Comments on: SL Relationship Ethics – Anonymity, Timezones, & Spybots

By: teresa

teresa — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 17:12:05 +0000

Can I ask a question from this site regarding relationships?

By: JJ

JJ — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 14:08:58 +0000

I have a very broad question to ask here – “what are the overall Ethical and Security concerns with SL?”

By: Karl Reisman

Karl Reisman — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 01:08:30 +0000

The problem is that Emotions are real even if the environment is not and a lot of relationship counselors in RL caution against people who even though have platonic relations with co-workers, they become more emotionally invested in them than their spouses, causing all of the same issues as if they were banging each other. Emotionally as you are engaging with another live human at the far end of a keyboard the feeligns and thoughts are as real as the appearances of the AV aren’t. Things even on old Text based Multi User systems, with no graphics generated strong feelings. It could be that for some that an SL relationship separate from RL could cause the same sorts of problems an RLaffair could.

Karl

By: ST Barzane

ST Barzane — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 05:36:11 +0000

Thanks for your interesting writings, Victorria.
I would like to encourage you to take these lines of thought a bit further.
How about the questions concerning intimacy in SL. Our RL urge to be intimate with a partner raises some questions in the context of an SL relationship. In RL we want to be intimate for reasons such as ‘being comforted’, ‘lust’, ‘expressing our feelings for our partner in a physical way’ etc. This is interesting in the context of your article, since our avatar’s body is so different from our real life body. By clicking on an erotic poseball our avatar’s body becomes even more distant from our RL body, since it’s movements are now controlled by the person who has programmed the animation. I personally don’t have any other (SL) erotic experience, other than a cuddle, but even there, I found it very alienating to watch my avatar move in a manner that left much to be deserved. It seems to me that this is a consequence of the ‘mind-body separation’ that SL induces. Through words, pieces of my mind can be transferred to a partner, but my RL body is left behind the keyboard. Any physical intimacy between avatars is thus bound to be totally mental of nature, allthough the screen may be suggesting otherwise.

You seem to be pinpointing at values such as ‘honesty’ . The separation of mind and body raises issues concerning these values. Are we honest to our partner and above all to our selves, when we click on an erotic poseball? If ‘expressing our feelings for the one who is steering the other avatar’ is a motive for doing that, I would answer NO for the time being.

(you seem to be deeply into ethics. Have a go at Don Ihde’s book, Bodies in technologies’, he adresses these issues)

thanks for sharing your thoughts with us in this rough flat world.
ST (The Netherlands)

By: Hinca Iddinja

Hinca Iddinja — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 21:10:21 +0000

Presenting yourself differently then u r in SL cannot be considered deception as it is in rl!!! Here u present yourself in whichever way you like, and deserve to be treated accordingly. So all u frustrated newbie males stop asking things like ” how old are you in rl” and “are you really a female”. I address the newbie males in particular, because they tend to think these issues are very inportant apparently. Or maybe the joke’s on me and they’r all girls lke me, lol.

By: Mabb Dilweg

Mabb Dilweg — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 05:19:07 +0000

“Virtual relationships are just that…Virtual. This even goes for casual friendships online. It ain’t real unless you start hanging out/dating/whatever in RL.”

I also respectfully disagree. I don’t conduct my (good) friendships in SL at arms length like that. I have friends in SL that I care about deeply, yet I don’t know what they look like IRL and have no contact with them outside SL except for an emergency contact email address. They are no less precious to me for that. As far as I am concerned, my friend is the avatar and the person that comes across in SL. Period. It’s very real to me. For example, someone I only knew in SL recently died in RL. Many people were extremely grieved. She was a lovely person, and fun to be with. We will miss her terribly, even though most of us had no idea what her real name was, or what she looked like outside SL. We got to know her through SL and cared for her a lot.

There are still people behind the avatars, who feel and can be hurt. SL relationships have to be based upon trust and the agreement of the boundaries between RL and SL or even between alts and mains. If both parties agree that was happens these disctinctions are not relevant, fine. This might extend to whether the people behind the avatars are single or not (IRL) or even to gender. As long as both enter the relationship with eyes wide open and in agreement on the boundaries, then the ethics are clear.

Its deception, either about SL alts, behaviour when the other person isn’t around or with regard to RL details that have been deliberately withheld or lied about, that is unethical in my opinion.

By: Victorria Paine

Victorria Paine — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 17:31:58 +0000

“Kill yourself. Please. You are the cancer eating the heart of humanity.”

2/10.

By: Miss No I'm Totally A Girl Really Wanna Cyber?

Miss No I'm Totally A Girl Really Wanna Cyber? — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 14:46:21 +0000

Kill yourself. Please. You are the cancer eating the heart of humanity.

By: Victorria Paine

Victorria Paine — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 16:27:34 +0000

Thanks for the comments, everyone!

A few more responses ….

“I’m not sure if I understand why you’ve ruled out the crossover ethics of being monogamously involved in RL but also getting into romantic involvements in SL as being subject matter for a discussion of SL relationship ethics, but do raise the issue of being one gender in RL but another SL.”

That’s a fair question. The distinction I would make is that in the first instance, the question quickly becomes the ethical nature of the SL behavior in terms of the material world relationship: in other words, it quickly becomes a discussion whether it is ethical vis-a-vis the material world relationship to engage in x/y/z activity in SL. That’s different, it seems to me, from the question of gender bending because there is no “material world relationship ethic” involved in that specific question — it’s really a question of how that information (and its disclosure or non-disclosure) impacts the virtual relationships. So while I take your point about cross-over, I see the two situations rather differently in ethical terms.

“But either way, it’s not ethically sound to take that decision away from me out of concern that I may well decide not to be involved with you if I knew.”

I more or less agree with this. The contra view — which I think is that every person has a right to their own fantasy life in SL no questions asked — seems a bit self-serving to me because it fails to take into account the context of other typists present in the form of their avatars and how that interaction in itself raises ethical questions beyond the level of self-actualization.

=======================

“Monogamy? Admittedly I don’t understand these virtual “relationships” because I’ve never wanted one. But there’s definitely no practical reason for monogamy in a virtual relationship. Can a cheating av pass herpes to another av? No. Can a cheating femme av get pregnant and not be sure who the father is? Not in any real sense.”

No practical reason, but there may be an ethical one — or not.

“Virtual relationships are just that…Virtual. This even goes for casual friendships online. It ain’t real unless you start hanging out/dating/whatever in RL.”

I respectfully disagree. Virtual reality is, in its essence, a form of “reality”. It isn’t “material reality”, but it is real in that the interactions you are having are real, the emotions involved are real and the like. Therefore I see it as a valid environment for posing these types of ethical questions.

By: Second Lulz Vigilante

Second Lulz Vigilante — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 18:00:07 +0000

“For example, is it ethical to expect (or, in some cases, demand) emotional and/or physical monogamy in a virtual world relationship where the partners are 5, 8 or 12 time zones apart, and can only see each other rarely? Is it ethical to expect this in a way that will impede one or both persons from having their own needs met, emotionally and otherwise? Is it even ethical to enter into a SL relationship with someone who is many time zones away when you know you won’t have the time overlap to devote to the relationship to help it grow and mature in a way that someone in the same time zone, or a more proximate one, might? Is there a “selfishness” line here that can be crossed, or is it all wishful thinking in any case?”

Monogamy? Admittedly I don’t understand these virtual “relationships” because I’ve never wanted one. But there’s definitely no practical reason for monogamy in a virtual relationship. Can a cheating av pass herpes to another av? No. Can a cheating femme av get pregnant and not be sure who the father is? Not in any real sense.

Virtual relationships are just that…Virtual. This even goes for casual friendships online. It ain’t real unless you start hanging out/dating/whatever in RL.