Tolya Ugajin

A few months ago, my partner and I decided to check out SL Gor. For those of you unfamiliar with this phenomenon, it would take too long to explain - use Google. So, I dusted off my old library section on Gor (about 800 notecards worth, NOT counting the notecarded novels. I'm a barrel of fun at parties), read up, and away we went. I figured it might be interesting or entertaining for others if I shared our experiences and gave others a chance to comment on this critically important part of SL. Gor is not nearly as misogynistic as seems to be commonly believed. Certainly male dominated, and women are in effect second class citizens, but it's not all slave girls being ravished on every street corner and every woman in chains. Actually, where we hung out, there were more Free Women than slave girls (and a couple slave boys as well). And, lest we forget, it's all consensual - nobody is forced to go there. Gor is exceptionally vacant. We hung out in a "city" that covered 4 sims. Lots of empty real estate. On a good night, 15-20 people combined on the 4 sims. Usually less than 10. Gor seems to be especially dull for slave girls. If you have rape fantasies, there are much better places to hang out. Most of the time, the slaves were little more than animated furniture. Free Person want paga. Slave emote getting paga and use cut and paste emote handing Free Person goblet (yes, I'm intentionally not conjugating verbs correctly, etc). Free Person drink, maybe compliment slave (but no real Master would thank the slave, and the Free Women would be even less likely) on nice serve. My girl finally decided she'd had enough of being bored (granted, we kept ourselves monogamous, so no rape and pillage for her). The girls also seem to not be interested in being friends with other girls - maybe because the ravishing was so limited they didn't want to make friends with the competition, I dunno. The RP is rather dull. I saw a duel that involved one comment from each combatant, an animated sword fight, one emote of bandaging the defeated guy's wounds, and one "I'm outta here" emote. Where's the pathos? The action? We would go to an inn where a regular would come in and, in IM, my girl and I would do an over/under bet on how many times the guy would speak. Three was the normal over/under. What are all these people doing with their Castes? What are the Scribes scribing? Who are the Physicians healing? What are the Builders building? Nothing that I can see. Speaking of Builders, has mesh made it to Gor? Every place looks like it's 2009 again. Most of the furniture, etc. is up to date, but, hey, how about some nice mesh walls and homes? Honestly, I'd be embarrassed to have half those builds on my sim. Gor "BTB" (by the book) - isn't, really. First off, the author himself put the percentage of enslaved females at 2% of the total female population. Depending on where you go in SL Gor (and every sim claims to be BTB as far as I've seen) 50%+ of the female avatars are slaves, and a good percentage of the Free Woman population is actively courting (following BTB rules) being force-collared. "Black wine" (ie. coffee) is drunk in places where, BTB, it would never have been available - similar with many other beverages and animals. People can't be bothered to even RP closing gates - hey just walk into our city and carry off our women, I have to get to the bar and have some paga. Slaves sure seem idle, and dressed rather nicely in most cases. Nobody is at war, but every anthill of a city has an Ubar. Don't get me wrong - I met a few interesting people in Gor, and had some fun. But, like much of the BDSM community, and SL in general, it would benefit from a lot of the places being put out of their misery, forcing people who WANT to be in Gor to congregate in fewer (and therefore more busy) places, thereby making those places better, if for no other reason than the remaining cities can be more choosy about who gets to be a citizen, etc. But, yeah, unless you're a diehard Gor fan, it's a pretty silly place.

" When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time. "

I'll let you in on how we men think. Note, there may be 0.01% of men who this doesn't apply to (and it applies to gay men as well, just change the target's gender), but pretty much any man who is not a castrated monk, this applies to. 1: If you smile at us, it means you find us attractive 2: If you approach us, it means you want to sleep with us 3: If you spend a significant amount of time with us "alone" (which would include dancing) you desperately want to have sex with us on a regular basis 4: Our hearts are very fragile. We're emotional snowflakes wrapped in a fragile thin shell of beefcake. So, when you reject us (ie. spoil our Penthouse Letters fantasy of taking you and the girl over there home for a threesome) we start sobbing internally while lashing out externally 5: Generally, tall and redhead are individually intimidating - combined they are frightening. Short and blonde is less likely to flip us over and peg us, thereby making us gay - the ultimate horror! I hope this clears up your questions. I wish I were joking, but when it comes right down to it, we really are pathetic creatures who just want to hump, followed by a sammich.

If you want to find "sisters" as nauseum, try babygirl places. Families are still a thing, but keep your expectations low. Relationships are very ephemeral in SL. I've always taken a very jaundiced view of SL families (and even more so SL marriages) - in my eyes, they cheapen those institutions, and those who seek them out generally (not you specifically, but most who I have witnessed) are treating them as RP or virtual amusements, not serious relationships. (truth in broadcasting, I "married" my RL fiance twice in SL)

I tend to post only when I think I have something useful or funny to say. I don't care about "likes" per se, although I do enjoy the back and forth conversation. Especially when I need a break from staring at spreadsheets.

I created a new account more than 5 years ago, and Tolya is now almost never used except on occasion when I need something off his inventory (very little left there). However, oddly enough, I still use Tolya's name when I play backgammon on airplane entertainment systems, and on here, where Tolya is the name people knew me by back in the day. I, along with my then-partner (now fiance) created new accounts specifically to make a fresh start, an escape from drama that had crept up around us and was creating strife in our relationship. Conveniently, the places we primarily hung out were undergoing big changes at the time as well. It worked rather well, obviously. At first, and I'd guess for about a year, we didn't tell a soul we knew then who our new avatars were. Today, maybe 2 dozen people know both Tolya and my new main. Also conveniently, most of the people around whom the drama centered also left SL (or more likely created their own new alts) so it was very simple to make a fresh start. I felt no need to close the old account, so it's still around. I don't see why gachas would cause you to hesitate - are they not by nature transferable? I also don't know why your inventory level would factor into the decision - you can simply create a huge folder entitled "old crap" and dump the junk into it. Or, heck, chances are anything 6-8 years old is now junk, so just delete it. Nor is there any reason to close your initial account - just switch it to basic and keep it around. I have no problem with alts, unless one uses them as part of an ongoing deception - and even then the problem is not with the alt, it's with the person's lack of integrity.

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For the most part I've found that Gor RP people are no different than other RP people, BDSM people, or people in SL in general. Some good, some bad, some drama. Gor just seems a bit more artificial, and easily the lousiest builders in SL (has anyone told Gorean sim designers about this thing called "mesh"? - by the Priest Kings everything looks like it's 2009!). it's not nearly as brimming with casual misogyny and unrestrained testosterone as I'd expected.

Part 1

The firm and very clearly WRITTEN rule in the Ugajin household is everyone puts the seat and lid down EVERY time. Everyone puts something down, everyone lifts something up, totally fair. Putting the lid down prior to flushing is preferred.... https://www.businessinsider.com/flushing-toilet-seat-up-sprays-water-germs-2016-3

So, basically you'd like a Valentine's version of..

I can't say, because she reads the Forum (she's a lurker, doesn't comment just reads) BUT, I'm hitting all the romantic bases with my beautiful bride to be!

Every time I turn around female Canadians are trying to oppress me, you may as well join in 😛

Not having a stalker is being under-oppressed, not under-privileged.

Yeah the, "mess with ____ and I'll beat you up" ones always make me laugh. Just for yucks, I ask them how they will visit their vengeance upon me - they never know how to respond.

This is why I always tell people up front that I am a jerk. Then, on the off chance I'm nice, it's a pleasant surprise for them. I've found most people secretly believe the world somehow revolves around them. It's as natural as believing the sun rotates around the earth, since we are each literally the center of our own universe. Why would SL be any different than RL in this regard?

Today I am listening to a never ending stream of people whining. "My raise sucked". "Our benefits suck!" "My boss sucks!" "My employee sucks!" "This project sucks". Can we please have a recession so I can start hearing "This severance package sucks!" instead?

I had similar experiences in China, although the staff at locations mostly geared to Westerners tended to be quite fine with taking tips.

I've never seen a DJ publicly spazz out over low tips. I've had one or two spazz out after a set at my places because tips were low and I've invited them not to come back. But I usually tip DJ's pretty generously (unless they are paid up front).

I had not considered you may get a worse rate when you cash out, but when you buy Lindens, it's about 250L/1 USD. But, if the cost to pull money out is as bad as you say, then how do any of the people renting land even break even? The going rate for a homestead would not cover the cost at that exchange rate. Re. users, granted all that, but I'd rather go by data I can actually source and understand it's probably overstated, than make random guesses. Similarly, I can find reports that creators cash out about $60MM annually (no info on inworld vs. MP). I'm not motivated enough to do an exhaustive search, but if you'd like to cite your sources, I'd be happy to look at them. There are certainly people who make good incomes from SL content sales - but they're a rarity. To paraphrase someone earlier, if someone wants to get into making and selling content, it would be better to approach it as a hobby than a profession - and hope it will turn into something that can support them.

Cosmetics and clothes (decent stuff anyway) seems to go for around 250L a unit - roughly $1USD. That means you need to sell 100,000 units in a year to hit $100K gross income. Seems unlikely for a startup. And, you'll have expenses that will eat into that. From what I've read SL has around 800,000 "regular users" - so you'll need to average selling 1 item to every 8th person. I would not doubt the high end furniture manufacturers gross $100K in a year, given the pricing and far smaller number of competitors, as well as the ability to differentiate.

that's loser talk! All we need to do is turn it into a silly kitty thread and we'll keep it on top for a long time!

groans "I don't need money raised, and parties involve...being with...people!

What I enjoy about Scylla is the ability to spar and even poke fun at each other with both of us knowing we respect the other. And she knows how to tell me I'm being a jag without making me defensive about it. I wonder how many Canadians know what a "stag and doe" party is? Is it a common Canadian thing? Because I've never heard of it and apparently I am hosting one in March.

I'm not sure if I understand it, but I do know men get stupid when a pretty girl flounces by, so you would be a fool not to weaponize it so you can oppress the patriarchy right back.