Second Life is, in many ways, a trip. I like to think of it as a virtual cruise of some sort. In Second Life, users can escape reality and substitute their own. Practically anything is possible in Second Life and I believe this is what makes it so popular. So you want to start your own store? Go ahead. You want to battle other users gladiator style? Be my guest. You’re tired of being a man in real life and want to see what it is like batting for the other team? A world of wonders awaits you.
Whenever I play some sort of video game in which I’m given the choice to choose the sex of my character, I invariably go for the male version. Why? Is it because I am uncomfortable thinking of a female representation of myself? If it was only supposed to represent me online, a world of anonymity, why would I care at all? This was something we discussed to some extent in class, but even after an enlightening discussion, I still don’t know. So I thought that switching the sex of my Second Life character would help to shed to some light on the matter.
First thing I did was head over to one of those freebie warehouses. I was low on female attire and decided if I was going to go girl, I was going to go girl. After perusing the impressive selection of free material, I dolled myself up and headed out into the world of Second Life. My first destination was Purchase Island, just to see if I would arouse any reaction from it’s small population. Unfortunately, I didn’t attract so much as an iota of attention and felt obligated to head to a more suitable clime.
I promptly typed in “sex” into the search function and teleported to the first result, some place touting the possibility of free sex. The attention I got threw me off my game. Proposition after proposition kept rolling in, but I’m not that easy, so I politely ignored and went on my way. I had already witnessed firsthand what sex is like in Second Life, thanks to Tim Quackenbush’s stirring account of it, so I decided that I was better off not jumping into the deep end.
I had seen what attention I had gotten in a neutral territory, Purchase Island and in a more aggressive territory, Free Sex. I began to wonder what kind of reaction I would get from a place that was made for more relaxing purposes. I remembered from my first trek in Second Life an island my group and I had visited. It was geared towards yoga and had a very peaceful quality about it. After several failed attempts at finding it I settled for the Land of Buddhardama. It was pretty much the same, content wise, as that other yoga island I’d visited so I figured it would do. Overall, I went unnoticed except for one user. She was pretty unassuming, but she came up to me and quietly alerted me to the fact that I was inappropriately dressed for such an area and that I leave or change appearance. I left.
My time spent as a woman was enlightening, but I didn’t enjoy it. I didn’t feel like myself and constantly feared that my roommate would come in unexpectedly and find me and woman self. I realize that these fears are unfounded and that my roommate would probably think nothing of it, but I was wary nonetheless. I think that has a lot to do with the ways that boys are taught to be men: men are manly and enjoy beer, football, and buffalo wings. To spend my time as a woman in a videogame is, by traditional standards, the most unmanly thing I could do. In conclusion, Second Life taught me two things: I like being a man and I don’t want to be a woman.
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