Well, I've tried being "actual size" (which is to say, I tried shrinking my avatar to more closely match my First Life height) and I don't really think there's much in it for me. Here are some reasons for that.

First of all, Dale Innis pointed out that even people who have measured themselves may well not know what size they are! joshooahlove kindly sent me a height detector (thank you, Joshooah!), and although it tried very hard, it told me I was a good bit shorter than I thought I was. Here's the picture:


So the chance of other people being properly scaled to my height is not very good at all, even if more people were to become interested in matching their First Life height.

Second, as I shrunk myself down, things started fitting worse. The one hug I tried at that height worked all right, but there have been other animations that shortchange me even at my usual, taller height. When I was small, my jewelry floated above by skin, and my hair began to look like an ill-fitting wig.

And third, there were some excellent points made in comments to my last size post that convinced me that a "normal size" in Second Life is not the same thing as a "normal size" in First Life. It's not much use trying to recreate First Life exactly in Second Life, not only because Second Life isn't capable of it, but also because a lot of other people in Second Life are going out of their way to make it a place that *isn't* like First Life. But then, I probably fall into that camp, what with the wings and all. :)

One thing I really did like about being shorter, though, was that my body felt more real to me, a little less stretched or skinny. For a long time my Second Life self has felt comfortably proportioned, but in the last month or two for some reason I've been feeling too skinny. I don't mean that I've felt like I needed to add pounds to be more realistic, because I'm pretty slim in First Life too...it's just that I felt stretched out. So when I moved my height slider from 40 back up to 57, I also moved the next slider, "body thickness," from 0 up to 10 (after experimenting with 15 and 20, which looked too blocky and heavy to me). The difference seems barely noticeable in these pictures, below, but it feels nicer somehow. :)


OK, who else is experimenting with their body these days? My friend Eveline made a beautiful transformation from a form she'd had for quite some time (that was also quite pretty). Any chance of a guest post, hon?

^^^\ Kate /^^^

Hamlet Au posted today about avatar size, featuring a post from Doreen Garrigus's blog "Original Detail". Here's the thing in a nutshell: avatars in Second Life are naturally a little tall. The default shapes are tall, 50% on the slider is quite tall ... but why (Doreen asks) do people stay that size once they eventually realize how unrealistic it is?

Well, I was a little puzzled about this, since I had measured myself before and *thought* I was about 5'7" in Second Life, about to scale with my First Life self. But just to be sure, I logged in and measured myself. To do this, I took off my shoes (5" heels ought not to count in height measurement!), turned off my animation overrider so I would stand up straight (my grandmother would approve), and created a phantom prim exactly as tall as I was: I stood in the middle of it to be sure I was getting it right. I used Google to convert the meters to feet so that I could understand it, since we Americans aren't too clever with those fancy metric measurements everyone else uses.

Kate's estimate of her height: five foot seven
Actual height according to the stretch-a-prim method: six foot three

Six foot three?? I was an Amazon! I immediately checked my sliders and took my height down from 57 to 47, which I thought would at least get me under six feet. It also made me look a little less skinny, which I approved of (lately I've been looking a little stretched to myself).


But when I measured, I still wasn't under six feet! I tried again, shrinking to 40, which brought me to 5.99 feet as I calculated it. This was strange! 17 points shorter, but only 3 inches lost? Of course, that's not 17 *percent* shorter, since if that were true, setting the slider to 0 would make you disappear. But...am I doing something wrong? Mismeasuring? And for that matter, did sizes change at some point? I'm really sure I was once 5'7"! But then, maybe I increased my height since then when it got too inconvenient.

Because it is inconvenient to be short. Doreen asks why people don't change their height to something more realistic once they find out how tall they are, but this lack of change doesn't surprise me at all. First of all, how often do we measure our height in Second Life? Not very often. But let's say we all suddenly knew our Second Life heights. Would we prefer to have more realistic ones? Well, not necessarily. After all, there's very little payoff, unless it's important to you to be realistic with your avatar (it isn't so much to me - note the wings!).

But let's say that you knew you were weirdly tall and you really did want to be more realistic: then would you shrink? Well, maybe not: after all, your friends are probably all weirdly tall too, and your clothes are designed for weirdly tall people, and animations, and ... well, it just doesn't sound very appealing. Worse yet, your shape changes. You don't just scale down everything: you get shorter without getting proportionately thinner. For me, this was an advantage: I've been wanting to gain a little virtual weight without looking lumpy. For most people, I think it would be very unappealing indeed.

So, are we doomed to a world ruled by giants? For a while, I think we are. What might change that is if at a certain point, we start "importing" structures and things from First Life. If a handy tool were to come into existence to, for instance, take multiple pictures of First Life structures or objects and recreate them in Second Life to scale, then we'd start looking kind of huge in those builds, and if those kinds of imported things became very popular, we'd have very good reason to shrink.

Then again, some people--men especially--might prefer the added "authority" that height gives...and other people might keep their avatars large to stay in proportion to those height afficianados. Maybe we should just allow gigantic avatars so everyone can get it out of their system. What do you say? Greece, according to myth, was once ruled by a race of Titans, but everyone there is pretty much normal-sized now. Couldn't it happen in Second Life, too?

^^^\ Kate /^^^

You may already know that Google is shutting down Lively at the end of the year. Google blogged about it here, and the Associated Press reported it here, and Vint Falken talks about it here.

So, what went wrong? It's very tempting to judge Google from the point of view of a Second Life resident, but of course most people aren't Second Life resis, so I have to ask myself the question "Is it really fair to judge Lively's doom based on my experience of a much richer virtual world?"

Of course it is! At least in my opinionated little reality, anyway. :)

I tried Lively once, and although I managed to make my avatar and get into a room and move around and talk to people, I didn't really find anything there that would make me want to go back again at all (until today, when I decided to take another screen shot). So I'm really not an expert on Lively, but I can at least say what was different. For me, it comes down to having only a little control over how I look and what I can do, and feeling kind of boxed in. Oh, and the rudeness levels seem much higher, maybe because people feel much less invested in and responsible for the world (see picture).


I don't know if that boxed in feeling is because it runs in a window on a Web page or because you can only go to rooms and not wander from place to place or because when I move or look I keep getting intrusive little icons popping up all around me, but Lively felt like a place where I was choosing from menus all the time, instead of a place where I could just *be*.

I don't mean that I think Second Life gives us complete freedom. I still don't manage to have a properly-animated hug most of the time in Second Life, even though I must own half a dozen different objects that offer hugging. I can only control my facial expressions in very simple ways. I can't just move my body in any way I want to: I have to have animations for each motion. But at least it feels like in Second Life I can really draw on an endless array of ways to act and move.

The cartoon bubble chat didn't help, either. I had to choose an avatar that was only a little like how I want to look in virtual worlds, and between my cartoony avatar and my cartoony speech, I felt like, well, a cartoon! (I bet you saw that word coming.) I don't want to feel like a cartoon: I want to feel like a person.


And of course there's the no sex thing, which together with everything else makes Lively feel like a cheap imitation of There.com, which to me feels like a cheap caricature of Second Life (sorry, There.com, but I have to be honest with you). (This seems important to me even though I've been SLibate since a couple of months ago. Even if I'm not doing anything dirty myself, I don't really want to be told I mayn't.)

It seems to me that it all comes down to whether you just want a 3-D environment or a virtual life. Lively never offered a virtual life, and a 3-D environment is only useful if there's something you want to do there that can be done better in 3-D. Conversation with friends in 3-D in Second Life feels different because it feels like part of a life. Conversation in 3-D in Lively, though, doesn't really add much. The experience is much more meaningful with these subtle differences: having an avatar you've chosen and perhaps worked very hard on, the ability to go sailing together or wander around through an interesting sim or retreat to your home...oh, I'm sure that in some ways, Lively could eventually provide more avatar options, more animation options, and so on, but that wouldn't change the fact that they're basically offering only the ability to pretend you're a cartoon sitting in a little box, and who wants to do that?

^^^\ Kate /^^^

It's a good thing for everyone involved that I don't treat my boyfriends and girlfriends the way I treat my wardrobe, because I'm constantly falling in and out of love with outfits. I'm not sure whether this is the universal Way of the Fashionista or my particular thing, though, because for instance I hear a lot of mention of people getting outfits or items and then never really wearing them. That generally doesn't happen to me (maybe because my inventory's pretty well organized, with a separate folder for newer things that I'm looking for an opportunity to wear).

Regardless, it's a funny thing psychologically. Except for the occasional lovely freebie, I'm paying First Life money to get these things. Why should I buy *another* dress when I already have, I don't know, at least 150 other dresses? Is it compulsive, addictive, delusional, maladjusted? Or is there some benefit to it? How much is it like the First Life tendency of people to value new things over older things? (For instance, isn't the New Releases section of a movie store far more fascinating than the rest of the movies they have available? But why should that be? Is it just that we've already cherry-picked the movies that were out and are ready to cherry-pick the new ones? It certainly can't be because they suddenly started making good movies only 6 months ago.)

When we're putting down our hard-earned Lindens for a virtual fashion item, are we getting our money's worth, or just giving in to an unhealthy and worthless urge? When we buy new items, are we buying them because we want them for ourselves, or because we want compliments or comments from other people? Do we feel like the new things we're buying are categorically different from the things we already have, or are we just excited about the variation? Or just enticed by a "good deal"?

All right, too many questions, too few answers. I'll respond for me and hope you'll respond for you.

First of all, I count my fashion purchases as entertainment money. Just as I don't usually come away with anything of lasting value when I plunk money down on a movie ticket or a play or a music performance, I don't really have anything of permanent value when I buy some fashion item, unless it somehow allows me to do something I hadn't done before. There are a couple of cases of this, for instance business suits that I can use to look extra-professional in Second Life, which comes in handy sometimes, or a wetsuit so that my surfing will feel more like First Life surfing. Usually, though, the only advantage in buying a new fashion item is that I'm excited to see how it looks when I wear it, to share it with friends, and to add to the visual interest out there in Second Life when I go out.


When things work out, I can feel the new items paying off as soon as I wear them. I experience a little burst of happiness at seeing how the item looks rezzed in-world on me, at seeing how it makes me look different, and especially at feeling some kind of *attitude* that comes with wearing it. Combining aesthetics with attitude is, for me, the real payoff of Second Life fashion. I want to wear things that people enjoy seeing because they're designed with artistry and made with a fine eye for detail, and things that say something about my mood or state of mind when I walk into a room. Usually what I'm wearing is some kind of invitation, or uninvitation, for what I'm looking for or not looking for from people I meet. If I'm wearing something risque, I generally am feeling hungry for a little flirting and attention. If I'm wearing something relaxed and comfortable, then I probably want conversation and cameraderie. If I'm wearing something striking and formal, I probably want to have an exciting and dramatic time somewhere. Even my jewelry does this: my dangly hematite earrings, for instance, mean something different to me than my large silver hoops.


I frankly don't know how much of this gets communicated to other people and how much is going on only in my mind! But I *do* know that I feel happy and satisfied and *at home* when I pull just the right thing out of my inventory and coordinate it properly. When I've found the right things from my wardrobe to wear for a particular moment, then at least to me my outside matches my inside, and I feel like I'm communicating wordlessly with people around me.

I guess one limitation is that it's broadcast communication and not person-to-person. For instance, I might be wearing an outfit that says "Wrestle me to the floor and kiss me, now!" but that definitely doesn't mean I want just *anyone* to do that. Although there are days when I would like everyone I meet to *try*. ;)

I'm kind of surprised, when I think about it, that we don't comment on what there is to see of moods in one another's day-to-day choices of avatars and clothing and accessories. We could be saying things like "so, are you *having* a skin-tight black leather day, or are you *looking to have* a skin-tight black leather day?" or "That's a new shade of hair for you. Is something different in your life?" or "Do the spikes on your wrist cuffs mean 'stay away' or 'come here, I want to hurt you'?"


You know, I think I might start trying to pay attention to things like that. Certainly not everyone communicates through their avatar - some people, I suppose, are mainly looking to reflect their First Life self as closely as possible, or to shock and amuse, or to look like the vision they equate with sexiness regardless of the situation. I suspect others are just cycling through a set of looks that they like for their avatar and aren't interested in coming up with a bunch of subtle variations that they have to change into when their mood changes. But some of us are speaking through our choices, everything from the most permanent things, like the shapes of our noses, to whether or not there's lace at the top of our stockings, hidden out of sight under our skirts. (Though for most Second Life men, I would assume that last thing would be a 'no' most of the time.)

Maybe if I listen a little harder, I'll be able to make out the words in conversations I hadn't even known were going on.

^^^\ Kate /^^^

Faerie Hax commented on my post yesterday about the purpose of being in Second Life, "I feel that this thin/curvy discussion is based on the underlying assumption that 'my first life must reflect my second life'. I don't want it to."

I think in my rambling about all the sides of the issue, I probably failed to get across what seems to me the most important thing (I'm much more of a discusser than a slam-the-point-homer, which can be a distraction sometimes): anyone who tells you that your Second Life should be this or that, apart from matters of basic human decency, should be cheerfully disregarded. Avatars don't have to be realistic. They don't have to be idealized. They don't have to be your same gender, or experimental, or creative, or under seven feet tall. They don't have to be wingless...because honestly, why would anyone want to be wingless? I still don't get that. ;) But they don't have to be winged, either.

Different people are in Second Life for different reasons, and if anyone says you're doing it wrong, they're missing the important point that they may not even know what you're trying to do. Maybe you're just not doing it the right way for them.

Ignore them all. If you're respecting yourself and the people (or creatures) around you, you're doing it right.

^^^\ Kate /^^^

PS - That beautiful picture was stolen from Faerie's blog posts about faerie fashion. :)

There's been a wonderful conversation flowering on the ol' blogosphere about the form of your avatar. Back in mid-July, I posted this about how common it was to be very skinny in Second Life and wondering if full-figured avatars might be something we could strive to have more of. Later I followed up with this post about Rosie Barthelmess, who's a beautiful example of such an avatar.










A couple of weeks later, and as far as I know unconnected to my posts, Iris Ophelia put up this great primer on how to be beautifully full-figured in Second Life.
















My lovely friend Kedawen Darrow took this to heart and expanded her own shape rather gorgeously, documenting it on her new blog.

New World Notes subsequently covered that (that Hamlet's always keeping his eyes open for pretty girls).

My other lovely friend Sophrosyne Stenvaag found all this a little concerning, and pointed out the virtues of using an avatar as an ideal self...










... which Hamlet Au also discussed on New World Notes, pointing out that you can use your First Life shape in your visions of idealization as well.

Phew, that was quite a ride! Still with me?









A hidden root of this discussion is the question of what an avatar is for in the first place. We need a placeholder for ourselves in the virtual world, but what ought that placeholder to be? Should it be the expression of our deepest selves? Or of the selves we want to be? Or of our daily mood? Should it be a faithful copy of our First Life self? Maybe an avatar is a mask, something we devise because we want people to treat us a certain way. Or maybe it should be as beautiful as possible. Or maybe it should be whatever's the most fun. Or maybe all this focus on what an avatar looks like is ridiculous and we should be paying attention to what we *do* with our Second Lives instead of how we look?

Well, if you've read much of my blog or met me in Second Life (or in First Life, in which case you had just better keep your secret knowledge to yourself, pal!), you may have noticed that I'm kind of an advocate of everythingness. The more the merrier, there's more than one way to skin a cat (ew), it takes all kinds to make a world, you take the high road and I'll take the low road...and here I'll just keep being me and say that there must be dozens of things we can use our avatars for: to be part of a group, to be beautiful, to express ourselves, to make wishes, to learn, to stay out of the way while we focus on more important things, to remake ourselves, to remind us, to create desire, to create art...


Which only means that I don't think getting curvy is anything to worry about for someone who doesn't want that, and I definitely don't think anyone ought to feel obligated to create an avatar that resembles their First Life self if they don't want to, and that art and beauty and self-expression and understanding are all wonderful things. I'm all for a world full of child avatars of adults and beauty queens and dashing fox-men and tinies and faerie and mermaids and people who look real and everyone else who's out there being something that it makes them happy or wise or smart or fulfilled to be.

Let me back up now, a moment, to Soph's discussion. Soph, who's a leading and well-spoken proponent of the position that Second Lives can be totally separate from First Lives. In her post about realistic avatar shapes, she poses the question: why come to Second Life? Her answer is "To create things, to do things, that can't be done better elsewhere."

I certainly agree that Second Life is a great place to do things that can't be done, or can't be done as well, in First Life. But that's not *all* it's for. After all, I can go out to clubs in First Life, and dance there, and meet people, and have conversations. I can go clothes shopping in First Life. I can even build things in First Life. And in some ways, I can do those things better in First Life than in Second Life.

But Second Life has its own set of advantages, so that the same activity has different advantages in different lives. For instance, in Second Life I can build large things - buildings, for instance - quickly, but in First Life if I were to build a house, it would be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars and would keep the rain off. Dancing is more fun in First Life, but it's much easier to have a conversation while doing it in Second Life.

So...only do things in Second Life that you can do better there? No, I don't think so! That's one good approach to Second Life, but it's not the only good one!

Some of this gets to the uncomfortable question of whether a person uses Second Life to get away from First Life or to complement it. Soph says "Look at you, there in your atomic world. No, I mean it. Stop and look ... Is that your ideal? Is that the best you can do?" (See: she's a great blogger, even when I disagree with her!)

As for me, my answer is...um, yes. No matter how beautiful the views are in Second Life, there are more gorgeous ones in First Life, and I can go out and touch them if I want. I have wonderful family and friends, I'm happy with how I look and with my health, my work is satisfying even if it's dull sometimes, my house is relaxing and a happy place to be...my First Life isn't perfect, but it's pretty wonderful, and yes, it's the best I can do. Chances are your First Life has some wonderful parts to it too, even if there are rough parts. First Life is the main show. Second Life can have real friendships, emotions, successes and joys, but it can't offer real sustenance, a real place to stay, a real embrace, or a real plate of waffles with real (or fake) maple syrup. Really!

Now, it's my theory that people come to Second Life to meet needs in our lives, but we go visit friends or take hikes in the woods for the same reasons. Second Life isn't a do-over for First Life. It's just another place to grow and be.

I'm more enthusiastic about Mygdala March's point of view in this whole great whopping discussion, which is that Second Life is not supposed to be a precise imitation of First Life. She mentions several things that I find (frankly) a little creepy in Second Life: deserted stations and pregnancies. And I find them creepy just because of what she's saying, that they're imitations of First Life things that are kind of false in Second Life. The reason a cash register or information desk is neat is that there's a person at it. The reason pregnancy is beautiful is that there's a new life coming out of it. If they're just images of those things without the humanity behind them... *shiver*.





Well, that's enough from me on the subject. I'm curious to see where the conversation goes next!

^^^\ Kate /^^^

PS - OK, who else thinks it's Kit Meredith's turn to post on this subject now?

PPS - You may wonder how I can possibly keep up with all these posts. I answer you with an evil laugh and say: this! (Shh, it's not officially open yet.)

My friend Kit wrote about a video by machinima artist Robbie Dingo the other day, and her writing got me thinking about what our physical bodies are and what they mean to us. Here's Robbie's piece: it's called "Mask."



I really liked this, as I like all of Robbie's work that I've seen. He brings so much humanity to this sometimes too-technical world we live in. This one I particularly liked, though, because it made me think of the relationship of Second Life identities to First Life identities, of how First Life identities are like Second Life identities.

We all know the differences: we have less control over how we look in First Life, but the experience of actually being our First Life selves has a lot more for the senses than our virtual selves get to have. In First Life we have necessities, while in Second Life we have desires, and so on.

But there's a surprising similarity between our First Life and Second Life selves: neither of those bodies is our *self* in the complete meaning of the world. Have you ever lost a lot of weight, or gained a lot of weight, or grown a lot taller, or shaved all your hair off, or gone from gawky to graceful in one school year, or anything like that? Your outer self changes, sometimes slowly, sometimes quickly, and often really profoundly. We think of our First Life selves as being just one outer identity, but really if we compare ourselves as children to ourselves as adults to ourselves as elders, if we compare the days when we look our worst to the days when we are most powerfully attractive, we start seeing a kind of fluidity to our physical selves. And that's not to mention people who go through sort of optional transformations: sex changes, plastic surgery, becoming a bodybuilder, losing a lot of weight ... young/old, pretty/ugly, strong/weak, all of these things change. And of course our sense of ourselves and our personalities change as our body changes, but it doesn't necessarily change in the same ways our bodies are changing! Old people can feel young, people can become sexier even while their bodies might be becoming less sexy, a disabled person can become more powerful, or a person who's growing taller might become more meek or invisible.

But even though our bodies aren't in charge of who we are inside, they affect our personalities. And our avatars do the same thing, though maybe not as powerfully: what we choose to look like in our Second Lives changes who we are inside, through how we see ourselves, how other people see us and treat us, through our expectations, and through the ways we might act differently to fit our bodies.

So here's the crazy thing: in the same way that our avatars are fluid and more an expression of ourselves than the whole of ourselves, our First Life bodies also change and are also an expression of ourselves, but not the whole of us. I don't mean some kind of distinction between body and soul: I mean that who you are is not dependent on what you look and feel like on the outside. People see you as being a certain person, but in a way they're only seeing one of your masks, not a mask you use to hide yourself necessarily, but a costume your essential and true self wears to come out of the world of spirit and thought and be visible to all the world.

^^^\ Kate /^^^

Coming soon, if I get my act together: a conversation with Sophrosyne Stenvaag about the new positive future sim, Extropia...a review of Serafina Pinion's unique wing designs...and a follow-up on the first sex survey.

Last night at the Diversionarium we had a ball at Building Games and Fascinating Costumes night, where we played Mystery Build (mostly), a scripted game where one person builds and everyone else tries to guess the word or phrase being built, and where most everyone showed up in some of their most fascinating costumes and avatars.



Our guests included our friend and fellow Div host Kedawen Darrow, dressed in an icy avatar; me and Eris, dressed as an airmaid (you know, like a mermaid, but living in the clouds instead of the sea) and a harlequin; Seven Shikami and Jen Shikami (I haven't yet had a chance to blog properly about their wings, available at Seven's Selections, but oh, my, are they worth talking about!); Grizzy Griswold of Grizzy's Cafe; Meissa Thorne; DrFran Babcock, whom I was delighted to be able to socialize a bit with (although we hit her with Avisleuth, which is much harder if you don't already know the people you're playing with a bit!), Turbo Racecourse, and a friendly woman who went by the name of Blood and whose full name I didn't think to write down.

Enough with the talk: here are some more pictures. :)





Oh, by the way: we're moving! London Spengler and Natsumi Yue have built a beautiful area called Pandoria with beaches, poseballs, a classically-themed nude skybox, and other attractions, and they've invited us to join them there, so we'll be transferring the Div over starting tonight and should be up and running at our new home within a few days. I'll post the SLURL here soon! Immense thanks to London and Nat for the tremendous support they're offering the Div, and here's to seeing even more people of a fascinating kind there.









^^^\ Kate /^^^

Sunday night from 7:00 to 9:00 SL time I'll be hosting a double event at the Diversionarium: building games (specifically Mystery Build, in which builders compete against the clock to get one of the rest of the players to guess a word or phrase by building it, much like Primtionary) and fascinating costumes. Come on down to build, to guess, to talk, to play the other Div games, or to show off your most fascinating outfit, costume, or avatar. If you have a bunch of them, just change during the night: private changing rooms are provided.

IM me if you have any questions! No reservations needed. :) As always, the Div offers unique social and creative games in a non-commercial environment.

As far as I can tell, most Residents in Second Life choose to have physically spectacular avatars. Sometimes this means being a vampire or a furry or a gremlin or something...but most of us seem to settle for a Plain Old Human (well, sometimes a POH with wings) who is Plain Old Physically Attractive.

Honey, you call that an inventory?

Of course, opinions on what's attractive vary from person to person, so there's the whole question of whether a person's idea of what makes his or her avatar look sexy is actually working, and how well, and on whom-but for the moment let's settle for the idea of making your avatar attractive by your own measure.

Wanting to be sexy seems perfectly sensible to me. If we're in a world where we can be and do anything, wouldn't we want to be hotter than anyone we knew in high school? From what I've seen, most human beings would rather be sexually attractive than not even when they're not trying to attract anyone. I think this is built in: your carefully devised Life Plan may say "stand pat", but your genes will say "Attract a healthy mate! Now!"

I keep saying attractive or sexy when I want to say beautiful, but really, people are much more often trying to be sexy than beautiful. More of us want to look desirable than want to look aesthetically pleasing. Fortunately there's some beauty in Second Life avatars, too, and of course that's often mixed together with the sexiness, but I'll put it out there: is there anything you would want to do to make your avatar not necessarily more attractive, but more beautiful? (You could make an argument that’s what my wings are for, but they're more for metaphor than aesthetics. I like being a flying girl more than I like being a winged creature, although I'm happy to be both.)

So all this is natural and predictable, but at the same time it's a little embarrassing. Second Life is one of the few situations I can think of where there's a derogatory word for just being attractive: Barbie. There's kind of an implication in using that word that there's something wrong with being attractive. Some ideas: maybe it's self-indulgent, or it denies the sometimes less obvious beauty of our Real Life selves, or it strikes some people as deceitful. Maybe it focuses all the attention on the externals, the surface things, the distracting coating of prettiness that hides the deep and important things in the world. Maybe it takes a perfectly good Virtual World and makes it difficult for anyone to just enjoy it without getting aroused. Maybe it masks individuality or encourages the idea that there's a single standard of beauty. Maybe it creates unrealistic expectations of Real Life lovers.

For my money, there's a little truth in most of those concerns, but only a little. If Second Life were capable of making really, really realistic-looking avatars, like it probably will be in five or ten years, instead of avatars that are halfway between a well-drawn cartoon and a magazine photo, then maybe it would be worth getting into avatars that were less physically attractive for some people-but even then I'm not really sure non-Barbie avatars would be that common. It's probably an indication that our culture isn't as healthy as it should be that so many of us-whether we're very attractive in Real Life or not-don't want to be unattractive as we relate to people. Or maybe it's part of that built-in thing, just natural for a human being to always want to look good for everyone, no matter what. Either way, it's a little sad for us. A person can still be beautiful and not be generally considered sexually attractive. And beauty is a little more of a public gift than sexual attractiveness, kind of like the difference between a gorgeous spring day and a really exciting dance club. The gorgeous spring day is just making your life a little more enjoyable no matter what you're; the dance club is trying to make you come in and dance, and is distracting and useless if you're not going to be dancing that night.

Um, no comment on there being winged Barbies

My friend Andr3 (I pronounce that "Andrie," but she doesn't know that, and there is no official pronunciation) is both sexy and beautiful. She has a long-limbed grace that seems to have come not just from a desire to be desirable, but a desire to create something visually stunning in the world. I know a lot more of you out there are doing this, but I've only just realized the distinction, so bear with me. :)

I know a few people who have purposely adopted more realistic avatars, avoiding sexual attractiveness. I'm sure this is easier for people who aren't interested in Second Life sex, but even in that case it must be hard. In a world full of women with perfect breasts, who wants to be the ugly duckling, and is it worth the trouble? But it must yield some interesting insights, and I think a couple of those have been posted in the Second Life LiveJournal community at http://community.livejournal.com/second_lifers

And a lot more people have adopted avatars that are somewhat realistic but also potentially a bit gorgeous. This is my attempted approach: I don't want the perfect supermodel face or breasts that draw the eyes of any unwary pedestrian, but I also built myself in a very particular way, with certain proportions and attempts at grace that make me happy. I don't get a lot of "hey baby, great tits!" (which is a mercy) but I do get to appreciate the benefits of looking like I have designed myself to look, expressing what is desirable and beautiful in my mind. I get what I want out of being (to some people) beautiful: kind words, attention, pleasure in being me, pleasure in seeing someone else enjoy how I look...and the ability to wear horizontal stripes without looking like a hippo.

I think I can usually make a case that I'm not a Barbie, but if sometimes that label sticks, well, Barbie needs love too, and if it makes Ken happy-at least the versions of Ken that aren't flamboyantly gay-then so much the better.

^^^\Kate/^^^