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Second Life: Roleplay Series - Second Life Gor
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sometimes something is worth saying twice
Games i'm playing right now...
"In short, I thought NGE was a very bad idea" - Raph Koster talking about NGE on his blog at raphkoster.com
First, if you actually *read* before you hit quote-reply, you'd have seen that for the first eighteen months of my Second Life I didn't go outside a smaller community. But I've been in SL for 3.5 years now, and the last couple of years, my experience has been considerably broader, because those years I've been working in journalism and entertainment.
Then, if you clicked through that link, you would find it a discussion BY THE GOR COMMUNITY in SL of the concept of rape in their own culture, and they are using the word. Really, I just ask that you read before you hit the button.
Actually, having covered a lot of the banking/investment community and the gambling community for in-world media, I'm very familiar with the Mafia RP. I've also done performances for their clubs and sim openings and private parties, as well as attended two weddings in that community (both involving the same guy, admittedly!
And in fact, good ol' fashion "cybering" in IMs without money being exchanged can happen in any sim at all -- but public escort services and sex bed farms/skybox rentals are not on PG sims. I'll also note that PG sims are in the minority, more so with the division of PG/M/A sims over the old PG/M sim ratings. So of course there are a lot of sims where sex happens, but there are sims where it just. doesn't. happen. At least not according to the local rules of the sim owners, but if you enjoy sex as griefing, whatever.
And, I go to both church (although, UU, which you may or may not consider Christian, and which doesn't condemn online sex in sermons), and pagan circles (Season's Altar is a lovely sim, and IRL I'm a co-founder of CUUPs if you know that organization) in SL upon occasion.
As a sometime naturist, I'd actually take personal exception that the naked body is about sex. The naked body is about not wearing clothes, to me. Otherwise, it would be very uncomfortable to be naked in mixed age groups, for example, for me. But isn't that outside the scope of what we're talking about?
Well, I don't know about how long you've been in SL, but in 2005, search essentially didn't exist. When I joined SL, they were still charging you money per prim created. There were about 65,000 registrations (mains and alts), and I believe that today that number is over 10,000,000, with more than 65,000 logged in at any one time, on average. Second Life was very different then. Perhaps you should do a little more careful reading of my post, and a little research yourself.
So, yes, I have friends in the Gor RP community, some of which had the dubious pleasure of being outed involuntarily with marital difficulties in the Wall Street Journal a couple years ago -- which story is now being turned into a motion picture directed by the dude who direction one of the Pirates of the Carribean movies.
It's not a subtle or hidden culture -- now. But regardless, people who work on business and nonprofit and educational concerns in SL don't have to participate.
If you go into that Search you like so much, you can find many more educational, lecture, and arts events that have nothing to do with sex, and a check box that lets you see mature postings, or suppress them. So you know, I don't have that kind of time either, but I actually apparently read the labels on the pull downs and the boxes on the search screen.
SL is a very friendly place to people who don't want to organize their experience around online sex (or sex-oriented RP). I am one of them.
It doesn't make me a prude. I just like my sex in real life, and cybering and pixel sex has never really caught on with me. That's my choice. It threatens no one.
Why is that hard for you to hear? What makes you feel that people don't need to know that SL is about a lot other than sex?
Second Life is a toolkit. You play your game, that's fine, and I'll play mine. But frankly, putting Gor RP before all of the other RP and non-RP purposes of SL seems like it's simply pandering to sensationalism.
Regardless of your sympathy to Gor RP or not, you need to think about how this comes off to a general audience. You've seen the reactions here -- you will attract a few people, and the people who don't want to know -- or don't grok it from a small article -- will be turned so completely off that they will not explore Gor culture further *or* Second Life further.
And I think that they would miss some special things.
So my post intends to tell people that this article is not a culture that is central to most peoples' experience of SL (Gor specifically) and that sex need not be central to *ANYONE'S* experience of SL (not that it doesn't exist).
PLEASE BOTHER TO READ THINGS before you hit reply.
Geez. Trolls, intentional or not, just bug me.
Shava
Well... that goes for you too, Shava, doesn't it?
From the article:
"The only thing that really annoys Goreans is people expecting them to be as their critics have painted them. Some girls come looking to be dragged away and collared forcefully then find that actually nobody does that in Gor."
If you've never yourself experienced Gor, how can you critisize it? As the bright cerebrix said, sometimes some things are worth saying twice: Frowning at Gor because you've heard something from someone who heard something from someone is just incredibly ignorant and malignant.
As are all prejudiced opinions.
"So I contend that the player stories will always be more powerful than the scripted stories that we try to tell the players."
- Will Wright
I did not criticize Gor, except as an introduction to the RP community in SL, and to SL in general. Again, read for comprehension.
If Gor is unknowable except by experience, it doesn't really rate to publish an article on it -- people won't understand it. (Which I implied earlier was a risk here)
Or, perhaps, this is a culture that people want to learn about and can, in which case it should be viewed in context of ITS OWN WORDS and the greater context it operates in, in SL.
I've never been Irish and never will be, but it doesn't mean that I don't know something about the culture, that I don't have Irish friends, that I haven't spent long evenings participating in the culture and discussing what people love about it. I know enough to tell you that although there are Irish folks in Boston, they are not the extent of Boston's population, and to point people to resources from the local Irish community where they talk among themselves about their own concerns. If someone said, "I worry that all Irish folks in Boston are more interested in conservative Catholicism than in secular culture" I would know where to point them toward resources where the Irish community discussed that among themselves.
I haven't said anything negative about Gor except listing a link that was *from* the Gorean community discussing their own culture. What I've said is that using Gor as the *primary* example of SL community is misleading.
I haven't said anything negative about Gor except that it's not a great introduction to RP in SL, and that there's more to SL than sex.
When people were discussing forced sex in Gor, I published a link to a reasoned discussion from within that community about the concept of rape (their term, not mine) in Gor.
Get off your high tarn...:) If your thing is not my thing, and I want people to know that SL is bigger than your community, that should not threaten you. That's your insecurity, not my words.
Shava
Goreans are crazy bunch...My friend once visited a schoolmate whose whole family are RL goreans...He was yelled out because he refused to address the schoolmates mom as Beast and called out his mind when he saw the schoolmates dad smack the mom...he actually went to cops and cops basically said it's not family violence if it happens under pretense of Gor.
I am not a Gorean, Shava. As I already wrote, but you would know that as you're so thorough in reading other people's posts.
You started out by bashing an RP scenario you have no wish to explore. The Gorean culture is a highly hierachical one with quite a lot of castes. The slaves are just at the bottom of the food chain, and not necessarily the most interesting one of the roles. There're female societies as well, where the females have the high end.
Next up, you single out the rape scenario, which is not a terribly often occuring thing in Gor sims. If you want rape, I'm sure you can find it occuring a good deal more often in quite a few of the modern day sims. Just harder to chuck all those into a neatly labeled box, I guess.
Again. You have nothing but hearsay to base your criticism of Gor on. And yes, you are critisizing.
"So I contend that the player stories will always be more powerful than the scripted stories that we try to tell the players."
- Will Wright
2nd LIfe is not a game it is a social network and as social networks go it has some pretty despicable groups associated with it.
Anyone trying to purport this as a good game needs to reexamine whatever lead them to that conclusion.
I give a thumbs down to the posts on this thread trying to defend 2nd Life.
Need a bridge there, Ozmodan? ^^
"So I contend that the player stories will always be more powerful than the scripted stories that we try to tell the players."
- Will Wright
"The web is not a game, it's got a lot of social networks, and as social networks go, it has some pretty despicable groups associated with it. Anyone trying to purport that the web is a good thing needs to re-examine whatever lead them to that conclusion. I give a thumbs down to anyone using this web site, because using a web site lends support to people I don't like who use the web."
A few random links to refute you -- these were from the first couple links on the searches I did on the topics.
Second Life education
Second Life medical/therapeutic work
Second Life environment outreach
Second Life human rights
Second Life arts
Second Life live music
Second Life business and economics (including original research)
You might conclude from this that SL isn't a game, but there's a lot of work on 'serious games' and SL is a great environment for that kind of experimentation.
Seriously, do you think that (a) the internet is (just for) porn? or (b) playing WOW will get you to heaven? I think there's a lot more redeeming value to most of SL or the open web than there is in Barrens chat, tyvm. Every environment has its problem child or so.
Shava
i think if second life is here, then There should also be here, as well as imvu and red light district.
hell even second life's own faq cant decide if its a game or not.
"2. Is Second Life a game?
Yes and no. While the Second Life interface and display are similar to most popular massively multiplayer online role playing games (or MMORPGs), there are two key, unique differences:
Creativity: The Second Life virtual world provides almost unlimited freedom to its Residents. This world really is whatever you make it. If you want to hang out with your friends in a garden or nightclub, you can. If you want to go shopping or fight dragons, you can. If you want to start a business, create a game or build a skyscraper you can. It’s up to you.
Ownership: Instead of paying a monthly subscription fee, Residents can start a Basic account for FREE. Additional Basic accounts cost a one-time flat fee of just $9.95. If you choose to get land to live, work and build on, you pay a monthly lease fee based on the amount of land you have. You also own anything you create—Residents retain intellectual property rights over their in-world creations."
if you like second life thats fine. but it doesnt have any place being represented on this website.
yes and no isnt an answer. one or the other.
Games i'm playing right now...
"In short, I thought NGE was a very bad idea" - Raph Koster talking about NGE on his blog at raphkoster.com