Kevin Alderman might not be a household name (yet). Most people are more familiar with his alter ego, Stroker Serpentine, the Second Life business mogul who built the first in-world sex bed – a digital bed with built-in sex position animations – and whose Amsterdam sim – a digital city – just sold on eBay for $50,000.

I caught up with him by phone the day Amsterdam sold. He was on a "Sopranos Tour" in New Jersey, but ducked into an alley near an ice cream shop to talk to me about why virtual property has real value and how sexuality and 3-D go together like ice cream and Oreo cookies.

Wired News: Let's start with the basics. Who is Stroker Serpentine?

Kevin Alderman: I get so involved in the character that Stroker really is more me than he is a character. But let's see. Stroker is a pervert at large. Erotic facilitator. Pornographic mogul.

I like to think of myself in terms of being an adult friend finder, operating in an immersive environment where I can use my creative talents to bring people together. Stroker is a character I developed three years ago within Second Life, and I started out with small events with like-minded individuals who also enjoyed the aspects of avie (avatar) erotica.

WN: Why would anyone pay $50,000 for a virtual property?

Alderman: Why would someone pay real money for something that doesn't exist except on a server and a rack in San Francisco? I think because of the immersive nature of a virtual platform, and the ability to interact in real time with people from all walks of life and different environments and different cities across the globe. It's much better than a telephone because you have a visual representation, and we are tactile-visual creatures. It's the next best thing to real life, barring some type of cortical interface a la The Matrix.

Amsterdam is unique inasmuch (as) it was our first adult-oriented property within Second Life. It was a favored hangout of the majority of Second Life escorts and developed a reputation as being salacious and erotic – and we developed it with that purpose in mind.

When you think about sexy cities, Amsterdam obviously comes to mind. I used actual photographs of the city to lay out the sim and created textures based upon real landmarks. The reason it sold for 50K is because there will be no other Amsterdam within Second Life. It's like a unique URL – like Sex.com, which (is worth) millions of dollars.

The sim was bought by an investment group, which is in the Netherlands, and they see the potential for commercialization and marketing. And people from the Netherlands are automatically going to be drawn to a sim named Amsterdam.

WN: What do you think about sexuality in virtual spaces?

Alderman: I think it's an inevitable progression. Static web pages were great for information connectivity. But (in virtual worlds) you make the paradigm leap away from something that is projected to you and toward something you create that represents yourself. You impress your own psyche, motivations, creativity, sensuality onto a group of pixels and become quite attached to it.

It's interesting how much freedom you get in that you don't have any inhibitions to restrain you. If you want to be a Gorean and prostitute yourself to a master or become their personal sex slave, then go for it. If you want to be an escort in Amsterdam, or a domme, go for it. So many freedoms – things you couldn't normally do in real life or that you would love to do – the fantasy aspect is limitless.

Probably 60 percent of the women and men that come in-world at least try escorting or use the service because it's the jumping off point, where you can explore your sexuality anonymously. You can see what it is that Second Life has to offer in terms of avie erotica. Until we get the cortical interface, this is the next best thing – and I'm holding out for qDot (to make the breakthrough).

WN: You sold Amsterdam in part because your focus has shifted to Eros. What is Eros?

Alderman: We're a grass-roots community of residents who like to push the envelope as to what is available to us within this 3-D platform of Second Life. We have regular group events where we get together and collaborate. We dance – we do it naked, typically – and we brainstorm and try to develop avenues of expansion. We talk about products we'd like to see developed, and specific animations that a group of people would like to see.

Every element – the Goreans, the Amazons, the furries – all have unique needs and requests. We listen to them and then gather the animators, texture artists and builders, and ask: "How can we make this happen?"

Eros is a complete experience. It's a community, it's not just a place. We're all over the place, and we have events and sims and attitude. And it's a safe place to express yourself in a virtual environment – with no excuses and no explanations.

WN: How do you see Strokerz Toyz and your other adult developments in Second Life affecting the future of sexuality in-world?

Alderman: Somebody's gotta be the bad boy. And it might as well be me.

This has been a progression for me over the years, from platform to platform and game to game. I saw a need and I'm filling that need. The actual expansion of the "Serpentine Empire" is being motivated and instituted by customers and requests. When people come to me and say, "You know what would really be cool...," we use that and expand on it.

And SexGen, which is our best-selling animation system – it's what we built our business on – was a combination of ideas and collaboration between a programmer, an animator and a pervert.

Stroker is just the icon. The staff and the group members and the supporters are really the driving force. They tell us what they would like to see and we do our damnedest to make it happen.

Comment on this story.

Faceless Invasion Does Montreal

Net Effect: No More Sexual Abuse

Pornography Is Not the Decider

Teledildonics Takes a Step