By Helen A.S. Popkin

A civil lawsuit alleging stolen software that allows Second Life citizens to have more realistic sex begs the question … just who exactly are all these people having sex via their online avatars?

No, really! Do you know? Is it you? Is it your best friend from junior high? That lady one cubicle over? Is it your 38-year-old son who somehow missed a turn in high school and is now still a virgin living in your converted basement? As a celibate single avatar and Internet enthusiast, I really want to know.

Frankly, most of the minutiae surrounding Second Life sex maker Kevin Alderman’s lawsuit against the mystery avatar “Volkov Catteneo” who copied and sells his creation is kind of dull. It’s your basic copyright infringement case. Where Internet property is concerned, we’ll be having that slap fight for years. And it’s not nearly as interesting as talking about sex. (more. . .)

Over the past day, the issue of simulated and actual child pornography in virtual worlds — particularly Second Life — has attracted the attention of mainstream international press outlets including the BBC, the CBC, and Australia’s The Age. Linden Lab says it is fully cooperating with German authorities.

The reports all stem from a German television news story that ran on a show called Report Mainz. The report itself (in German) is available as a RealPlayer video here. [Note: Particularly explicit portions of the video are “blurred,” but it is NSFW, and some readers may find portions disturbing.] There is a transcript of the report, also in German, here (Google translation here). The story largely focuses on depictions of apparent in-world sexual contact between adult avatars and avatars with child-like appearances, but also claims that photographs of real-life child sexual abuse have been made available in Second Life. (more . . .)

[via Regina Lynn]

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…)