Consent should matter in SL
Opal Velvet
Edit: to any Linden Lab staff reading this -- this post is a continuation of support ticket #2471863. You can go there to see more information.
I want to start off by saying that I am a very sex and kink positive person both in SL and RL. Sexuality can be explored in many ways and platforms, and I support any safe and healthy ways that adults wish to do so. I am not interested in having these things removed from SL, or in punishing others for seeking them out. My concern here is about consent, so I wanted to make sure to establish that arguing
against
the sexual side of SL, and arguing for
consent are two separate things.I've been in SL a long time, and some time ago, I think before COVID, things like nudity, fetishwear, sexual attachments, sexual animations and sounds, and other sexual or kinky things were usually confined to the appropriate places where everyone was able to consent. In sex-focused locations, kink regions with rules allowing for such things, and so on. These boundaries have since eroded, and for me and many other people I've spoken to, it has made it very difficult to exist in SL unless we completely seclude ourselves to desolate places. In popular shopping events, fantasy sims, performance/music events, art exhibitions, sandboxes, various G-rated sims, and beyond -- there has been an influx of people in various states of undress, with sexual attachments, doing sexual things in public and non-sexual spaces where no one is able to consent. I have been flashed, sexually harassed, had people touch me inappropriately without invitation (spanking, groping, etc.), and even had a friend of a friend a while back attempt to sexually assault me after my friends left the region, because the guy would not hear me saying no to his advances. I report people to region management and to LL when these things happen, but the behaviors do not stop. Sims and parcels rarely have easily visible rules against such behaviors, and even if they do have rules, they are often not enforced. Or if they are enforced at all, it isn't enough. The management struggle to handle the amount of reports coming in about the inappropriate behaviors in their spaces, so they often get frustrated and wind up doing nothing. And so the abuse continues.
Lately I have been looking for G-rated sims as a means to avoid these problems, but that isn't working. When I search for ONLY G-rated sims via the search function in-world, M and A sims also show up in the list, with very few actual G-rated sims visible. When I go to the few G-rated sims listed, there seems to be more nudity and sexual behaviors happening in those places than almost anywhere else. Female avatars with nipples/areola and/or genitalia visible, and/or male avatars with erections, people spanking eachother, dragging kink partners around on leashes in public, having sex, masturbating, saying gross things to me in my DMs, etc. I, many friends, and others I've spoken to are utterly exhausted. We don't know what to do or where to go in order to be social, to share our creations, to interact with other peoples' creations, or even to simply exist without having our consent routinely broken by people who face no consequences for their rapey actions. Things that would land people in prison IRL seem to be perfectly acceptable in SL now.
Being in the BDSM community for well over a decade now has taught me a lot about consent, and when it is or is not being given or respected. This issue in SL has become so pervasive that it has even affected the market for things like clothing. For womenswear, it has become increasingly difficult to find clothes that cover your nipples, genitalia, and butt completely. This massively over-sexualized world and community has become an ouroboros of abuse, lack of boundaries, and consent-breaking behaviors that is constantly reinforcing itself and telling everyone who tries to refuse it that they should just shut up and get over it. I don't want to do that, and I would like to have at least some nice spaces in SL that I and my friends can enjoy without being flashed, harassed, or assaulted.
I'm very much hoping that the folks at LL can help come up with something to deal with this problem that is affecting so many of us. Please help keep us safe from these abusive people who lack boundaries and do not care about consent. Direct them to the places they belong, educate them on consent, and help us find and maintain spaces where these behaviors are not tolerated. We don't want to take away from anyone's fun, we only want our consent to be respected. If we are not opting to seek out nudity and sexual activity, it should not be forced on us everywhere we go.
Thanks for taking the time to read my concern, and please let me know if you have any resources or advice to help me and others like me find places where we can feel safe without having to isolate ourselves.
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Anne Forbes
Consent violations and explicit content in G‑rated regions are absolutely reportable and worth LL’s attention, but broader cultural trends in avatar presentation and fashion aren’t enforceable issues; they’re part of SL’s long-standing mix of communities. It helps to separate the actionable ToS problems from the cultural frustrations so LL can actually address the parts they’re responsible for.
Iskrin Nightfire
Thinking a little more about a workable solution to the 'aesthetic' issue, I wonder whether content creators could be required to give a maturity rating to attachments and clothing. Then in a user's personal settings they could select a safe-mode such that avatars wearing items tagged M or A cause the user wearing them to be automatically de-rendered or rendered as clouds for the user with the safe-mode setting on.
The marketplace already requires maturity ratings on listings, so the framework partially exists. Of course it's sort of shutting the gate after the horse has bolted given the volume of existing unrated content, but it would be an approach to solving the issue of trying to police people's appearance in a way that doesn't limit freedom of expression, and would put a tool in users' hands to experience SL according to their own content preferences without requiring anyone else to change how they present themselves.
Saphire Sweetwater
Iskrin Nightfire The problem I see with this idea is mesh body creators would likely need to mark bodies as Adult, given they display basic nudity/genitalia, which means anybody wearing a popular mesh body would be forced to be derendered/clouded as an unintended side effect. Or people with the adult attachments (such as genitals) that are hidden perhaps via HUD but would still register as being worn by the system.
Iskrin Nightfire
It is really awful that you (and so many users) have experienced harassing messages, unwanted touching, and people who won't take no for an answer. LL should be doing more when we report these things, and I agree the reporting system is broken.
As others have said, we're not completely powerless to protect ourselves, but it's also not right for the system to place the burden primarily on us to use tools with limited efficacy. The whole system could and should be better at protecting us from people mis-using it to harass, even though that could be hard to do without impinging on the freedom of users who are behaving appropriately. It clearly isn't a priority for LL to work on this.
I also agree that sim ratings should be enforced by sim owners, especially since they set the rating themselves. Repeated lack of enforcement should result in losing the G rating. And the search bug should be fixed.
Where I disagree is that you seem to group clear instances of harassment together with people making clothing or behaviour choices you don't like. These are very different things. Seeing something you didn't want to see on screen can be uncomfortable, but it is different from behaviour intended to harass you. How other people present their avatars in a shared space isn't quite the same as having your consent violated, and I think treating it as though it is diminishes the actual harassment and abuse you also cite.
I find your argument strongest when you focus on specific, fixable problems: broken reporting system, unenforced ratings, search bug, lack of consequences for targeted harassment. Those are things LL could act on as the system owner, but they don't seem to want to.
When the framing expands to include all unwanted encounters with sexuality as consent violations, it becomes a much harder ask and risks giving LL an excuse to treat this as an unsolvable cultural problem rather than a set of specific failures they could address.
As an aside, I strongly disagreed with the response from someone playing a child avatar. My reading was that because they choose to play a child, all adults around them should comply with that fantasy and behave as though they
are
a child, rather than a grown adult at a computer. Enforcing that principle would hugely curtail the freedom of other adults in the space in a way that simply doesn't reflect reality.Iskrin Nightfire
Edit to add: Having re-read the child avatar point from Caelan, I want to acknowledge that their actual point was narrower than I (mis)characterised it above. I realise they're saying G-rated sims should be G-rated, which is something I do agree with and I apologise for the aside above. I wanted to add this edit/comment rather than delete the aside to own my mistake.
Zanya Resident
Whenever a new feature is requested, the first thing any dev should consider is, "How can this be used to harass other users?", and the answer here is very simple.
Someone, or a group of someones who decided they didn't like the LGBTQ, BIPOC, or whatever support in your profile, could de-render your clothing, claim you are "nude in a public space" or "nude around underage avatars", and get you banned.
Is that what you want? Because I guarantee you that's what WILL happen.
SL is janky. Always has been. When I joined, every time you logged in you were rolling a set of dice and hoping you weren't the only person who could see your clothes, and mesh hasn't made things much easier and very often I TP into somewhere at least a few seconds before my dress. It happens. If you find a nude body to be shameful and upsetting, the question you should ask yourself is, "Why?", and the second question you should ask yourself is, "Why should I make it everyone-else's problem?"
As an aside, I think what you call "consent" is actually a want to dictate control over other people's behavior and you're disguising it in more agreeable terms. As someone who's also been in the community for a decade-and-a-half, I've seen it before. Very often, in fact, and I think your relationship with BDSM and "consent" is not a healthy one.
Iskrin Nightfire
Zanya Resident Yes! There's an incredible amount of judgement in this thread. Remarkable conflation of actual examples of harassment and abuse that should be properly dealt with, and very personal aesthetic or behavioural disagreements with how some people present or comport themselves in the virtual space... but asking that both be treated as abuse and policed the same.
Iskrin Nightfire
Thinking about it more, your point about enforcement tools being weaponized is really really important. If the system allows users to report others based on how their avatar looks, that system will be used to target people for reasons that have nothing to do with protecting anyone. False abuse reports are already a problem in SL. More tools for policing appearance would make it worse, and the people most likely to be targeted are the ones who already catch the most grief.
This ties into what I think is the core issue with some of the framing in this thread and OP's post and that you rightly point out: "I didn't consent to see your avatar dressed that way" is not a consent issue. Applying the language of consent to that turns a personal preference into a demand that others change how they appear to accommodate you. And when you build enforcement around that kind of demand, as you point out, it won't be applied fairly.
Rinaldo Debevec
Well, at least it's not as bad as it was during the early years of SL. When every moderate region was chock full of nothing but sex clubs, orgy rooms, casinos, blaring billboards advertising sex clubs and casinos. I miss the good old days :)
Wicked Nightfall
Linden Labs doesn't cafe - they care that they are getting paid. They have absolutely ZERO concern about our safety in game or real life. We do not matter to them. Our money matters to them. The abuse department is a joke and non-existent as anyone who has ever been harassed knows well.
Linden Labs will never hold anyone accountable for the rotten things they do as the Lindens are just as rotten.
Lindens need to sell SL to a capable company that cares about safety. Thousands of people have had real life scares due to the lax security on SL
I once owned land on a G rated region and my next door neighbor was a rape sim and abuse did nothing about it even with repeated reports - THEY DO NOT CARE.
Remember this is a company who had to think about securing the safety of children and wasn't immediate and took over 20 years for them to do anything real and it still isn't enough.
Faris Bloodrose
Second Life doesn't need more censorship; the platform is already bleeding users.
What you describe is the SL I have been experiencing since I joined in 2013. SL is inhabited by people from different cultures and backgrounds, so what you find inappropriate may not be for others. Each circle in SL has its own unwritten rules.
The only thing I agree with you on is that people may need to dress appropriately in G sims.
About being spanked and such... if you wear clickies, people will click. That's why those clickies have permissions, so only people you authorize can click, or simply remove them from your attachments when you travel around.
Also, you cannot get sexually assaulted in SL unless you leave your RLV attachments open for everyone, and still... compare pixel bumping with real SA... is quite the thing.
LL, no need to expend resources the platform needs everywhere else, to play as cops and protect your pixels. SL has the tools to prevent stuff. You can block, derender, set stuff to private etc...
Holocluck Henly
Faris Bloodrose SL is big enough that there are places for everyone without non-consensual invasion. And even a porn star wears clothes to visit 7-11 in real life. And by clothes I don't mean a teeny tiny little string slung through their bits with their pubis exposed.
That's NOT the majority and SL is NOT a porn site or Club Hedonism unless some people want their space to be.
Consent is a very real thing. You shouldn't have to have explicit content in your face if that's not why you've come to SL & haven't ventured into safe zones aka General and ground level plainly visible Moderate.
Just because we're over 18 doesn't mean we're here for that, or that all cultures appreciate it. For some it's harassment or brings up trauma. And you know full well many people come to SL for outreach and support, so don't play the alpha & tell them to leave. THAT would be what's chasing people out.
What I'd give to check out a mens shopping event for a tux or sneakers without these grotesque bulges out of Jr High School graffiti on badly proportioned guys that look like they desperately need to see a urologist. I'm sure this is a niche category.
If some people are repressed and feel the need to parade anywhere they please to get a rise at the cost of others, that's nonconsensual. I shouldn't have to be an SL Kid or a Dinkie to indicate I'm not here for that.
And if I choose to visit an adult region or a private moderate region with lax rules I do so consenting that I am aware of this and respect their thresholds.
And btw on Adult Zindra infohubs and Adult SLB exhibits you can promote your adult community for people to experience more, you can display tasteful nudes out of view from the road, and you can put out adult furniture on the condition that anyone using it is clothed and not wearing genitalia. The purpose is to promote where people can visit. Last SLB there was porn imagery in full view and LL turned a blind eye to ARs.
The less this goes on the less SL will be scrutinized as a cesspool by the media more of what it is: a place rich in culture and beauty for everyone to make their dream come true. Our world is in a funny place right now, with intolerance on the rise and even some states in the USA falling backwards with content restrictions. Let's not give them a reason so everyone can enjoy what they each like best about SL.
Faris Bloodrose
Holocluck Henly As I state, I agree we all have to dress properly, covered, and non-suggestive in G-rated areas.
But in the rest of SL areas, from Moderate to Adult, freedom exist, freedom is what makes SL what it is.
And I'm talking this as a person who does not indulge in sexual activities, my avatar looks even prude. But I am no one to police what others wear or not. I find some avatars distasteful and grotesque, but it's their freedom and what makes them happy, so no one needs or should tell them what to wear or not in Moderate or Adult areas.
Second Life is a place for open-minded people. And yes, porn actresses don't go shopping naked in RL, but hey, this is not RL, this is a place where everyone's virtual fantasies can be real. So if someone wants to go shopping with a bulge, well, let them be.
Idk, I've never felt sexually assaulted in my SL life. If someone offered me some activities, I kindly declined and was not a drama. And trust me, I have my traumas... but I am an adult and I deal with my own stuff. If something disgusts me, right click>derrender is a very viable option
Iskrin Nightfire
Holocluck Henly
"grotesque bulges out of Jr High School graffiti on badly proportioned guys that look like they desperately need to see a urologist."
Lots of people make avatar choices that we might disagree with aesthetically. No matter what I think of someone's avatar choices, I never mention them because it is
their
second life and they
get to choose how they look. It's an aspect of the creativity I celebrate in SL."If some people are repressed and feel the need to parade anywhere they please to get a rise at the cost of others"
You are making an enormous and in my view prejudiced assumption about why and how someone might be choosing to express themselves in SL. Many (most?) of the people who appear in ways of which you disapprove are appearing that way for themselves, they are not appearing that way
at
you or others (cf. the person who responded in this thread in support of the premise yet chooses to appear as a large breasted muscle woman with an extra package)."a place rich in culture and beauty for everyone to make their dream come true."
I completely agree with you that this is the foundation and the wonder of second life, but it feels to me like you sort of want to sit in judgement of some people's dreams and expression.
Taima Fang
I agree, Linden Labs does slack on moderation as well as abuse reports. Unless of course you are minding your own business and someone files a false report that you are a hacker then they lock up your account only to charge an arm and a leg to get it back. In essence yes they slack hard on abuse. They don't check the regions that should be PG/Moderate for infractions. There is not a lot we can do in terms of safe guarding ourselves other then using the tools we have been given as well as dressing and removing anything that could become a problem for us if we want to avoid the sexual advances and so fourth. We are the ones that make a choice, we have the power. Can not go anywhere without someone jumping in your IM asking for sex. But being more strict on how PG/Moderate sims are kept is a step in the direction of helping us to maintain our cool and stress free SL. I think Linden Labs needs to see about having those sim owners be a bit more strict as well. Such as booting and banning sexual content including language from certain avatars. I know Big Daddy's Club actually boots people for swearing and being overly sexual in local chat. Bear in mind though no matter where you go people will jump into your IM's, so be ready with that block button Linden Labs gave us for our happiness to be full course in SL
Kestrel Liveoak
I’ve been in Second Life for over 20 years, and what we’re seeing now isn’t new. It’s cyclical.
In the early years, SL felt like the digital wild west. Expression was largely unrestrained, subcultures flourished openly, and many embraced the platform because it allowed forms of identity and exploration that weren’t possible elsewhere. The unspoken assumption often seemed to be that everyone welcomed that level of uninhibited expression.
Then the pendulum swung.
We saw periods of heightened enforcement. Public standards tightened. Region ratings were more actively policed. Landowners added restrictions to avoid reports or shutdowns. Enforcement could feel reactive, inconsistent, even overly strict. We’ve experienced both extremes.
The concurrent user base has also fluctuated. During COVID, logins rose sharply as people sought connection. It’s reasonable to assume growth metrics became a priority. Moderation priorities and growth priorities don’t always align — that tension isn’t unique to SL; it exists across online platforms.
On fashion: I’ve long joked about the “fabric shortage” in SL. That’s not new either. But it’s actually easier now to find well-made, more conservative fashion than it once was. Is it dominant? No. But virtual fashion follows demand. Trends are driven by sales.
As someone who prefers a moderate aesthetic, I layer creatively (BOM’s return helped immensely) and intentionally support designers who create what I want. Markets respond to purchasing behavior.
More importantly, SL already provides tools for personal boundaries:
– Derender avatars you don’t want to see.
– Limit messages to friends only.
– Mute or block individuals.
– Choose which venues to attend.
– Curate your social circle.
Yes, these require action. But they are real, functional options.
Second Life has always been about user agency. You can’t control what others create or display — but you can control your environment, participation, and response.
Cultural change on this platform has historically come through collective behavior, not demands alone. If a venue stays busy, that reflects community choice. If certain aesthetics are rewarded, they become normalized. If alternatives are supported, they grow.
Everyone decides where to spend time and money.
SL gives us the tools to define our boundaries. Using them is often more effective than waiting for someone else to redefine the platform for us.
Iskrin Nightfire
Kestrel Liveoak I love this response - everything I wanted to say and much more eloquent than I would have managed. Thank you.
Iskrin Nightfire
Also, your point about markets responding to collective behaviour is what got me thinking about the content rating idea I posted separately here. If creators had to rate items and users could filter
each other
on those ratings, purchasing patterns would become visible signals in the market, rather than just individual choices.Jonny Minotauris
I have to agree with you, especially about people wearing inappropriate things for G and even M rated sims. More and more i feel the need to speak to people about their clothing choices (or lack there of) when they are in a G or M sim. Just because the sim is rated M does not mean you should walk around sans clothing or with all your bits hanging out. I don't know if this is an education error when people first begin in sl or what. Personally, i always check that my clothing completely covers me and that nothing is switched on when it shouldn't be before i leave my home and go to Any sim, let alone to an G or M sim. Or really, any sim for that matter. One should never assume that just because a sim has a certain rating that it's clothing optional throughout the entire sim. That is just incredibly bad manners.
As far as things like spankers go, why are they touching another avatar to begin with. There is no way to know if a person is wearing one or many other things, with out touching people without their consent. I don't routinely take mine off as i honestly just don't remember, but if someone touches me inappropriately, and they have, i take them off immediately as well as all my other personal bits so i can continue what i'm doing in peace.
They shouldn't be touching other avatars to begin with, but i feel that with many people, especially newer people, they think of this as a computer game. They do not take into account the person behind the avatar. i routinely correct people who say that sl is a game. It might be to them, but to many people it's not, rather it is what it's name is, a second life with all that entails. I'm not certain what the answer is, but i do know that the current behavior is not it.
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