'I don't do SL sex'

I DON'T DO SL SEX. Je ne fais pas de sexe SL. Ich tue SL Geschlecht nicht. Não faço o sexo SL, Я не делаю секса SL. No hago el sexo SL. Ik doe het geen geslacht van SL. Δεν κάνω το φύλο SL. Non faccio il sesso di SL. 私はSLの性をしない. 나는 SL 성을 하지 않는다 لا أفعل م الجنس. Expectations of sex will result in instant muting.

I read profiles, because they often tell me a lot about a person I've not yet spoken to, or have just begun a conversation with. And I find the '1st Life' box to be as vital as the '2nd Life' one. It would be exceptionally rare for me to carry on an elongated conversation with someone 1000 days old whose 2nd Life and 1st Life profile boxes remain blank (and even more unlikely if he -usually he- is wearing the beefcake look and sporting newb hair after 1000 days).

So, while researching some naturist sims for the purpose of this blog, and exploring the eroticism or sexuality therein, I chanced upon Wild Coast member Eleanor Maven, whose profile is replicated, in full, in italics, above. I just had to talk to her, and she was more than happy to give me some of her time.

We spoke for a little while via IM, more or less for the purpose of establishing my bona fides, and yesterday evening we continued the conversation, backwards and forwards via email, for about an hour. The following is an edited transcript, re-tooled to read as an 'interview' and is published with Eleanor's permission (she has read this full blog post prior to its publication).

Emma : That's a unique profile, if you don't mind me saying so.

Eleanor : Possibly. I'd be aware there are others in SL who adopt the same general view, although not quite in the way I've decided to do it.

Emma: And in so many languages too!

Eleanor : It's important to make your views as widely known as possible. I've no idea if the grammar is correct, but hopefully the message is clear enough.

Emma : Why did you choose to adopt that profile? Has it always been there from the start?

Eleanor : No. Eleanor is my alt. My first or main avatar, who is now sort of semi-permanently retired, conducted her SL like many other people would. I'm a RL naturist, so I gravitated to the naturist sims in SL right from the start, and made a lot of friends. Genuine people, a lot of them. But there were persistent offers or maybe even demands or expectations of cybersex, and that wasn't part of my agenda at all. Eventually the thing became too oppressive so I killed off the first avatar, in a manner of speaking, to reinvent as Eleanor, with a blank slate for a friends list, and conduct my SL just a little more cautiously with a view to who I selected as friends, or the situations I got into with them. I think that the fact that your avatar is naked in a nudist sim makes many people imagine that it's a statement of availability, which is wrong in SL as much as it might be in RL. My first avatar was as non-cyber as I am, and had fenced off the idea of cyber, but despite the non-sexual nature of her, guys still persisted. So I discontinued the first avatar.

Emma : Did you kill her off? Account wise, I mean?

Eleanor : No. She runs my credit card, LOL. Rather than re-register all the bank details and account details again, I've kept her as the avatar who runs Eleanor's cash fund, and I can log her in occasionally to transfer cash to Eleanor's account if I see a particularly pretty dress I want. But other than that, she pretty much is discontinued.

Emma : Was there a single incident that forced the change in avatar?

Eleanor : Yes. A long-standing friend, who I trusted completely, offered an inworld massage. I thought nothing of it, and we continued chatting about ordinary stuff while the massage continued onscreen. Then all of a sudden the cyber chat began, and I was freaked out by it. I just logged out, kind of disappointed that an old friend should, after maybe a year of chatting, should suddenly get horny. I stayed logged out of SL for weeks afterwards, freaked, but missed playing it, LOL, so I reinvented myself as Eleanor. There were one or two friends on my original list that were notified of the change of name.

Emma : You could just have muted.

Eleanor : Probably, but it was just shocking to me at the time, and I didn't know what to do. I imagined my feelings towards cyber were well-known, that I didn't need to explain this stuff to an old friend. And we're always told that there are people with feelings at the other end of the computer. Maybe I'm too soft, but I thought that it would hurt the guy's feelings. I'd do it differently if I had to do it again.

Emma : Why are you so opposed to cyber?

Eleanor : I'm married. When the first avatar was operating, she pretty much edged towards trying cyber, but fortunately one of my friends was a bit of an SL philosopher, who questioned the entire process and it got me thinking. And while I was having fun with him and cyber would probably have been the next step, the conversations became deeper and I began to question cyber's value or point. Ultimately, I came to regard it as virtual adultery. We know there are stories in the real world of people divorcing partners because they caught them cybering in SL. I kind of value my marriage a little more than to watch it fail because two cartoons are f***ing in a game. So I'm grateful to the friend who challenged me on the entire process, and that I didn't partake of it.

Emma : You think that married people in SL should have a different set of values to single people?

Eleanor : Yes. But I imagine I'm pretty rare in that respect.

Emma : How do you see cyber, as a general concept?

Eleanor : There's a thrill to it for men, I guess. I do imagine that many use it as a masturbation tool, and that your sexy words are merely aids to achieve RL orgasm. I do think many guys are actually masturbating during the process, which seems very tacky and sordid. I reckon many men aren't feeling fulfilled, or sexually satisfied in RL, their marriages have become a humdrum experience and that SL allows them to undertake all the little fantasies in SL that they could never possibly do in RL. The same applies for women, of course. But generally, the need would be for males to achieve sexual relief.

Emma : Your first alt got into more of these situations, perhaps?

Eleanor : Yeah. Pure naivety about where to go, and the motivations of men inworld, put my first avatar into stranger situations. So I'd end up TPing into BDSM sims, simply in search of maybe a free bikini, LOL, and then end up in positions where I had to TP out quickly or mute or log out. In fact, that still happens. I'll see someone blogging about a nice freebie this or that, and go there to immediately find myself being leered at or chatted up by someone who has almost reflexively assumed that, because I'm at that sim, I'm going to hop on a poseball.

Emma : Would you say that your profile has had any impact on your SL?

Eleanor : Undoubtedly. It's quite obvious sometimes that a guy comes up and stops near me. There's obviously a profile reading taking place, then he walks away. The profile has instantly put him off. I don't mind. If the guy is so shallow that he approaches an avatar who has no plans for cyber, and walks away, it pretty much determines the shallow nature of whoever is at the keyboard, whose sole motivation is cyber. I can live without him in my friends listing.

Emma : Would you consider yourself to be a feminist?

Eleanor : Brilliant question, LOL! I didn't, initially, but now I would definitely say that I take a feminist approach to SL. It's entirely valid. I read History at university, and we often talked of Marxist or Feminist readings of History, where historians approached the topic with personal baggage -although baggage has negative associations, often. So yes, I approach SL with that view now. I take, sometimes, a Marxist reading of the whole SL economy, and find it wanting quite often, and as regards the sexual element of SL, I would definitely take a feminist view now. But that feminism isn't merely a case of me saying no to poseballs. There's a whole thesis waiting to be written here about how SL can also empower women and put them in control. If I wanted to reinvent myself as a prostitute, or escort, as we amusingly call them in SL, then if I'm taking a few hundred dollars off a guy every time I cyber, who exactly is in control? If I could get laid, often, to the point where I have the biggest, flashiest house in SL, and the best wardrobe, just because a few guys in SL are jerking off in RL to the words I type, then who, exactly, would be in control? It's a question I'd love to be able to see written about or answered. By the way, I think your blog has immense and far-reaching potential, because no one seems to talk about this stuff, and it's core to SL. I think it's a very brave and exciting prospect to write about this stuff. I wish you well with it.

Emma : Thank you. And thank you for talking to me about your experiences.