Ishtara Rothschild

Ima Rang wrote: In my opinion, the most attractive thing in a woman or man is self-confidence, not arrogance, but self-confidence. Actually, the most attractive trait of a man is his smell. Women subconsciously analyze the male body odor and are able to detect if the major histocompatibility complex of a potential mate is similar or dissimilar to their own. MHC-dissimilarity greatly increases the chance for healthy offspring. Choosing an MHC-similar mate comes pretty close to incest and can have the same disastrous consequences for the offspring. So even if two SL lovebirds exchange photos and find each other sufficiently attractive, she might still instinctively feel that something is wrong with him once they meet in person. And that's a good thing, because nobody wants kids who spend their entire lives in a plastic bubble or have tails and twelve toes. Alas, this means that online dating is either pointless or potentially dangerous. Pointless in case that she can't stand his smell and breaks up with him after an RL meetup, even though the two appeared to be incredibly compatible in their online chats, and potentially dangerous because she might already have a crush on him and decide to ignore her gut feeling. It gets worse though. Pregnant women completely change their MHC preference and suddently seek the company of MHC-similar men. That's why pregnant women tend to be so b!tchy towards their poor male partners This instinct dates back to the time when humans lived in small clans of up to 20 related individuals. Horny and rebellious teenagers (there's another age-old instinct for you) left the family clan for a short and intense romance with an unrelated dark, tall and handsome stranger, and then returned to their relatives after the deed was done. Hence the post-conception preference for the company of people that smell related. Blood relatives are a lot more likely to provide for and protect a pregnant woman than the guy who fathered her child, seeing that many men use a hit & run strategy. Now, can you imagine what happens when women use oral contraceptives, which block conception by simulating a pregnancy? Exactly. Luckily, a woman has to lay off the pill if she wants to get pregnant, with the result that she can suddenly no longer stand the company of the guy who she fell in love with while she was on the pill, without really knowing why. Which probably explains why about two thirds of all divorces are filed by women Here is an interesting article on this topic, in case you want to learn more about it or verify that I didn't just make this up. Bottom line: Great looks, inner values and self-confidence are not going to cut it. Men also have to smell right. If you want to make sure that he's Mr. Right without scheduling an RL meeting, ask him to wear a T-shirt without using deodorant for a day, and then get him to mail you the T-shirt. But it's so much easier to just keep things in SL, never exchange photos and never ruin the illusion.

Drake1 Nightfire wrote: so, only attractive avs are allowed.. i shall be sure to no come visiting then. I have been told many times that non-humans are not attractive. so i will stay away. kinda sucks though.. mheh. In other words, tl;dr This wasn't about attractiveness, nor was it about species. Furries, quadruped animals, demons, dragons (within a reasobable size range) etc. are all very welcome in my sim. Not only because a great many people are into these avatars, but also (and mainly) because they don't use their avatars to deliberately offend and disgust people. I only swing the banhammer when I have reason to assume that someone is trying to cause a disturbance with an outrageous look.

Jo Yardley wrote: Send someone an ugly photo showing someone else sounds like a great plan to check if the other party is shallow and cares about appearance too much. All people care about appearance, unless they're extremely desperate and/or have a very low self-esteem. I mean, inner values are all good and well, but appearance is important too. Nobody wants to undersell themselves.

Nacy Nightfire wrote: My synopsis: Ishy has a dress code on his sim and mature women, by being themselves, are in violation of the dress code. Mature women are very welcome in my sim, actually. This is only about extremely and deliberately disturbing avatars that are bound to drive other visitors away. Rabid Cheetah perfectly summed it up, imho: Rabid Cheetah wrote: So, no: Choosing an avatar appearence that disturbs others, slightly, would not be griefing. On the other hand, it all goes back to common sense; Choosing a disgusting avatar appearence that greatly disturbs others is a no-brainer vis-â-vis whether or not it's griefing -- with the caveat that it depends on context. A beautiful supermodel, naked, with a suggestive AO might be fine at the local SL dancehall. Same avatar, at an SL church holding a 9/11 memorial service? I think not. Emphasis by me. It's a matter of both degree and context. And of course a matter of intent, as far as I'm able to gauge that.

Carole Franizzi wrote: I thought that any avatar which looks to be a minor wasn’t permitted to be in proximity of sexual activity? Isn’t one of 14, 15 still a minor? You find an adult woman inappropriate because she’s whatever age you consider to be “past it”, yet one who looks 14 standing by while sexual “stuff” is going on is appropriate??? First you're complaining that I'm prepared to ban child avatars (and people with giant godzilla avatars), and now you're bothered by the fact that I tolerate people with avatars that look like sexually mature teenagers? You need to make up your mind. There is a difference between a minor and a child avatar. A child avatar is a prepubescent looking av. A sexually mature avatar is not a child av by any definition. Unless the owner of that av misrepresents their age in their profile, they're not doing anything wrong. Beyond sexual maturity, there is really no reliable way to tell the visual age of an avatar. And I don't find adult women inappropriate. Geez, you're constructing one straw man argument after another I welcome sexually mature avatars of all ages, colors, and species, unless they cross the line between unattractiveness (in my subjective opinion) and deliberate visual griefing (also in my subjective opinion. It's probably impossible to be completely objective in this matter). No, it isn’t. I asked if everybody you found unattractive got asked to leave your sim – club and shop. I also asked what was the cut-off age for men and women to be allowed into your sim. I don't, and there is no cut-off age. There is only a cut-off look. So….who does and doesn’t get asked to leave? I ban people for deliberately wearing an avatar that most people would consider to be disturbing or in very bad taste. Bea Arthur is sexy?? If you say so… You’re aware she probably had veins, moles, saggy bits, etc., etc., like anyone – male or female – at her age? I doubt that she deliberately tried to make herself look that way. She looks like she always kept herself in shape. I don't think she painted moles on her skin, and she certainly didn't have plastic surgery in order to look more saggy I went out of my way to make Carole realistic. In a hyper-perfected world, I found it more interesting to resist the temptation to improve and to go in completely the opposite direction, by making an avatar which was older and less attractive than me (that wasn’t a vanity moment, just stating an objective fact – Carole is worse, not better than me). That doesn’t make me an artist. She’s just an avie pieced together by buying bits here and there. I’m still finding difficulty in understanding your attempts to rationalise something which you simply don’t like. An elf and a 14 year old kid are appropriate and are to be expected in a sex sim, but an adult human woman isn’t? A Bea Arthur avatar would be welcome, Carole wouldn’t? I’m not deliberately trying to misunderstand you (I genuinely don’t follow your logic). If you don’t like women who are past it, amputees, wheelchair users – just chuck them out and have done with it. It’s your sim – you can do as you please. I think you just want to be told that you’re somehow morally right not to let them stay. How does any sim or club owner decide what is acceptable? I'd say the line is crossed when all other visitors are bothered and disturbed by a single individual. It doesn't really matter how this individual goes about causing a disturbance. Of course I don't ask every person at my beach for their opinion. I ultimately use my own judgement and assume that if something is not simply a turn-off for me but outright disturbs me, it will probably disturb most of my visitors as well, considering that I tolerate a great many things that other people find disgusting when it comes to matters of sex. I already pointed out before that it seems to me that not only do you want to keep certain categories of avatars out of your sim, but you keep underlining the fact that an older woman avatar shouldn’t be on a sex sim at all. Whoever the sim belongs to. Unless she’s a Bea Arthur lookalike, of course… I never said that I wouldn't welcome older women. It's all a matter of presentation. Bea Arthur was merely an example for a look that I wouldn't consider to be deliberately ugly in SL. Why are you using the conditional? I have told you several times that Carole has been to sex sims all over the grid and I can’t think of a single occasion when she was asked to leave. In the nude, with your most... erm... expressive skin? Yep, because elves in sex clubs look really well-placed… If other land owners have a problem with my avatar, I won't complain about being banned or asked to leave. I've been told to detach my genitals at a nude beach where transsexual avatars were not welcome. It wasn't a big deal for me, but it prompted me to turn my own sim into a T-girl friendly nude beach (my sim had a medieval theme before). Forgive me if I say so but I get the impression that the entire point of your thread is to find moral support for your decision to chuck out some guy with a colostomy bag or some such, because burdened by the moral dilemma of putting of your business interests over the interests of categories of people whose rights to sexual expression you were defending a short time ago - wondering if the poor schmuck with the colostomy bag is just some poor soul trying to come to terms with the prospect of having to pass the rest of his life with the ruddy accessory thanks to bowel cancer. I'm only interested in other people's opinion. I'd like to know where they would draw the line. Some have posted that they wouldn't draw a line at all, but I wonder if they still felt the same way if they ran a public hangout and wouldn't want to see their regular patrons leave for other places. My feelings are not hurt. I don’t have bowel cancer. Nor am I an old lady. Nor am I ugly. However, if I had had bowel cancer, was an old lady or was ugly, I’d object to it being implied that I didn’t have the right to sexual expression. I think that's understandable. Nonetheless, I don't really understand why people have to express themselves sexually with an avatar that is bound to be found unattractive, probably disturbing even in a sexual context, by the vast majority of people. When it comes to sex, most of us want to be desirable rather than shocking. If you were looking to have sex as Carole, I'd wonder if sexual gratfication is really the goal, or if you rather did it for... erm... for the lulz, as the kids say nowadays. Not that the latter would be wrong, but it that would be at odds with the interests of my other visitors, who definitely do seek sexual gratification. Puh-lease don’t go down that other well-worn sexist path too – implying that a woman can’t support an issue out of principle, but speaks out only in reaction to being hit where it hurts – her emotions. I’m fonder of rational debate than you could imagine and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed this exchange, these topics and the fascinating reading up that it obliged me to do. Sorry it took so long to reply but I’ve only been able to dedicate snippets of time to answering you. Rest assured that I'd never do that I'm not a sexist, I'm a realist (much unlike many feminists). PS: I have also banned people who only visited my sim in order to make fun of the regulars. Wearing a controversial avatar for the heck of it can also be a way of doing that. There is a certain "look at all these losers who are getting off on pixel sex" mindset that I find very insulting. When I see avatars such as the giant walking turd that I mentioned in my OP, I assume that it's exactly this mindset that prompted them to visit a sex sim in this outfit. This is very similar to the feminist protest at Hard Alley, where the protesters were dressed as meat products. Such things are simply disruptive. And not by accident; they are meant to be disruptive, which is the definition of griefing. Perhaps that helps to explain where I was coming from.

Carole Franizzi wrote: You’re telling me that if your sister, cousin, daughter or son (let’s not make it about gender) came to you and told you that they’d got accepted to Brainyfolks University but grumbled a bit about having to take on a student loan, you’d suggest prostitution as an option to avoid running up debts? I’m sorry, but I don’t believe that for a moment. Probably not. But I also wouldn't recommend that they work part time as a nurse. There are many jobs that are not for everyone. What I would do though is pick this line of work for myself. Back in the days when I was a more social person, I hooked up with a bunch of bisexual men in AOL chat rooms. I didn't really care what they looked like. All that mattered was that they found me desirable and were willing to pay me a visit. It was a fun time for the most part, and I might as well have charged money for it. (I'll admit that I probably didn't do it for the sex as much as for social interaction and reassurance. But who cares? What matters is that it was a rewarding activity). Your profile of the typical sex-worker doesn’t match any I came across when reading up on the subject. NGO reports claim that about 85% of sex-workers in Germany are not German. If they’re in the game simply because they really enjoy it (your theory, further down), I’m perplexed by the fact that apparently it’s mostly poor foreign women who are in it for the kicks. That's very strange, because I've mostly met German women. Then again, I've always stuck to brothels and clubs, and I wouldn't know about street prostitution. I cannot imagine a worse job. I’d rather clean a million toilets. It is absolutely not a job like any other – and the “regular” health checks are an unconvincing drop in the ocean of reassurance. You and I are very different then I'd take sex with a random stranger over cleaning a toilet any day. I would be inclined to think that this might be another gender difference, but apparently not all women feel the same way as you do. Ishtara: And is it really so hard to imagine that some women work in this area because they simply enjoy sex? Carole: Yes. Ah, there is the crux of the matter. (I mean, aside from the tendency of women to condemn "loose women" for lowering their own chances at finding a mate -- after all, those 10 or 20 guys who hook up with the town bike are less likely to buy a whole cow -- and for enabling their existing mates to get some milk on the side without much effort). You personally find this occupation icky, and that's why nobody should get to work in this area. There definitely are women who feel differently about this. Such as Nina de Vries, who says of herself that she finds her work as a sexual assistant for disabled people very satisfying. Or porn star Sasha Grey, who has made it a hobby to give radical feminists cognitive dissonance by mentioning in interviews how much she likes her job and that she wanted to work in this field ever since she was a teenager. I personally can't imagine that a nurse likes her job, but some definitely do. Who are we to tell mature adults that their choices are wrong? You’re promoting the exclusion of avatars which are not attractive from sex sims, because not conducive to a sexual mood, right? Therefore you’re claiming that simply having to look upon a digital representation of an unattractive human being is a turn-off no person should be subjected to. If just looking at an ugly avatar is a turn-off, pray tell what do you truly think one would feel when having to actually have flesh-on-flesh intimate relations with someone you find unattractive? Where does the enjoyment you speak about come in?? If they chose to have encounters only with people they found truly attractive, I’m assuming those fantastic earnings you mentioned before would not be pouring down on them. Let’s say it’s safe to assume that most times they manage to put up with it. Some will be utterly revolted inside. Who knows, maybe one in 100, or 1,000, 10,000 or 100,000 really, really loves it. How would you know though? I assume many are very good at faking it. I'm not promoting anything here, and that is not what I did when I banned SL residents who were griefers in my eyes. I've already explained the difference between people that I personally don't find attractive and people who engage in the visual equivalent of forum trolling. Anyway, I have personally had sex with men who I didn't find attractive in RL. I was only interested in one particular part of their anatomy, and so excited by it that their looks didn't really matter. Many bisexual men are like that. We are mostly attracted to women, but at the same time we also like the... erm... we also like abovementioned part of the male anatomy and are able to tolerate the rest. And I did this for kicks and not for money, mind you. I think very few people love all aspects of their job. Most wage slaves out there put up with all kinds of things they'd rather not do. I had such a job myself, and I'd much rather have had three or four hours of sex each day given the choice. But that's just me. Carole: Say what? This whole thread started with you trying to rationalise your discomfort over an avatar with a pixel colostomy bag in your sex sim. Now you’re expressing admiration over someone whom you compare to missionaries because she works with disabled people? Well done, Nina! Just keep the uglies away from my sex sim in SL! Now you're confusing RL and SL. In RL, people don't get to choose their looks. In SL, everyone has a chance to be gorgeous, but some people deliberately disfigure their avatars. In RL, I can settle for sex with people who don't really look attractive in my eyes. In SL, I don't have to. You’re aware that for a prostitute to press charges of rape would be such a harrowing and hopeless task that most (all?) of them don’t bother? So we can safely assume that those statistics don’t include rape when a prostitute is the victim. If rape crimes have gone down since legalising prostitution, what does that tell us about the sort of clients sex-workers are having to deal with? I’m guessing that sort of man isn’t the kind who hires women just to feel less lonely. I don't think this is the case in Germany. If prostitution is legal, prostitutes don't have a reason not to report sexual assault. It is also much easier to find a safe work environment where such incidents can be avoided. What you describe is another ugly side effect of criminalizing prostitution. Prohibition doesn't protect anybody, it only puts sex workers in great danger. Which means that if you are genuinely concerned about the well-being of prostitutes, you would push for legalization, considering that there will always be people who work in this field. Sadly (for you), I have to inform you that I did take the time to check statistics. Suicide among German males is higher (per 100,000 people) than in Italy, Greece, Spain, the Netherlands, Thailand. Nice mix of legalised and non-legalised prostitution countries for you, though I should point out that in Europe, the Netherlands has a higher rate of male suicides than Italy, Spain and Greece. If you really want to be in happy-man-land, then you should head for Kuwait, where the rate is only 2.5 x 100,000 – but where even looking at a woman in an inappropriate way could get you into trouble. Thanks, that's interesting. My assumption was wrong then. But I can't help but wonder how many of those suicidal men were married Deeming the denial of a sexual life to unattractive and socially inept men discrimination does fit the topic perfectly because you want to discriminate against physically unattractive men and women and people with signs of disabilities…. Again, you're conflating SL with RL. Besides, I don't want to discriminate, I simply want to avoid incidents of visual griefing. This entire thread was about the thin line between virtual identity and self-expression on one hand and deliberate griefing / shocking on the other, and how to decide at which point this line is crossed. This does simply not apply in RL, where people cannot choose their looks.

Carole Franizzi wrote: Want them to be equal??? You see, non-sexists believe they are equal. You starting to get the proper definition of “sexist” now? What you describe above is both genders chasing healthy mates. Sounded pretty equalising to me… The bit about the tail having to be young and pretty reminded me of a point I’d already made – you can chase all you like, but if the gal you’re into isn’t into you, she just ain’t going to stop running. We are using different definitions of equality. Equality is the likeness in quality, number, nature, or status. You are talking status, I'm talking nature. Without any nonsensical notions of genetic superiority, mind you. If that is sexist, my biology teacher was sexist too for suggesting that boys and girls have different parts between their legs. In this case, the biological difference / inequality between the genders is that women typically not only select for attractiveness and other indicators of good health, but also for a socially successful mate. With the additional distinction that women look for different traits in life partners (traditionally providers) and sires, and feel attracted to different types of men at different points of their menstrual cycle. And as I've already explained, sexual selection for a specific trait does not mean that any individual is going to get what s/he desires. People can and will settle for less, or go home empty-handed and cry into a pillow. That doesn't change what these individuals feel most attracted to. Anyway, I have just discovered that we shouldn’t have been speaking of Neolithic at all (though I’m off the hook, cuz I called it “Bedrock”). If we want to examine how the earliest social organisations of Man might have influenced gender behaviour, it seems we should be looking at the beginning of the Palaeolithic era, since that appears to be the first one the human time-line, before the Neolithic age, and which according to Mr Google, was a period of social equality and had no gender divisions of duties: men and women were both committed to searching for food. Interesting, huh? Seems that as far as providing for the family is concerned, we’ve come full circle and are back to our natural state of equal rights and responsibilities. And again we're talking about different things -- social organisation versus genetic makeup, and biological / behavioral differences versus division of labor and equal rights. You completely misunderstood where I was coming from. I'm not trying to dictate what human societies ought to look like. I merely explained how men and women behave when left to their own devices, without being forced into any kind of role. You probably subscribe to the idea that gender is nothing but a societal construct, but that is nonsense. We are free to create any kind of society that we can think up, and I agree that everybody should have the same freedom and opportunities in an ideal society. But we still want to behave in certain ways that are, to a large degree, determined by our DNA. Those are entirely different matters. (Btw, societal structures largely depended on the environmental conditions in the past. Different human populations lived in different climates and developed very different forms of social organisation; matriarchal and patriarchal structures, monogamy and polygamy, polygyny and polyandry. At the point where the earliest Homo sapiens lived in small family groups, these miniature societies were probably a lot more diverse than modern day societies. It's a strange idea that all paleolithic humans lived in one big culture).  The exploitation of women is ugly to my mind, no matter whether accompanied or not by collateral criminal activities. The fact that you make a parallel between women, alcohol and drugs as “goods” of some sort is precisely what I find disquieting. I don't consider women to be a good, I consider sex to be a good (or rather a service) when a person of either gender offers it for money. I thought I had made it very clear that prositution is not only a female trade. What about women who hire callboys and male escorts? Do they exploit men? Unless people are forced into prositution, there is no exploitation imho. What I find disquieting is that some women are trying to tell other women what they can and cannot do with their bodies. Men don't get to do that and neither do feminists. If a person wants to offer sexual services for money (or to work in the porn industry, which is another feminist pet peeve), s/he should have the right to do so. You cannot liberate people by limiting their choices and prohibiting consensual sex between adults. That does not compute. You need to read up on your statistics, though. The Netherlands, with its massive numbers of “imported” sex workers is now having huge issues with organised crime and has been attempting to reduce the red light district in Amsterdam to bring the situation under control again. The Netherlands appears as one of the top destinations for human trafficking, by the way. It has also seen an increase in child prostitution over the last few years. Ya gotta love Google! I can only judge the situation here in Germany. The women and men who legally work in German sex establishments freely chose their occupation. If any of them were illegal immigrants or victims of human trafficking, these establishments wouldn't last long. You can't condemn a legal, safe and regulated activity because of a somewhat similar illegal or inhumane activity. Think of the shoe industry. Some shoes are produced by unionized workers who earn a fair wage and have social security, whereas the production of other shoes involves something that is a lot more akin to slave labor (I'm comparing labor and not goods here, mind you). That is no reason to outlaw shoe manufacturing altogether. Well, you mentioned that you were interested in certain aspects of psychology. You might find one of the many studies available of the psychological profiles of prostitutes fascinating reading. There has been found to be an extraordinary high incidence of disturbances such as schizophrenia, histories of “disorganised” childhoods and adolescence and a background which includes being victims of sexual abuse. It gets very hard to discuss free will and choice if you include such factors in the discussion. Of course, you can also just ignore them. I put it to you that neither you nor I would ever be able to know for certain who was there of their own free-will and who was being forced by present or past events. Also, Ishtara, it’s naïve to talk about social security benefits as an option when the people most likely to be forced wouldn’t be legal immigrants. I doubt that any of these studies was conducted in Germany, or in any other country where prositution is both legalized and properly regulated. We also don't have many illegal immigrants around here. Besides, in countries where illegal immigration is a problem, you'll find that the immigrants work all kinds of crappy jobs under extreme conditions. I recently read an article about Mexican farm workers in the USA who were kept in containers on a minimal food supply like slaves. That is equally condemnable and criminal, but it doesn't reflect negatively on legal farm work under humane working conditions.

Carole Franizzi wrote: Ishtara: I'm not sure if I have the time to reply to all your points in great detail. Carole: That’s a shame. Especially since all my points emerged from answering all your points. It’s particularly disappointing that you didn’t have time to answer so many of my questions. I thought it was pretty pointless to reply to the parts of your posts that showed a deliberate misunderstanding of my arguments (commonly known as a straw man). At least I think that the misinterpretation was deliberate. For example, I never once said that one gender is superior to the other. The genders are different, that's all. Biologically unequal in the true sense of the adjective, which has nothing whatsoever to do with legal and social equality. If men and women were biologically equal, men would be able to give birth and women would use urinals. I find it mind-boggling that one can no longer point out obvious gender differences, which are proven beyond doubt by the simply fact that there are two genders and not just one, without being called a sexist dog. When political correctness and feminism get in the way of the pursuit of truth and knowledge, it's time to cut it back a notch. After all, we still need biology teachers to educate school children about things like the inequality of the male and female reproductive systems. But more on that further down. Carole: I thought we were going to agree to disagree about stuff? If Nature is “sexist”, how do you explain this? Maybe because evolutionary biology, unlike socio-politics, is truly free from male-chauvinist attitudes? “It has been known for the past 10 years, or so, that the male determining chromosome, the Y chromosome, is shrinking. Making many male scientists nervous, the Y chromosome has been steadily decreasing in gene numbers, as well. The female and dominate chromosome, X, has almost 1,000 genes, while the shrinking Y chromosome is holding onto a mere 80 genes. It has brought the question to many scientists minds, will the Y chromosome eventually disappear, ending the male gender? It had been looking as though the male chromosome was slowing shrinking into oblivion, as the genetically inferior of the two chromosomes…” (Examiner.com and in a gazillion articles all over the web) Ah, the good old Steve Jones He's a popular science author who took the finding that the Y chromosome might vanish in a few million years and ran with it (to the nearest militant feminist trench as it seems). I is very interesting that your quoted article speaks of genetic inferiority, much unlike my posts. The fact that the genders have specialized on different tasks and that the Y chromosome doesn't need to encode much information does not make any gender superior, nor does gender-related research have anything to do with chauvinism. Needless to say that Prof. Jones' pop science is very much disputed (read: utter claptrap). Humans are not going to turn into a genderless or ambisexual species simply because the Y chromosome is not necessary to encode gender dimorphism. There are mammalian species without a Y chromosome (such as Ellobius lutescens, the transcaucasian mole vole, or Tokudaia osimensis, the Japanese spinous rat). These rodent species are still sexually dimorphic. Their females still have to put up with disgusting male pigs If genderless single-celled organisms or hermaphroditic slugs had a huge advantage over sexually dimorphic species, it would be them who'd walk around wearing clothes, using tools, and engaging in strange hobbies like space exploration. Aside from that, the simplicity of the Y chromosome doesn't mean that the female genome is incredibly more complex. The overall genetic difference between male and female humans is only about 2% (which is the same amount of difference that has been found between the DNA of humans and chimpanzees. I bet radical feminists could have great fun with that little fun fact too ) But these tiny genetic differences can cause drastic developmental differences, which are not only physiological but also neurological. If we like it or not, men and women don't function alike, nor do they think alike. Of course there are individuals with hormone levels that are closer to those of the opposite gender, which makes gender a somewhat fluid criterion, but the majority of humanity show very similar dimorphic key traits in both physiology and neurology (and thereby behavior). Which has, of course, nothing to do with superiority or inferiority. Or with chauvinism, for that matter. I have no idea how you keep reading that into my posts. Despite that, I’m convinced there were neither sexists nor feminists back in Bedrock (no pseudo-moral double standards either), just two genders, with pretty hard existences, happy just to have a modus vivendi. The sexism thingy comes into play when men try to use their own interpretations of caveman-style attitudes to justify claims to extra rights and innate superiority, using evolutionary history as an excuse. Nobody has to go out and tussle with sabre-tooth tigers to bring home the dinner, so its maybe time to set aside that justification for certain behaviours. We all have basic urges – evolved man and woman try to filter those urges through their brain. It has nothing to do with justifications either. Our evolutionary history has shaped our behavior, desires, urges, and even our reproductive interests and goals, which are very much at odds. These traits will undoubtedly be subject to further changes in the future, but evolution doesn't work that fast. We will have to come to terms with that. This does not suggest that men should be out hunting deer while women tend to the household. Again you're reading something into my posts that wasn't there. Gender-related biological and psychological research focuses on explanations for the things that we do if we are free to pursue our interests, which can only be the case in a society where all people are socially and legally equal (as it should be). In other words, neither gender gets to dictate how the other gender ought to behave. It was wrong when men did this to women, and it's equally wrong when the roles are reversed. Isn't acceptance of the other gender without trying to limit any individual what social gender equality is all about?

You can use llSleep for that. But keep in mind that llSleep halts the entire script, so the script won't react to user input during the time delay. If your script uses a listener or menu, you might want to use a timer instead (see llSetTimerEvent and timer).

Melita Magic wrote: That's the thing. It wasn't in the agreement. They are planning to update the agreement. I don't know if it would be kosher under TOS even then. They want to be a standalone game but they are not Linden Lab. These things should be dealt with by LL for that reason IMO. If the item is illegal, remove it from the grid. End of story. LL also change and add to their ToS all the time. They can do that because SL is just a service, so if customers are unwilling to accept the new ToS, they'll have to stop using the service. But this could also be fought in court on the basis that services like the use of virtual land have been advertised as "land ownership" in the past. That was one of the things Bragg brought up in his law suit against LL, if I remember correctly. The same might apply in this case, especially if the merchant just changes the ToS on a website and doesn't inform the customers about it. If they change the terms of service after the purchase, they need to somehow get their customers to accept or decline the altered ToS.

Rival Destiny wrote: ....are we talking about LL taking inventory? I think we're talking about a merchant remotely deactivating or deleting their sold products.

Knowl Paine wrote: The sale was final. Yes and no. Technically, customers who buy digital products in SL don't purchase ownership rights, but merely a software license. The content of this license is up to the creator / merchant. There might also be a service involved, such as the use of a server outside of SL that the product exchanges data with. Both the user license and the right to connect to third party servers with the product can be terminated if the customer violates a license agreement or ToS that s/he accepted by purchasing the item. The question is, did the customers accept such an agreement in this case? A notecard hidden in the sales box is probably not legally binding (but IANAL, so I'm not entirely sure. Some software licenses also pop up after the software package has already been bought and installed).

Rival Destiny wrote: Is this even possible? If the products are rezzed inworld, it is technically possible to deactivate them or have them delete themselves. And if this is the kind of product that I think it is (breedables?), they might cease to work when taken back into the owner's inventory.

Penny Patton wrote: I don't know all the details so I hestitate to comment, but here's something to consider. If you use cheating software in many online games you can find your account suspended or your ability to access online servers cut off. If you buy a Nintendo 3DS game console, a physical object you own in real life, then put an R4 cartridge, a device that can be used for playing illegally downloaded games, into it Nintendo can send a command over the internet to turn your 3DS into an expensive paperweight. This is entirely legal. Food for thought. This ^^ Second Life is another example. If Linden Lab find that a resident has violated the terms of service, they terminate accounts and seize all assets (L$ balance, inventory, virtual land etc). Which can be be fought in court of course. Someone did this in the past and won (see Bragg v. LL). More or less anyway. LL's ToS was ruled unconscionable and LL chose to settle out of court, which counts as a win I guess. The same might be possible in this case. The question is, are we talking amounts here that people are prepared to sue over? Another point: How does this merchant get his or her customers to agree to these terms of service? Are they visible at all prior to the purchase, perhaps in the Marketplace listings? If not, their ToS or end user license might be null and void to begin with. In any case, the customers would have to take this to court. Perhaps a class action lawsuit?

Hmmm.... jennylongview Innovia wrote: Wensday Thermal Absent wrote in this thread: Wensday Interesting

jennylongview Innovia wrote: Ok but but take it easy on the kool aid, and have a wonderful Wensday... Thanks I wish you a wonderful Wednesday as well, and I promise to stick to tea, coffee and water (as I always do).

Thermal Absent wrote: Please don't interupt the cat fight. Think both are under qualifed to talk politics.. Both girls should back off the thinking and need to go back to baking.. Methinks someone did a little too much baking there, and was probably baked out of his mind when he posted that comment.

jennylongview Innovia wrote: After all, he was the first and only politician who ever told a lie. Did bush lie under oath? uhmmm Please feel free to answer did Clinton lie under oath? Does it really matter if politicians lie under oath or if they just lie a lot in general, like the Bush-Cheney duo did? This whole oath business has always been a mystery to me anyway. As much as people would like it, you cannot make anyone tell the truth (unless you deprive them of sleep, inject them with sodium thiopental, and interrogate them for hours, which is not an option in a civilized society. Neither is waterboarding, for that matter). People can and will always lie if they have something important at stake, such as a reputation, a career, or a marriage. The only thing that matters is what people lie about. Clinton didn't lie in order to start a war or rob the middle class blind, he lied about having sex. Big deal. The whole impeachment process was a farce, imho. The President's love life shouldn't be anybody's business but his own. As far as I'm concerned, Clinton deserves a medal for his dedication to his job. I mean, the guy was working in the oval office on Easter Sunday, for Bob's sake. He used to spend most of his time there instead of hanging out on a private ranch or on the golf course. He ordered takeouts and ate at his desk, and he even had sex at his desk, always in a hurry to get back to work and do some good for his country. Being a high status male, the #1 alpha male in the whole country even, he could have had thousands of much prettier women. Instead, Clinton settled for Monica because she was easily available and he didn't have to take too much time off from his important work. Hell, he probably kept on working while she was working on him under the desk. Have you ever seen a photo of Lewinsky? That's what I call dedication and commitment. I salute the guy, and I don't even live in the USA. Seriously, I'm not kidding. A more reasonable and mature society that doesn't blush and giggle uncontrollably when someone mentions sex would want their best and brightest to father as many children as possible. At the very least, people wouldn't begrudge their leader some much-needed relaxation every now and then. But in the USA, puritan Christian morals are more important than having the most capable person sit in the oval office. Presidents get to start wars over personal feuds and oil interests, or drive the economy into a recession, but Bob forbid they have sex with anyone other than their wives. It boggles the mind.

You can always modify the repeats per face in the texture tab of the edit window

I recommend the emboss filter to simulate an engraved font. Duplicate the layer with the embossed text and experiment with different layer settings to create a realistic look. In this example, I've set the text layer to 30% transparency, then duplicated it and changed the second layer to "color dodge" at 60% transparency: I think this would make a nice inscription for a wedding ring The font is Zapf Chancery btw. It's a great compromise between a calligraphy font and an easily readable serif type. PS: Feel free to use the silver texture if you like it:

Just make sure not to click the "remember password" checkbox. Otherwise your family members might accidentally log in with your account.

jennylongview Innovia wrote: /wonders what wolves do to livestock... Of course that fully justifies the eradication of an endangered species by shooting them in the back from a helicopter and leaving them to bleed to death on the snow. Why bother with electric fencing? Living in harmony with nature is not much of a sport.

I'm really trying to be open-minded, but when I read something about a gaystapo, it's really hard to take the author serious. Somebody who wants to explore the facts should probably stick to those facts instead of embellishing them with hyperbole. And of course someone who writes a political blog will have to deal with internet trolls. It doesn't matter which side people take, there are always some who spew hatred and bile. Those trolls weren't Obama's personal friends or henchmen. I have read posts from self-proclaimed conservatives who called for atheists and gays to be rounded up and shot. It would be inane to think that they are somehow representative of the entire conservative movement.

jennylongview Innovia wrote: It's all about the facts.. could someone please tell me Billy didn't lie under oath?? Yes, that's so much more important than his political accomplishments. It doesn't matter that he did an outstanding job compared to the recovering alcoholic whose incompetency caused the death of millions. The only thing that matters is that Billy lied when he was caught in a tight corner for following a call of nature, knowing full well that his political career was over. That can never be forgiven. After all, he was the first and only politician who ever told a lie. And it's not as if he lied about something trivial like weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East, invisible deities telling him to invade another country, or torturing prisoners of war. No, this was serious business. I mean, the President of a Christian nation had his **** in a Jewish mouth on Easter Sunday! It doesn't get any more serious than that

Deltango Vale wrote: Is there any champagne left in the kitchen? Perhaps some cashews? Sorry, but we drank all the booze and Storm got into the cashew jar But perhaps I can interest you in a slice of this dead horse that we've been tenderizing for about a week?