The SL Slutwalk

OK...look to the right and there's a new page added, the SL Slutwalk. I suggest that you got to the Slutwalk wiki entry to get a backdrop to the idea behind an ongoing series of 'slutwalks' around the globe.

Briefly, a Canadian police officer recently suggested that, in order to avoid rape, women should stop 'dressing like sluts', a comment that has galvanized women around the globe to march in support of the idea that dressing how we wish is not an invitation to rape. Reading up about the topic has led me to realise that how women dress is still, appallingly, presented as a case for the defence in many rape trials.

These attitudes are wrong.

We, women, should be allowed to dress how we wish without men assuming that it is an invitation to rape us. We should be allowed to accept a drink as a ritual of socialising without it being payment for sex, with or without our consent. We should be safe to walk home at 300am in heels and a short skirt, if we choose, without having to look fearfully at every alleyway or side street.

And, as SL users, we also know that there are men inworld who adopt the same neanderthal attitudes. A pair of fishnet stockings end up being construed as our willingness to jump on some nearby sex poseball.

That attitude is wrong.

I do not propose an actual slutwalk inworld (unless members feel it would benefit SL's women users). Instead, I propose that the group exists to highlight the existence of the RL slutwalks, and makes plain our support for the RL slutwalks' ideals.

There will be times when male attention is flattering. There are others when it's a pain in the ass, particularly when a general conversation quickly turns to 'I use MSN and Skype so if you'd like to chat out of world...', for which the sub-text always clearly seems to be 'you're wearing next to nothing in SL and you've said you're a RL nudist, so maybe you'll get your tits out for the laptop camera'. So the SL Slutwalk's purpose will be to oppose certain attitudes inworld. I do not want the group to be an opportunity to 'out' certain predatory males' attitudes. Anyone doing so will be thrown out of the group, as much as the recording and publishing of chatlogs may seem an attractive way to make those same predatory males feel 'violated' in the same way their emphasis on sexual chat sometimes makes us feel violated.

The 'SL Slutwalk' group should now be available in the groups search, and it's free to join. As I've said, we'll exist more as a concept than an actual functioning group, unless you -the members- feel differently. Males who support the slutwalks' ideals are more than welcome to join the group too.