without having to worry about another person. Also a lot of older people have medical issues that make RL sex and relationships difficult. Also as much as people might turn there nose up at this a lot of married people use SL instead of cheating in RL

[Ayashe Ninetails]

2 hours ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

That's two of the bits of the elephant that I regularly grope; a third is more nebulous: the world of fashion, avatar customization, and what my friends often call "playing Barbies" in SL. I have a huge number of friends who spend a really large proportion of their time shopping, playing with mesh heads, hair, skins, and new clothing. And no, they are NOT doing so in order to attract sexual partners: they are doing it because it is, in its own right, fun.

Fashion is my bat signal, so you know I had to come in to respond. 😂 My *entire* SL right now consists of fashion and photography. I log in, style avatars, shop them, photograph them, and log out. That's it. I rarely even look at my friend's list anymore and rarely chat with even long-term buddies unless we're discussing something fashion-related or I'm helping them style themselves. Social features are not what's keeping me here. I have other games/platforms for that. I'll even go as far as saying I'm kind of off socializing in-world these days. It's just not a pleasant experience for me anymore. I think I've been spoiled by much better UIs and modern features that we just don't have here. Nothing I've found anywhere else rivals our photography system, though, so here I be (at least on occasion).

I do agree that improving animations overall would go a long way in keeping the platform healthy and I'm not opposed to LL doing a little adult advertising, but my more immediate fantasy wishlist consists of improving hair and clothing physics. I hate having to run around with my hair sticking straight up in the air just to do a good upside down shot. Hair and skirts all shooting off to the left just to get a good windblown effect. It's silly and I hate it (especially because I always have to make a last-minute run to the store and swap hairstyles/outfits to not look absolutely redonkulous while standing around in public).

I'm also the kind who complains incessantly about our mesh body system and certain clothes just not fitting properly without having to spend real money on a new body or squish and disappear all of my parts. Did you know that in The Sims 4, clothing is gender-neutral and if you flip a switch in character creation, you can fit your Sim into ANYthing? Yes, that dress shown on a model with enormous bazooms turns perfectly flat when placed on a male Sim. That cute tank top and shorts modeled on that guy will fit perfectly on your female Sim. No need to run out to buy chest mods or a whole new rig, alpha your upper half, open Photoshop to create custom alphas. NOPE, it just works. Now imagine that here...that'd be AWESOME! I mean, it'd probably tank the entire mesh body and mod market, but ya know. 😄

I'd spend a LOT more time here if we could figure all this stuff out. No amount of increased intimacy or social features will make me log in faster than not having to stand around trying to alpha out one teensy section of my collar bone just so I can rock a men's shirt and not have to shoot around it.

Some are here for the music, some are here for the art, some for the intimacy, some for the socialization, some for the events, some for parties, some for beaches, some for the decorating, some for the building. Me? Second Life is my runway.

[Love Zhaoying]

3 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

Sex is important here, even if (like me) you're not engaging directly in it. It's a huge part of the economic engine, a vital part of the social puzzle into which we (most of us, anyway) connect, and undoubtedly important enough to a great many people that they'd wander away without it.

For goodness sake, just don't tell everyone that's where babies come from or it will stop being seen as naughty.

[Love Zhaoying]

When I see the OP Title, I often think "Scott Pilgrim vs. The World". 

I didn't want to be the only one.

 

[Scylla Rhiadra]

8 minutes ago, Ayashe Ninetails said:

Fashion is my bat signal, so you know I had to come in to respond.

I came soooo close to tagging you. Seriously.

9 minutes ago, Ayashe Ninetails said:

my more immediate fantasy wishlist consists of improving hair and clothing physics.

Yeah, agreed. I think that's a far higher priority for . . . well, a LOT of us.

And, from now on, whenever I picture you in my head, this will be you. FOREVER.

 

[Ayashe Ninetails]

3 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

I came soooo close to tagging you. Seriously.

LOL, don't worry - mention fashion and I'll find ya!

Also, while we're wishlisting - can we have the ability to do THIS, too please? I mean, it could also be useful in the bedroom, so we can all get what we want in this thread. 😂

[Scylla Rhiadra]

3 minutes ago, Ayashe Ninetails said:

LOL, don't worry - mention fashion and I'll find ya!

Also, while we're wishlisting - can we have the ability to do THIS, too please? I mean, it could also be useful in the bedroom, so we can all get what we want in this thread. 😂

Oh dear god that is fabulous . . .

 

ETA: Ok, stop that. We can't do to this thread what we nearly did to that DM, and take it over for fashion talk! We'll be ostracized and suspended and stuff!

Just . . . don't . . .

Edited June 20, 2023 by Scylla Rhiadra

[Silent Mistwalker]

2 hours ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

None of us is in a position to define SL as "this" or "that."

True, but when speaking with others who don't know much about SL describing it as a creative platform covers everything. That includes the SLex. Or is someone going to admit to not being creative during sex? 🙃🤭

There is creativity behind everything in SL.

[Scylla Rhiadra]

14 minutes ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

True, but when speaking with others who don't know much about SL describing it as a creative platform covers everything. That includes the SLex. Or is someone going to admit to not being creative during sex? 🙃🤭

There is creativity behind everything in SL.

Agreed!

Which is actually why I occasionally bridle when non-BDSM or kink is referred to as "vanilla," with, let's be honest, the implication of "humdrum," "everyday," or "unimaginative."

As opposed, of course, to tutti frutti kinky sex, with whipped cream, caramel sauce, and chopped nuts!

I try not to be annoyed by the "vanilla" label, though, because I understand that the impulse is to try to re-value a lifestyle that has been denigrated and relegated to the shadows for so long. And that's cool and valid.

But, yes. Sexuality, all varieties of it, can or at least should be as much about the mind and the imagination, and, as you say, creativity, as anything else. At least, good sex is.

Edited June 20, 2023 by Scylla Rhiadra

[Coffee Pancake]

52 minutes ago, Cinnamon Mistwood said:

This.

Almost everyone I meet in world thinks everyone is there for the same reason they are.  Let me call someone out who likes to tell me a similar belief to that of Coffee's. @Bagnu.  

No, we are not all here for sex.  However, if all sex animations disappeared tomorrow, my SL would be much less.  I have many friends who are very active that way and I would miss them if they left for "friendlier" platforms. 

I am in an emotionally involved relationship.

We're not here for the "sex" although it does form a backdrop to our relationship.

But without the sex, neither of us would be here at all, nor would any of our friends, nor would any of the not-at-all-adult activities we participate in. We would be off playing minecraft together in a blink and not even looking back.

Sex is what keeps the lights on, even if its not the people doing the humping paying for everything.

 

It's very easy to assume that people who are adult in SL are only adult in SL.

3 hours ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

In the broad sense, @Coffee Pancake, I don't think we're as much in disagreement as your response seems to indicate, because I've agreed that LL can, and possibly should, promote the sexual side of SL more than it does.

What I've suggested is that it needs to do so carefully, thoughtfully, and strategically, mindful of the complexity of the SL social scene and its economy. That hardly seems to me a very controversial view?

Complex marketing is confusing. The hook needs to be solid, visceral, and importantly accessible.

Building in world is dead. Playing fashionable dress-up is a herculean and expensive task. Live DJs are indistinguishable from a spotify playlist. Gambling is a joke. Vehicles are for people who don't know games like snowrunner exist. Roleplay and Furries and so on are combinations of tasks almost impossible to achieve coming in cold.

Come to SL for the humping, stay for all the other junk people do, that will take hundreds of hours to get their heads around.

3 hours ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

What I find a bit alarming is the implication in your response that, well, care, thoughtfulness, and a strategic approach built upon a recognition of that complexity is either unnecessary or even undesirable.

That assumes that LL marketing understand the first thing about SL's complex cultural makeup and are capable of communicating that nuance. They objectively don't. Never have. Never will. Cringe is the best we can hope for. They wont even say "sex". It's "ohh la la" .. what a wonderfully archaic eurocentric term.

SL's adults might as well literally be the scum that keeps the "better people" away. That's why our home continent is half a world away

3 hours ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

Unless I'm misreading (always possible!), you seem to be suggesting that SL is already mostly about sex, and so a full-steam-ahead-and-damn-the-torpedoes approach to promoting sexuality on the platform is not only logical, but the best way to go.

Perhaps not in terms of volume of land, but when it comes to bums in seats with active social participation, yes, it absolutely is. SL is a virtual dating game and almost everything we do is to that end. It might not be "humping avatars" as the primary purpose, but it doesn't have to be.

There is no point counting all the people who hide home alone playing dress up, or solo drive about playing GTFO. Those are not avenues for platform growth.

Without growth, the lights will go out a lot sooner than we might like to think, so to that end, the confusing "you can be anything" messaging needs to end. 

3 hours ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

If you're here for the "art," or music, or dancing, or RP, then, surprise surprise, those things are going to comprise the majority of your experience of the platform.

Sansar proved beyond all doubt that art and music do not make a virtual world anyone cares to spend more than the bare minimum time in. The better people aren't real.

A social scene is a requirement.

A social scene involving adults, electing to spend their time here rather than anyplace else, must offer something they can't more easily get anyplace else.

Flirting and friendship. There is no point flirting if it can't be expressed and friendship alone does not require a virtual world.

3 hours ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

But to argue that music and dance exist here solely as a backdrop for the sex that may or may not result from clubbing is, frankly, nonsense. 

I'm serious. Go look at Sansar. They are still trying to push forward with the idea that a viable platform without adult content is possible, even when all the non-adult content is completely viable and in many cases, actually very good.

The non adult activities can only exist when adult ones do.

Sansar doesn't have a content problem, it has a people problem. This is true for every other dead virtual world in our wake (without exception) and there are many. Some of them technically far superior to us.

 

3 hours ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

That's two of the bits of the elephant that I regularly grope; a third is more nebulous: the world of fashion, avatar customization, and what my friends often call "playing Barbies" in SL.

People who play barbie and nothing else .. probably didn't do that from the start of their SL journey.

Staying home alone and gazing lovingly at ones own avatar is .. kind of an SL endgame activity, and the one that doesn't stand up so well once you start picking at why. There be big uncomfortable dragons here, leave this stone unturned.

3 hours ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

Do you go to the sales and events? I do, and I know what I see there, and where the crowds of buyers congregate. And it's not in front of the vendors for sex toys.

Constantly. 

Have you noticed how SL fashion is heavily coded. We are awash with our own complex cultural stereotypes. One example of this coding is the overuse of straps.

Why would anyone need to buy sex toys...

3 hours ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

All of this is just to say, again, that SL is a really complex machine, and reducing it, as you seem to, to the status of virtual hookup joint is mischaracterizing it badly. Explore other parts of the elephant, Coffee -- or don't, but at least acknowledge that your subjective experience of it is not the only one.

Don't assume that I don't and haven't. 

As someone on the autistic spectrum, a casual unthinking understanding of human behavior is something I can't take for granted, I have to study it in order to function in society. SL is simpler than the real world because everything and everyone is an open book. Does this make-me right, no, not at all .. just don't assume I haven't obsessed over stuff from an entirely different perspective.

If I go see art in SL, I'm not there for the art. I'm there for the people going to see the art.

3 hours ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

And actively endeavouring to turn the entire place into a sex site will destroy it. The day that the enormous diversity of SL becomes nothing more than a backdrop to people hungrily seeking out sexual partners is the day that I log out for the last time. And I won't by any means be the only one.

Thirst drives the revolving door we all depend on for this place's continued existence.

Anyone who come here and isn't thirsty for something that can only be found here doesn't stay. They don't "get it".

Everyone who stays finds more than what attracted them at the start, so while the focus of their attention might shift, they are committed to spending that attention here.

[Love Zhaoying]

Certainly an interesting discussion.

[Bagnu]

2 hours ago, Cinnamon Mistwood said:

No, we are not all here for sex.  However, if all sex animations disappeared tomorrow, my SL would be much less.  I have many friends who are very active that way and I would miss them if they left for "friendlier" platforms. 

Caitlin and I came to SL initially purely to be able to satisfy a side of our sexuality  that we do not have the opportunity to do in RL at this point in our lives. But by coming here, we ended up branching out. We ended  up in an SL marriage. Our wedding itself  entailed a lot of shopping and planning. A LOT of SHOPPING  for NONSEXUAL items. Everything from our clothes, to furniture, to a wedding layout, and wedding reception items. Yes, we had a formal and proper wedding, with guests. Then we wanted to make our Island uniquely OUR Island. So we had to replace most of what was there. More shopping. A house, vegetation,  rocks, etc., etc.. We bought a huge variety of things. Hence we have supported a large number of creators, and the SL economy. Our Estate Tier fee isn't exactly a small amount either. I sell art and tattoos. Now I'm working on creatings things for our Island that i also plan to sell. So coming to SL purely for sex can end up branching out in many ways, and the creators who don't create for sex at all benefit as well. We've spent a LOT on the sexual things too. It's supposed to be second life. It can't BE a SECOND LIFE without being able to have sex. I don't feel it should be the SL selling point, but I don't feel it should be downplayed either. 

But yes. Cat and would leave without the sex. Find another platform, and  either bring our friends with us, or join them on something they found that's friendlier to our way of life.  

[Bagnu]

1 hour ago, Coffee Pancake said:

I am in an emotionally involved relationship.

We're not here for the "sex" although it does form a backdrop to our relationship.

But without the sex, neither of us would be here at all, nor would any of our friends, nor would any of the not-at-all-adult activities we participate in. We would be off playing minecraft together in a blink and not even looking back.

Sex is what keeps the lights on, even if its not the people doing the humping paying for everything.

It's very easy to assume that people who are adult in SL are only adult in SL.

Complex marketing is confusing. The hook needs to be solid, visceral, and importantly accessible.

Everyone who stays finds more than what attracted them at the start, so while the focus of their attention might shift, they are committed to spending that attention here.

I SO agree!!!

Edited June 21, 2023 by Bagnu

[Ayashe Ninetails]

1 hour ago, Coffee Pancake said:

People who play barbie and nothing else .. probably didn't do that from the start of their SL journey.

Staying home alone and gazing lovingly at ones own avatar is .. kind of an SL endgame activity, and the one that doesn't stand up so well once you start picking at why. There be big uncomfortable dragons here, leave this stone unturned.

I can't speak for the other fashionistas here, but the idea of playing Barbie is actually what brought me to Second Life in 2005 and what kept me coming back for so long. Had I not been immensely frustrated by and constantly griping about Everquest 2's hideous avatars and armor/costume designs at the time (let's not even look them up - they were BAD), my guildmate and roleplay partner would've never told me about Second Life to begin with. It's strictly because I quickly found out I *could* look any way I wanted to and change often that I stuck around for so long. It's also the entire reason this account was created a few years later. I started using my main for business (selling jewelry, fashion accessories, and modeling poses - shocker) and needed an avatar to dress and photograph in peace.

Not endgame in my case. I've been on my bull... the entire time. 😂

[gwynchisholm]

The level of detail and amount of options for avatar creation in SL is what keeps me and I presume a lot of other furries here. What you can do in SL in terms of a 3D avatar is not possible anywhere else. Even VRchat with its superior presentation in forms of, well entire body tracking for better expression, can’t come close to this level of detail that SL offers. Look at a VRchat avatar, it’s good don’t get me wrong, but they’re not the most complex things out there from an aesthetic design standpoint due to platform limitations.

The variety is unrivaled and it would take any other platform years to even pull together enough content to just be on par provided the rival platforms actually had the capability to do more with avatar detail. That is one of the reasons why I am here, amongst many other reasons. There are reasons outside of virtual sex to be here, and they’re all different for all types of people. 
SL sex is cool, adult sexual content outside of sex is cool, my wife doesn’t wear pants in SL out of some passive bottomless kink and this is a way to express that, but that’s not the only reason she’s here or why I’m here.

 
But that has its positive attributes too, I don’t think that the people who are here just for sex are actually here just for sex. There’s definitely plenty of people who view this game as nothing more than pornographic material, but even people whose priority in this game is adult content are likely still enjoying other parts of the world. Attracting people to this game with the vision of virtual sex will bring people in with that as a focus, but then they’ll passively involve themselves in other things. Come for the sex (ha, come), stay for the [insert literally any other SL interest here].

Edited June 21, 2023 by gwynchisholm

[Paul Hexem]

3 hours ago, Coffee Pancake said:

Building in world is dead. Playing fashionable dress-up is a herculean and expensive task. Live DJs are indistinguishable from a spotify playlist. Gambling is a joke. Vehicles are for people who don't know games like snowrunner exist. Roleplay and Furries and so on are combinations of tasks almost impossible to achieve coming in cold.

You know what the worst part is?

I play SnowRunner, American Truck Simulator, and Fishing: Barents Sea for superior vehicles and I play Space Engineers for superior building. None of those have the social aspect, so it wouldn't take much to make the experience almost as good or maybe as good as those games.

I can build a roleplay server in Conan Exiles or Ark or Arma 3 for a fraction of a fraction of the cost of an SL region, something that LL could compete with if they wanted. I know for a fact Conan Exiles has a lot of people that left SL that would probably come back.

SL could absolutely compete with all of these with just a little effort, and then LL wouldn't need to advertise the adult stuff. Instead all it's got is the social aspect and the fashion stuff- something their residents create for them anyway. It's like the mentor program- LL wants the residents to do all the work, not put in any effort, and then is ashamed to admit it.

[Katherine Heartsong]

And with Tuesday's announcement from Roblox, that they are now going to allow 17+ "restricted" content on the platform, this general discussion becomes even more interesting. Reading a few articles and the actual PR, but that's the general gist of the news. Neat.

[Coffee Pancake]

29 minutes ago, Paul Hexem said:

I play SnowRunner, American Truck Simulator, and Fishing: Barents Sea for superior vehicles and I play Space Engineers for superior building. None of those have the social aspect, so it wouldn't take much to make the experience almost as good or maybe as good as those games.

Those games also have some incredible engines and shader work.

We can't ever hope to hold a candle to the mud or vehicle mechanics in snowrunner for example. It's truly incredible.

29 minutes ago, Paul Hexem said:

I can build a roleplay server in Conan Exiles or Ark or Arma 3 for a fraction of a fraction of the cost of an SL region, something that LL could compete with if they wanted. I know for a fact Conan Exiles has a lot of people that left SL that would probably come back.

Yes, we lost entire sub cultures to Conan/Ark. It's not surprising they left, it was surprising how little time it took.

The need to buy a game was the singular stumbling block that slowed things down. The people who remained were the ones who didn't get invited.

 

29 minutes ago, Paul Hexem said:

SL could absolutely compete with all of these with just a little effort, and then LL wouldn't need to advertise the adult stuff. Instead all it's got is the social aspect and the fashion stuff- something their residents create for them anyway. It's like the mentor program- LL wants the residents to do all the work, not put in any effort, and then is ashamed to admit it.

Eeeehhhhh.... SL doesn't have the physics engine for gaming. We would need client side physics and the server just double checking to make sure movements were sane.

We also have the all encompassing shared experience which makes a lot of game mechanics simply impossible.

eg - here is a quest to collect the red cube and bring it back .. games can have a red cube with per player visibility, so only people yet to collect the red cube can see it. We would need to duplicate the entire environment in different locations with and without the red cubei .. and that burns the social aspect (I have seen this done in SL)

Games also do a lot of player character hackery. You see your arms and a gun (because that's all there is of you for perf reasons), other people see a full ye lower detail model.

 

The first virtual world that does what we do with a side order of unity .. oh no, wait, that's VRChat. Thank $diety the idiots are still VR obsessed and overrun with screaming horny teens.

Edited June 21, 2023 by Coffee Pancake

[Paul Hexem]

13 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

SL doesn't have the physics engine for gaming. We would need client side physics and the server just double checking to make sure movements were sane.

We also have the all encompassing shared experience which makes a lot of game mechanics simply impossible.

Yeah, games will still do their specific things better than SL can, but that doesn't mean that SL needs to be as terrible as it is.

PBR is what, 30 year old technology and we're only finally getting it now? It's pure insanity.

A single dev can put together an MMO in just a few days or weeks and throw it up on Steam "early access", and it'll have many of the features we see in SL. There's no excuse for a company the size of LL, with their resources (and what they charge for land and P+), to be outdone by a teenager with UE5 one weekend.

[gwynchisholm]

36 minutes ago, Katherine Heartsong said:

And with Tuesday's announcement from Roblox, that they are now going to allow 17+ "restricted" content on the platform, this general discussion becomes even more interesting. Reading a few articles and the actual PR, but that's the general gist of the news. Neat.

They have an interesting dilemma of that their big money games are thematically not for a younger audience. They have an FPS game on there which is a clone of battlefield 3/4, and the developers of it have talked for years about wanting to have some more realistic attributes to it including combat voice acting and blood. Except it’s roblox, by content restriction they can’t have the fast moving square guys yell obscenities before turning into a fine red mist. 
With allowance for higher age ratings and their age verification programs they’ve been doing, it would allow for their content developers to make more mature games. Add somewhat risqué topics and context, different chat filtering, less limitations on music or media, etc. 

They have a lot of reasons for doing this. Roblox is mad old, and their player base is astronomically huge, like larger than any other game out there by a lot. They have a lot of users who would benefit from content like that. But it’s also because making that kind of content a possibility will keep all their creators making stuff, which will make roblox money.

It will make an odd scenario for them of a platform dichotomy. There will be a divide between players based on content restriction a lot more severe than when they had just 13+ and non 13+ accounts. I know they have to be looking at SL as an example, how do you divide a player base with content restrictions, how do you transition them between those content types, and how do you keep the restrictions accurate to the player?

I think LL has that down fairly good.

Edit: just so people who aren’t aware of the scale of roblox, in comparison to SL, there are currently over 300,000 people playing a singular role playing game on Roblox, that is one game. Counting up all the major population games at once is over 10 million users currently online at 11pm on a Tuesday. 
There are currently 20,000 people playing a clone of a Gary’s mod game mod in roblox, that’s about half the average population of SL at any given moment. That’s more people than there are playing Gary’s mod at peak gmod hours. And very few of those players are bots.

There is market potential. That roblox audience will grow up, they’re going to want to do the same thing with themes not permitting to 13+ targeted content. There is possibility that of those 300,000 active users currently in a roblox role playing game (currently active mind you, not even close to overall unique user count) even 1% of them finding SL in the next 5 years would be an absurd player influx. There better be something out there grabbing their attention and something for them to do.

Edited June 21, 2023 by gwynchisholm

[Scylla Rhiadra]

3 hours ago, Ayashe Ninetails said:

I can't speak for the other fashionistas here, but the idea of playing Barbie is actually what brought me to Second Life in 2005 and what kept me coming back for so long. Had I not been immensely frustrated by and constantly griping about Everquest 2's hideous avatars and armor/costume designs at the time (let's not even look them up - they were BAD), my guildmate and roleplay partner would've never told me about Second Life to begin with. It's strictly because I quickly found out I *could* look any way I wanted to and change often that I stuck around for so long. It's also the entire reason this account was created a few years later. I started using my main for business (selling jewelry, fashion accessories, and modeling poses - shocker) and needed an avatar to dress and photograph in peace.

Not endgame in my case. I've been on my bull... the entire time. 😂

I came to fashion relatively late in the game. When I started in SL, it was to be a hard-assed activist, and a just slightly edgy (ca. 1996) seller of women's books, and I tended to dress the part -- torn jeans, army surplus fatigues, and so on. A fashion plate I was not.

But . . . I can remember my delight when I got my first pretty, floaty white flexi dress, and how I loved it when it swished as I danced. And I remember, too, how thrilled I was when my then-boyfriend bought me a really lovely Vietnamese Ao Dai.

Ironically, this was the time when I was into sex here (albeit not hugely).

When I really started getting into fashion and my "look," around 2018 or so, I had actually left that side of things long behind me. In other words, there was nearly zero connection between my interest in how I looked, and my interest, such as it was, in sex.

I see fashion as another mode of self-expression, no different, really, than any sort of creative outlet we find for that. And of course, fashion photography is a whole thing unto itself, and adds a whole other dimension to garments as expression.

I'd go further, and say that even about people who aren't self-consciously into "fashion," and just do Instagrammy selfies of themselves: it may not seem very sophisticated, but how is it really any less about self-expression and self-actualization than jumping on a pose ball, or wearing a collar? It's still all about realizing, in a virtual environment, something about who we are, and who we wish to be. 

So, yes, I'm with you. I don't see playing "Barbie" as some kind of slightly disturbing manifestation of latent narcissism.

I see it as self-fashioning, self-expression, and creativity.

Edited June 21, 2023 by Scylla Rhiadra

[Scylla Rhiadra]

4 hours ago, Coffee Pancake said:

SL is a virtual dating game and almost everything we do is to that end.

I think we're at that stage in this discussion where we're going to have to amiably agree to disagree.

For me, your argument sounds like someone pulling a piece out of a car engine, and saying that it's obviously the most important piece, because the engine won't run without it. And I'm pointing to other pieces, and saying, "Yeah, sure, but the engine won't run without these pieces either: they are all important, and they need to work together for the engine to function."

The SL that you describe seems alien to me (and probably would to most of the people in my various circles), not because I am unaware or even unfamiliar with what these parts of SL look like, but because you see them as central and fundamental -- the "core" of SL -- in a way that I just don't. And your statement above, that SL is fundamentally a "virtual dating game," just doesn't accord with my own experience here. It wouldn't have seemed correct to me even when I was "dating" in SL.

I frankly hope that LL doesn't take the route that you describe, because I'm convinced it will either kill the platform, or transform it so thoroughly that, for me, it might just as well be dead. If they do go in this direction, I hope you are right, and that it doesn't render this platform uninteresting and unusable for me. But I honestly don't think you are.

I take some consolation in the conviction that LL isn't going to attempt anything so radical. What I can see them doing is finding ways to gradually raise the profile of adult content here in marketing terms, in ways that don't threaten to destabilize the entire mechanism.

And I'd be fine with that. Long live adult content! So long as it doesn't swamp and destroy everything else here.

Edited June 21, 2023 by Scylla Rhiadra

[Rolig Loon]

2 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

And your statement above, that SL is fundamentally a "virtual dating game," just doesn't accord with my own experience here.

Mine either. I have never "dated" in SL and have zero interest in starting. To judge from the ongoing conversations I have had with other people in my circle over the years, it's not why most of them entered SL either and it hasn't been a significant factor in their lives here.  I realize that it is important for many people, but I can't believe that it's the main driver for most.