Double Standards

HONEY OGLEBY: I got an IM about two weeks ago in which I was accused of being all sorts of things, regarding my SLSL (Second Life Sex Life). I've been open, through this blog, about the number of encounters I've had. There have been a lot. What's more, other than maybe hooking up for one-night stands with guys who have been fairly boring in themselves, and lacked much of a keyboard personality, I've regretted none of them. It has been a wild adventure in which I've explored parts of my sexuality that I would not have done in RL, nor will ever do.

It's important to separate the SL 'Honey Ogleby' from the person at the keyboard. Oh, sure, we cross over a bit, but I imagine that if I'd been quite so promiscuous in RL I'd have been dead, from exhaustion, illness or something else by now.

From day 1 in our SL's we're surrounded by sex and bombarded by it, bombarded with sometimes unwanted IMs from dreary guys walking around with noob cocks on display. Then our jaws drop on the realisation that they're 1000 days old, and still haven't bothered to keep it real. 'Wanna have fun?', they ask.

This is fine for guys. They're 'studs' who notch up encounters on the bedposts and are admired for their prowess with the ladies. Not so dissimilar to real life. But if a girl adopts the same attitude to sex she's a slut, a slapper, a whore or whatever. Not so dissimilar to real life.

Stick your cock in 1000 pussies and you're fantastic. Have 1000 cocks stuck in your pussy and you're a slut. And guys, who adopt this attitude in RL, carry it on into SL. I often have one night stands, but sometimes carry on longer, deeper relationships in SL. There can be a meeting of minds and the cyber is deeper and more satisfying as a result. And in the midst of one of these, maybe a year or so ago, one guy said to me that he'd have liked to have partnered me (I'd have refused anyway, it's not on my SL agenda) but that I came with 'baggage'. What he meant was that the knowledge of a very active sexual past bothered his RL mind in the context of SL. He couldn't get around the fact that I might have cybered with a lot of guys and I suppose, in a sense, there was something to compare himself against. Like a RL guy might fret that his cock might not measure up to something his girlfriend had previously experienced, this guy was fretting his cyber technique might not measure up. I reminded him that I wasn't the one carrying the baggage, he was.

I enjoy cybering. It's a challenge to be creative and inventive, erotic and sexy in words. I am doing what so many guys in SL do, on a daily basis, which is to bed female avatars. I bed as many male avatars as possible, and enjoy the writing challenge of making the encounter enjoyable and positive. I do not need to explain myself (although that's exactly what I'm doing here).

Guys, you need to examine your attitudes towards cyber, and women in general. You need to accept that, sometimes, a woman's libido (in RL or in SL) is just as great as yours. You need to accept and understand that women have found their sexuality in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, and can be just as predatory as you are.

And when it comes to tripping down the aisle, that old 'virgin bride' schtick is very much a rarity nowadays. She will have had a sexual past before you. It's not 'baggage', it's part of who she is. Accept and understand it. The same applies in SL. Some women maybe fairly chaste in their SL's, and some may not even cyber at all (I've seen it described as 'pointless', 'boring' and even 'virtual adultery'). Others will have bedded more guys than you have women.

I'm making no apologies for my SLSL, and will keep on doing what I'm doing. Having fun in SL. So please, please, please never have the audacity to accuse me of being a 'whore' or anything else via IM, or daring to act as some kind of moral guardian to my SL.

Honey Ogleby

Emma says: I agree with much of Honey's assessment on the double standards that get carried into SL from RL, not just in terms of sexuality either. Readers who've been with us from the start may recall that I started it as a SL virgin and the original intent was to follow a path of sexual awakening conducted through the blog. Somewhere on the line, the blog's intent changed and I never pursued that idea (although I did lose my SL virginity during the course of this blog and had dozens of suitors who liked the idea of helping me lose it, all of whom disappeared when I announced it was gone, lol. Just like RL, guys are fascinated by the idea of 'breaking in' a virgin). I've found a significant other with whom I occasionally cyber, but I don't feel any real need to share the encounters. It's a private thing, conducted privately, and I make no apologies for 'unticking' friends to appear offline when doing so. I don't want someone saying 'hi' in the middle of it, or having to explain to them that I'm getting laid. Guys also need to accept what women want from their SLSL's. Ella, for example, doesn't cyber at all, and says as much in her profile. She has told me that, despite this, some guys don't want to take no for an answer and she has been forced to 'unfriend' people she has known a long time when they've become too persistent. Learn, guys, to accept no means no, as in RL.