If It Feels Real: Sex, Harrassment, & Rape in Virtual Worlds

This week a friend of mine got griefed/harassed in Second Life by a woman who thought he was a man who had harassed her. The whole thing got so out of hand that he ended up filling an incidence report on the incensed and abusive woman who was herself a victim. Turns out the actual original harasser of the woman had a name a couple letter off of my friend's SL name. Ironic, no? The whole thing reminded me of a post I wrote back in February of 2008, so I thought I would repost it again. 

February 2008:
A while back there was an article in Virtually Blind about the Belgian police investigating an alleged rape that took place in Second Life last April. Now the first thing that comes to mind is that SL is a computer based user-controlled environment, is any sort of "rape" even possible? GameGrene has a very good article by Shataina on the issue of "Rape in RPGs" that everyone operating sexually in any virtual world should read.

One of the things I find most fascinating, though, is the wide variety of opinions that are still being generated on virtual world forums (the most recent response to the Virtually Blind story was just last week, the responses to Shataina's article in GameGrene went on for over two years with the last only a couple months ago). Why does the idea of rape or even sexual harassment of an imaginary figure push so many hot buttons for us? Most of the responses to this issue point out that the avatar is controlled at a "safe" distance, that there is no reason the person behind the av can't just tp out, mute the assailant, or turn off the computer and walk away. Other responders point out the strong identity connection to the av that the real person behind the controls has and how such an assault could disorient the real person behind the av.

The fact of the matter is that there are clear cases of sexual harassment in SL. I've met male avatars (thankfully not a lot) who have launched into graphic descriptions of what they "are doing" to my avatar--descriptions that involved graphic sexuality up to and including forcible rape scenarios. My response to that kind of behavior--if they don't take the initial response of "No thank you! I am not interested in having virtual sex with you!"--is generally something like: "are you such a lousy lover that you find it necessary to force yourself on women like this often?" My second response is to mute them. But I can see how, to someone who is young or insecure or (worse!) someone who has been a victim in RL, such an "attack" does in fact feel like rape. Is it prosecutable? Probably not. But you can report it and maybe even get an "attacker" banned from SL for such behavior (see: How to File an Incident Report).

The bottom line is that this issue is real. While it may not be rape, it certainly is rude, and that is ultimately not acceptable behavior. And lest we not forget, ladies, this door swings both ways. I'm heard from men in SL, too, that they have been put off of virtual sex because of pushy or aggressive women (all too often these are escorts looking for business). Many times in RL sexual assault cases turn into "He Said/She Said" debates. The point here is not to debate the issue, but to adhere to some standards of polite behavior to avoid such conflicts in the first place. Here are a few simple guidelines:

1. First and foremost, be certain the person you are chatting up is really interested in sex with you BEFORE launching into aggressive or sexually graphic chat. Ask not just once, but 2 or 3 times: "Say I'd like to make love to you . . . would you like to come back to my place?" If he or she says "no," that's it. Game over. No means no.

2. Pay attention to the cues they are sending you. Are they really responding to your flirtations? Or are they making polite non-committal noises? Much of the innuendo and inflection of real conversation can be lost in the use of IMs. Don't assume everyone is into virtual sex. Don't rush anyone into bed, don't let anyone drag you there against your better judgment. (An addendum to this one for escorts is that if you have not negotiated a price UP FRONT before the deed, then you don't get paid. Extortion after the fact is just as unacceptable as sexual harassment.)

3. If you are not comfortable with what someone is saying when they are flirting with you, tell them to stop. Tell them you aren't interested. If all else fails stop talking except for typing an an emote in the public chat like: "/me SLAPS YOU HARD ACROSS THE FACE". BTW, gentlemen, even if that person harassing you is a woman who doesn't want to take no for an answer, you can go ahead and slap her, too. Sometimes someone gets so caught up in the role they are playing they forget that not everyone wants to play along. You need to get your assailant's attention to make them stop.

4. If you are in a public sim, like a club, appeal to the owner or host for assistance. Sometimes a third party can get the attention of the assailant who is just lost in their own fantasy. At the very least a sim owner deserves to know what is going on so he or she can ban such a person from the sim and stop them from harassing others there.

5. If all else fails mute them, leave the area, or log off.

Sex, whether in SL or RL can be a wonderful mutual connection, a joyful coming together of willing lovers, of consensual adults. It should never be one-sided or hurtful. Being aware of your potential lover's real wants and needs, their stopping points and their go-aheads, is part of the learning curve of love. Take the time to do it right.

Second Life meets Television

No doubt like most of us, you already have problems explaining to your mother, your spouse, or other "concerned" relatives exactly why you have become a stripper / hooker / gambler / nameyourvicehere in SL. But brace yourself, it is gonna get worse. At least three major prime-time TV shows (The Office, CSI:NY, and Law & Order: SVU) have now aired episodes in which SL, or an obvious SL clone is prominently featured, and all within a few weeks of each other.

We knew it had to happen, a phenomenon like SL has a built in audience, with numbers the like of which TV advertisers drool over. But the recent exposure of SL in prime-time viewing is less flattering than how we SL addicts would like to be seen.

The least worrisome is perhaps The Office, which is described by Caroline McCarthy on the CNET blog Crave:

On Thursday night's episode of The Office on NBC, dweeby Dwight Schrute (played by Rainn Wilson) revealed himself to be a Second Life addict--something that doesn't require any suspension of disbelief. The Second Life banter began when Dwight's notably less nerdy co-worker, Jim (played by John Krasinski), asked Dwight if he was "playing that game again." "Second Life is not a game," Dwight replied authoritatively. "It is a multi-user virtual environment. It doesn't have points or scores; it doesn't have winners or losers." With all the deadpan wit that's made The Office the hit that it is, Jim fixed his glance on Dwight and commented, "Oh, it has losers."

So in SL we are all nerds. Not necessarily a horrible image. A tiny bit more worrisome is the CSI:NY episode that features a killer (yep, you guessed it he has an avatar) who is tracked down by the forensic team with the help of Linden Labs and some SL residents. SL Insider notes that:

Second Life, as it is portrayed, is given a pretty reasonable treatment--the skepticism of many of the core characters is not unusual--however, this is not the Second Life you know, just as CSI is not the forensics department you'll find if you go downtown.

Oh, but wait... you missed that episode. Never fear. Aside from being able to watch it on the web through the CSI:NY site, you can now get in the game in SL too. Just go to CBS's Virtual NY and join up to help solve virtual crimes. Yes, the TV marketers have noticed that you are spending more time on the computer than as mindless zombies in front of the boob-tube and they've decided that if they can't lick SL they can join it. All very exciting (like you don't have enough to do in-world already). And you can buy CSI paraphenalia and brands in-world. So we are nerds and they want our money. No surprize there.

The one that was the most problematic was the Law & Order: SVU episode called "Avatar," that aired a couple weeks ago though. In this one it's not called SL, it is "AU," Alternate Universe. And the interface looks like a cross between SL and Facebook. (Watch out all you Internet social networks, you're on the list!)

The difficulty with this episode is not the storyline itself: a young woman is kidnapped from her home by a lunatic who stalked her in the virtual world first and chose her there to be his RL victim. Nor is it the obvious distaste the police have for the idea of virtual worlds, though they gain a grudging respect for the Lab that runs the AU world and which is instrumental in the crime solving. The difficulty is the way this virtual world is portrayed and that all the residents there are seemingly sex-starved pedophiles. I have ranted about this episode before, so I won't go into it further here, except to say that it still makes me angry. More so now having looked again at the website for the show and seen a recent viewer post:

Lexi says: "Every Parent of a teen or pre-teen should have their child watch the 10/2 Avatar episode. It shows what can happen and even has a short "how" it happens. Normally I find the content a bit too mature for my little one, but this epison is six stars in my book for it's educational value."

Lexi clearly missed the point that there are no children in this episode. At all. Ever. That the crime was against a 20-something young woman. Instead what she took away was a need to warn her child about SL-like environments. Oh boy, yeah, that'll keep her baby safe on the street. (I hope Lexi spends more time reading to her kids than she spends watching adult shows with them; besides, given her spelling and punctuation, she could use more reading time herself.) I am not really surprized that Lexi missed the point. It was a convoluted plot. But the take-home message of that show was that SL-like virtual worlds are is a breeding grounds for sex-offenders.

My point here is not to "diss" concerned loved ones, but rather to point out to those of us who do engage in SL activities that we may have the same fight on our hands that the music industry and the gaming industry has dealing with people who want to blame heavy metal music for suicides and video games for school shootings. These recent television offerings with SL or SL-clones will only reinforce the opinions of those who see virtual world residents as nerds or worse as perverts.

So what do you do? Well wouldn't it be nice to see more of the stories about the kindnesses we find in SL? How about sharing some of those with the people who are concerned for your SL/RL welfare? Like the one about the SL widow whose partner died in RL and all her SL friends raised funds to get her a plane ticket to the funeral? Or romantic stories of the real people who meet fall in love and get married in SL as well as RL? And let's not forget the in-world art, concerts, even fund-raising events for RL charities.

Yes, there are people with problems, even violent people with psychoses, in SL--just like there are in the real world. Yes, there are sexual relationships in SL, from flirtations to marriages, and even divorces--just like in the real world. And there are also friendships, love, pain, joy, broken-hearts, great romances, and great creativity--just like in the real world, too. Yes, you can find all that in SL. You also find the bad with the good in the real world . . . But I don't see anyone advocating giving up on real life just because real humanity has its problems and downsides, too.

Virtual Worlds as Fodder for the Boob Tube

For those of you used to my usual romantic blogging, brace yourselves . . . this isn't that. Because I am pissed.

A couple days ago Law & Order: SVU aired an episode called "Avatar." In this one Second Life or something a lot like it--it's called AU, Alternate Universe--is the tool used in a rape-murder. Although the interface looks like a strange cross between SL and Facebook (watch out all you Internet social networks, you're next) and is clearly not SL to anyone who knows SL or Linden Labs, the episode was disturbing in the way it implicates a virtual world as a breeding ground for criminal behaviors.

The difficulty with this episode is not the storyline itself: a young woman is kidnapped from her home by a lunatic who stalked her in the virtual world first and chose her there to be his RL victim. Nor is it the obvious distaste the police have for the idea of virtual worlds, since they gain a grudging respect for the Lab that runs the AU world and which is instrumental in the crime solving. The difficulty is the way this virtual world is portrayed and how all the residents there are seemingly sex-starved pedophiles.

We start with an unprosecutable rape perpetrated on the sister of a kidnapping victim by the boyfriend of the victim (as if even people who hang out with people who hang out in virtual worlds must be sexual predators). Then we discover that the kidnapped victim has created an underage stripper/escort avatar who runs a virtual club of underage avatars for pedophile avatars to ogle and abuse (never mind that the company who manages this virtual world has confirmed no one under 18 can play in their virtual reality). Then through a series of false names and credit card fraud we find a whole string of unsavory characters who hang in the virual world primarily to exploit sweet young things sexually, but also to bilk each other financially. Ultimately we discover that the real kidnapper/rapist is in the virtual world to reenact his prior (for which he has done time) unresolved crime of pedophilia and that the avatar of his latest victim looks just like his earlier RL child victim. Are you confused yet? I was.

The thing that bothered me was not that this plot had more twists than a bag of pretzels, but that the farther we go into it the worse the residents of the virtual world looked and a lot of that did nothing really to further the plot of the episode. Perhaps I woud be less upset if it were not for a flurry of concern from well-meaning family and friends who saw the show suggesting (along with a couple of "I told you so" remarks) it was time to give up my SL nonsense.

Dear Family and Friends, what gets forgotton here is that:

1) This was a TV show. Fiction! Sensationalist fiction at that, which bears little resemblance to SL which (hello!) bans anyone even pretending to engage in sex with a child or child porn.

3) You can be sure that I (like everyone else in SL) am over 21, have common sense, and have been (like you) capable of dealing with the threat of potential crime or ciminals in the "Read World" for years. SL is no different. In fact, the idea that numbers of criminals are likely to take time out to of their busy mafioso schedules to play at pretend crime and hunt me down seems a bit ludicrous now doesn't it?

2) Not everyone in SL is sex-crazed. Trust me on this. I have met men even I can't seduce. And the ones I do hang out regularly with in SL are educated, intelligent, classy men--I know this because class is not somethng you can . The guys who do come across as crude--the "Yo, bitch wanna fuck" types--are easily spotted and avoided. And anyway, asking for sex doesn't make you a criminal in the RL either, it usually just gets you slapped.

What is a problem is the hundreds of viewers who, not knowing thing one about SL, will immediately file it in their brains as "that game" that breeds perverts and pedophiles.

Of course the ones who think that are likely the same people who believe WWF is a real sport and that The Bachelor is real romance, too.