Scylla Rhiadra

Hmmm . . . I'm not sure why I'm coming to his defence, given that he's completely ignored every post I've made here, but I don't actually see any real evidence in Reg's posts to suggest that he's been harassing women. Assuming that he's civilly backed away when those he's IMed have said "No" (and he says he has), then there's actually no particular harm in IMing multiple women . . . do you suppose women don't do the same at clubs? Really??? We don't have the chat logs, of course, but that's sort of the point: absence of evidence is not evidence of absence . . . or, er, something like that. There's this sort of game that gets played on this forum: someone will pop up with a complaint like this, and a forum regular (or regulars, more often) will begin to pick apart their story, looking for some slight evidence of hidden nefarious intent. Sometimes, maybe, that's justified, but as often as not it resembles a kind of mob swarming. 'Twas ever thus. I remember the very first time I ever posted in the SL "Residents Answers" board, in support of a friend who had made a pro-feminist post. Almost immediately, the assembled crowds decided that I was clearly a sock-puppet. Within an hour or so, I was also clearly part of an SL-wide underground conspiracy to rob men of their genital attachments, and ban dancing, hug animations, and cute puppy videos from the grid. (Well, ok, they were correct about one out of three. I hate cute puppy videos.) Then again . . . Reg has been studiously ignoring everything I said here, so you're probably all correct, and he's actually the first of a new wave of Woodbury University griefers. Anyone have a spare pitchfork I can borrow?

For which we may all, surely, be most consummately grateful.

Ah. I know the place whereof you speak (as I imagine do most people here). I always found it rather dull, myself: lots of avatars standing around engaged silently in IMing each other madly, with very little sense of community. But maybe it's changed? I'm sure that there are other cool, or even cooler places, to hang out and meet people. Although you may have a more difficult time finding curry and chips there.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whatevs. Life's too short, Derek, and my coffee cup isn't large enough.

Speaking as someone who has been preemptively banned from whole swathes of Second Life that I'd never even visited, I entirely understand your sense of injustice. But . . . Second Life was built by a libertarian, and the structure of just about everything relating to the platform -- community standards, land controls, consumer protections (or the lack thereof), currency trading, etc. -- was designed with that ethos in mind. Despite the incursion of a few overarching rules enshrined in the CS at the time that the new maturity ratings were put in place, and which reflected a new concern over corporate responsibility and public relations, that seems to remain the case. There are no "human rights" in Second Life, and "power," such as it is, derives almost exclusively from property ownership. It's all very American, in an Adam-Smith-End-of-the-Eighteenth-Century sort of way. Those of us (I have no idea if this is your case or not) who come from other cultures, with other, very different assumptions about the relationship of the state to individuals, freedom, and so forth, sometimes find that difficult to understand.

Oh, she's cute alright. Absolutely adorable, in fact, in a sort of "Of-course-this-teleport-I'm-offering-you-won't-set-you-down-in-the-midst-of-a-blazing-brazier" kind of way. She's also terrifying, in a way, because she's probably the most perceptive person I've ever known here, and she can see right through me . . . Thank god she's gentle. Even when she's trying to immolate me.

Hi Dillon! I was wondering why you weren't around here when I dropped by earlier! I don't know the book, but I think I've seen it advertised on the subway here. I will check it out (even if it's not "chicklit" -- I've decided to try expanding my library to books that don't end in marriage or feature slightly crazed but lovable bff characters! ). I'm always looking for really effective and affecting articulations of feminism, LGBTQ and Trans-positive thinking, or perspectives on POC in literature because they can be really powerful teaching tools. It's not hard to explain social justice in logical or polemical terms, but I've always believed that literature can be an especially effective supplement because they engage the empathetic imagination: they help us see things differently through consciousness and experiences that are not our own. They humanize abstractions. I think that's what makes them pleasurable in a way that theoretical arguments and tables of stats never can be (as useful as those are as well). You are well, I hope? Have you been helping Snugs keep Maddy out of trouble?

I think you may want to update your training materials . . .

I had to go to the Urban Dictionary for that, and I still don't know what you're actually getting at . . . except that it had better not be meanings 3 through 14.

Well, I know I don't need to tell you how difficult it can be to keep them happily occupied in a non-destructive sort of way. We should have a coffee sometime and exchange notes.

I see what you did there . . . !

Ok. You need to stop that now.

It's my cute perky nose, isn't it? /me stands in profile

LOL, yeah, that's me Derek. Cold, distant, and unapproachable . . . Now, shush. We're derailing this nice person's thread.

I'd been wondering why . . . One day, though, I'll find someone who loves me for something other than my huge . . . walls o'text.

Awww. Ta, both! (Not my first time. I may look like a fresh-faced and fetching young noob, ca. 2009, but underneath this flexy hair and prim clothing is an aging, creaky old hag . . . )

Hi Nickylion, First of all, welcome to the forums! The response that you are getting is, I'm afraid, a fairly standard one for researchers and students who come here to do their research. I might note that you'll get something of the same response from a great many people inworld, too, when they discover that you are doing research. I'm sure that you can understand why people might feel this way, but the very fact that they do will tell you something, I think, about the difference(s) between most users of Second Life, and those involved in MMORPGs. For a great many people here, this is not a "game": it truly is an alternate world, and a place to experiment with and play with identity. Many people "live" here, in a very real, if virtual sense, and identity -- including gender, biological sex, sexual identity, and even species -- is a very meaningful thing. A couple of quick points that might help: Treasure's point about IRBs is well-taken, but if you don't have those in Utrecht, a possible alternative is to be as forthcoming as you possibly can about your research, your program, and even about your selves. In general, as you probably know, RL identity is often jealously guarded here (which is, btw, one reason why you might find that many potential interviewees will steer clear of you if you insist upon using Skype), but I've seen researchers here who have been quite open about their real life academic identities, as a method of building trust and establishing bona fides. The more verifiable or detailed information you can provide, the more likely people are to have faith in you. And a really well-explained and interesting research design does get a good response here often. I'm a little puzzled that you can't offer compensation for interviewees: that's actually a pretty standard thing for qualitative and quantitative data collection here in North America. It will improve your odds of attracting participants, although spreading your net wider does, as you intimate, probably increase the chances of your data being contaminated. The suggestion that this is not exactly a new topic of research is, I'm afraid, true. There actually has been a fair amount, both scholarly and more generalist, published on this subject, as even a quick literature or even Google search should reveal. You might also check out the Journal of Virtual Worlds Research. If you have a slightly different angle on this issue that makes it fresh, then you should tell us, as it will likely increase the number of people interested in participating. In response to what "Avery" says above, I think I might somewhat agree that there are not more benefits for women here, but I'd say that there are perhaps some different ones. It is physically "safer" here, obviously, for women, but not necessarily emotionally so, and there is no shortage of harassment, abusive language, misogyny, and so forth. A great difference, of course, is that these are easier to ignore or escape from. One real benefit for some women, particularly those who have felt disempowered by emotional or physical abuse in real life, is that here they have much greater control over such situations in a virtual environment, a fact that means that -- again, for some -- the experience of virtual abuse and misogyny can actually in an odd way be a bit "empowering" and therapeutic. Overall, though, I'd agree that women are not special beneficiaries here. And you might consider, in this context, the rather naive nature of your question: when you say "women," do you mean "real life" biological females? What about those who represent as women here, but may be biologically (and culturally) males? Their experience of Second Life as women is, I would imagine, different from that of RL "women," but only insofar as they come equipped with different experiences from RL. And then there are trans women (in both RL and SL contexts), of which there is actually a sizable and very active community here: again, the "things" that happen to them here may be the same as those experienced by anyone who represents as female here, but these will take on a very different meaning, I think. And because gender identity can be assumed, and cast off, with the click of a mouse button, it is much more obviously a "performance" here (think Judith Butler!) than even in RL. How one experiences SL as a woman also depends a great deal on how one chooses to "perform" that role. For instance, there are many who represent as women here who very consciously assume the identity of hyperfeminized or hypersexualized women, because they can with far fewer consequences. So there is an element of the "feminine" in SL that is sometimes a bit cartoon-like. (The same is true, but maybe to a lesser extent, of representing masculinity here.) What I guess I'm getting at is that you need to elaborate or complicate (or "unpack," as academics are wont to say in English) your notion of "gender," because, as complicated as this idea of socially determined identity is in RL, it is even more so here. Ok. Guess I've said enough? Good luck with your research!

Oh, I sooooo knew it. Long time no see, old man.

Oh? As in, *I* am not?????? Hmmmph. Actually, I suppose I might just have proven your point . . . Yeah yeah. She'll probably drop by at some point. She's a bit of an Attention Wh*re, after all.

In my conception of him, he couldn't actually count that high.

Says Ms. "My-Reputation-Is-Over-2500" McMasters. You need no assistance from me or anyone else to illumine your enormous contributions here and elsewhere, Maddy. And you never have. Snugs, on the other hand . . .

I know, right? Once a tentacled man-eating monstrosity cursed by the gods, always a tentacled man-eating etc. . . .

Well, I guess I DO have a "reputation" after all! What a very odd thing to remember about me, though. And yes, I did finish it. But it was actually a PhD on literature that employed feminist approaches. And thank you for asking.

I have sought in vain for a facepalm emoji, so this will have to suffice.

Does an alt who's a Gorean Master count?