The Second Life of Wawanessa Blumenthal 

Wednesday afternoon, 2 p.m. I’m hanging out at Phantasie Island’s Oasis Dungeon, trying not to look like a complete loser. This is harder than it seems when you’re wedged in a cage, waiting for someone to help you out of the handcuffs you originally thought were cool but now realize are not really helping your cause. Katrina Lachman, one of the club’s hired dancers, walks by me in her perfectly whorish ensemble, oblivious to my plight. Hate her. Finally, a man in skin tight jeans and a leopard muscle shirt approaches my cage. A self-proclaimed Metal Head with the Glass Tiger hair to prove it, Oliver Rosen (I kid you not) is new to the scene as well. He kindly asks me what’s on my head. I hastily click on “My Appearance” only to learn that my face is covered in blood, and that I have somehow managed to rip out my scalp as well. Welcome to Second Life, an on-line virtual reality world where shame feels just like you thought it would.

If you haven’t already heard of it, Second Life is a 3-D online world created by the tech company Linden Lab of San Francisco. More than 1.5 million people have already set up shop in this parallel metaverse, home to thousands of businesses and even its own currency which can be bought and sold for real money on LindeX. The residents, as Second Lifers like to be known, buy up virtual land, build virtual homes, shops, clubs, even re-creations of Amsterdam and ancient Rome. They play their own music and hang pictures of their friends and family on the wall. In effect, they are building their own brave new world.

Upon joining, each resident fashions their own “avatar”—a virtual self—in any shape they like. Naturally, most of them seem to have chosen young and sexy as their signature look. As my current “real world” assignment is to explore SL’s sexual possibilities, I decide it best to follow suit.

I choose my SL name: Wawanessa Blumenthal. Decidedly, I am a cyborg Jew. I grant myself a tight ass and ample bosom, the perfect look when trolling a virtual world for smutty chit chat.

My first stop is the aptly named “Tutorial Island” where I am to study the basics of SL before jumping into the rest of its infinite universe. This is harder than one might think. I quickly discover that having 360 degree peripheral vision is more of a hindrance than it is useful when trying to get from point A to point B. Worse, my right arm seems to have developed an erratic twitch akin to a Neo-Nazi salute, which to my horror, appears to be my greeting of choice.

After two regretful afternoons futilely spent trying to learn how to walk, talk, build, buy and pick up random objects—inexplicably packaged in three dimensional cubes—I teleport myself off the island.

Which brings us full circle back to me, sans scalp, stuck in a cage. Following my initial meeting with Oliver Rosen, and after regenerating a center-part, the two of us decide to explore Club Oasis together. Figuring this is as good a time as any to venture into a Second-Sex-Life, I begin what can only be described as a sad attempt at flirting.

“Do you want to get a drink?” I coyly ask, fully aware that such intonations are less than secured when chatting over IM. Luckily, he reads me as neither desperate nor pathetic and we gracelessly make our way over to the bar. At this point, his arm is jutting out of his head and he looks a bit like a crazy person. I become slightly nostalgic for my many other dates-gone-wrong, which now, in some cruel twist of fate, are no longer the preserve of “real” life alone. But in the spirit of fresh starts and new beginnings I politely pretend not to notice and thank the lord we both know how to “sit.”

Rosen tells me that he thinks “it is a bit SM here,” which, if you think about it, is kind of ironic for someone who purposefully chose to hang out at a club with “dungeon” in its title. Still, I find myself typing the words “I know…weird…” into my Dialogue Box, secretly hoping that he’s either as full of it as I am, or better yet, is just being coy.

Turns out I don’t hang around long enough to find out Metal Head’s true intentions. A fancy-type going by the name of Ritzbar Fitzgerald overhears our deteriorating conversation and promptly intervenes. (In SL, residents have the option of listening in on conversations taking place around them, a feature for which I am currently grateful.)

Fitzgerald, dressed in funky low-rider jeans and a tight white t-shirt cropped within a hair’s length of her prominent double D’s, is a perfect throwback to the popular girls you at once loathed and wanted to be; the type who, no matter where you were, always knew the “manager” and was, apparently, their BF. Perversely, one might add, a type now the provenance of just about anyone with a computer and enough free-time to craft themselves a second life.

Opting to ignore the possibility that my hip new friend might very well be an oversized man in a lonely, dark room, I begin to understand the complex realities of existing in a virtual world. Most notable is the surprising sense of freedom gained from the anonymity of it all. True, the likelihood Ritzbar Fitzereld is a dead-ringer for her actual self is pretty slim. But then again, I’ve been flying around in neon spandex all day, so whose to judge?

And just like that I unwittingly become an SL convert, a state of affairs typically afforded those with copious amounts of leisure time or employers who pay them to be here. Which is not to say anything negative of the situation: Nike and American Apparel have already opened stores in SL, while several brand-name corporations have shops and other lucrative business ventures in the works.

Fortunately, you don’t have to be a misogynistic CEO from LA (you heard me, Dov Charney) to participate in SL’s burgeoning, virtual marketplace. Other, lesser known companies and entrepreneurs are taking their own turn at this ostensibly boundless industry, where commercial potential extends far beyond 80s revival cotton hoodies. Stroker Serpentine is one such SL pioneers currently benefiting from SL’s radical take on user-generated content.

The founder and sole employee of Strokerz Toys, Serpentine is in large part responsible for bringing awkward avatar sex to the masses. He is particularly famous for having created avatar genitals, which depending on piercing or engorgement preferences are available at an additional cost, as well as sex animations and other complex in-world sex tech that I will never make use of (though not for lack of trying).

The vanguard of the SL sexual revolution, however, is the merger of avatar animated fantasy sex with real-world physical stimulation. These complex systems are known as “intimate interfaces,” and appear as control panels on users’ computer screens. Interested parties can download systems like The “Sinulator” and “HighJoy” for a monthly fee, basically making it easier to hook-up their vibrators to a computer.

Perhaps more in tune with SL’s idyllic “for the people, by the people” take on life is qDot Bunnyhug’s “Rez Trance.” Unlike its commercial counter-parts, the “Rez Trance” is an “open source”—i.e. free-system allowing those proficient in Beta-language the option to build-on and customize their own teledildonics devices. As of late, the “Rez Trance” boasts smoother speed transitions and, according to its creator, a more feminine “look” compared to “The Sinulator” or “HighJoy.” How one control panel can feel more feminine than another remains unclear.

Sadly, having lost my PhD in math somewhere in reality, I’m forced to have sex the old fashioned way: using “Pose Balls.”

After leaving a message to “let people know where I am” with Oasis host Graham Shampless, Fitzgerald takes me to a restricted area in SL. This would be where the magic happens. I am promptly introduced to her “boyfriend,” Archie Lukas, who eerily seems to have been expecting us. I decide not to run the hell away, a choice I might add, entirely specific to my present status as a virtual cartoon.

Wasting no time on pleasantries, we jump full steam ahead into SL’s version of sex. This involves clicking on a wide variety of “pose balls” that animate our avatars, chatting sexily as we do it. Typos are exchanged with fervor; there’s a lot of “ooh yer, baby,” but it’s not very sexy. Personally, I’m beginning to suspect that my new “friends” are more interested in having me watch than actually participate, a difficult situation amidst my constant flashbacks to Saturday mornings spent with the Smurfs.

In contrast to third-wheel situations endured outside of SL, I teleport my ass out of there and immediately change my user-setting to “Hide.”

Such is the beauty behind SL: it is the singular want of its own inhabitants. With nary a theme or objective to its credit, SL offers only what we ask for. What we ask for being entirely up to us.

Bonnie Zylbergold lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. She has a master's degree in human sexuality from San Francisco State University and specializes in female heteroflexibility. She worked Center for Research on Gender and Sexuality where she studied the effects of media on adolescent sexuality.