The Alphaville Herald

Red Light Center Exposed — Part 2: Vanilla

by Jessica Holyoke on 24/02/08 at 4:37 pm

Sex with robots – while keeping your shoes on — the discrete charm of a Red Light Center VIP account
The Herald explores worlds beyond Second Life

by Jessica Holyoke, virtual world explorer

heading to the space bedroom

Eventually, I discovered what I could about Red Light Center (RLC) as a basic member and it was time to open more doors so to speak. I bought a VIP membership and started exploring the non-kink side of things.

VIP membership costs $20 US per month and it allows for age verification. Not only are you allowed into the adult areas of the RLC grid, you are allowed into the adult areas of everyone’s profiles. On the profiles, you find that people sometimes like showing off their Real Life naked bodies as well as what they’ve done as avatars.

But there was exploring to do. There were a few adult theatres where if you go in and click, you’ll find pornographic movies that will open up in your web browser. If you are concerned about cost and you pay for porn as well, this might be the economic option for you.

Eventually, I found a nice German gentlemen who offered to be my guide in a space themed bedroom. It looked nice, as most things do in RLC, and we got down to business.

The first thing I noticed was that you can’t use the sex toys without being naked. You can’t just hop on a sex toy as you can in SL to just see what it does. The second thing I noticed was that you can’t be naked. You can remove your top and bottom, but your shoes stay on. As it truly bothers me to see shoes on a bed, this was an issue.

Also, you cannot use a sex toy without someone with you. Luckily, I started out with my German friend. Later, I found Robots, which look like other residents, that you can invite to have sex with. I tried it but it was creepy knowing that this was just a plaything and not a person.

Having sex gives a resident two columns of options. On the right side are options for various sex acts; Male Oral, Female Hand job, doggy, spooning, etc. On the left side are options for various responses; deeper, faster, I’m cumming, etc. On the upper right is a Cum option for when you are done.

Consider your options in the two column menu

In taking many partners, I noticed that rarely were emotes used to enhance the experience. (*takes your hand and places it on her beating heart*) Mostly it was alternating between positions and using the preprogrammed voices for emphasis.

Looking around for Vanilla partners, most of the options were the same. The programmed beds were the same but the place settings were different; a bedroom, outer space, under the sea, in a locker room. The only other straight option was a lap dance room where there were a row of people giving lap dances.

I would have gotten other pictures, but my biggest complaint about RLC is that the camera is not as easy to control as it is in SL. Many times I just couldn’t see what was going on. Others I wanted to stay sitting and I ended up walking all over the place just by moving the camera.

At one point, I entered a dance club and encountered the other complaint. The music does not stream like it does in SL. RLC must have limited rights to the music that is played so if you enter a club, it plays the same damn song. The club I entered was having a naked dance night so I joined in.

…that darn ecstasy

A nice man came up to me with a glow stick. I asked him where he got it and he showed me a VIP room. There, they had ecstasy that you could take that would give you a glow stick. Additionally, there were hookas with ganja you could smoke and alcohol you could drink. One of the published criticisms of RLC is the suggestive drug use. The game creators responded that its better to have drugs in a simulated environment than in a RL one.

So more dancing and sex ensued due to that darn ecstasy, but I was already bored with my straight lovers and decided to check out the bondage scene.

Next time: BDSM in RLC