The Alphaville Herald

Have Cock, Will Travel!

by Pixeleen Mistral on 03/04/07 at 9:50 am

Dangerous dating in Second Life

by Mariner Trilling, man of many parts

When I first came to Second Life, the idea of a virtual relationship never even occurred to me. SL was a strange landscape of bizarre places to explore where I could be anything or anyone I wanted. But then after a week something happened that completely changed my view of the virtual world. I was walking around a Welcome Area with a helmet head of hair and a blank newbie face stumbling into other blank newbies all wearing the same Linden issued clothes when through the crowd, I saw a beautiful female avatar like I had never seen before.

In those days, ten-thousand people on-line at once was a crowded night and I’d never seen such a beautiful virtual woman. She had long flowing golden hair that moved when she walked and delicate facial features including fluttering eyelashes dancing around deep blue eyes. Her digital body was flawless and moved with a sexy walk generated by an animation override technology I didn’t even know existed. She wore a short black mini-skirt that moved in the breeze as she walked by. As a typical guy, I couldn’t resist the urge to use the pervert-cam to peek under her skirt where I found a perfectly shaped photo realistic butt clad in a tiny lacy thong. I was blown away and stood there staring.

Another newbie guy who looked just like me in the same start-up avatar broke away from the mindless flock of stumbling newbs and approached her cautiously. It was like the scene in Kubrick’s movie ‘2001, A Space Odyssey’ as a primitive monkey-man approached the inscrutable black monolith and carefully reached out to her.

“You’re so beautiful.” He said timidly. “Will you go dancing with me?”

She seemed to look him up and down with an animation of intense indifference and said. “I don’t do newbie skin.” She then walked away from him without a look back.

Watching her demolish him shook me awake to the sad realization that I was a newbie and I had newbie skin. Apparently, girls like her never dated guys like me. It was high school all over again. Fortunately for me, I had not yet realized the really devastating truth that I didn’t even have a penis.

The nude beach

The fact that such women existed in SL gave me a whole new pursuit in the metaverse. I went to a nude beach and having no shame I was quick to shed my virtual clothes and walk naked with the beautiful naked women. I wasn’t walking more than thirty seconds thinking I was part of the hip scene when a strange man stopped me.

“Hey,” he said. “How come you got no cock?”

“What?” I answered still not sure that he was talking to me. “Who, me?”

“Yeah… why you got no cock?”

I stood there frozen with no answer. I hadn’t looked to see my cock and had no answer as to why I didn’t have one. Every other guy had one. Why didn’t I?

“Here,” he said authoritatively. “You need a cock… Have a cock.”

Suddenly an object called ‘a cock’ appeared in my inventory. I didn’t know what to do with it but I took a shot and right clicked on it. ‘Wear’ was an option and luckily it appeared right where it should be instead of on my face, hand or back. I had a cock!

The knowledge that I had a penis made me a different person. I collected a small wardrobe of freebie wear so I could dress up for clubs and would stand out from other new people. I had confidence to start conversations with others. Exploring the SL world was still my favorite pastime but I was also learning to build and got pretty good at making my avatar do what I wanted. I would surf the grid scanning the map for gatherings of people then drop in to see what was going on (some call it ‘dot chasing’).

Consulting with the shemales

I stumbled into a place called ‘Shemale Gardens’ where a notecard appeared in front of me titled, “No Lame Cock Zone!” The card warned that anyone displaying their ‘stupid Q-tip freebie cock’ would be ejected. Then I saw a giant sign that had a picture of my very cock in a red circle with a red bar across it.

It turns out that shemales are experts on cock and anyone that comes to their club gets a really nice free one. It wasn’t scripted but that was ok because a lot of sims don’t allow scripted objects to run and there were stories of scripted cocks that would go crazy after a teleport spraying cum and urine everywhere upon rezzing. I discovered the sex club scene in SL and gave my new cock lots of use in countless one night stands. Meeting women in sex clubs was easy because we were both there for the same thing. It turns out that it was even easier to meet men pretending to be women in the sex clubs. Sometimes we didn’t exchange five words before jumping into a pile of writhing avatars.

Romance and fear of flying

Still, there was none of the magic of meeting a beautiful woman in a romantic setting. I wanted the anticipation and sparkling conversation. Eventually, I discovered the live music scene and began to strike up conversations with the women I met there. I met all manner of ladies and actually started dating some of them. The emotion and anticipation of real dating was all there and I would actually shave in real life before a Second Life date. Like the real life dates of my single days, things often went wrong for the occasion. Once, I arranged to meet my lady on a spectacular mountain top pinnacle looking over a beautiful valley. I was looking out over the vista when I sent her a teleport invitation that materialized her in front of me in the mid air over the open valley. I got one quick glimpse of her before she plummeted several hundred feet into the foggy valley below.

I was trying to impress another beautiful lady with a romantic helicopter ride around the sights of SL. I had just gotten a freebie helicopter but the controls were very sensitive and I hadn’t quite gotten the hang of it. The take-off was nice and mellow but I started overcompensating the controls which sent it spinning. I forced it down in to the trees and we slid down a hill. I later fixed the control variables to dampen its movements and thought I would try again to impress another date with the same romantic ride. It was going great until we hit a sim border and the craft derezzed crashing SL for me. When I logged back on my date had been rezzed at the bottom of the ocean in a strange region.

One would think I learned my lesson about moving vehicles on SL dates but one special lady arranged a beautiful balloon ride over a picturesque region. It was a commercial operation and I saw other couples floating peacefully around in the seats below colorful hot air balloons so I thought it couldn’t go wrong. Unfortunately, I forgot I was wearing a scripted anti-push device to protect me from push gun fire. The balloon lifted off the ground then slowly turned over crashing into a pastoral lake scene like the Hindenburg. The spectacle drew a small group of other couples wondering what we could have done to crash a vehicle that was supposed to drive itself.

Another special woman that I had gotten really close to invited me over to help set up her new skybox. It was a prefab skybox but had no openings to enter or exit so we had to teleport in and out. While she was on the inside looking for a potential door I was on the outside. Anxious to show off my SL knowledge, I thought I would edit in a ‘phantom’ panel that we could move in and out through. I forgot to unlink the component prims of the skybox and when I created the phantom panel I caught a glimpse of my date as she fell through the floor and plummeted about two hundred meters to the ground below. She still holds the altitude record for my accidental date freefalls.

Dating is supposed to be a prelude to a serious relationship and I did dream of an SL girlfriend to explore the world with. But I couldn’t be online more than a few times a week and couldn’t ask someone special to wait for me. So I’m now content to spend a special night which someone special whenever I have the rare chance. I date one woman who had been in-game since the days of The Sims Online and she summed up the whole cycle of virtual relationships. It was a cycle I’d already seen repeat itself. Two people meet in the magical land of SL where they can fly and be beautiful without limits. The emotion is intense and it sweeps them into a passionate on-line relationship. They become virtual boyfriend and girlfriend spending hours together in-world, dancing and loving. The next step is to become ‘partnered’ usually in a wonderful virtual wedding with dozens of friends in attendance. As partners, they share property rights and start a business like a club or store. Then the reality of running a virtual business sets in and they begin arguing as the workload takes its toll. Finally, there is a bitter breakup and the communal property is torn apart in an ugly series of fights and arguments.

It’s really no different than real life relationships half of which end in divorce. But it doesn’t mean I wouldn’t take a shot at it if I met the right person. If half of all marriages end in divorce that must mean that half live happily ever after. Considering the pay-off, 50/50 is odds I would take.