Avatars are masks. Goofy at Disneyland is a good example, but consider the role of actors who also wear (wore) masks. The mask was intended to reveal the nature of the character played and not the nature of the actor. So the 28 year old man is really only acting; he is engaging, for a fee, the crowds of people only as Goofy and not as himself. Whether he feels liberated hugging children is irrelevant to the job, but I've heard on Second Life that having a female avatar makes many men feel closer to and more appreciative of their female friends.
Wonderfully relevant to our discussion is the fact that the Greek word for "mask" is "persona." You don't have to be Goofy or puppeteer a second life avatar to have an avatar or multiple avatars in real life. When we act like responsible people in society we are regarded as persons. Behind that mask we may be seething with anti-social feeling and violence This gets expressed all too often in Second Life by "griefers." These are people who don an evil mask, thinking they are protected, and act out the things they can't do in the Real World without damage to their actual personas and social standing. It runs the gamut from damaging your property, disrupting your social functions, uttering offensive comments and so forth. Sexual fantasies in Second Life are hard to be shielded from. There is far more sado-masochism being played out than you ordinarily see in the real world. Second Life has fewer buffers. As for the second example you gave: I'm not quite sure I understand: you say "enters a chat room as a 15-year-old girl"..... do you mean that the driver is a 15-year-old girl or the avatar is? I'm presuming you are saying that the 15-year-old girl enters the chatroom as a 37-year-old male and hits on other 15-year-old girls. Is there anything unethical or illegal going on? Legally, there's no safeguard against that. For one thing, your example is hilarious. I think the law would think it so, too. The idea of a young lesbian picking up girls her own age by pretending to be a man would not be regarded as dangerous as a 37 year old man entering a chatroom and pretending to be a fifteen year old boy and hitting on young girls. Adults seeking sexual relations with minors is a felony. Ethically, though... that's interesting. Because masquerade happens on Second Life all the time. The ethics of it are blurry and debatable. Most everyone chooses to look younger and more attractive than their physical selves. Age is often not revealed. Avatars that have sexual relationships on line are doing so only virtually. When the real/virtual line is crossed, there are often difficulties. Are these people lying? What if women pose as men in order to act out their homosexual fantasies? A lot of gay men choose female avatars for their sexual games with male avatars. If they engage only as avatars, then the lying seems irrelevant, doesn't it? Virtual lovers often prefer their virtual bodies to the real ones, and don't want to meet on the physical plane. On the other hand, there are many relationships that develop into real world relationships, and I can vouch for the fact that strong friendships are forged on SL. Pixelated shape becomes merely a vehicle. Even so, you must be very wary about whom you start revealing your secrets to. Remember that it's a masquerade, and is starting to develop its own ethic and community rules which have to be learned. We're back to the thorny issue of the separation of avatar and driver, the avatar as an extension of one of many sides to yourself, perhaps a side you can't express in the community that gives us our official "face." Second Life is not "official," and there's the fascination and danger and confusion. The one thing, however, that Linden Lab really gets antsy about is adult/child sexual encounters. Even if an adult is playing a child, he/she can get seriously reprimanded (even banned) from Second Life by making the child avatar have virtual sex with the adult avatar. LL is terribly afraid of pederasty. But a lot of gay men choose female avatars for their sexual games. Sarah On Mon, Oct 25, 2010 at 9:09 AM, Jason Olshefsky <[email protected]>wrote: > On Oct 25, 2010, at 1:43 AM, Sal Armoniac wrote: > > In the context of avatars, consider that a single 28-year-old male is > generally strongly discouraged from hugging children he doesn't know, but if > he is in the avatar of the Goofy character at Disney World, the same actions > are encouraged. > > I can't quite get my head around it, but is it possible to create > appreciable layers of avatars/personae? I don't think it's possible because > it becomes too convoluted for a person to maintain. I feel like I can only > emulate someone whose knowledge base is fictionally-expanded subset of my > own (i.e. take something I know a little about and leverage that to appear > I'm fully knowledgable in that topic). So I could adopt the persona of a > NASA engineer reasonably convincingly, and perhaps a [real] NASA engineer > could adopt the persona of an interpretive dancer, but if I were to try to > be a NASA engineer who is acting as an interpretive dancer, the middle layer > collapses and it's just me alternatively acting as either the engineer or > the dancer, but not both layered. > > I do think it's possible to make simplistic layers: vague gender identities > come to mind. In the vein of my Goofy analogy earlier as it relates to > rights, consider a 15-year-old girl has a 37-year-old male persona online; > he enters a chat room as a 15-year-old girl and tries to "pick up" other > 15-year-olds. Is there anything unethical or illegal going on? > > ---Jason Olshefsky > http://JayceLand.com/ <http://jayceland.com/> > http://JayceLand.com/blog/ <http://jayceland.com/blog/> > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "R-SPEC: The Rochester Speculative Literature Association" group. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected]<r-spec%[email protected]> > . > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/r-spec?hl=en. > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "R-SPEC: The Rochester Speculative Literature Association" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/r-spec?hl=en.
