Presence

Last night Trecek Gynold presented himself as a potential client, he without IM tp'ed me to a free sex area and said "Let's Fuck!" I told him my rate, he tried to dicker with me, but eventually pretended to go along. I tp'ed him to one of my skyboxes, and told him that he would pay first. He said he wasn't going to pay: "Fuck First! Pay Later." I told him that the rule for everything on SL was that you paid first: cocks, clothes or girls. He told me the rules had been changed and that we were going to fuck now. I banned him immediately .

The next thing into my IM box was "mother fucker!"

And that is how Trecek Gynold ended up in my ban list. In a couple of days, you'll be able to google him and get this story. This sort of thing happens almost every day to a working girl. Almost. Every. Day. It's again part of my on going question as to why a society that nominally talks about equality has created a virtual world which is predicated on sexual harrassment, degradation of women and prostitution.

I tell this story because it is at the spine of my life on Second Life, and that spine is in one word: Presence. I search for things which create a powerful presence in my mind and body. In return I want to deliver a powerful presence to others. People have asked me about my enthusiasm for the new Eden club. It is in a simple word: presence. My taste in clothes and hair? Again, presence. My photography is world's better than what is passing for fashion photgraphy in SL, which is often glorified snapshots on a neutral background, because I take the time to create presence.

That's what Trecek wanted, to force his presence into another mind, and rape her. The mind rapist is a common species on SL, the person who tries to trick, cajole or hack the system to rup a hole in another person. Trecek found out that the positions had been reversed: he had wanted a situation where he fucked me for half an hour and then said "ha ha, that was free!" He knows, as everyone does, that there is no law enforcement on sl for contracts, and that a person who has not charged, will never get paid. He found instead that he had agreed to something that put him in my power, and that he, not I, was in the submissive position.

And he flailed at that presence that forced itself through the screen.

That is what SL virtual sex is about, presence. That there is someone on the other side, responding and doing, and reacting. That there are real feelings in play. Lives hang in the balance; marriages are made and unmade by what happens on sl. Presence is positive and negative. It is what made the flame wars on the old internet, that lust to inflict presence. Since we are visual, audible and cinematic here, one does not need flames to show presence.

Presence is a word that was existentialist, but it is also occult. A presence that is beyond the body, a spirit, is what haunts or inhabits a place. The overwhelming presence of nature is what makes a place one of the houses of the holy. The warm rising draft of air off of the heated, sexualized body, is the breath of this divine wind. That when I dream of myself now, it is often my sl, and not rl, face I see.

What we need to do on SL is realize that it is getting close to time to crash and restart the world, with a default of higher quality. For every Eden, there are dozens of clutter realms, filled with endlessly rotating "for sale!" signs, and low quality builds. For every well put together avatar, there are many playdos. For SL to be workable to the ordinary person "wanna fuck!?" cannot any longer be an acceptable opening line to a woman, escort or not. Early adopters seeking a new land will find this the price we pay, but regular people will not. There is no reason that a more present world cannot be built. Except one, that is the number of people who have speculated on charging for entrance to a more present world, and who will not want it built for free. Soon, very soon, Linden Labs will realize that their first creation is not going to be accceptable.

What would I do? I would guess that they would start a second second life. One that charges some flat rate to participate at all; no more free accounts, though a person paying could create alts at some fairly low rate, and the basic is no longer ugly playdo, but higher quality. Skins would be upped to 1024x1024 as would other textures. On the best monitor I get access to, which doesn't belong to me, but is not particularly out of reach for home users, I can see the problems with the 512x512 textures easily. Alright, I am a visual person in a visual field, but count me as the audophile demand for better iTunes equivalent (I just got the update from 7.2 to be able to buy and play DRM free double bit rate files from the iTunes store, so that is why I think of it) what I want now, more people will want soon.

That's my belief as to where virtual reality will be within one year. It can't be made to work in the current grid, because millions of real dollars are locked up. The eye sore clutter is something that people are intent on selling. The Lindens think that islands are the way to capitalize on that: have two Second Life grids, the free eyesore trailer trash strip city kitschorama SL, and the upscale. They can't cohabitate though.

Why is that? Because of people like me. You see the people with the one linden woodies and green carpeted "Sex by hieronymous bosch" orgy rooms want me too. They want me badly enough to lie and steal to rape me, because that is what Trecek Gynold wanted to do. They want it badly enough to grief people who have better. They want it badly enough to do anything but pay outside world money, because they have a relatively fixed amount of that, where as they have lots of time in world. I had this explained to me by someone who knows economics. My eyes glazed over, sorry, but there is a simple explanation.

That's my belief, that in a year, someone will offer a more present, higher default virtual world. One with say, road strips between parcels, higher default textures, better default avatars, and ways of actually preventing "wanna fuck!?" from showing up in your IM box.

Presence.