This week in Second Life, I swam with a dolphin, line-danced with six other women at a saloon and test-rode a horsie that I am considering buying. I also received an offer to "have the sex" with a young man who was wearing his penis outside his pants.

One of the great joys of a virtual world like Second Life is the ability to indulge in fantasy limited only by your own patience and skill with the tools. But there's nothing virtual about the anxiety felt by Second Life residents these days. Some are even saying it's the beginning of the end of the true Second Life.

Linden Lab has come under fire recently on a number of fronts. German police reportedly found real child pornography in-world; a group in France is demanding that Second Life be banned in its entirety to protect the children; several European countries are cracking down on residents' ability to create childlike avatars and wear them in Mature areas of the game.

And then director of community affairs Daniel Linden set a match to an already smoldering pile when he "clarified" the Second Life policies around Mature content in the official Linden Lab blog:

Real-life images, avatar portrayals, and other depiction of sexual or lewd acts involving or appearing to involve children or minors; real-life images, avatar portrayals, and other depictions of sexual violence including rape; real-life images, avatar portrayals, and other depictions of extreme or graphic violence, and other broadly offensive content are never allowed or tolerated within Second Life.

Residents all over the globe rebelled: Since when did Linden Lab meddle in content? And what happens to the Mature sims and merchants if people are afraid to express their sexual fantasies for fear of being reported and even banned?

"What is 'broadly offensive'?" asks Amethyst Rosecrans, a long-time resident and founder of Sensations, an adult-content creation company. "They need to be more specific. It is almost impossible with such a large and international community to come to a consensus on these types of issues."

The controversy centers around sexual "age play," which proponents are quick to distinguish from pedophilia by saying everyone involved is a consenting adult and no children are present or harmed. Opponents believe that depicting children in sexual situations with adults is never, ever acceptable – whether in public or private – and that "age play" should not be tolerated as "just another sexual fantasy."

The fear is that by stepping in to ban age play specifically and "broadly offensive" sex and violence in general, Linden Lab is starting down a slippery slope of censorship and censure, destroying everything the virtual universe stands for. Many of those worried about protecting freedom of expression are not supporters of age play, yet they aren't willing to ban it outright.

"'Your world, your imagination?' Not anymore," says Noche Kandora, whose alter ego Cheri Horton covers Second Life sexuality in Pixel Pulse magazine.

But Stroker Serpentine, a long-time resident famous for the SexGen animation system he co-developed, believes the uproar is unfounded.

"Short of developing some type of bot police regime to do nothing but go around and check grid by grid, plot by plot, for 'offensive' content, they have to address it as it is reported," he says. "We have an abuse-reporting system. It may be flawed but it's what we have."

That's how the German investigation began, when a reporter received an invitation in-world to view child pornography. Apparently it wasn't just avatars either – it was the real thing – although avatars would have been enough to bring a case against the publishers. Whether "broadly offensive" or not, age play is already illegal in many European countries, and Europeans make up about 60 percent of the Second Life population. (For a good summary of the legal issues, see Virtually Blind.)

The more people I talk to, the more forums, blogs and sensational mainstream articles I read, the more I realize an anticlimactic truth: I just don't know where I stand.

But I do think the fears of "if they ban age play, will they ban my kink next?" are exaggerated. The objection to age play is a healthy revulsion against sexual fantasy involving children. It is not an objection to sexual fantasy in general.

And sexual fantasy may just be the elephant – if not the turtle – that holds up the virtual world in the first place. No one will give a figure for exactly how much of Second Life's economy depends on the Mature areas. Everyone is quick to point out that residents have built a number of entertaining, informative and practical things to do other than sex. And then everyone smirks.

But Second Life is one of the few places on earth where not much can happen to us without our consent – including rape, so it is odd that Linden singled that out as an example. It takes more than one mouse click just to take off your clothes, much less allow your avatar to be animated in any way. You have Ignore and Ban tools to prevent you from seeing, hearing and touching folks you'd rather not. Teleporting is a fast way out of any sim.

Second Life is also an adults-only experience; teens are relegated to their own grid, no gr'ups allowed. Even so, sexual content and conduct on the adult grid takes place in areas clearly flagged as "Mature" – and unless you proactively set your user preferences to permit yourself to enter Mature areas, you'll never even see them.

I think "broadly offensive" is a purposely vague catchall to give Linden Lab support if they are required by law to address specific content in the future.

At the moment, no one is sure what direction things will take. The common complaint among residents, regardless of their opinions about content policies or age play or sex, is that Linden Lab has been inexcusably unresponsive and incommunicative about it all (and they didn't respond to my requests for comment, either).

"As a content provider, I would like to see the policy clarified so I can be sure that I don't risk account termination for things that had previously been acceptable," says Rosecrans.

Kandora thinks even that goes too far.

"It is unreasonable for Linden Lab to impose bans on certain types of content or behavior on the grounds they are offensive or objectionable," he says. "There are too many cultural differences in a global environment, not to mention individual preferences and orientations."

I know I wouldn't keep going back just for the dolphins and horses.

See you next Friday,

Regina Lynn

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Regina Lynn is hereby officially coming out as Aph Lightworker. She hopes it's not too late.

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