About a year ago I signed up for this game called "Second Life" (or SL). I'm sure a lot of you have heard of it. For those of you who haven't, it's a virtual reality game where you can do what you want, be who or what you want, and there are very few rules and restrictions. A majority of the content on SL is made by its residents aka users. Yep, you can pretty much do whatever you want as long as it can be made/animated and doesn't break the federal law! Lol!
SL is about living out your fantasies in a world were the sky's the limit. If you've always wanted to be a dragon you can. If you want to be a vampire, knock yourself out. If you want to know what it's like to be someone of the opposite sex, have fun. One thing that people like to do in SL is have virtual sex. Someone had the idea to make beds and other items loaded with sexual animations of sex positions and, naturally, it took off. So now, if you want to have a threesome with a lycan and a midget, if they agree to it then you can do it.
When I joined Second Life a year ago I wasn't thinking about having virtual sex. I just wanted to have fun online to pass the time. I heard that a person could make their avatar whatever they wanted to make it and all avatars can fly. Who doesn't want to fly, right? I was game.
When making my avatar I decided I wanted it to be a black female. When you first start second life they give you a starter avatar and from there you can create your clothes, your shape (aka body), and pick your skin color. The skin that they give you to work with aren't that great. They look pasty and unrealistic. Therefore people seek out more professional, photorealistic, skins. Luckly, I found a free, decent, skin for a black female. It was certainly hard to come by because most freebie skins are White. The Black (or any other race that doesn't fall under the umbrella of "White") freebies suck for the most part (I saw one with a dark brown/green girl with pink areolas and nipples. Really guys? Really?). From what I hear even the ones that can be bought aren't that great...but that's another story.
Anyway, I found my Black girl avatar, tweaked the shape a bit, and when I was happy with the final result I started to go out into the world. I started on Help Island Public, a newbie friendly island that many people start on and goes back to when they get lost or have nothing else better to do. It's pretty normal to get ignored in Second Life so people not talking to me wasn't a big deal. I went to other islands and got the same thing. There were times where I spoke to people, we had our little conversations, and we went about our business. There were times where people would start conversations with me, invite me to be in their groups (but it was Bloodlines and they want everyone to be in their group so...yeah. Lol!). I was asked to be a pole dancer by another black female avatar, a job that I turned down for various reasons other than the obvious. Also, when guys hit on me it was usually white guys from different countries who didn't really know how to speak English that well. (But thanks to the Google Translator in SL we communicated just fine) Their demeanor towards me made me feel like they were only talking to me because they thought I was an easy lay. One stereotype about black people is that they're hyper sexual. Also, I would tell them I'm from the United States and in other parts of the world girls from the USA are seen as being rather loose. Combine the two and you have someone who's perceived as someone who's only good for being naked in a bed. The image that comes to mind is a hip-hop video girl. I'm sure I'm not the only one who had/has that image. I think that the only thing a lot of people have to go off of when they think about black people is what they've seen on TV and the little bit of stats (skewed or not) they've heard about black people, and that's how their opinions are formed. (Not to mention some people may have inherited their opinion of blacks). Needless to say I didn't add these guys to my friends list nor did I have virtual, limitless sex with them.
I decided to shake things up a bit and become a White avatar. In my quest to find my Black skin I found a couple cute White ones. Just like I did with the Black one, I tweaked the shape until I was happy with it and went out into the virtual world. Once again, I started on Help Island Public and once again I was ignored. However, when I went around to the same islands that I went to before I got talk to more often, Bloodlines hounded me (I swear I realized the value of the garlic necklace the day I got about 5 bite requests in one place. I never needed it before. Luckily I was with a friend that had one and he gave me one), I got hit on more often, and when I got hit on it seemed like the guys was genuinely attracted to my avatar or at least genuinely horny enough and thought my avatar was hot enough to do. I didn't feel like they were talking to me as if I were an easy lay, but as one horny person talking to another. I told them I was from the USA. White girls have their fair share of sex related stereotypes though they aren't as prominent as the ones that are thrust upon black women. So why wasn't I treated as an easy lay? These guys were from the same parts of the world as the other guys but they treated me differently. While it may be a fallacy to assume that a random guy from a certain part of the world would think the same way as another random guy from the same country (since everybody's different) I think it's safe to say that in every country there are general beliefs that people adopt...like how a lot of people in the USA think that most, if not all, the black people in Africa are starving to death and illiterate because of the "just give 19 cents per day" commercials. :-\
Discrimination on SL isn't rare. Tall avatars discriminate against short avatars, human avatars discriminate against non-human avatars, heterosexual avatars hate on homosexual avatars, etc. For a world without limits it seems like if you don't conform to a certain look, which is actually someone else's fantasy, you will have a hard time living out your fantasy unless you happen to find an island that caters to you.
Later I wanted to experiment with gender. I wanted to know what it would be like if I were a boy, or rather a man. So I went searching for a black male avatar. I didn't find a black male avatar for free so I made one. He came out pretty cute even though his skin looks pasty. Unfortunately I haven't been able to use him that much because there are people who know me as the female and it would be awkward if they saw me as a guy. I can see it now, I'm banging some chick and some guy I screwed the week before would walk in on us (which is pretty common in public places) and remember my gender neutral name. Or maybe I'll be transforming in a public house or in the sky and he'll see me. I think if I want to see what Second Life life is like as a male I'm going to have to create a new account. Pain. in. the. butt. However, I think I would have some interesting stories of my life as a male avatar. :)
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