The person you come to SL to meet is yourself

In chatroom, it is an abbreviation: ASL, or "Age/Sex/Location."

That's because in chatroom, the most important thing is zeroing in on who you can have sex tonight with, or at least sex this weeked with with a long drive. Chatroom names carry this in them: "NYCSexyCock79" answers the ASL question, and a bit more, right away.

SL is a lousy place to meet Ms. Sex Tonight, or even Ms. Sex This Weekend. I believe one of the reasons that the boyz are underrepresented in SL, is that they know this, and the ones that want sex tonight are elsewhere, well, getting sex tonight. It is a slightly less lousy place to go after striking out in a chatroom or sex site, or facebook haunt to get some release of tension. Even throwing voice into the mix, it will remain a lousy place to meet Ms. Sex Tonight. The ratio of women here looking for sex tonight is low, and many of the women looking for sex on SL are married. This may not bother you in your location, but trust me, it is not a long term proposition.

Sl is better for making long term relationships however than the chat space, precisely because you are meeting people based on their dreams, desires and hopes. An I swear on a stack of "How to get married" self-help books, that common goals are the most important thing for long term happiness. I hope that is true. I want it to be true.

The person you should be coming to SL to meet, is yourself. Because while SL is only middling at making an introduction to rl communities, it is very good at introducing you to a place where you can be out about whatever it is you think you might want to try out. Witness how there are special groups that are devoted to "rl lesbians only," to weed out "manbians," men playing lesbians on sl, and "slesbians," women who are heterosexual or bi rl and playing lesbians here, they are much, much smaller than the general population of avatars of the same kind.

But SL is a wonderful place to meet yourself. Meet her, or him, or them. Meet them in shape and form, in voice and activity. In her home, at his job, in her favorite haunts, at his favorite dance club, in the throes of orgasm, in the depths of despair. Whatever you want to be, what ever you are, you can be here.

I was told once "you don't know what you think, until you read what you wrote." It is very true. You don't know who you are, until you see what you did.

There are many people who have rls attached to one gender, but pursue the other gender here intentionally. I know people who have one political bent out there, and another here. The number of people who are dominant out there and submissive here, or submissive out there and dominant here, is legion. Pick your favorite line, sl is where you can smuggle yourself across it. Gender, orientation, outlook, vanilla if it is in you, it is in sl.


Many people, myself included, have had revelations here, have grown comfortable with aspects of their sexuality which recurred constantly, and only when confronted with seeing them in action, do they seem part of the whole. Impulses towards the same sex, attachment to particular sex acts. But deeper, identity, that these proclivities, desires, fantasies, are part of who you are. Or not part of who you are. Nothing cures you of a fantasy faster than doing it, and realizing that no matter how much you thought about it before, you don't like the person you are when you are doing it.

I want to be confessional here, but I think London Spengler and Jazon Beck are better at confession than I am. Confession may be the heart of a memoir, but it is also the death of a prostitute.

Instead, let me be real. SL is scattered over the world, over time zones, locations, ages. The clues are eradicated. Yes, by observation you can tell much more about someone than they admit, but less than you think, because any clue can be mimicked, more on this later.

But the one thing that can't be eradicated, the person who cannot hide their real rl, not the fake rl they live in front of other people, is you. Because here, that real rl comes out. Clearly. So many times I've been in a session, and the other person has said "I feel strange, I've never cum this hard before." Or some variation. He knows he knows, because the evidence is spattered over the keyboard in front of him, and in a trailing backwash of orgasm.

You can have sex in a closet, but not a life. Here is where the door to your closet swings open, and a cool breeze of freedom blows in.