Genitals, guns, and merchandise in Second Life

After a couple previous visits into Second Life, I decided to give it one more try. Several people sent in suggestions for places to visit, and I hit as many as I could stand while accomplishing a few other objectives. This time, it's all about penises, nudity, sex, guns, politics, virtual artistry, and so forth. These are, after all, the specialties of Second Life. Note that both the subject matter and visual material that follow are in no way safe for work. The report and a few choice pics are after the jump, and there's also a full gallery. Consider yourself warned.

For the most part, I quickly abandoned my plan to check out more Second Life incarnations of real entities. They're just too boring for words. As discussed before, no one seems to really go to them except for scheduled events. So I went with the first travel tip I received for reliable crowds — a nude beach.


Much as I enjoyed floating around like a naked beach messiah, the naughty thrill of a nude beach lacks something when you don't have any genitals. In fact, very few people were naked at all, genitals or not. One woman was bound up in a giant blood-red antebellum hoop skirt. When I asked if maybe she was overdressed, she responded, "Do you want me to have you banned?" Sheesh. There were a lot of people at the beach disco, including a gyrating superhero guy who kept shouting "WHOOO WANTS TO HAVE CHILDRENS WITH SUPERMAN". Not I. However, Superman had a point. I couldn't have childrens with anyone until I bought a penis, which I embarrassingly failed to do before. So it's off to the cock shoppe(s).


There are many, many penises to buy in Second Life. (For snapshots of me trying the penises on and activating their various "features," you'll have to see the gallery.) Walking around the usual big empty box-house filled with ad-splattered cubes, my eye was drawn to a solid-gold penis with flames dancing around the head. And only L$150! I had over a thousand Linden-bucks for signing on as a "premiere" subscriber, so this seemed like a good investment. Unfortunately, the gold cock never becomes flaccid, making it problematic for polite society. Plus, the flames weren't all that impressive. It looked more like the penis had a sort of orange miasma emanating from its tip. Not so hot.

I ended up going with the HUD-controlled supercock mentioned previously. It allowed me to "arouse" or "relax" myself on a sliding scale, plus cum or pee on command. This peen even came with three programmed masturbation sequences, including autofellatio. The cum was voluminous, the pee torrential and sickly green. What more could any man desire?


That mission accomplished, I needed to get my mind out of the gutter. SL aficionado Wagner James Au had sent me a best-of list of locations to visit, starting with an elaborate functioning ecosystem. As soon as I teleported in, the first thing I saw was a naked woman standing expectantly at the ready. Not sure if this was part of the ecosystem, I fumbled with my new penis's HUD display, but she turned away in disinterest before I could virtually whip it out. Oh well. The ecosystem island is a verdant, trippy jungle, and no, I did not take the tour. However, I was impressed by the giant blue potbellied wolf avatar that was walking around the island. He had on some awesome pants.

At Au's suggestion I visited several other SL highlight locations. There was the futuristic anime shopping city, the futuristic dystopian shopping city, and the medieval combat shopping city. All sold lots of clothes and furniture. However, while exploring the medieval combat shopping city, I remembered that I wanted to get some kind of gun to go with my new penis. I popped off to various gun stores, only to be amazed at the prices. The cheapest guns cost more than the most spectacular penises. Make of that what you will. Fortunately, I discovered two things. Number one, there are several freebie warehouses that give out crappy free items, including guns. And number two, it turns out I did in fact have a John Edwards presidential campaign t-shirt in my inventory.


Badass as I looked in my Edwards tee, M60 machine gun, tighty whities, and Tevas, the gun was not very satisfying. It made shooting sounds, but I couldn't ever shoot things or people since I wasn't in a violence-permitted area. In fact, the gun would spit out little error-message balloons. Not so intimidating. I stowed the gun, then decided I liked this new look of mine. Time to kick back, chill out, and find some new pals.


One of Wagner James Au's other recommendations was the Block, a city-themed shopping city which is sort of like a Broadway metropolitan set dressed by Urban Outfitters. The social aspect of the place was heavily emphasized though, so in I went. Of course, there was not a soul in sight. I wandered all over town on foot (flight was disabled), seeing no one. Finally I went to the coffeehouse, lounged in a puffy chair, and waited for someone to appear. No one did. And yes, I'm a little ashamed to say that I started playing with my new penis. When you get that bored, you might as well drop all pretense and just head to the sex clubs.


I am not exaggerating when I say that the sex clubs were the most consistently populated areas I visited in Second Life. I raced through about a half-dozen, just to see if any were different. Aside from cosmetic theming, most are not. I ended up stopping at the most pathetic, a barely-constructed box housing various sex beds, racks, chairs, and toys. Casual conversation was discouraged. I asked one male figure, sitting alone and masturbating, if he wanted to talk about what he was doing here. He said he would talk if we fucked, went into an appearance-editing trance, and suddenly became a voluptuous black woman. I retreated, and he/she strapped himself/herself into a rack. As for myself, I couldn't resist trying the "giant vagina," which was something like a big pink kidney bean. You inserted yourself through a fleshy slot and writhed around inside. Brought up all kinds of buried psychology.


To finish up, I figured I owed one last visit to the John Edwards campaign headquarters, as they'd just been mass vandalized (by, among other things a "feces-spewing obscenity"). All the damage had been undone by the time I arrived, but there was actually a small crowd hanging around this time. About half of them were furry griefers who'd set up an adjacent clone of the Edwards campaign HQ dedicated to psychic John Edward. I ran into politico-journalist Aldon Hynes, who was taking a break from blogging the Scooter Libby trial. Unfortunately he was ignoring me as a griefer (I did turn up still in my underwear). I put my clothes back on and sat down in the middle of the group, and just as I started talking to someone who might have been somehow involved with the Edwards campaign, a squirrel woman showed up and shot red balls at my groin. I suspect this was somehow tied to my new penis, or is that vanity? Anyway, Hynes fell into conversation with Squirrel Lady. It turns out that old dog Hynes has lots of friends in the furry world, and he and Squirrely were getting on famously without me.

After this, I just couldn't take it anymore. I will readily admit that there's a great deal of stuff in Second Life that is the obvious product of much care, time, effort, skill, and artistry. But just as much of it — and probably most of it — is tedious, boring, repetitive, tawdry, and vacuously commercial. The economic aspect of Second Life is the hook that gets so many people involved in creating and selling things, but at the same time, it's crassly in your face everywhere. I can sympathize with people who hate it when griefers muck up their work, but often the griefers are more interesting or entertaining than the placid, sterile utopias that fill up Second Life. Though even the griefers are often trying to sell you something.

Anyway, plunge into the full gallery of grossness, if you haven't already.

Contact information for this author is not available.

Republished from http://valleywag.gawker.com