Scylla Rhiadra

I think this is the general perception, and what Rowan has been getting at too. I suspect it's also how I tend to view the forums myself. I'm just asking, rhetorically, why we should make that assumption?

I had JUST GOT OUT OF THE BATH, I swear!! (Ok, I was actually taking a pic.)

You should keep yours where I do . . . safely in my C-cups. I ain't blonde in SL by accident, ya know. 😏

That peevish feeling when you log on to your very public home parcel, having forgotten that you were totally naked when you logged off last, and there's a person you don't know standing 5 metres away staring at you.

Yes! The 1350s and 60s.

Like a bad cold . . .

Yes. Love has a point: this can happen. And in fact my SECOND SL bf (did I mention that I've had TWO? /me fist pumps in triumph!) was someone I met here, on the forums. I'm VERY close to some of the people I've met here. They could hurt me -- and I could hurt them, I suppose.

You'd be outed in a second by your sardonic and drily ironic wit anyway. Once a Sid, always a Sid. Which is actually just as it should be. 🙂

I think that the stakes here are very different than in-world, though. I am not going to pretend that my relationships here on the forum, and social identity ("reputation," if you like, in the true sense of that word, not those stupid point things) don't matter to me: they do, a great deal. And I've made a great number of in-world friends that I met here first, including Maddy, and the group of women I am closest to on Discord and in-world. But I think an alt can, generally speaking, do a lot less personal and emotional damage here than they can manage in-world. Maybe?

So, translating this into the terms of the forum and alts here -- why should we assume that the rules here are different than in-world. If we all accept people as they represent in-world -- excepting, in some cases, deeper romantic relationships -- why not here too?

I think that this is entirely fair comment, and a good point. Informed consent is vital. I guess my reservations about that are two fold. First, it's pretty clear to me now in hindsight -- and I think to him as well -- that he himself hadn't really come to terms with his identity at the time we were together. I think he thought he was a lesbian woman -- and if so, then yes, he should have been honest. But his back-and-forth suggests a great deal of uncertainty and confusion on his part. (I should also note that he did apologize, quite profusely, for the "deception.") My second reservation is the one I've already articulated above: the "rules" in Second Life are just . . . different. "Your world, your imagination," right? And disclosure of RL information about someone else here is actually a ToS offense, underlining the degree to which the expectation on this platform, built into its own rules, is that you can be very different in SL from what you are in RL. And, as I say, I conduct myself accordingly here: I don't make assumptions about people's RL on the basis of their SL identity (although, like anyone else, I do speculate and come to "conclusions"). I know that there are those who will say that entering into a relationship with someone takes it to a different level, and honesty is a reasonable expectation. I respect that view, understand it, and think that it's reasonable. But it isn't necessarily my own view. That said, if I were to enter into an actual relationship here again (as opposed to a one-night stand or casual "friends with benefits" thing), I would also respect my partner's views, and if they wanted RL assurance I would provide it.

I think that may have been before he reappeared. I think "confused" is probably correct -- even my post above reveals some "confusion" about how to read all of this. I was terribly upset at our breakup -- long story that is irrelevant here, but had a lot to do with my own RL situation at the time -- but I think I can honestly say that I have never been upset or angry about the revelations. Just . . . confused. As I've said before here, Second Life is a Queer Theorist's dream come true. Gender here really is performative.

I find that they all work just fine if you're wearing pants. Perhaps the problem is at your end? (So to speak.) 😀

I don't know why anyone expects anything different, to be honest. I do have friends about whose RL I know a great deal -- generally names, sometimes addresses, photos, videos, etc., and a few whom I know or have met in person --but my general assumption here is always that you can't possibly know what an avatar's keyboardist is actually like in RL, and that, if this matters to you (mostly it doesn't to me) you should proceed accordingly. A story I'm pretty sure I've told here before -- my first SL boyfriend (I've had TWO! Woot me!) back in 2008/2009 was a really smart, hip, liberal, and, well, "sexy" guy in his late 20s. I had access to his Facebook account, where there were RL videos, and there was voice in SL too. After we split (he dumped me! *sad face*) he announced that he was actually a she in RL, a fact confirmed by mutual friends who met her (as I must for the moment refer to her) in RL. I was dumbstruck -- but the voice! the Facebook! -- but not particularly upset or horrified. The relationship was over (although we remained friends) and the revelation changed the nature of that relationship we'd enjoyed together not one bit. Subsequently -- about three or four years ago -- this ex-bf/gf reappeared in SL after a few years hiatus. She is now He again, having transitioned fully in RL. So, what is the "truth" here? Was I catfished by a woman pretending to be a man, when that woman subsequently recognized that he was trans, and became a man in RL? Or was his status as a man always really there? I have no idea. I don't much care: I like him, regardless of his gender identity in SL or RL. We're still friends. He's funny, witty, smart, and nice. (A largely unrelated question that I also can't answer -- would I have dated him knowing that he was a woman in RL? Probably not. Knowing that he was a trans man? Again . . . probably not, but I'm less sure about that one. But that's just me interrogating my own biases.)

There was, as I recall, a story in a relatively well-known publication that detailed precisely this situation back in . . . maybe 2006 or so? The story included interviews with both men, and noted that, even after they had both been "outed," they continued their relationship on at least some level or another. It's not "crazy sh!t" -- it's Second Life!

When I initially started posting here with my alt Laskya in 2013, my idea, as I have said, was to "deceive" in a sense. I wanted to return to SL (and to the forums), but I also wanted to avoid certain, well, "entanglements" and also conflicts that I'd become involved in here over the years. I wanted, as I say, a "fresh start." I wasn't posting with my main account at the same time: the point was to replace Scylla. I think I was detected within maybe my first 3 or 4 posts here, on the basis of my style, and I didn't bother protesting my innocence (although I also did not, at first, just admit it either; I later made some arch jokes about it that signaled a concession that, yes, I'd been found out). My problem, I suppose, is that I didn't make any effort to "sound" different. Do people with alts do that, generally? Do they consciously and deliberately change their sound of their voices so as to avoid being "matched" with their well-known main?

Actually, this thread is quickly becoming something that will get it closed down: a private conversation about personal things held in public. A bit of banter is obviously fine: we all do it. But extended conversations that are clearly only directed at, and can possibly only concern a few people are just . . . boring. Can we return to the issue of alts, please?

This would doubtless make for a great straight-to-streaming gritty tale of a stripper with a heart of gold who finds love and makes good . . . maybe sort of Pretty Woman, but with Richard Gere as the call girl, but . . . the Talli I remember, and even knew a bit inworld, ran an art gallery, was pretty good at photography, and engaged with her communities in places like the Chelsea. I liked her.

Yes, and we are all Sparticus.

It's difficult to talk about this without talking about forum moderation, because one's "safety" in posting here is contingent upon that moderation being not merely reasonable, but also consistent. And mostly I believe it is. In fact, despite the fact that my most recent forum suspension -- for three days -- happened relatively recently, and that I disagreed with it, I will say that generally moderation here has never been better, fairer, and more responsive to the community than it is now. (My suspension was not imposed by one of our regular mods, but by a Linden, and was part of a larger crack-down on a particular much-discussed subject here.) If I thought that expressing myself in a measured and reasonable way here might result in heavy-handed suspensions or bans, I wouldn't choose to post on an alt instead. I'd judge that this place frankly didn't deserve my participation, and I'd cease to post at all.

Don't look at me! You're the one at the keyboard!

Did I do good? Does this mean that you'll finally buy me that dress I wanted???? (Gabriele is such a difficult main!)

It's an interesting additional point, though -- that alts might protect someone from being suspended in-world. And maybe valid. I'd argue that you shouldn't be posting things that might lead to that, if I didn't think that, in the past, there was a pretty arbitrary element to how such suspensions might be applied. I think it's much less of an issue these days, though.

Totally fair, and mostly I agree. An exception maybe is when the deployment of alts creates a toxic atmosphere, bun fights, and a Dramaz with a capital "D." I've seen entirely interesting and worthwhile threads destroyed because they became a battleground for alts or throwaway accounts. But in large measure, yeah. I don't care that much. ETA: @Gabriele Graves posted something rather similar as I was writing this.

Twitter Peeve: Have I complained about this before? I have on Twitter, but I'm not so sure about here . . . People who insist upon posting pornography, in various different forms, on Twitter without flagging them and thus blurring them for people who don't want to see them. Mostly, on my feed, this is three kinds of content: SL porn, often extremely explicit, furry porn, and manga / hentai porn. I honestly don't mind people posting porn on Twitter, really. I don't even (generally) mind seeing it. But if I am scrolling through my Twitter feed on a bus or in a coffee shop, I really don't want to have to suddenly look around to see who may have seen the explicit porn that has suddenly popped up on my feed. Use explicit content tags, people! You can still post your porn. People who want to see it can still choose to see it! And those who happen to be sitting next to a 10 year old girl on the bus don't have to be worried about what they're exposing her to!