How not to do it, part 3

Last night racked up a couple more entries in the Bad Encounters sweepstakes.  One was a boy who accosted my friend Donna when I took her to Hard Alley.  Problems:

• Extremely poor English.  Donna had trouble understanding what he wanted. 
• He wanted some capture RP but apparently didn't know how to do it.  It'd pretty sad when a girl has to give lessons to an abuser.
• Asked for voice and RL pictures.  Oh god.  Donna bolted for safety.  I really hate this type of guy, who treats SL as foreplay for webcam sex or something. 

At the same time, I got into a conversation with a woman who proceeded to prove that unattractive behavior is not a male monopoly.  She wasn't obnoxious, she was just boring.  It was all "hello, how are you" and "what are you here for" and "anything good?"  No RP, no curiosity, no hint of what she might like.  Advice for people of both sexes: say something interesting.  Start with a joke, or say something nice about my avatar, or a comment about something specific in my profile.  All of those will start you out with a net positive.

Meeting Kata

Tomorrow is my rezday— my fourth anniversary in SL.  So let's set the way-back machine to Dec. 31, 2006, for my first meeting with Kata.

---

I created a red silk bra this afternoon, but I wasn’t very happy with it.

I said "Happy New year" to several people, mostly looking for invitations to join them... Zoe responded, saying that she was dancing— naked— and offering to teleport me.  She was at a nudist resort, and indeed, almost everyone was dancing naked.  I got naked, but had terrible trouble finding the place to click to start dancing... finally got it.

Zoe disappeared, and I danced a little more; but then I contacted Susan, and gently hinted that I wasn’t doing much.  She got me invited to the party she was at, at a girl named Kata Kita’s house.  There were four others there: Susan, Mado, Steph, Kata, another girl, and a guy named SKS.  They were playing Truth or Dare, a game which has already produced some notorious events in the neighborhood.

For secret reasons, Susan was to announce frequently that she was a teapot— most of the night she had a title reading "Really a teapot".  This was apparently the result of an earlier dare from Mado, though the conditions were secret.

Susan, me; Mado at right

At some point Kata’s sister Emmaline showed up.  This introduced some interesting byplay; Emmaline was obviously the older sister, and they were a little affectionately grumpy with each other.

Let’s see if I remember some of the T&Ds...
•    I was asked to assume my favorite position; I chose dolllay.  Kata admired it quite a bit, which led Sophia to order me to title myself "Lovely little billboard".
•    Steph chose truth; Mado accepted my suggestion that we ask what inanimate object she was.  Mado amended it to, which object she’d like to be.  However, she pooped out with her answer (‘nothing’).
•    The girl whose name I forgot did a pole dance.
•    I had Mado choose someone and make out on the rug for a minute.
•    Susan had to demonstrate the St Andrew’s Cross with three different people
•    I had to be group slave until someone said the magic word.   Before anyone even ordered me to do anything, Emmaline did: it was teapot.  Now she was group slave; I chose the word "sexy" for her.  No one ever said it!
•    Emmaline had to be spanked by Steph.
•    I asked Kata to demonstrate her favorite machine in the room.  She showed us a nasty-looking wall device.
•    I asked Steph to discipline Emmaline.  She tied her to the cross— but when it was too evident that Emmaline was enjoying this, the punishment became being left unpunished.
•    Susan was asked to describe a scene she’d like to do with Kata.  Instead, she enacted it.  This was probably the highlight of the evening... she took Kata out front, had her kneel in the snow, put on a strap-on, and had Kata service it while describing how terribly cold the snow was.  Kata seemed to really get into this, and had an Xcite orgasm.  At one point Sophia asked for a volunteer to scoop more snow under her ass; I helped out with this.  Kata role-played nicely, grouching afterward how damn cold she was.
•    Susan made me put on an enormous, black & white furry cat costume— male, no less— and told me to make the shape obese.  Ugh!!  I’m afraid this made me very sulky, though Mado said she liked the costume.   But Emmaline later dared me to undo it, so that was OK...

Kata services Susan

By now it was nearly 6, and I had to sign off, while the game was still going on!

It was fun, and I made one new friend, Kata.  She has a very nice house, complete with in-bedroom bondage devices.  I also talked to her a little, mostly about wild animals.  (Mado is Australian, and tried to scare us with tales of drop-bears.  Look it up.)

Anecdote

A couple weeks ago I was playing hide-and-strip with Emmy.   This involves running around a dungeon trying to find each other; whoever gets within chat range (20 m) and says the leash command first wins.  The winner strips an item off the loser, and you play again till one gets naked and become the winner's toy for the rest of the evening.

I lost, and Emmy managed to find something novel to do: try to get me to talk to strangers.  This really made me nervous, but I was also eager to be obedient, so it was a very effective task.

We were in a dungeon, and one woman she sent me to talk to looked severely out of place.  Not only was she dressed like a lady, but her profile professed her to be a member of various Anglican groups... no hint of kinkiness at all.  I really wondered if she was in the wrong sim, or was here to convert people.  Still, she was polite when I talked to her.

About half an hour later, I noticed the church lady... naked and being spanked by some guy.  So she was in the right place after all.

Trauma arc

Here's an example of how to turn a one-off RP session into an ongoing dramatic arc.

I invited a friend, Emmy, to Doomed Ship.  She decided to play a pirate.  We had barely introduced ourselves when we were approached by a demon... a big gray dude breathing malevolently.  He had a malicious proposition for us: he could destroy us both, or we could choose one of us to save and one to be sacrificed. 

(Even extreme RP is consensual, and we could have refused to play; but Emmy was up to see what happened.)

Emmy seemed to have a plan... something about pretending to offer one of us, the other causing a distraction.  I wasn't sure about this, but I was the only one armed and the demon could probably take both of us, so I didn't see much choice.  She offered to shake hands on her idea.

I extended my hands, and she cuffed them instead, and attached them to a leash.  She then offered me to the demon, in return for fuel to leave the ship.

Emmy is new to RP, but this was a briliant move... simple, surprising and completely amoral.  The demon accepted the offer of course, and I (in character) was so flustered and angry that I couldn't think to protest.... my hands were bound anyway, and all I could do was hope that the bargain would turn against Emmy, the betrayer.

The basilica (actually from the healing)

The demon took me to the basilica (why a spaceship has one I don't know, but it's a huge ship), Emmy tagged along as she wanted her fuel. The demon performed a little ritual... I guess they're religious chaps in their own way.  The sacrifice consisted of slicing through my suit, raping me, and then taking a part of my soul.

The demon then told Emmy where to find fuel, and left.  Emmy was apologetic but defensive... she was sorry but I was alive, so you know we should let bygones be bygones... she released my leash.  I adjusted the remains of my suit, then turned my gun on her.

(I consulted with the demon about what he meant by 'taking my soul.'  He didn't have much of an idea... he said demons are just "randy buggers."  I decided that it meant that my strongest emotions-- fear, shame, anger, joy, humor-- were deadened.  I could still feel the animal emotions-- hunger, thirst, lust-- and my reason was intact, so I could think about dangers and decisions.)

So, undeterred by fear or shame, I took my revenge on Emmy.  She kept trying to argue or talk me down till it was clear what I was doing.  I found a strap-on in a cabinet and fucked her.  Unlike me, she came from her rape.  I left her tied up...

Now this was a pretty interesting evening of RP... Emmy had a great time, she evidently loves capture RP.  I could have left it there.  But here's the key bit: I extended this into nearly a week of additional story.  More, really, since the consequences are still ongoing.

Briefly, I acted the hell out of my new personality: unemotional, fearless, but socially awkward (my normal inhibitions were gone).  I have a dear friend at Doomed Ship, a girl named Rita that I have a big crush on.  I told her about the incident, and we investigated options... talked to doctors, investigated the Basilica.  I was able to read the demons' book of ritual, as the demon had left a connection to his mind. 

She suggested that we needed a magic user, so I kept asking people if they knew magic.  Rita can walk shadows to teleport, so we actually ended up for a night on a planet somewhere (actually the surface of the sim), with a little lake... we took a swim and I was able to play with her a bit... though not as much as I'd like; since I was damaged she didn't entirely trust me.

Last night Rita took me back to the Basilica, where we made a bargain with another demon to restore my soul.  The price, unfortunately, was that she lost her own for a period of three months.  She interpreted this as losing her shadow nature... leaving her as an unprotected human, and moreover unused to human emotions, senses, and mores.

All this is what I call storytelling RP... not just staying in character, but creating ongoing stories, all through improvisation-- and stories where big things happen.  The overall situation of Doomed Ship doesn't change... we're never really going to get rid of the monsters.  But dramatic things can happen to us, and change us, and we can react to those changes in ourselves and others. 

I'm already thinking of tonight's session, which I think will focus on survivor guilt... I'm going to feel terribly guilty over what happened to Rita.  Also still desiring her intently.  Also I've got to teach her how to use a gun, as her shadow powers are gone and she's essentially defenseless.

A couple principles if you want to try this at home:

• Let bad things happen; that's what creates stories.  Defensiveness and godmodding block stories, because nothing serious ever happens.
• Solutions should always introduce new problems.  (E.g. Rita's way of curing my own soullessness was to lose her shadow nature.)
• Don't be afraid to be ridiculous.  When I'd lost part of my soul, I had a lot of fun acting this out; I compared it to being autistic.  E.g. I had lost my usual social inhibitions, so I could speak very callously about some of the ship's horrors.  When Rita lost her shadow nature, she was almost drunk with the new human sensations she was feeling.)

The ship is doomed, cap'n!

I've been trying out Doomed Ship lately.  This is a horror sf sim; it's a spaceship that's haunted by monsters, and which various humans and others have found their way to.  And no one can escape.

I'm playing a reporter, and rather than the bad girl I tend to play elsewhere, my character is rather naive and optimistic.  She's determined to find the story she was sent to cover-- it's a hell of a story after all, and it could make her career-- and she's convinced her editor will find a way to rescue her.

Plus, you know, there's all sorts of things to explore.



That's a new friend of mine, Blue.  Well, part of him; he's a big boy, the demon head with the horns didn't fit in the screenshot.  He's been really sweet, actually.  He saved me from a pervy alien armored tentacle-dog thing, so naturally I felt grateful, not to mention curious what a big blue alien was like in bed.

Nice room!

I had a two-night session with Kata lately... the RP got out of hand. :)  We played in Midian City, which makes a good seedy city; Kata was a he, playing my creepy, violence-prone ex-boyfriend.  Not long into the second night I found myself here:

I'd like to say that that's a hell of a set.  It's a rez-on-demand thing; the best thing about it is the dark blacks.  For some reason SL is always completely over-lit... it saves designers worrying about lights, but if you want a scary or creepy atmosphere you're reduced to asking people to set local time to midnight, and even that may not be enough.  The room above is an exception.  Definitely looks like someplace bad things are going to happen, doesn't it?

And they did.  We actually had a bit of miscommunication; Mr. Kata thought I'd been sent to Midian City to find him, which I was under the impression it was unwelcome coincidence.  So he'd ask these questions about who sent me and I'd think it was paranoia.  However, it still worked as a story; in fact it made it a lot scarier.  Interrogations are scary enough, but when you don't know the answers and the person is going to get violent if he doesn't like what you say, it's pretty frightening.

Room in Rome

I recently saw Room in Rome, a film by Julio Medem and starring Elena Anaya and Natasha Yarovenko.  It's the story of a chance meeting that turns into a passionate love affair that takes all of one night.  It's a lovely film and I've been thinking about it for a couple of days.

Natasha is the blonde

It required a lot of bravery on the part of the two actresses-- they spent about three quarters of the film naked.  The film never leaves the hotel room and there's only one other, minor character, so the film depends on their work-- and the script.  They start by one attempting a seduction and the other fleeing, then coming back; they tell stories about themselves that turn out not to be true; they make love several times; they become increasingly honest as well as conflicted about the rest of their lives, which suddenly seeem to fall short.

It's erotic, but even more so, it's romantic.  After seeing it I wanted to cuddle wtih someone.

Natasha (the character) is straight, and begins by saying that nothing should leave the room; to which Elena (whose character is lesbian) reasonably asks how she can be sure it won't.  Much of the story is a set of moves and countermoves where the characters get closer and closer and then take half-steps back.  The structure of the movie more or less demands that they separate at the end  (a crossing-of-lives story is far different from a beginning-of-a-romance story), but one can imagine that perhaps they were unable to maintain that separation afterward. 

There's a little echo of b/d... at one point Elena carefully dresses Natasha after a bath, like a servant, and Natasha reciprocates.  At the end Elena points out that she kissed Natasha's feet, and Natashs didn't do the same.  It's a reminder that the submissive impulse starts in love, in a delight so deep that it finds joy in service and even humiliation.  (Not that this feeling is always there.  But there is a special thrill when it is.)

Anyway, if you're the sort of person who is reading this blog, you'd probably enjoy it.

Meeting Dori

All right, back in time again, to the wilds of late 2006.  I had seen Dori a few times at the Ranch.  She was something to see: very pale skin, extremely lovely features, black hair, usually dressed in purple, with lipstick to match.

Elf in Dori's lap

You want to get to know other girls in SL?  #1: Admire their clothes or their looks, or ask where they got them.  #2: Talk about the clueless guys who've been hitting on you.  I got into a conversation with Dori this way, and she took me to a quiet romantic spot and, well, we started touching each other, while talking about the last Truth or Dare game.  (She was a friend of Mado's and Susan's.)

Dori pulls your hand along the inside of your thigh
You: mmm...
Dori: So what would you choose, Truth or Dare?
Mavia snuggles closer, her face against your tummy
You: dare, i think
Dori: mmm ... What if I dared you to kiss me?
Mavia reaches up and kisses dori
You: not a hard dare at all :)
Dori smiles as we kiss, kissing you back softly, enjoying your lips
Mavia melts
Dori pulls back from the kiss just to nuzzle your cheek a bit
You: would you like to try the kiss balls there?
Dori: if you like, I"m game ;)
You: oh my... how lovely
Dori kisses you, slowly letting her tongue explore
Dori traces her nails above and below your collar
Mavia kisses back, holding you tightly
Dori: mmmm
Dori purrs softly into the kiss
You: you’re so beautiful...
Dori: Meh, not so much as you ;)
Dori pulls back from the kiss a little and rests her  against yours, looking into your eyes
Dori: Gentle but lively beauty
Mavia lets her forearm brush against your breast
Dori purrs, gaze dropping for a moment
Dori: And what if I dared you to let me handcuff you to me for an hour?
You: i don’t think i can resist dares from a pretty girl kissing me

Things continued to heat up.  This was my first extended experience with a really good writer, someone who used words like you'd use your hands in real life.  I was intoxicated.

Dori nuzzles up to your ear, whispering softly, "is it ok?”
Mavia kisses even harder, as an answer
Dori nibbles at your earlobe, letting her tongue gently stroke along your ear
Mavia moves a hand up and cups your breast
Dori tugs at the waistband of your panties slightly
Dori sighs happily as Mavia’s hand finds her slightly swollen breast
Mavia pulls your one of your hands onto her own breast
Dori purrs and kneads your breast gently, tracing the outline with her nail
Mavia is breathing harder now
Dori nuzzles behind your ear and licks at it softly. She traces her nail into your bra and around the nipple
Mavia kisses many different places... eyelids, nose, earlobes, neck...
Dori giggles as you kiss her face all over, the one hand slipping down into the back of your pants to rub your butt, pinching firmly at your nipple, tugging at it with her other hand
Mavia gasps with pleasure
Mavia reaches around with both hands to caress your butt, first outside the pants and then inside

Then Dori said she had a question.  This sounded serious, but it turned out she wanted to know if we should just have sex, or do something more bondagey.  I left it up to her, and she took us to a room with a bed and bondage machines.  She had me take off my clothes and get on a St Andrew's cross.  (Between her and Zoe, it's no wonder this is still my favorite bondage device.)  I asked if I should call her mistress or anything, but she said we should just talk normally.

Tied up for Dori

She ran her hands along my body...

...and disappeared.

Dayyum!

I waited for a long while, but she didn't show up again... and then SL crashed, not just my client but the whole damn grid.  Not untypical in those days...

A little forced sex

Fantasy is fantasy, but some stuff still pushes my squick buttons, especially violent rape.  I don't want to be attacked by a psychopath in a dark alley.  Nor am I any good at playing the psychopath.

But change the scenario slightly and I'm on board.  The change is subtle but makes all the difference: I don't mind (this is still fantasy/SL we're talking about) rape as an accepted consequence for failure.   I used to go to a combat RP sim where the winners could fuck the losers; that was hot, not least because you couldn't predict if you'd be top or bottom. 

Same diner, different girl

A slight variation is a common one at the Hard Alley Reform School.  For instance, the other night I was out with a fellow student, Kay. I took her to a diner and started to seduce her.  As I've mentioned, the narrative of seduction fascinates me.... sometimes you get lucky, sometimes things just peter out.  While engaged in this, some dude showed up at the diner, said he was a truant officer, and demanded our names.

I was annoyed at first; I don't usually like intrusions in ongoing RP.  But Kay didn't mind, so I played along.  Well, what do you know, we were in trouble for missing classes, but Mr. Officer was willing to be reasonable.  Being reasonable started with telling us to take off our clothes, right there in the diner.

Now, I play a tough girl in Hard Alley, and don't just roll over for bad guys.  I considered running-- the guy couldn't pursue us both!  But I wasn't going to leave Kay at his mercy.  (It turned out Kay was thinking the same about me!)  Or maybe I should offer myself in her place?  Well, a reform school girl knows when to fight and when to strip, and this was the latter case.

I was naked first, so I offered to help slowpoke Kay.  The guy liked this idea, so I helped remove the rest of her clothes.  Then he invited me to take her to a table and eat her out.  This was a very easy order to follow.

Many guys like lesbians-- so long as they can jump in themselves at any time.  As a bi-dyke I want to point out that girls can satisfy each other entirely on their own; we don't need a guy.  But in this case, I had to admit, the intrusion had led to quickly getting Kay naked and my mouth on her pussy.  True, the guy's cock was soon in mine, but the whole situation was very hot and I wasn't complaining.

He left after trying out both of us... I hadn't come, so Kay very nicely helped me out, right on the floor of the diner. 

I've also been trying out a superheroine sim, Hayao.  They seem to take their RP seriously there... though the basic idea is something out of bad fanfic: superheroines take on some villain, get defeated, and then raped by the villain.  I play a criminal... I figure bad girls have more and more varied opportunities.

Last night I played out this basic scenario with a couple friends, with an odd twist: Kata, the superheroine, had the fight with the evil guardian, and I got raped.  How did this happen?

Kata and I are on opposite sides of the law, but we're friends in Hayao (we are both new in town and haven't had opportunity to engage professionally, so to speak).  We were quietly having a drink in a bar when a Guardian, Troy, one of the local evil cops, came by and demanded to see our papers. 

Ironically, I had them but Kata didn't.  I generally follow the logic of RP wherever it goes; my character is a hacker, and I figured I'd be an expert at setting up legit covers.  It'd be foolish incompetence for me, as a criminal, to sneak into town without proper papers... of course I'd have them.

Kata, however, didn't, and instead royally defied the Guardian.  Both have superpowers... Troy has a resident fire demon with formidable control over fire, and Kata is near-invulnerable.  There was a jolly fight-- which I stayed out of-- and Kata ended up with her clothes and hair burned off, but otherwise healthy.  The last blast of fire had burned a hole in the wall, and she simply decamped.

That left Troy with no one to take back to HQ, so he seized on me.  I protested, but Hayao is some kind of tinpot dictatorship and what can you do with these local corrupt cops?  

Hayao cop enjoying his work

I have powers too, but they're mostly defensive, and limited.  Basically I can create a big electric shock-- but usually just one, so the timing has to be just right, and there wasn't much opportunity against Troy.

So, basically, he took me back to HQ bound, stripped me, and fucked me.  My character is partially cybernetic, and an unintended consequence of the wiring is an enhancement of sexual pleasure... it's like having an internal vibrator.  So, wouldn't you know it, I couldn't help ending up coming. 

(I know, cheesy, but not quite as much as the superheroine who turns out to really like being bound and forced.  And I can vary it by circumstances... I was assaulted in Hayao a few days before and played it more realistically, crying and by no means getting excited.  And then turned the tables on the attacker.)

So, er, my point, if I had one, is that abuse of authority is a sufficient plot too.  And if you do abuse your authority, well, abuse it... it's not a date, you don't have to be gentle in your movements and hunt down my clit.  Humiliation can be hot. 

(Is that a little weird?  Mmmmaybe.  It feels weird to me sometimes.  But hot is hot, and I'm not going to apologize for what fantasies I like.)

The moment she will

There's a moment that fascinates me... most of all when it happens to me, but also when it happens to someone else.  It's the moment between not knowing if she will or not, and knowing she will.

Even in SL it's rare.  Usually it's safer to play with someone you know.  With SL boys it's usually not hard... um, that came out wrong.  It's not difficult with boys.  It's more magical with girls.

I met this girl about a week ago; she was a dancer.  We talked awhile and she went to bed... she contacted me tonight and I took her to the Duchess to dance and talk some more.  She was incredibly gorgeous, with a sweet face and long hair and a body she was showing off in very little clothing. 

After awhile I said that if we'd danced like that in a real bar I'd be hot and need a drink.  She said she was hot too.  I took her outside to a quiet spot and kissed her, still half expecting her to startle.  I can be dim sometimes... well, I had got the impression she couldn't stay up late.  She returned the kiss.

She suggested going "someplace else"... well, now I knew. :)

It was all the nicer because it's been a shitty week.  Many bad things happening.  So it felt all the nicer that someone wanted to make love to me.

Cuffs and Australians

Another early journal entry... actually only part of one; I was a busy little elf back then.  This one is notable for being the first appearance of Mado.  Susan was introduced here.

---



At Susan's house.  Jac, me, Susan, Mado


Later on, I was at the ranch, and gravitated toward Susan, who I’d gotten to know rather intimately in the cageball.  There was a new girl there, Elizabeth, two hours old in 2L... she certainly wasted no time in finding the ranch!  Someone had given her a nice skin, but her clothes were pretty minimal.  Sophia decided to take her in hand; first she gave her some free items, and then proposed to take her shopping and buy her a proper collar.  She invited me along for this too!

So we went to a mall— a bondage mall— and Sophia selected an Amethyst Collar, in purple, for both of us... and then, why not, for a boy named Viktor who happened to be there.  She demonstrated for us, using her own collar and ours.  There are a few dozen animations on it, allowing all sorts of submissive positions, standing, sitting, kneeling, lying down; it even has several walks built in.  You can have a primary owner and several secondary ones; they can do more to you than you can to yourself.  Also, if an owner sets an animation, the sub can’t stop it.  (Of course, you can always take off the collar!)  The collar has an attached leash, which can be set with a max distance, so you can drag your slaves behind you.

More people showed up— a girl named Bambi; another girl named Mado who is a friend of Susan's.  Elizabeth was getting rather hot— she kept touching her clit— and soon after disappeared, very probably with Bambi.

Well, she missed getting cuffs.  They have their own set of animations too, though they don’t have owners.   Susan demonstrated that you could buy posts for your ceiling and hang a sub from them; she demonstrated on Mado, who was left to hang for a few minutes while Susan bought me my cuffs.

Finally Susan took me and Mado back to her house.  While Susan grabbed a quick bite in real life, Mado and I played upstairs with cageballs for awhile— these work especially well with the leashes, as you can run around the room, dragging your sub behind you.  Mado said that Susan once took her shopping that way. 

We were beginning to get frisky; I stripped down to my underwear, and even Susan had stripped down.   (Mado wasn’t wearing much to begin with.)  Then a friend of Susan’s came by, Jac (I think her name was), and everyone talked for awhile. 

Finally, someone suggested playing truth or dare... only it was already past five, and I just couldn’t stay up for more.  I kissed Susan, and (because of this or not) her Xcite clit responded... it was hard to leave, but I had to!

How not to do it, part 2

I have to get something off my chest, but first, to set the scene and conform to the spirit of the blog, here's what Kata and I were up to tonight.


Getting to know the older students

 I'm a student at the Hard Alley Reform School, you see.  Kata's been there before, in the form of a newly arrived near-innocent who needed to be properly introduced to the ways of the school.  But this time she was the veteran older student, who had to take the newer student (that would be me) in hand.  She is very good in either role.

As it happened, some chick came across us right at the end, and decided to play it aggressive... blocking the exit, trying to forbid me from getting dressed.  Normally it's a great thing to see someone at the school at all, but her approach pissed me off.  On a meta level: we were done with our scene and it's presumptuous to simply assume we both want another one.  And on the RP level, you shouldn't assume-- even in Hard Alley-- that anyone you meet wants to be topped, or can't fight back.  (There are ways to find out; reading profiles is a good start.)

I dressed, pulled a knife and told her if she got closer she'd get cut.  And she got closer.

And this, I'm afraid, is a pet peeve.

Now, in real life I'm hardly a bad girl... I just play one in Hard Alley.  But I want a modicum of realism in RP.  And for future reference if you RP with me: if a knife comes out, that's serious business.  You can run your mouth off if you like, but you respect that blade or you're an idiot.  The girl came close... I'm sorry, but what would happen in that situation is: she gets knifed in the gut.  That's not actually an interesting direction to go (she was a stranger who'd jumped into our scene), so I told her so (out of character) and left. 

There's several possibilities here:

• She was godmodding... that is, RPing in such a way that she does anything she wants, emotes that it worked, and ignores any danger.  Smart RPers avoid these people like the plague.  (She was talking about "covering my knife arm" as if I'd let her wander up in range of my weapon.  Uh uh, nope.)
• Her mind was in a video game; she was used to other characters doing what she said.  It doesn't always work when they are real people with particular desires and RL bedtimes.)
• She's watched too many stupid movies where someone is suicidally careless about a knife or a gun.  Maybe James Bond can try for a quick disarm, but you're not James Bond.
• She was just wasn't thinking through what it means when someone has a weapon on you.  There's a reason they say "No funny business."  It's because funny business might be an attack or an attempted disarm, and it forces the weapon user to attack.  (Or step back, if they can judge they can do so safely.)  You're asking to be hurt bad.  If you're banking on the other person losing their nerve... well, that's not a smart move when you have no idea what their skill level and personality are.

I was probably a little hot-headed myself, but as I say, it was presumptuous, and dumb RP.  She was a little thing, and inviting a confrontation with two tough-looking girls... why would that end well? 

How not to do it

I was looking over my SL journal, checking something I wanted to write about... oh my, there's so much there.  As Oscar Wilde said, it's good to keep a diary, so you have something sensational to read on the train.  But I don't have the patience to write anything long right now.  So I'll just record a bit of a sex scene I overheard early on...

Rudiwan: I try to kiss it.
Rudiwan slides into Fishpaw's throbbing pussy grinding against her
Rudiwan grins slding his hand across Fishpaw's trembling pussy
Rudiwan thrusts his fingers into Fishpaw's moist pussy
Fishpaw orgasms her cum flowing from her hot wet pussy
Rudiwan thrusts his fingers into Fishpaw's moist pussy
Fishpaw orgasms her cum flowing from her hot wet pussy
Rudiwan slaps Fishpaw's pussy
Fishpaw cums, her juices squirting from her pussy and down her legs
Rudiwan gently licks and nibbles Fishpaw's pussy
Rudiwan thrusts his fingers into Fishpaw's moist pussy
Fishpaw orgasms her cum flowing from her hot wet pussy

Yep, Fishpaw uses the same line three times.  Oh well, maybe she's channeling Gertrude Stein.

Shopping

I do at least one non-sex activity: shopping.  This is because you want to look your best and dress well in order to find people to have sex with.

I don't claim any special expertise, but if I'm after something I can patiently hunt it down for hours.  Or days.  These boots, for instance... it took forever to find them.

How to choose?  I got both!

I'm also very fond of my leather jacket.  I also finally found jeans that can be taken down in stages... a certain someone whose name is Kata likes to take pants down but not off, and now I can accommodate her.

In non-shopping news, my friend and old sub Mado turned up in SL tonight.  She should be turning up in the journal soon.  Hi Mado!

Gay/straight data from OKCupid

OKCupid occasionally posts blogs about the masses of data they've collected from their users, and it's always interesting.  Today they have a great post about gays/lesbians and straights.

Here's the bit I found the most interesting: responses from straight women on whether they've had sex with a woman:

Now, apply the obvious caveats here.  It's a dating site, probably not representative of the population at large-- though they do get all ages and people from all over North America.  But still, one quarter of the female respondents had a lesbian encounter and enjoyed it, and under half never have and think they never would.  Straight men are much less adventurous.  Come on, guys, loosen up... if we like it why wouldn't you?

There's also a neat map where gay-curious people are plotted by location.  It's highest in the west, in Canada, and in the Northeast, lowest in the Deep South.  Oregon is a hotspot; Mississipi is the biggest coldspot.

I wish a similar chart could be made for SL. :)  I'd expect an even larger red zone.  And if you're in the purple zone, look me up, I'll take care of you.

Put your earphones on for this

So, after wondering out loud how voice sex works in SL, my friend Ed showed me.  Um, no, not that way.  He invited me to a sim where a crowd of people was listening to a simulated sex act.

I said in that post that I couldn't imagine it, but I think if I'd tried harder I'd have got it.  Basically the guy was telling the girl to masturbate for him, and she was reacting.  He was acting as a top and I think she didn't know it... because just as she was about to come he told her to stop, and she reacted with confusion, even anger.  A bit later he was talking as if he was actually fucking her.

There was, in fact, heavy breathing and moaning... from her.  He was quite calm in the parts I heard (indeed, he had a nice soft, commanding voice). 

Ed seemed to like it, but I'm afraid it's not going to be my thing.  I'd feel far less safe... what if someone recognizes my voice?  I can act as I do on SL because I feel anonymous and safe. 

Also, I'm good with text.  I'd be terribly embarrassed to be masturbating into the mic (all the more so because I don't live alone).  And I like the slight disconnect between textual sex and whatever I'm doing, or not doing, in my own room.  I... er... well, I am often touching myself, but often an SL session is more like extended, very arousing foreplay.  And I touch type.  So, well, if I do come, it's in a long pause between sentences, not when I'm typing that I'm coming, OK?

Plus, listening to the girl's voice, something seemed off.  Either she had a bad mic that introduced distortion... or she was a boy with voice shifting software.  There's a warmth and naturalness to a real female voice that generally doesn't happen with voice shifting.

If it happens to be your thing, dear reader, that's lovely.  There's many things I enjoy that many people don't, and there's kinks that just don't do it for me.  Whatever gets you through the night, as a recent birthday boy said.

Blindfolded

Sometimes the secret to a memorable experience is to remove some input.  Something I've tried a few times now is a blindfold.  You need two toys for this:

• A blindfold HUD, which will actually cover the victim's screen except for chat.  For reasons that will become clear, they must close map and mini-map as well.
• An anonymoter... a toy I sell fof L$50 (mere pennies!), which removes identifying information from emotes.  After all, if you're blindfolded you can't tell who's touching you. 

Kimberley is in the middle

The results are something like this.

the voice sounds again "good... just concentrate"Kimberley nods, feeling her pulse picking up as she lays there blindly.

a soft touch goes over your cheek softly stroking then moving down over your arm "you can't feel around..."

the hand moves back over your arm onto your chest as you feel a warm breeze into your neck followed by a soft kiss,
Kimberley jumps involuntarily at the very first touch, laughing quietly at herself and biting her lip as she resist the urge to reach out.

you feel fingers brushing briefly along your arm

the hand reaches up over your cheekline softly moving through your hair moving it aside as you feel the kisses going up to your earlobe, your earlobe softly being kissed
Kimberley turns her head a bit to the side, to grant easier access to her neck and ear.

you then feel something hard on your earlobe, teeth scratching softly, nibbling onto it as the hand leaves your hair

fingers lightly touch your breast, touching and exploring before vanishing
Kimberley grasps lightly at the sheets of the bed to keep her hands down at her sides, feeling her nipples already growing hard just from the light touches so far.

the teeth seem to let go of your ear as is the warm presence around your neck as you're lying, loose fingers still trailing over your body

a wet finger circles your left nipple.. pinching it lightly
Kimberley leans her head back, inhaling at the light pinching.

a hand moving over your right breast holding it firmly and massaging it, fading a way a few seconds later to have the touch of 2 fingers reappear on your belly circling around your belly button

then a hand slowly runs along your leg, out to the knee then back along the inner thigh, stopping just short of your sex

you hear a voice "you like it so far?" whispering in your ear the breath softly touching your skin
Kimberley moans softly as the firm grip vanishes from her breast, only to bite her lip against a surprised gasp at the touch on her belly. Her legs move slightly apart at the hand on her leg. She nods, swallowing before answering with a smile, "I do..."

you hear a soft satisfying laugh as the fingers from your belly move onto your other leg, moving the exact same as the first hand but moving up onto your hip again just before your sex
Kimberley's hips shift as the hand comes back up her leg.

you feel your left breast grabbed... the hand squeezes and massages... moving slowly over to the other breast
Kimberley arches her back slightly, pressing her breasts against the unseen hand.

the hand from your hip fades away, as you suddenly feel a soft kiss at the same spot
the kisses slowly move down over your leg towards your knee, then lower over your leg as a hand grabs your right feet and massages it softly over the anckle and the bottom of your feet

By this time the victim, and you the reader, may have realized the additional trick: there are not one but two extra participants.  We started with touches that could be ambiguous, but eventually of course made it clear (e.g. by kissing Kimberley simultaneously in two different places).

Ideally the two participants try to write in something of the same style; it shouldn't be immediately clear who's saying what.  It doesn't matter much if someone slips up, though.  (Technically my partner should probably not have spoken, as his voice would be recognizable.  But then he had begun the scene with Kimberley alone so she already knew he was there.)

Every time I've tried this, the blindfoldee has had a very intense experience.  It's a little overwhelming and a little disorienting, and because there are two non-blindfolded participants there is a lot to react to.  (Kimberley was told not to touch back simply because it's more complex: she doesn't know what she's touching.  But later we relaxed this constraint; she'd simply say where she extended her hand and we'd emote what if anything she touched.)

The only victim who expressed some qualms about the procedure was me, on another occasion.  The problem is that I have too active an imagination.  Just to test out the anonymoter, one of the participants said something like "A wolf howls in the distance."  Some later referecences to animal noises made me think that someone was RPing turning into an animal, which I found disturbing rather than erotic!  But everyone else I've tried this with has liked it very much.

Storytelling Sex

I like RP, I like sex, and I love RP with sex.  I'm an RP snob, which means that at the least I like people who are not in too much of a hurry to write out "you", who establish a character, and who emote in interesting ways.  This doesn't mean I'm a "paraplayer"; I find people who write a paragraph in novelistic style more pretentious than fun.  What I like is storytelling RP.  That goes beyond inhabiting a character to building a story.

But what's storytelling sex?  A sex encounter that also tells a little story.  We're not talking literature here; wer're talking about adding narrative elements that they enhance the encounter.  I've done a whole bunch of these with my friend Kata; here are some examples.

• Kata was the head of the Dark Knights, a band of mercenaries in a medieval sim.  I was her dark elf lieutenant; but sometimes Kata needed a good topping.  Above she's getting it.  (I realize the pink strapon is out of period.)  My dark elf was a fairly mean mistress... at one point Kata was acting up, and to calm her down I took out my knife.  She essentially dared me to use it, and I did.  Dark elves don't mess around.  (No body parts were lost, but she had some scars.)
• Another time I played a rogue who broke into Kata's castle trying to attack him.  (Him in this case; Kata will play a boy if you ask nicely.)  I was a fairly clumsy rogue and was easily captured; naturally Kata had to teach me a lesson.  (This was basically a fancy capture RP scenario.  I'm a little squicked out by direct rape fantasies, but I like a scenario where sexual service is the price of failure in a voluntary task.)
• Kata is frozen in our times to be cured and revived in the future.  And she is, only to learn that the future society considers frozen people to be a drain on resources and therefore obligated to be turned into sex slaves.  Devices are implemented to facilitate training (by administering electric shocks or sleep drugs, or by stimulating the pleasure center).
• Another medieval scenario: Kata is an arrogant male wandering warrior who runs into a witch.  He offends her and attacks her.  She paralyzes him and then cures the paralysis by throwing him into a pool of water... which has the property of changing him into a woman.
• Another futuristic scenario: Kata was a trader and bought an alien being sold as a sex toy.  It turned out that the alien had some interesting sexual differences...

With good RPers, such encounters are great fun... occasionally they'd stretch out over a couple of sessions.  They're a partial answer to the question "Why SL?"  RP feels forced and weird in real life, but it's a natural in SL.  And you can do things (change sex, be an alien or elf, have magic powers) that you can't do in reality.  Yet.

Oh, behave!

Another paradox of b/d: a little disobedience is a good thing.  One, it gives opportunities for punishment, and that can be enjoyable for both parties.  And two, as I said before, total passivity is no fun.  It's a thrill to turn a recalcitrant citizen into a warm, quivering, cumming girl.

But you can go too far.  I happens that I got to see examples with both Clancy and Zoe early on.

Clancy had a permanent slave, Leah, an extremely sweet girl-- she helped me find my first hair.  I met with both of them for a play session... Clancy started by fucking me while Leah watched, something which evidently didn't bother her at all.  He played with her a bit, then brought in another girl he had met, Lyra.

He had us eat each other out, then he  fucked Lyra, and she apparently came.  Then, it was like a fuse burst. She started complaining... said she wasn't turned on... then got up and moved to a different machine and demanded that Clancy fuck her there... plus she wanted him to essentially make Leah do tricks.

I was completely new to all this, but I could tell this was totally out of line, and I could sense Clancy losing control of the situation.  Finally he just told her to leave, which she did with ill grace.

I IMd Leah to ask about this... she said that Lyra was a "drama queen" and that such people never worked out either as subs or dommes.

On a night soon after this, I was waiting for Zoe for a play date, and she was taking a long time.  While waiting I ran into a girl named Nadia, who was having a ball trying out her new collar.  These things are riveting when you first get them... animations!  leashing!  permissions!  She had me try things out, which involved reading notecards and setting secowners and other arcana. 

When Zoe arrived, I suggested that she top both of us.  This wasn't a problem.  But Nadia was... she was still playing with her collar, and she wasn't obeying instructions.  Zoe seemed out of sorts.  I was mortified... I'd inserted this chick into a scene with a mistress I respected very much, and I was afraid she was turning into another Lyra.

But finally Zoe asked Nadia if she wanted to get me punished.  That did the trick.  Nadia calmed down, and Zoe made her take off all her toys, which she called "parlor tricks".  She wasn't terribly obedient-- she earned at least six lashes-- but it was back into acceptable territory, and Zoe was pleased again.

Take-home lessons?  I don't know; I think both Clancy and Zoe handled these things with calmness and dignity.   Nadia was fine once she calmed down, but Lyra was probably irredeemable.  At least in SL, where you don't have a real whip to discipline someone with. 

Hanging out

It's fun to wander around SL looking at stuff.  For maybe half an hour.  Then, looking at dungeons and sex toys can be amusing for another hour.  But eventually you want to meet people to play with.  How do you do it?

Well, you hang around.  I used to do this for hours, mostly at the Bondage Ranch.

There was a particular bench that was the hangout center, and there was almost always a bunch of people there.  Eventually I got to know a number of people, and then I could hang around with them... chatting, making snarky comments in chat, sometimes doing little mini-scenes, sometimes doing something silly as in the above picture where a bunch of us were all tied to the pole for a couple hours.  Some of all this was my friend Susan's fault... that's her in the lower right... even if she had a pet, she'd sit at the Ranch with her, occasionally messing with her or giving her a task.

Of course I'd had someone to play with, I'd go do that. :)  But there are a lot of dead times on SL, and it's not a bad idea to have a place to hang out, a place where you're a regular.  It'll pay off, if you're patient.

If you're a little shy, as I am, an RP sim can help, because you can RP a non-shy person.  It works!

Ironically, this is something that gets harder the longer I'm in SL.  When I was new, I had a high boredom threshhold.  These days, if I spend an hour in SL without anything happening, I go play something else. 

Creepy nice guys

I was going to call this post "Fleeing in Terror", because that's more or less what I had to do with this guy last night.  I've been trying to figure out what the problem was, and I think I can articulate it now: he was simultaneously creepy and nice.

Simply creepy or nasty guys are easy; I put them down, or leave, or mute them, whatever.  As they're not being nice, there's zero guilt. 

This guy was friendly and polite, but basically came on too strong.  The strikes kept coming:

• Evidently didn't read my profile, which says that being with boys is an an exception.  (If a boy acknowledges this, he's actually well on his way to being one of the exceptions.)
• Didn't fit the sim.  I met him in Hard Alley, and he was dressed (and acted) like a college boy.  Though it's not an RP sim, I like people who treat it as one, and at the least you should fit in with the theme (sleazy urban neighborhood).
• Invited me to his house for sex after very brief and boring RP.  In general if I'm in a sim to play, I want to play there.  And the way to my heart is good RP, or at least good words.
• Met him the next night-- another invitation to go away with him.  Then he asked to be friends.
• Despite three polite brushoffs, he insisted on sending a friend offer.

It's hard to tell someone "Sorry, you didn't make the exceptions list."  But what I really don't like is feeling forced to be so explicit.  There's a reason most people make friend requests after sex. :P 

I guess I feel conflicted because he came off as nice-- I suppose just nerdy and lonely.  But, I'm sorry, he was also being creepy.  A partner needs to offer something-- RP, a good profile, an actual discussion, even a good joke-- besides their own neediness. 

2nd day in 2nd life

Here's the journal entry for my second night in SL.  If the first night was fun, this was an invitation to  addiction.

---

I was traveling through invariably empty dungeons trying out all the animations.  A couple of people showed up in one— one who proceeded to take forever to adjust her appearance, and a woman in green top and blue jeans.  I think I kind of seduced her.  I went around the room (in my  black bikini), keeping near her but out of her way, and tried out the various equipment.  When I was bent over some device, she commented that I looked nicely vulnerable. 

I thanked her, and I think she asked what I was doing.  I said I liked being exposed, and I asked about her.  She said she liked doing the exposing.

We talked some more, and agreed to play together.  She asked me some basic questions— age and location; and whether I’d ever been to a dungeon in real life.  She was about my age, and from Florida.  Her name was Zoe.

Now she got rather serious.  When I agreed to participate, she gave me several animations, all of which made me kneel before her, legs spread, with arms either held out open, or tied behind my back.  She said this indicated respect.  She was very very big on "manners".  She told me her rules: I must address her as Miss or Ma’am— no lower case— and (once we got going) I must only speak when asked a question.  She asked if I was smart and could figure things out.  She said she’d count infractions and punish them.  I gave my stricture against verbal abuse, which was not a problem. 

Now we began in earnest.  She told me to strip, then attach myself to a diagonal cross against one wall.  This is a lovely humiliating view, the whole body exposed, legs parted to show off my pussy. 
Amazingly, the whole scene played out there.  She didn’t rely much on the animations; almost the whole game was mental.  She described how exposed I was.  She asked me if people were watching (two people seemed to be) and if they enjoyed seeing me.  She emphasized that they did, how I should get pleasure from being the object of attention.  She played with trying to get me to slip up.  (I don’t think I messed up on the capitalization, but I spoke out of turn once or twice, and sometimes responded to a question that didn't have a question mark.)

Now she said we were nearly done: just the punishment to go.  I had earned four strokes.  She offered a choice of crop or cane; I chose crop.  She gave me another animation for this.  I was to count and thank her for each stroke.  She approached this punishment with, it seemed, some real glee.  She lovingly described caressing me with the crop, then applied it.  Her descriptions became more intimate; the last one touched my clit (but only verbally [as an emote]).  

That was pretty much it.  She told me to get down, and talked to me some more.  She said I was pretty, and had done well— I needed a little more work on manners.  She warned me that some people could be abusive; one of the signs (according to her) is that they don’t respect their own rules.  You can’t trust the dom(me) if they don’t do what they say.

Finally she gave me a hug.  I asked if I could hug her; she said she wanted and expected it.  She reminded me to get dressed :) and we parted.

What was intense about all this was the atmosphere of control and humiliation (though she was unfailingly courteous).  Playing with the machines alone was a visual thrill, but one good for only a few seconds.  She used just two items (the submissive poses and the cross), and kept it exciting for maybe an hour.  She didn’t use my recently purchased Xcite Clit.

Yancy had emphasized sex and dirty talk, and wanted a good deal of feedback— almost all of it very clichéd.  Very male, I think.  Zee’s talk was spare and rather artistic, and focussed on obedience— I wasn’t even to speak unless asked.  It seemed a very female approach.  I was not actually aroused throughout, but undeniably interested.  I don’t think it was aimed at climaxing, for either of us.

I think her approach cleverly downplays (except in imagination) what 2L can’t provide— touch— in favor of what it can provide very well: interaction and control.  She liked, for instance, to make me wait— one of her lines was "Waiting sucks, doesn’t it". 

I was thinking about this experience all day— really different, really intense, very sexy without, I dunno, the rutting element.

---

I only played a few times with Zoe, but she had a profound influence on me.  She was an incredibly intense person— easier to listen to than to talk to; she talked in short heavy phrases that sounded like poetry.  She talked about topping in a way that made it sound like therapy.

I'm glad I met her so soon and picked up this attitude before being exposed to others.  This is all fantasy, and if it's not a pleasure for both parties there's something wrong.  When I top I try to make it an intense and memorable experience— and when it's over I like to cuddle.  And I never entirely trust someone who's not at least partially a switch.  A domme should know what it's like to do the things she asks; a sub should know how hard it is to create and manage a scene.

That isn't to say Zoe was soft.  The idea of not being able to speak unless asked a question is pretty strict as dommes go, and she made it clear that any disobedience would be punished.... and, as in the above session, she wasn't above trying to trip you up.  A sub ought to be a little nervous at least.  The mark of a really strong person is not abusiveness and aggression; quite the opposite.  A great domme doesn't need to shout.

Ignore the stuff in the entry about male and female dom(me)s— it turned out to be hooey.

What SL needs

I'm amazed that no one's really competed directly with Second Life.  It has so many neat things in it, and it could so be improved.  Here's my wishlist.  (Right this second; I'm sure I'll think of more!)


Can you find the visual glitch in this picture?

One, better avatar control.  You can import animations, and there are some gestures (mini-animations) available, but I want to be able to do things like move my right hand.  And move it in small, natural increments... even touch things.  And I'd like to be able to do it delicately enough that I can actually act with it... i.e., improve RP, do stage business, make sexual encounters more interesting.

I've often felt that a HUD with a bunch of animations could do it. The problem is making the animations... I can script and I'm a whiz with Photoshop, but 3-D animation programs are difficult for me.  (A friend of mine has the opposite problem: she's a guru with Maya but has trouble scripting.)

Two, a combat system.  Since it's not built-in, people have created HUDs and weapons with scripts, in a variety of incompatible systems, and they all suck in one way or another.  Scripts create enormous lag, which in turn makes aiming a crapshoot.  Wall detection is poor.  Since anyone can buy anything, fancy systems allow uneven, unfair gear.  Most good RP sims ban weapons systems, because they're no fun and they create nothing but drama. 

The best solution would be if a simple but effective system was included (optionally) in SL itself, so it'd be fast and universal.  For RP purposes it's more important to be fair than to be elaborate, and it should reward skill, not shopping.  (If there were hooks for a sim owner to tweak the system to tailor it to local RP, so much the better.  E.g. a medieval sim could turn off ray weapons)

Three, update the avatar mesh already.  It hasn't changed in five years, but computers have; SL is starting to look archaic compared to recent games like Fallout 3 or Mass Effect 2.  A finer grid would improve the appearance of clothing in a few problem areas, and greatly improve the appearance of avatars when bending limbs. 

Four, bag the Metaverse metaphor.  SL can't be as fast or responsive as other video games while it insists on doing some stupid things.  One is the overall grid: especially if you're on the mainland, you can see for several sims.  There's a reason video games have convoluted maps where you're usually in a building or a blocked-off street somewhere: it reduces draw times.  What you can't see doesn't have to be rendered.

SL also allows a sim to have a boatload of textures-- theoretically each of 15,000 prims could have six different textures, to say nothing of what avatars are wearing, or other sims you can peek into.  As a result it takes a noticeable time for things to rez, and shopping in-world can be a very frustrating experience.

Again, other games prove that all this isn't necessary.  It'd be far better for performance to have small levels, as small as as single room, where a single designer would have control over all loaded textures.  It'd also be much nicer for most homes and other areas that don't take up a whole sim: almost always your neighbors uglify the environment. 

That last one is such a biggie I don't ever expect SL to fix it... thus my hope that someone will start over and do it right.

First day in SL

I kept a journal for my first few years in SL, and this is the very first entry, complete with totally naïve observations.  The overall description of SL as a big mall is still pretty accurate, though the total population is higher.  The graphics haven't really improved in four years, though the quality of people's texturing has. 

First experiences are important.  Clancy was a perfect first dom, welcoming and fun.

Clancy (later on, after I made my elf skin)

---

Second Life (2L) is pretty cool.  It’s really simple to get into, and the graphics are surprisingly good.  Nowhere near Oblivion, of course, and the renderer is slow (especially on my Mac).  But quite adequate, especially when it comes to bodies.  I’ve found that it’s way better on a PC.

You start out building your character; there are a wide range of basic body types, and you can adjust the body very minutely.  Everything but the avatar name can be easily changed later.  You can get free items, buy them, or make your own; indeed, improving your avatar seems to be the major underpinning of the 2L economy.  

I started out as the "Harajuku female", basically a bratty-looking Tokyo-pop chicklet.  You have to choose a last name from a list of a few dozen; I chose the Chinese-sounding Hian.

Next you get a brief tutorial, which teaches you the basic actions, including flying.  Then you’re off to an info hub, which— like almost all of 2L— is basically a big shopping center.  The thousands of 2L designers and denizens are obviously a product of mall culture. 

There are something like 800,000 people who are active residents— but only 18,000 or so are on-line at a time.  As a result, enormous swatches of territory are completely empty: gorgeously designed environments with no one in them, the loneliness only accentuated by the wind noise provided as a default.  2L seems definitely designed to hang out with people in more than to explore.

Is it full of sex?  You bet.  I tried a couple nude beaches, which were not all that exciting, then a dungeon or two.  One of them had quite a few people, and I was introduced to the concept of pose balls: colored balls which you can ‘sit’ on, which transforms them into animations.  These can be anything from harmless cuddling or lounging to sex, of all flavors.  The dungeons, naturally, contain BDSM animations.

I was watching some people in a dungeon which had (unlike most) people in it, and a guy named  Clancy approached me— naked except for a bondage harness.  He asked if I knew where I was, and what people did there.  We chatted for a short while, and I tried out a machine or two.  He commented that I seemed to like it, and I said I did. 

We ended up doing a scene together.  It started with an explanation of the rules: a safeword ("enough already"), plus I must call him Master (on each line).  I specified no verbal abuse, and he promised there would be none.  I can’t reconstruct all the details now, but it basically quickly involved sex.  He put me on a couple of machines that restrained me and provided animations. 

Afterward we chatted a bit more; he was really very nice, both about my behavior and my participation.  He gave me a hug at the end— a very sweet animation.  He said I should consider being his permanent slave!

On Human (and Elven) Bondage

The best writing on bondage I've read is in Pat Califia's Public Sex, especially the essay "A Secret Side of Lesbian Sexuality".  It's clear and straightforward and, well, rather hot.  Califia is very big on the pleasure of the encounter, its connection to fantasy (but also to sexual dissent), and its incredible intensity:

"A whip is a great way to get a woman to be here now.  She can't look away from it, and she can't think of anything else."

I like one of Califia's comments in another essay: "Vanilla people send flowers, poetry, or candy, or they exchange rings.  An S/M person does all that and may also lick boots, wear a locked collar, or build her loved one a rack in the basement."

For me, submission has its roots in love.  When you're crazy about someone-- or just crazy-hot for them-- there can be a feeling that you'll do anything for them.  For a woman, there's something special about letting someone inside their own body, but men can feel this devotion too... in fact our ideas of romance owe much to the courtly love of the medievals, which eroticized male submission to noble ladies.

B/d takes this beyond the level of feeling; you actually take orders, or lick their feet or their shoes, let them tie you to the bed or to a cross, drink their juices, have your body used as a plaything.  Plus, you know, all this effort is directed at you; you are 100% the focus of someone's attention, and often on display for third parties.  You're the star of a little erotic playlet.

As social animals, we're very focused on power relationships, and B/d plays with power; as Califia says, it offer "the illusion of having no choice".  One sub I had was far more interested in this-- in feelings of lack of control, domination, and humilation-- than in sexual satisfaction. 

Which is a reminder that there are all sorts of ways to do this.  For some people it's all about pain.  Some want 24/7 slave relationships... which are much more practical in SL than in RL.  Some people like to have or belong to a clutch of slaves.  Some like gagging and immobilizign subs to the point that one wonders whether they actually wants a human being or a doll.  Some just love rape fantasies, some like cages, some have very specific fetishes like cloth gags and breath control.  As it happens none of these are my thing, though sometimes it's a great thing to be pushed beyond one's normal boundaries.

The usual joke among tops is that the one in control is the submissive.  It's one of B/d's many paradoxes: all this is entirely consensual, and if the sub doesn't like it they won't do it.  Some subs are so demanding that they'll teleport away if you don't precisely guess the particular things they want done to them.  This is one reason I don't hang out in general bondage areas any more, hooking up with just anyone.  I hang around in RP sims instead, and use the RP (plus checking profiles) to suss out who is compatible.

I'm a switch, meaning I both top and bottom.  (Most often a scene is one or the other, though it can be fun to change halfway through.)  I got into topping more or less as a convenience: there is always an oversupply of subs, and someone has to abuse them.

Topping, for me, is a much more cerebral experience.  I compare it to directing a play... one you're writing as well.  You have to have an idea for a scene (subs all too often leave this entirely to the top, something that can wear you down in a long-term relationship), know your sub, keep them busy and excited.  Occasionally I've gone as far as building a set for a particular scene.

I do have things I like to do to someone; but the great satisfaction for me is to push someone's buttons.  So I really like articulate people who are able to clearly explain what they like (and don't like).  I knew a male sub who loved cages, enforced chastity, cock and ball torture... he was so good at explaining what he liked and why that I could do a good job topping him. 

Another paradox: submissives don't have to act very submissive.  Califia notes this too: a woman who "collapses into passivity" is dull.  (Though I have to note that when I've met people in SL with real-life sub experience, I'm often charmed by their exquisite politeness.  It brings out the Victorian in me.)  It can be a lot of fun to wear down someone's (role-played) resistance or downright rebelliousness.  Though I am no pushover; I can be very severe when needed, and I never make idle threats.

When I'm the sub, I have a tendency to be sweetly obedient.  But I fight this as well; often I play a tough girl who won't be quiet and nice till she's forced to be.  As a top, I can work with either type, but what's most important is responsiveness-- the sub should be emoting her feeling and reactions even if tied up.  (Though again, a good domme tip is to keep 'em busy: ask questions, demand sexual services, give them little tasks to do, try to trip them up and worry about failure.)

Now, how do you do all this in a virtual world where you can't actually flog anyone?  More on this later.

How we have sex

There's a few ways of having sex in SL, while waiting for teledildonics to be invented.  Some people, usually men, like to cycle through poseballs as fast as possible... making a kind of low-quality machinima porn film.  Some people use voice-- I really can't imagine how that works... strategic moaning and grunting?  What I use is words, with some visual aids.

What this means, essentially, is collaboratively writing an erotic short story.  Here's an except from one session:

Kata crouches next to you as you remain bent and takes one of your breasts in her gloved hand, almost directly in your view as your face begins to redden
Kata wraps her gloved fingers around your small breast with a slighty creak of leather, the slightly rough texture reddening the skin quickly as she gives it a little tug, then a twist, trapping your small, dark nipple between her finger and thumb as she does so
Mavia breathes a little more heavily, feeling your gloved fingers on her nipple
Kata : mmm....what a lovely handful...did you have this in mind? breasts i can just...cup...a little...and play with?
Mavia: breasts don't need to be any larger than a hand :)
Kata reaches across to your other breast and tends to it similarly, her face lit with ...glee? at her new-found playthings...
Kata chuckles as she quickly leans forward, opens her mouth, and extends her warm, pink tongue to wrap around your nearest nipple as she pulls that breast to the side, towards her
Mavia gasps as she feels your warm wet tongue on her breast...
Kata quickly sucks your nipple and areola into her mouth, moaning softly as she does so -- mmmmm.....just....about...right...
Kata traps your nipple between the tip of her tongue and her upper lip, rolls it for a moment, then slips her lip forward to drive the little, wet thing onto her upper teeth
Kata leans back just a bit, digging her teeth in and pulling your nipple, breast, and slowly the rest of your upper body to the side
mavia's nipple quickly grows hard as you play with it...
Kata giggles as she tugs at your nipple in this way twice, each time admiring it as it swings back beneath you when she releases it with just the tiniest jiggle
she feels hot and red-faced from holding her head upside down...
Kata : mmm...almost just a mouthful...did we get those boots off yet?
Mavia startles, then awkwardly removes her left boot
Kata rises slowly, slipping her crop under your chest, pressing the shaft against the soft bottoms of both of your breasts
Kata smiles -- best hurry...
and then the right...
Mavia puts the boots aside with rather more attention than she paid her top
Kata taps the shaft of her crop against your chest a couple of times as you complete the task -- very good...now...stand up and lean back for a moment...catch your breath
[Mavia releases her bending pose]
Mavia stands up, and takes several deep breaths, stealing glances at Kata in her catsuit

What you may notice here is that Kata is a goddamn fast typist.  I don't know how she chugs that stuff out so fast.  It's full of constant imaginative visual details and challenges me to keep up, in tempo and care.

Some folks are even more effusive... writing entire paragraphs not just for sex but for standing around talking in a bar.  I find that a little silly... they seem like creative writing assignments gone amok.  I'm all about making things happen in RP, but not about filling space.

Sims, clothing and the removal thereof, poseballs, and toys serve as visual aids... I do respond strongly to visual stimuli, and it helps the imagination to see roughly what's happening.  But all the details and nuances are in the words.  I find a good erotic short story more arousing than porn anyway.

You're not actually touching (and more's the pity), but you are interacting with another human being, working directly and intimately with their kinky little minds.  And being in a virtual world has many advantages: you can fit sexual RP into fantasy or science fiction milieus, you can be a dark elf or a demon fucking people with their tail, you can try things or people you'd never do in real life.  SL is safe; if you don't like a situation you can immediately stop, log off, mute the person, teleport out, whatever, suffering no more than hurt feelings.

As a corollary to all this, the first thing I look for in partners is basic compatibility in desires (usually evident from their profile), but the second is a facility with words.  I like someone who can speak in whole sentences, create verbal images, and is responsive to those around them.

Plus they have to have time on their hands.  Typing takes time; I can rush a session in an hour, but to set up a situation and play it out can easily take two or three times that.

Avatars

In many ways SL is a vision of the future, one of those Iain Banks-like optimal futures where the world is a playground for evolved gods.  One aspect of this is that almost everyone looks like they're 25, which itself is a thrill for those of us who are, well, older than 25. 

A little more strangely, your appearance is almost infinitely malleable.  You can change not only clothes and hair but shape and skin and even sex.  At least when I was new, almost four years ago, avatars started out pasty-looking, like their skin was made of clay, and with the most awful helmet hair.  Here's a rare picture of me from that stage.

You soon, we hope, develop your own style.  I used to be a dark elf... not the D&D kind but the Oblivion kind... a kind of punk Dunmer with blue skin and bright red hair.  Here I am with a dear friend:

I quickly learned that I could make my own skins; the blue skin is mine.  This is a neat ability; besides a whole line of color variants, I made special purpose skins for friends, including a very dark skin (hard to find in the stores then) and a neko skin for one of my subs.  I also made special sweaty and flushed skins for RP purposes.

I mostly gave up on the elf skin though, and used an Asian skin of mine, as in this picture taken by my sweet friend Xev:

There was a glitch and my eyes hadn't loaded, but it makes me look more soulful.

These skins didn't look clayey, but they were definitely a bit cartoony.  About a year ago, though, people started wearing photorealistic skins.  I resisted the trend awhile (though I improved my skin to show the clavicles and eyes better), especially because skins are relatively expensive, much more so than clothes.  But finally I decided I was outclassed, and bought my first skin in years. 

It's not exactly photorealistic  (no pores or freckles), but it's dramatic and I think it's cute.  Of course, I don't have the neat variants any more.

I've often run into someone after a bit and they've changed their shape, their face, their race, occasionally their sex.  I find this disconcerting, so it's been one of my scruples to keep the same shape (with the exception of some minor tweaks to the nose).  All of the pictures above have the same face and shape; the only difference is the skin (and of course clothes and hair).

If I remember right, when I first logged in you could choose your height, and I chose an average height-- about 5' 9".  Most people make themselves much bigger, so within SL I'm usually perceived as short. 

I have a slight, Asian build... which has the advantage that I'm one of the few SL avatars that looks good in a skirt.  Skirts (including dresses) change the avatar, and for some reason the default skirt shape on most people gives an enormous butt, and not a very attractive one.  But they look fine on me:

Well, mostly.  Since this ao dai is slit, you can see how far out it extends in the back.