In a world of no weather, and pixel-perfect bodies, female avatars are disproportionately bare.

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PROBLEM: How hot she feels -- in either sense of the word -- might have something to do with a woman's decision to show a lot of skin. Cultural norms surrounding modesty and fashion factor heavily as well. Environmental influences aside, what can be made of the notion of a "spontaneous human tendency to reveal naked skin"?

METHODOLOGY: In order to overcome the usual limitations on unfettered human behavior, researchers in Canada turned to Second Life, a virtual world inhabited by virtual people, or avatars, in various states of virtual dress. Trolling public spaces, they collected 404 images of male and female avatars and scored them based on how much of their skin was exposed.

To control for the different cultural norms that might exist in the Second Life world, they compared their samples to avatars used in a separate Star Wars role-play. Naturally, "only humanoid avatars that were not covered by fur were included in the analysis."

RESULTS: Female avatars revealed significantly more virtual, naked skin than their virtual male counterparts: The least-clothed category, with up to a quarter of one's skin covered, was occupied by 10 percent of females as opposed to 1 percent of males, while the most-clothed category was occupied by 5 percent of females and 71 percent of males.