Second Life gets adult area

Linden Lab’s Second Life will soon begin offering a cordoned off adults only area in its virtual landscape. This new area, which can only be accessed to those who have electronically verified their age, will provide separation to those that wish to access adult material and those that would rather filter it out of their Second Life experience. The exact means of this verification and many other details are not yet known but will be announced by Second Life in the coming weeks.

Second Life users have long used the virtual environment for a variety of sexually theme activities.

The announcement accedes to the wishes of a large part of the Second Life user base, which participates in activities that are mature with strong sexual themes.  According to Massively, roughly 74 percent of the Second Life user base currently flags their content as being inappropriate for all ages.  However, not every parcel that is rated as mature actually contains content that is inappropriate for an all-ages audience.

Cynically speaking, the announcement can be taken as tacit admission that Second Life has become a popular vehicle for ‘cybering’ or the recreation of sexual encounters using online chat and avatars which can be fully nude or clothed in a range of highly suggestive outfits. Private clubs in which online members participate in virtual sexual encounters have long been a part of the Second Life experience. Such clubs under the new scheme would have to flag their virtual establishment as having adult content or presumably be forced to be moved to the new adults only area.

A virtual sexual encounter in Second Life

The new scheme will also benefit the all-ages audience. Cordoning off adult and mature content could make the virtual world more family friendly, and should reduce, but probably not eliminate, younger Second Life members from seeing content that is inappropriate for their age.

Linden Labs will announce further details in the coming weeks. However, even now there seems to be confusion and a great deal of speculation as what exactly constitutes adult content in Second Life. Linden Labs officials, for example, hesitated in classifying a role playing group that used themes of kidnap, auction and slavery as not being adult in its classification. Further, even sado-masochistic themes were likewise considered not adult.

The new classification and adults only area is the most drastic change of direction for Second Life since 2003. Only time will tell if the new system will have the intended effect of being able to effectively cordon of adult content for younger Second Life users while still keeping the large number of mature users satisfied.

Partly sourced from Massively.

Linden Labs Announcement.

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