However, I think you’re splitting hairs. None of us here are discussing the psychological definition of pedophelia (which we can boringly discuss if you like). We’re discussing the exercise of pedophelia, and I think everyone understands that.

As for your comment “let’s remove sexuality on Second Life so we don’t endanger children”… that may be more of a valid concept than you intended. In fact, it’s a big controversy in regard to the internet itself. Why is the government taking little or no role in preventing the exposure of children every day to things that are otherwise illegal in RL? Children can’t buy adult magazines. The can’t attend R rated or NC-17 or X rated movies. Yet they can easily access such on the internet every single day.

Linden Lab opened itself up to questionability the moment they opened up membership to email-address registration (why do they even bother requiring an email? LOL). At that point, it was argued that they should have been very aware that children would lie about their age and access Second Life. At that point, Linden Lab ceased to take precautionary measures and for why? Ostensibly to boost their membership numbers and attract corporate interests.

On that day, with that decision, Linden Lab threw morality and ethics out the window in favor of “residency” numbers. And every single person on the grid was aware of that fact. (Well, with the possible exception of the LL sycophants who believe LL can do no wrong… but they’re pretty blind to just about everything around them. LOL)

>>In RL… pedophelia is illegal and can bring a prison sentence.

Just a technical clarifcation here

In RL, Pedophelia is NOT illegal. Don’t even try. This statement is 100% wrong.

What is illegal is child molestation. You don’t even have to be a pedophile to molest a child. Let’s get our facts straight here.

Reality vs. Wayfinder:

Wayfinder, wether it’s a real child behind the avatar is not a sufficiant argument on why Ageplay should be banned. You can’t use such an exscuse without taking into account everything that exscuse really means.

If you think “Oh, that might be a real child, let’s not expose them to child sex,” then what of real sex? What of the myriad of REAL pornography? Shouldn’t we ban any kind of sexually explicit material to protect the children who are violating the TOS to play Second Life?

>Kindly go back and reread wayfinder, you may find that you are not reading my response properly. I said nothing about kidnap, murder, or molestation.<

Agreed, and I wondered after I hit the post button if I should have expanded on that statement. Where I gathered such inferrence was the statement:

“as far as I am concerned any parent that fails to keep their kid out of an Adult rated service deserves the same jail time as the ‘predator’ that manages to find them.”

If a predator finds a child… the reults can be inferred to include kidnap, molestation and murder. So what I was doing was drawing logical conclusions. Agreed, you did not state such specifically. But my thought is that almost every parent who has ever lived has unwittingly put their child in danger at one time or another. Sometimes such negligence does deserve (and receives) jail time. But usually, it’s just an oversight, lack of understanding or being unaware of what’s going on.

For example, a child spends a lot of time at a friend’s house. Happens all the time. Who knows what kind of problems he might get into over there? The parentd do their best to screen their kid’s friends… but there’s only so much a parent can do. Best preventative medicine I’ve seen is to give the child a good upbringing and a strong sense of morality so they avoid such situations on their own… but childish curiosity is one of the strongest forces in the universe. Hopefully the training will hold, but… not always.

The point that I was making is that under Linden Lab’s “open door” policy (ie, claiming they’re an “adults only” board but allowing anyone in who has an email address and who is willing to lie about his age) is extremely short sighted. It almost assures there are minors behind some avatars. You can BET that people engage in sexual activities with not only minors, but possibly adolescents every day. You can bet that pedophiles search out such ones. It’s a bad situation no matter how one looks at it. Ageplay and similar things on SL is just kind of rubbing dung into the wound.

Personally, if I were running LL, I’d be taking every step to distance the company as far from such stuff as humanly possible. Linden Lab has been consistently making goofy decisions for as long as I’ve known them. There are always consequences for decisiosn we make. To date, their method of business has cost them to date more than 3.5 million users. Continue as they are, and it will cost them far, far more in the future.

No – you cannot watch your child all the time, which is why it is important to set the limits you can. Note that I said society should not ever be responsible for a child – this means society should not be one giant babysitter. Hmm, perhaps it would be better to say that Society as it currently stands should be responsible for anyone’s child. Society causes just as many problems as it prevents (columbine anyone?)

Oh – and it is about the pixels on the screen Wayfinder. That is exactly what this article and its sister article are about: The pixels and computer data.

Were it up to me those convicted of child Rape would be shot, the parents sent away for a time to think about what they could have done differently and society as a whole would get a crash course in the proper way to foster a child’s growth (meaning pay attention and don’t dismiss things out of hand.)

I have lost track of the number of times I’ve seen a parent aghast at finding out just what their child has been doing …. and blaming everyone else for their own mistakes. There is no excuse for learning what you can control, learning how to control it and actually applying said controls. No excuse whatsoever.

One question; if you had a child and that child was ever kidnapped, molested, murdered, how would you like to spend the rest of your life in prison for allowing such a thing to happen? That’s what you’re advocating above.

Parents do not have 24/7/365 control over where their children are or what their children do. They see a child playing something like Second Life– and while they should be cautious– many parents don’t have the technical knowledge to even know what SL is– they’ll think it’s just another game. And while I will agree 100% that parents should be VERY aware of their children’s activities– evidence proves that children can be very, very sneaky in circumventing parental vigilence. They used to sneak out behind the barn and smoke. Today, they sneak around on the internet.

It’s not just a matter of pixels on a screen. It’s the people behind the pixels, their intentions and psychology, their perversions– and the potential danger such presents to society as a whole. All some things need to fully cook is a pot to boil in.

as far as I am concerned any parent that fails to keep their kid out of an Adult rated service deserves the same jail time as the ‘predator’ that manages to find them. such an opinion comes from using services that allow you to restrict what content a child can view, which can be done through the computer itself as well as through setting up different user accounts which allow different sites through.

The reality is this: society should not be responsible for a child – ever. Your kid, you watch them.

So easy to play that game, isnt’ it? LOL

While I will agree it is ultimately the responsibility of the parent to see to the safety of their child– a parent can’t be everywhere all the time. Society as a WHOLE is responsible for the welfare of its children– which is why we have child welfare laws.

You claim that the person behind the avatar is irrelevant to your statement. I cannot imagine then, what that statement might be relevant to. Are we discussing real people here, or hypothetical, imaginary constructs? If you believe the liklihood of real children being behind avatars is irrelevant– then we will absolutely disagree.

As for false e-mail addresses and the like – second Life is not the only place it happens and quite frankly it is none of your concern, nor mine. it is the concern of the parents that allowed it to happen in the first place …. but that is a debate for another time and another topic.

Suffice it to say your post changes nothing.