Second Sex and the City - Sexual Tourism: Living A Third Life

Anyone who reads the Second Life forums and blogs cannot have
missed the privacy furore this month over the disclosure of
alternate Second Life accounts by people using particular security
systems installed on their land that harvest IP addresses by
exploiting a security hole in the media system. The system links all
avatars that use the one IP address together and bingo, your secret
existence as an alt is revealed to all who pay the 4k price tag for
the system. This started me thinking about why people need
alternate Second Life accounts so much they are willing to fight to
their virtual death in defence of their privacy. Talking among friends,
it seems to be linked to sexuality and gender identity, although not
exclusively. The exploration of sexuality and alternate accounts
seems to be a common theme. Taking a closer look at sexuality and
Second Life generally , I think most people will agree that many of
the sexual practices we hear of in -world can be pretty "out there".
But, what could people possibly want to hide so badly they would
create an alternate avatar in order to participate in it?

When I signed up for Second Life in March 2007, I didn't know

people signed on f or sex. I never even knew it was possible. Once I
knew it existed, it seemed t o me that pixel sex was everywhere,
back then there was no adult continent and m en teleporting in
front of my avatar, sporting an unfeasibly large erection, was fairly
commonplace. Maybe that is part of the appeal of Second Life, it
draws people in from all corners of the internet. Enter the sex
tourist. Who is the sex tourist? Well, I define the sex tourist as
someone who uses a virtual world to explore an aspect of their
sexuality. It is quite a logical thing to do if you think about it, it is a
relatively safe environment. After all, if you submit to a virtual
spanking in Second Life, you don't bruise in real life. Safe words are
just good behaviour when you can turn the PC off to get out of an
"unsafe" situation if your Dom forgets to play by the rules. But what
if you make friends, start a business and have a very established
Second Life as your main or primary avatar? You might decide that
you need further anonymity in order to experiment sexually and
create a "third life" for yourself, under an alternate Second Life
account (aka "alt").

Still in my early days of Second Life, I decided to try some sexual

tourism of m y own. As an alt, I escorted. Why an alt? Well, I guess
like everyone else, I decided I did not want my main avatar being
tarnished with the virtual prostitution brush and wanted that
additional layer of anonymity in order to experiment free from pre-
conceived ideas others might hold about me. My first ever customer
seemed relatively nice and normal, so we got down to business.
Imagine my surprise when he started talking about fisting and
doing a poop in my mouth. I don 't mind admitting that although I
knew about water-sports, pooping was a new one for me (Google
"Scat"). Fortunately, I was fortified with wine in real life an d
managed to get through it. I escorted one more time after that
incident, the guy crashed 15 minutes into a 30 minute booking, and
never returned. As I took cash in advance and operated a no refund
policy I decided to quit while I was ahead. I retired from the sex
industry that day, no amount of money was worth the toilet-talk
and interminable boredom of waiting for a customer to contact me.
I learned to love being a virtual prude, and discovered a new found
respect for virtual hookers.

Now, I firmly believe that every sexually uneducated avatar, like

myself, needs a friend to serve as an encyclopedia of kink. I have
been lucky to have several friends willing to serve that purpose,
albeit grudgingly at times (and sometime s with real life eye-
rolling). One friend explored BDSM in Second Life (and latterly real
life) as her alt who ultimately became her primary or main avatar as
she realised this was what she wanted her Second Life experience
to be. This friend spent a long time patiently explaining BDSM to
me, including a particularly long conversation where she tried to
explain why women became Pony Girls, which must have felt akin to
knitting fog to her as I was just not getting it. Her new BDSM
lifestyle was something I had a difficult time getting my head
around, mainly because I befriended her as her first avatar and I
had trouble accepting her new life under her second avatar, letting
go was hard - I still don't really understand why. I think that initially
I resented the BDSM lifestyle for taking her away from me but over
time I got over it and accepted the choices that were making her
happy in both lives. It was this same friend who once discovered he
r neighbour having sex with his dog. It was the day she told me
about this that I realised BDSM wasn't really that kinky after all,
and I think she realised that camming into neighbouring land was
never going to end well.

This is when you start to learn your limits. Your sexual limits. But
what if you finally figure out your limits after you have partnered
someone in Second Life and want to test those limits out safely
using the privacy of an alternate avatar. Is it wrong? I believe deceit
is wrong. But rightly or wrongly, and perhaps understandably, very
few avatars have the courage to live out their sexual fantasies as
their primary avatar, although I have friends who do. Many people
allude to their sexual fantasies and sexual limits in their Second Life
profiles. I find this process more interesting because I am an avid
reader of peoples profiles. A profile whore. It is precisely this
inquisitiveness that has caused me problems in the past. Like when
I asked a friend what Dolcette was? I immediately put the sandwich
I was eating down in real life when I found out. Don't know what it
is? Google is your friend. The same friend had to explain to me w
hat yiffing was, I think she wishes Google was my friend. The
theory behind Second Life sexploration is that no one is harmed, it
is all consensual, so why not experiment? Live and let live is what I
say, I try not to dwell on some of the more sinister sexual practices
in-world.

And finally, on the subject of gender identity and alternate

accounts, what about the person who is transgender in real life but
unable to afford the operation, or is not willing to submit to painful
surgery? Sometimes a variety of alternate accounts is nothing to do
with expressing a kink, and nothing to do with deception.
Sometimes it is a process of figuring out who you want to be in your
Second Life, and it can take more than one account before you
achieve that. This is my parting message to those self righteous
individuals who like naming and shaming people with both male and
female avatars in-world, with information obtained via the abuse of
in-world alt detectors. Think. Not everything is about you.

Josephina Bonetto