I was asked in connection with our very adult related SL websites: Is Second Life just about sex?

The short answer to this question is:

Yes, there is sex in Second Life, but not only!

Second Life’s image was one of being big sex playground for every fetish imaginable, including pedophilia.

The media, especially in the USA and Germany, are not entirely innocent of creating this image. Individual cases were exaggerated and sold to the reader as being typical of Second Life.

Of course, that’s nonsense!

Maybe you remember the beginnings of the WWW. Maybe mid to late 90s. Back then there was exactly the same outcry against the evil World Wide Web.

The perceived anonymity of the Internet tempted many users to try things out or to look at things that they would have avoided in real life.

Be it D/s games, BDSM, group sex or whatever. Did that make the internet one big sex orgy or porn factory?

No, of course not.

This type of content is available on the Internet. Basically there is nothing wrong with that. Where people are there is sex.

This is normal, natural and the reason why there are so many of us.

To me, porn movies are an inexplicable phenomenon anyway: Nobody looks at them, but the operators count your clicks in millions.

But erotic content is only a small part of all content available on the Internet.

It is the same with Second Life.

Like the Internet, Second Life is just the medium. The content is created by the users themselves.

The users decide what they use this platform for. If it is sex then so be it, as long as you adhere to certain legal regulations.

Mainland Versus Private Estates

In principle, the operator of Second Life only provides the interface. This means the server, the software (simulator also called SIM) and the virtual land area (also called “the grid”).

There are two different types of land.

The so-called “Mainland” and the “Private Estates”.

The main difference between the two is, that on the Mainland, the individual plots (also called “regions”) are combined to form a large land mass and are divided into continents.

The “private estates”, on the other hand, are independent regions that are privately owned by the respective user and are neither connected to the private estates of other users nor to the Mainland.

A “private estate” has no neighbors and is only accessible via teleport and only if the owner has made access public.

How Is Access Adult Rated Regions in Second Life Restricted?

Anyone who purchases such an estate must classify it. You can choose between 3 classifications: G = general, M = moderate, A = adult.

If you want to create erotic content on your estate and make it public, you MUST mark your region as A.

If a user now enters such a region, the small red A appears at the top of the viewer to indicate that he is entering a region on which content may be made available that is only suitable for adults.

If you don’t want to see that, you simply leave. That simple.

This is even easier to do on the Mainland. The Mainland consists of 9 continents. One of them, the “Zindra Continent” is marked in its entirety as A, while all others are considered M or G.

So if you want to open a swinger club on the Mainland for example, you have to buy land on Zindra, since such content is not allowed on the rest of the mainland.

Most of the land area on the Mainland is classified as M = Mature.

If you want to know exactly what is allowed and what is not allowed in the respective classified regions, reading the Second Life Wiki under “Age ratings” is recommended.

It is precisely regulated what goes where and what doesn’t!

But it goes even further:

By default, the viewer’s search function is set that A classified content is NOT displayed.

After all, everyone who has theoretically access to erotic content is recorded with at least his email address, but mostly also with payment data (credit card).

But that’s not everything yet:

You now have to change the settings in the viewer, in order to be able to display adult classified content in search or to be able to teleport to such estates or the Zindra continent.

If you want to shop for erotic items in the online shop for virtual goods, the so-called marketplace, you must also be registered and provide payment info – otherwise you won’t be able to see adult content.

Nobody who does not want to explicitly see such content will ever see content of a sexual nature in Second Lifeand whoever wants to do so will have to put in a little effort to find such content at all.

How Many Regions With A-classified Content are in Second Life?

The grid is composed as follows (number of regions):

All regions: 26102

Generally: 3470

Moderate: 17904

Adult: 4722

Offline: 6

Total area: 1710.62 km²

Of the 4,722 adult regions, only 346 are located on the Mainland (Zindra), the rest are private estates. In other words, Mainland Sex Regions represent approximately 1.3% of the total area of ​​the grid and 4.9% of the mainland. All sex regions together (Mainland + Private Estates), on the other hand, correspond to approx. 18% of the entire grid.

“This Stuff” is therefore not only well hidden, but also very sparsely represented on the Mainland and more likely to be found on private estate.

Nevertheless, we also encounter the paradox mentioned above: The regions enjoy very good traffic.

What’s The Kick of Virtual Sex in Second Life ?

A lot has already been written about this, I don’t have to do that as well. Here are a few links on the subject for those who want to deal with it more intensively:

John Rider on the Psychology of Cyperspace:

http://users.rider.edu/~suler/psycyber/getneed.html

Stanford University study on the subject.

http://vhil.stanford.edu/pubs/2013/fox-chb-sexualized-virtual-selves.pdf

An article about it in the Guardian http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2008/sep/04/virtualworlds.secondlife

What Content Do You Find on A-Rated SL Sex Regions?

Pretty much everything you would find in real life, including the oldest trade in the world (escort girls).

Unfortunately, I cannot show you any explicit screenshots here, my advertisers would not approve of that. Hence if you want to know more, you have to register and have a look.

If you want, please feel free to contact me, I will then make the “tour guide”. Also for open-minded bloggers or press people.

Inworld name: carolinestravels

Yes I might be available as a guinea pig!

Want to give it a try? Click here and get started for free:

SLA Media’s Blogs about Sex in Second Life:

Caroline’s Second Life Virtual Sex Guide:

[NSFW] https://www.second-life-adventures.com/second-life-sex/



Best Sex Locations in Second Life:

[NSFW] http://jessicainsecondlife.com/top-10-most-popular-sex-places-in-second-life/