|
 Should I wear the black heels with the red stockings or the white heels with the pink lingerie?
This is the type of question that plagued me in my "Second Life" as a working girl. A few weeks ago, I created a female avatar to research the booming sex industry inside this virtual world.
I called her Darlene Sin. Why leave anything to the imagination, right?
Darlene is blonde and tan. Curvy but not busty. More Charlize Theron, less Pamela Anderson. She is nothing like me in any regard.
In the beginning of my "Second Life," she started out with a default 'do and ensemble. Now she has file folders full of different clothes and hairstyles. I programmed some myself, others were purchased from the hundreds of stores that dot the cyberspacial geography of "Second Life."
Launched in 2000 by Linden Labs, "Second Life" is as close to being inside "The Matrix" as you can get. But unlike massively multiplayer online games such as "World or Warcraft" or "City of Heroes," the residents of this virtual world determine their own destiny. There's no quests for gold or battles against evil doers. "Second Life" is more of a social experiment than a game.
Think of it as the biggest, bestest theme park in the world. This is a place about fantasy fulfillment. It has an ever-growing landscape of user-created content. There are movie theaters, concerts and art galleries. You can visit aquariums, beaches and nightclubs. You can ski, skydive and fly.
And you can have sex. Lots of it.
 "Second Life" is not designed to be sexual in nature, but most of the activity in this world seems to revolve around adult escapades. Unlike ol' fashioned Internet pornography, it's extremely easy to bond with real people here. You just walk up to them and start talking. (It should be noted there is a separate sex-free teen version of "Second Life.")
Many of the 800,000 avatars look like idealized versions of the real people who created them. Others, like me, become someone completely different. Players choose their own first name, but last names come from a lengthy Linden-created list. Almost everyone in "Second Life" appears to be in their 20s or 30s. And each avatar can fly over buildings and terrain within "Second Life."
With the "mature" filter turned off, the Linden-generated list of the virtual world's most populated places looks more like the Red Light District than Disneyland. Among these places is the Vegas-style Barbie Club (featuring slot machines and glittery gals), the red hued Amster-Dames club and the Archan Sex Community, a Playboy-like mansion full of mostly nude swingers.
There's also several enclaves where the focus is on alternative pleasures, such as sadomasochism, bondage and furries. Many people told me they use "Second Life" to explore this kind of kinkiness because it's cheaper and easier in "Second Life" to outfit yourself with whips or costumes or whatever.
Women -- or men -- who work in virtual brothels and strip clubs usually agree to give the house a percentage of what they make. After all, the owner has a virtual mortgage to pay.
Most "Second Life" call girls have a rate card they distribute to interested parties explaining a little bit about their services, personality and fees. For a half-hour, rates usually range from 500 to 1,000 Linden dollars, depending on what's being offered.
"The money is there to be made, but you do have to work for it," Isabel Crispin, the madam of the upscale gentlemen's retreat Peaches Beach Club, said before giving Darlene a tour and a job application.
For more Lindens, many ladies will go beyond lap dances.
How? There's a virtual store called Xcite! that has seemingly cornered the market on sexual organs, human and otherwise. For 1,000 Lindens -- about the price of a Big Mac in real life -- players can purchase vanilla versions of all the necessary parts needed to experience "Second Life" sex.
One touch of the mouse on an Xcite! product triggers a scripted reaction or preloaded sound. The products are even designed to work, uh, with each other. Want more extravagant body parts or -- gulp -- piercings? That'll cost more Lindens, which users can buy and exchange using real U.S. dollars.
"You don't have to have one," Crispin says. "Some guys don't like it."
Visually, "Second Life" sex is achieved by positioning two avatars (or more if you're into that sort of thing) into special poses or animations created and uploaded to "Second Life." The poses are attached to something called pose balls. Touch a pose ball and your avatar strikes that pose. Put two pose balls near each other and, well, the avatars' interaction becomes blushworthy.
Some working gals offer broadband voice chat rather than typing. Others take their encounters off-line. And not all the virtual sex that occurs inside "Second Life" requires payment: There's plenty of residents willing to do it for free.
During Darlene's first lap dance, she awkwardly stumbled from move to move, ironically, to Justin Timberlake's "SexyBack." While all the multimedia elements aided in the allure of this encounter, the largest spark is probably in the connection between two humans.
Otherwise, people would just watch ol' fashioned Internet porno, right?
As Darlene slinked from side to side, I playfully chatted with the man between her legs. But when I asked the tuxedoed gentlemen at the receiving end of this lap dance if he's single, the conversation drifted toward reality. I think. He told Darlene that he's married. She leaned forward. I asked if his wife knows what he does.
"Yeah," he said. "Sometimes she'll ask me, 'So how's your Second Life?'"
Darlene simply continued dancing. And I sat confused at my laptop. Perhaps what happens in "Second Life," is supposed to stay in "Second Life." But when real money and real emotions are involved, where does one's First Life end and Second Life begin?
Like almost everything in this customizable virtual world, I guess that's up for the user to decide.
___
Derrik J. Lang is an asap reporter based in New York. Darlene Sin has since retired from the adult entertainment industry.
| 
