Cybersex is child's play: virtual world morals
We've already heard recently about the sexy side of Second Life, a virtual world in which the players' imaginations are more or less the limits. This article, however, shows just what can -- and does -- happen in an 18 environment where players are given free rein. Although Second Life is no stranger to kinks and perversions, some fetishes provoke far stronger opposition than others.
The case in point here is age play, a pastime in which adults put on kiddy avatars and act out scenes which would, in the real world, be considered paedophilic. Thanks to Second Life's strict separation of minors and adults, everyone taking part is of age, which makes for an interesting moral debate. Is this activity virtual paedophilia, an offensive type of sexual play that should be banned lest it lead to real crime? Or is it simply an extension of the fantasy world, a harmless activity carried out in private?
Sex-based virtual world Rapture Online, mentioned in the article, is playing it safe from the outset by not letting adults look like children. In SL, however, some official decisions may eventually have to be made on this front -- the simple existence of this sort of activity is enough to get some people riled up, but by infringing on users' freedoms to fantasise about whatever they want in private, the world loses some of its strength.
[Thanks, Ken. Image shows items available from some of SL's kid-themed shops.]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
TheBlunderbuss @ Apr 12th 2006 9:20PM
This makes me ponder about holodeck rules for sex in the Star Trek world. We're getting closer to it.
the antique @ Apr 12th 2006 9:26PM
According to a Supreme Court ruling in 1994 (i think it was in '94, sometime in the 90s), "virtual pedophelia" is not illegal, because it falls under the first amendment's freedom of speech, and thus expression (in this case through a videogame).
teddy n @ Apr 12th 2006 11:15PM
I know this is going to sound weird, but there's nothing wrong with paedophilia except for the fact that real children get harmed/exploited/subjected to things they do not understand and therefore cannot decide about by themselves.
As a result of this, I don't think that adults are doing something that should be against the rules when they express desires/fantasies using a virtual avatar. It's a mere physical presence that is unpalatable to most people, but no psychological harm is being done.
GlitchCog @ Apr 13th 2006 8:45AM
Here's a creepy possibility:
What if a kid and an adult were interacting through a computer game but saw different things. Like the kid sees his character bobbing for apples on his computer which is set up to know he's a kid, but the adult game is modded or configured to see a sexual act. There the kid isn't harmed, but still, it doesn't seem right and could certainly encourage other acts that would definately harm the child.
James @ Apr 13th 2006 2:32PM
Teddy you sick bastard, you are absolutely the most insane commenter that has ever posted on this sight. Your ideas on pedophilia make me sick to my stomach that some excuse for a human being can say things like this. How do you even live with yourself in your twisted beliefs that rely on faulty generalizations on the state of pedophilia. People like you should not be opening their mouths let alone saying the utter tripe that echos out of your hollow skull. I really am saddened that you think that way because I being a teacher, think secondlife is allowing adults to live out sick perverted fantasys that they wish they could enact in real life. When are people going to realize that secondlife is becoming more and more an everything goes mmog. Teddy I pray for you that one day you will realize how messed up your comments were.
Niobium @ Apr 13th 2006 4:39PM
James, let me point out that you just agreed with Jack Thompson. Let me make small changes to your post to demonstrate:
"*Grand Theft Auto* is allowing adults to live out sick *violent* fantasys that they wish they could enact in real life."
The fact remains that it isn't illegal, or punishable, unless it was a physical act. By your thinking, if I write a book about a paedophile, I should be arrested becuase it could give someone sick ideas they could act out in real life.
Mark 2000 @ Apr 16th 2006 12:10AM
i just became a dad, so you'd think this would piss me off. But as an artist I have to let it be. Second Life should probably pass a rule against this if they feel icky about it. Its their world to do with as they please. But making simulated pedophelia illegal is wrong. We already made an attempt at it in the legislature in 2002 and it failed because the ramifications are no movies like "Carrie" or "American Beauty" in which adults play minors in sexually explicit roles.