Child Avatars and the CDS

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Han Held
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Child Avatars and the CDS

Post by Han Held »

Recently a fair amount of dust has been kicked up in Opensim about child avatars, and they're being used as "wedge issue" and as a hand-wave (to distract from copybot gangs). While this is a settled question here in SL I think that it would be good to write up a formal statement that would serve two purposes;

1)Specifically allow playing child avatars in the CDS (as I do)
2)Set out guidelines for expected behavoir for those who choose to pilot them.

This thread is not intended to debate the merits of playing them -they are specifically allowed by Linden Lab and therefore are a valid form of expression; as long as they follow the TOS. Rather it is intended to decide what issues need to be addressed in these guidelines.

I don't believe that we can or should be in the business of policing people's avatars choice. I know that I, myself, have a very, very low threshold for being told which gender or age or species I can choose from and which I can't.

But there are legal and ethical questions and I think we should have some sort of guidelines in place.

I have given this some thought, but I'm aware that I am missing some points.

This is what I have so far;

CDS Child Avatar Behavioral Guide

First and foremost, it must be understood that the CDS is not a roleplay estate. While citizens may be involved in roleplay outside of the CDS, and may roleplay on their properties the CDS proper has no obligation at all to fit into any roleplay.

By choosing to pilot a "child avatar" (ie to portray a person under 18), one accepts a higher level of responsibility for one's appearance and behavior than so-called standard avatars. This is due to the many legal and ethical problems posed by the misuse of Child Avatars; specifically for sexual purposes.

This document does not concern itself with behaviors which occur outside of the properties owned or managed by the CDS. It does apply to public and private spaces inside of the CDS, however.

APPEARANCE:

1)There is no reason for child avatar to be naked around another person, and apart from changing no reason for a child to be naked period. Additionally, in many jurisdictions of the world child nudity -even fictional, can result in real-world jail times. Given the global nature of the CDS, this is an unacceptable risk to put other citizens through.

2)Kids should not wear inappropriately sexualized clothing. BDSM gear or clothing which reveals "the bathing suit area" is forbidden. This will be at the EM's discretion. If an EM asks you to change, change -whether you agree or not.

3)There is no reason for kids to have genitals such as add-on breasts or penises.

BEHAVIOR

1)Sexual activities are expressly forbidden -with no exceptions at all. This includes simulations of oral, anal, vaginal or masturbatory sex.
2)Romantic flirting/overtures between child and adult avatars is prohibited. Even with joking, discretion should be exercised.
3)There is nothing wrong with acting out same-age relationships (first crushes, that sort of thing); but they should be platonic and must be no more risque than one would see on Dobie Gillis or Saved by the Bell. Again, the CDS is not a roleplaying region.

This document should be taken as a guide, and not as settled law.
Settled law says that the secondlife Terms Of Service must be followed at all times, and the LL TOS is very clear on sexual activity involving minors.

While all players in SL bear responsibility for their words and actions, it is incumbent on those of us who portray kids to separate ourselves from those who do so to portray illegal or abusive actions ...and we do that with our dress and with our behaviors.

Links to the Linden Lab child avatar wiki pages;
http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Linden_ ... ng_ageplay
http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Child_Avatar
http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Child_A ... ld_Avatars

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Re: Child Avatars and the CDS

Post by Shep »

Ok at the risk of being judgemental I have to say that child avatars make me uncomfortable ... I think it's because I don't know how they expect to be treated ... a few I've seen around talk in a baby way in local and for me that is role play ... I don't have problems with any other available life forms on SL lol ... so I guess it's my problem ... I just don't understand why .. and if it was RL I would steer well clear of socialising with minors ...

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Re: Child Avatars and the CDS

Post by Laura Azalee »

I agree with you Shep - I find them either annoying (when they behave like brats) or ridiculous (baby talk and the like) or, more often, both. In a word, I can't stand them. That doesn't mean I don't treat them politely if they address me politely - but I generally just avoid them.
Some more thoughts - CDS is not a RP region OK, but some people ONLY RP all the time in SL. There is a nice horse that sometimes passes across my place and says hello - not just a horse avatar, but she talks and behaves like a horse - I play along!
There was a "nun" in our abbey yesterday -I strongly doubt she was a "real" nun!
As for children behaviour - I guess it can be more of a problem in Opensim where basically there are no rules or very few - but in SL, it's all in the TOS. No nudity and no sex play? CDS is not A rated so this applies to everybody, not just children avatars.
I don't really see the need of setting down guidelines that go beyond the TOS.
A more serious problem are REAL children pretending to be adults in SL - we get quite a few at the Firestorm Gateway - and the procedure there is to get them state their real life age in writing , take a snapshot and report them to LL so that their account can be deleted.

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Re: Child Avatars and the CDS

Post by Sudane Erato »

Wow... this is a real dilemma. I emotionally feel just like Shep and Laura, and, due to issues such as they raise, in New England estate child avies are banned... we have had huge problems with them in the past.

But, one of my fellow honorees at the "Celebrating SL Women 2018" event a few weeks back that Brooke and Kyoko organized is distinguished by her advocacy and sponsorship of the child avie experience. So despite my emotional baggage about this issue, the fact that a woman is accorded the respect which she was, I feel forces us to look past our gut feelings for what might be valid and honorable motivations for child avies. The fact that Han now puts it on the table for reasoned discussion... whew. It's a bit head-swirling...

Perhaps we might invite that woman... sorry, I forget which person she was, as most of the people I didn't know... we might invite her to participate in the discussion and add to what Han has drawn up.

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Re: Child Avatars and the CDS

Post by Sylvia Tamalyn »

You are thinking of Marianne McCann, Sudane. Mari and her brother Pygar have been good friends to me since my first year in SL, and they are the reason I overcame my initial resistance to the presence of kid avatars. In fact, I have an alt who spent a short time as a kid to help her out with something! Skippy Beresford is another wonderful child avatar; you should check out his Flickr photos sometime to see the thoughtfulness with which he plays his SL "age".

I have no issues with child avatars and really, people should do as they like as long as it is within TOS, etc. I agree with this from Laura:

As for children behaviour - I guess it can be more of a problem in Opensim where basically there are no rules or very few - but in SL, it's all in the TOS. No nudity and no sex play? CDS is not A rated so this applies to everybody, not just children avatars.
I don't really see the need of setting down guidelines that go beyond the TOS.

Sufficient rules are already in place, IMO, and I see no need for anything further.

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Re: Child Avatars and the CDS

Post by Han Held »

Yep, as Sylvia said ...Marianne McCann is who you're thinking of Sudane. She's on my friends list, but every time I've IM'd her she's in the middle of something. Something major usually (she helps put on the SL birthday, for instance and she's heavily involved in Burn2, as well as being a central person in Bay City and in the SL Aviation group).

Speaking personally, I would find it sad if our org chose to ban child avatars. That would unquestionably affect my ability to participate. Avatar expression is a deeply personal and integral part of the virtual world experience and for that reason it needs to remain as unrestricted as possible. At least in my opinion.

As far as why I bring it up at all ...there are areas where the TOS is vague -specifically nudity; which is why I've emphasized it so heavily.

When it comes to nudity by itself I don't feel we have the right to dictate it on private parcels -apart from the sexual ageplay issues where it veers dangerously close to crossing the TOS. But for adult avatars being themselves -nudity in private is allowed by the TOS and should remain so.

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Re: Child Avatars and the CDS

Post by Han Held »

Laura Azalee wrote: Sun Apr 08, 2018 3:38 am

A more serious problem are REAL children pretending to be adults in SL - we get quite a few at the Firestorm Gateway - and the procedure there is to get them state their real life age in writing , take a snapshot and report them to LL so that their account can be deleted.

We ought to be protected on that front by LL's policies. We're rated mature, and that means that only people who are over 18 in real life are allowed in.

If someone comes in to the CDS and divulges that they're under 18, they're in violation of the TOS and we're within our rights to AR them and kick them from the estate.

That's one more reason to not own "General" land, incidentally. That's the only place you have to worry about that issue.

http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Linden_ ... econd_Life

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Re: Child Avatars and the CDS

Post by Em Warden »

Another aspect of having child avatars among our citizens is, if we ought to set an age limit to the right of voting and stand for office in CDS.

We are running a democratic project, and the question is whether we should regard a child avatar as a grown up (i.e. allowed to vote) or as a child (too young to be granted this democratic right). Even if the real life person behind the child avatar is an adult, he or she wishes to appear as a child.

Personally, I would have certain problems to take a child avatar seriously if it speaks as a member of the RA- especially if it uses baby language. But of course I could make an effort to change.

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Re: Child Avatars and the CDS

Post by Han Held »

I've just talked to Marianne McCann and she said that she'd be happy to do an inworld discussion, AMA, "Meet a child avatar" or whatever. As I said she's very busy (and she mentioned that's true in both worlds) but she told me it would help Kid avis in general and she'd be willing to do it.

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Re: Child Avatars and the CDS

Post by Han Held »

Em Warden wrote: Sun Apr 08, 2018 9:28 am

Another aspect of having child avatars among our citizens is, if we ought to set an age limit to the right of voting and stand for office in CDS.

We are running a democratic project, and the question is whether we should regard a child avatar as a grown up (i.e. allowed to vote) or as a child (too young to be granted this democratic right). Even if the real life person behind the child avatar is an adult, he or she wishes to appear as a child.

Personally, I would have certain problems to take a child avatar seriously if it speaks as a member of the RA- especially if it uses baby language. But of course I could make an effort to change.

I don't believe there's an issue. When I go and RP that is different from when I served on the RA and vote or do my EM duties.

I'm not playing/portraying a kid when I'm at work at the CDS, as a general rule (for me) it doesn't even come up even when I'm not working.

Because we're not a roleplay community.

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Re: Child Avatars and the CDS

Post by Han Held »

Han Held wrote: Sun Apr 08, 2018 9:51 am
Em Warden wrote: Sun Apr 08, 2018 9:28 am

Another aspect of having child avatars among our citizens is, if we ought to set an age limit to the right of voting and stand for office in CDS.

We are running a democratic project, and the question is whether we should regard a child avatar as a grown up (i.e. allowed to vote) or as a child (too young to be granted this democratic right). Even if the real life person behind the child avatar is an adult, he or she wishes to appear as a child.

Personally, I would have certain problems to take a child avatar seriously if it speaks as a member of the RA- especially if it uses baby language. But of course I could make an effort to change.

I don't believe there's an issue. When I go and RP that is different from when I served on the RA and vote or do my EM duties.

I'm not playing/portraying a kid when I'm at work at the CDS, as a general rule (for me) it doesn't even come up even when I'm not working.

Because we're not a roleplay community.

To put it more clearly; in that situation you brought up I would say "this meeting and all CDS functions are OOC, drop the icklespeak, please".

That's why I also emphasized that we're not a RP community repeatedly in my proposed guidelines.

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Re: Child Avatars and the CDS

Post by Bagheera »

Below is a clip from the movie "The Song Remains the Same," - rated PG in 1976 - which is supposed to convey the normalcy of life for the band members of Led Zeppelin when they are not on tour. It includes a clip of Robert Plant's actual children playing naked in a stream while the parents watch on shore.

To my mind, there has never been anything sexual about this, and in my belief, nudity is not inherently sexual. Both as a child and as an adult, I used to swim naked in the rivers and lakes of the Sierras with others present, both adults and children including classmates, families, river guides, etc.

Several years ago, the topic of nudity came up in CDS with one (adult) citizen who went naked everywhere - and there were strong voices both for and against this but eventually he left and the issue remained unaddressed - and where also some intrepid members of the Artisans installed a nudist beach without inviting discussion either before or since in Colonia Nova which is still there.

Here are my personal feelings and recommendations.

The TOS are sufficient to address all children avatar behaviors. I don't think CDS needs to start dictating various avatar definitions and behaviors beyond the TOS.

I think it is a slippery slope to begin to bring real world limitations (such as voting rights) into what is an environment where people can express and experiment their identities in a safe place. If we don't allow children to vote, are we going to ban robots next? or animals? or.... etc. As for taking a child avatar in government seriously, if they were able to garner enough votes to win the seat, then my opinion doesn't really matter any more than it would for any other citizen I personally might disagree with. That's democracy.

As for nudity in public, with the advent of mesh, it is entirely possible for an avatar to see themselves as fully clothed while some of those around, based on their viewer and computer settings, see avatars as partially or fully naked. It is really hard to know. For those who want to perv, all that is necessary is to derender the clothing on mesh avatars and no one else knows. (for this reason, some clothing designers - including me- are starting to go back and include lingerie appliers for all the mesh clothes on sale; as the appliers cover the base skin textures and give all avatars who want it, the guarantee of modesty until they personally choose to change it.

For me, personally, I would like to not encourage public nudity except where it is explicitly allowed - such as the nude beach. You can't make a RULE about it because of the nature of the technology, but you can make it a social expectation. When I see a naked avatar in a place where they would normally be dressed, I use my imagination to imagine them dressed until their clothes show up. If you try to make a law with such a large technical loophole, you are just going to get people being silly trying to enforce it on law-abiding people who are dressed, and on the flip side, mischievous people who are skirting it by claiming their clothes are late to arrive or didn't attach. Silliness all around, imho.

I would like to have the nude beach parceled off and it's About Land settings put so that one cannot see who is inside (or their state of dress/undress) unless one chooses to enter the nude beach parcel. Although nudity in real life is not inherently sexual, it does seem that virtual worlds are almost ubiquitously hyper-sexualized, so even though one might state or intend to not portray a sexualized naked avatar, it doesn't often actually happen that way in any reliable fashion. I don't think this applies to children only - but all humanoid avatars with genitals.

my opinion, fwiw

EDITED to add: I know there are communities and sims where nakedness is part of the culture. Gor, for one. CDS is not Gorean although we get members who practice Gor (this is unavoidable, as Gor has a dominant presence throughout SL). This might entail further discussion, although I don't really remember having to confront someone with a naked Gor slave in CDS, so it hasn't really been an issue (for me). Further thoughts on this welcome.

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Re: Child Avatars and the CDS

Post by Sylvia Tamalyn »

Hmm, the more I think about this, the more I fail to understand why this is an issue. The issue of child avatars in SL was addressed and settled years ago.

Is there an issue particular to CDS that requires additional action on top of TOS? Have we had a problem with activities with/by child avatars? Or with nudity? Can we not just keep it simple and enforce the TOS, which are adequate for the job?

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Re: Child Avatars and the CDS

Post by Han Held »

Bagheera wrote: Sun Apr 08, 2018 10:34 am

The TOS are sufficient to address all children avatar behaviors. I don't think CDS needs to start dictating various avatar definitions and behaviors beyond the TOS.

Awesome post, as always, Bagheera. I'll probably reply to the rest of it after I've given it some thought -but I wanted to address two parts of what you wrote.

First, I don't believe that the TOS addresses child nudity, though I may be wrong. I see this potentially causing problems for folks in countries with stricter laws about depictions of underage nudity then the US has -I'm thinking specifically of Canada and Germany, though there may be others.

I don't think it's fair to ask folks who volunteer their time to accept that legal risk when it's unnecessary. Of course I feel like I have to write a reminder that this isn't an issue for normal, day-to-day kid avi activity or whatever.

Now, you are right in that this DOES introduce a slippery slope; and I have no answer for that slope. Does this mean that we would need to make sure that we comply with the blashphemy laws of Ireland? The laws of Saudi Arabia?

At what place do we draw the line? I honestly don't know.

Secondly ...
The video you referenced took place before a lot of things in our laws and in our culture changed -in many ways for the worst (i cringe every time I see a blurred-out middle finger) but in many ways for the better (heightened awareness of many issues). Given that, and considering the dodgy ethics of Led Zeppelin ( [1] [2]) they wouldn't be my first choice to use as a role model for almost anything.

Point being, the times have changed and so have mores and the legal landscape.

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Re: Child Avatars and the CDS

Post by Han Held »

Sylvia Tamalyn wrote: Sun Apr 08, 2018 11:28 am

Have we had a problem with activities with/by child avatars? Or with nudity? Can we not just keep it simple and enforce the TOS, which are adequate for the job?

Why wait until there's a problem to solve a problem?

It's an issue that's not unheard of, and speaking as someone who runs around in a kid avi I would enjoy being able to point to a CDS document that says that I'm fine, that I'm compliant and that anyone who has a problem with my avi can go pound sand. :D

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