Or are in-game chats and animated sex just harmless experiments?
By Kristin Kalning, Games editor
Sam had met someone, and it was getting serious.
It started out as a friendship, as many relationships do. But gradually Sam’s feelings for Kat, a beautiful, smart and confident woman, had turned romantic.
Hang on — there’s a catch. Sam and Kat met in the virtual world Second Life. And although they shared all kinds of intimacies in Second Life, the real people have never laid eyes on each other.
That didn’t seem to matter to Sam. He fell pretty hard for his avatar sweetie. They bonded intellectually, emotionally, and yes, thanks to Second Life animations, even physically.
Here’s where it gets complicated. Unlike his avatar, which is female, in real life, Sam is a man. A married man. And the person behind the blonde, curvaceous Kat? Married. And, quite possibly, a man, too.
(As you might imagine, some people interviewed for this story did not want to reveal their full names. Some gave us their avatar names, while others went with pseudonyms.)
Sam knew from the outset that he had no intention of ever meeting Kat in real life. So although he acknowledges feeing some guilt, he didn’t see the online affair as being as damaging as a real one.
“With Second Life, there wasn’t the fear of a real-life physical attachment,†he says. “The fear of someone calling me up at home.†(more…)
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