Sex on the web - Update


My findings after LiveJournal and Second Life.
I have been spending the majority of the last few days in some unusual places on the web.

In case you hadn't heard, LiveJournal deleted some journals, mainly sex-themed, on the excuse (wait for it) to PROTECT THE CHILDREN. Now I do have a LiveJournal account, but the only thing I use it for is as a referral page for two of my blogs and so I can comment on other LiveJournals. One of the better write-ups is here.

Frankly I went through something similar with the old Excite Clubs and then later with MSN Communities. For example, there used to be something called black cat scans which were basically nude photos of young girls. Well, a witchcraft group that I belonged to was often confused with the black cat scan group, so we had to really monitor the membership and what pictures were posted.

LiveJournal wasn't the only one who had to start cracking down, Second Life has had some problems too.

I can't blame either Linden Labs or Six Apart. The whole "PROTECT THE CHILDREN" tactic is the favorite used by politicos and government agents to undermine rights. If the issue gets enough press, then government will step in. Not to "protect the children," but to control those nasty technologies.

There are some things that I have seen the last couple of days that disturb me. Not the sex, but the calls for more and more government control. The companies are within their rights, they paid for the servers and the domain registration, it's their rules.

A big part of this is that communities need to start protecting themselves. Common courtesy would go a long way. LiveJournal, Second Life, and others are not public commons, but private spaces. A restaurant is a private space, as a guest, you observe certain rules. You know that the wait staff is off limits to you sexually. Likewise, if you were in Disneyland, you know that you are not allowed to publicly masturbate. Your rights to do as you choose are trumped by the space owner's rights to use the space as he chooses.

Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should.

If you agreed to the rules governing the private space, then you should abide by them and not ignore the possible consequences.

And that brings me to the disturbing trend that I have seen. Some people believe that they are owed a forum to express themselves in private spaces, no matter what the rules are. What's more, they believe that government should enforce that "right" to a forum as part of their freedom of speech.

Sex isn't the problem here. Imposing sex on someone without their consent is the problem.

If I go to a restaurant, I don't want to see an orgy on the salad bar. There are other private spaces available for that. I don't want to have to worry about just what might be mixed in with that French dressing.

Now I say that as a red-blooded Pagan male who really thinks that women are really finding their paths to power, and some of those are sexual. I happen to like sex, and I think our society has some serious problems BECAUSE we try to repress our sexuality. There is a time and place for everything though. I can't speak out for more sexual freedom if I have to fight a rear action defending idiots without courtesy who refuse to accept the consequences of their actions.

The best advice of all that I have seen came from Eros Blog (NOT work safe) in the entry Blogging Services Still Haven't Stopped Sucking (cute pun there).

Anything worth doing on the internet is worth doing at your own domain that you control.

Smart.

— NeoWayland

Posted: Tue - June 5, 2007 at 05:35 AM  Tag


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