Christmastide

I've wiped my land "Naga Saphira" and am building a winter-into-spring scene and am finding the whole process wonderfully therapeutic. The old has passed away and there is a sense of expectation of new beginnings. The making of this winter/spring wonderland is an integral part of my own letting go of the old and embracing of  a shimmering newness. My life feels on the verge of otherness.

Gardens, continued

I am continuing to build gardens in Naga Saphira, laying down grass and reeds, rocks and trees and building a magic underwater garden as well. I have seals dancing, a maypole, a rock to sit on, meditation cushions; I am making this space intensely beautiful. It interests me that the work I'm doing in this virtual space parallels the work I'm doing (I, being the avatar puppet mistress) in my first life garden. I notice my reclusiveness in second life and my reclusiveness in first life and feel gently nurtured in my garden making explorations.

Flower garden

It's spring in rl and in Naga Saphira so I've been planting flowers. I'm also building a beautiful underwater garden where seals play. There is something deeply nurturing about planting flowers, whether in rl or sl and it is interesting that the poor old brain gets the same pleasure from it. I don't think the mind can really differentiate between a virtual space and a real one. A creative act is a creative act.

Being a dragon

I have several different coloured dragon forms and enjoy being a dragon. These beasts fly magnificently, bite and breathe fire. I feel so liberated. It's wonderful.

Four women

A few months ago I did an interesting social experiment on Second Life where I went in 4 different skins to a site where you can sit down and beg for money under a sign reading something like: "I can't pay my rent. Will you please help me by paying 10 Linden dollars." I sat there for 10 minutes each time. My name was visible: Elila Azalee, but I looked different each time, though what I wore didn't change. For the first sitting I was a beautiful dark skinned woman. No one went near me, no one spoke to me, and I got no money at all. Then I went off and returned as a  gorgeous Japanese woman. People looked, but no one spoke, but I got one payment. Then, after 10 minutes, I went off and returned as a lovely blond Caucasian woman. Suddenly every one wanted to talk. I was like a bee hive. And I made a lot of money in that skin. After 10 minutes I went off and returned as a red haired freckled woman, but by then the people at this site were on to me. Suddenly my name was familiar. So, "cover" (!) blown I stopped the experiment.

So racial prejudice is alive and obscenely well.

It is interesting that I feel most comfortable in my Japanese skin, even though I am actually Caucasian (though with a bit of Mongolian) in real life. Thinking about this in relation to the experiment described here, perhaps it is because I am left alone, though do attract a little interest - enough to feel comfortable in this virtual space. I am essentially an introvert, after all.

Thinking about the difference between 'making love' and paying for it, as a SL encounter

As you know I'm experimenting with personas on Second Life, so the other evening I went to a sex joint on SL to experience that. A guy asked me whether I wanted to be paid for having sex with him or if I did for nothing. I'd never experienced being a hooker, so I said he'd need to pay for it. I had no idea how much I'd charge, thinking I'd come up with some figure or other fairly soon. The guy said something along the lines of women aways wanting to be paid and a lot of women at this location weren't women anyway and why not just make love to him.  Mmm, I thought. I decided to enter into discussion with him. I said, yes, I'm female (and I am too!), and it was my very first time in asking for Linden dollars (which are pretty small), but why call free sex 'making love'. I'd only just met the guy, so it can't be love.

Is the euphemism, 'making love' what you do when you have short-circuited an actual relationship in lieu of that relationship - at least in the context I've described above?

Not long ago I reviewed a book on boundary violations, specifically sexual, committed by therapists while working with their clients. The author made the point that these violations occurred at the point when the therapist actually lost interest in their client, but being unable to face this fact, quickly moved into the personal space of the client to cover up - as it were - their loss of interest, thus changing the power dynamic completely. I wonder if there is a parallel process going on in the context described above. Or is it only the fact that SL guy above was too mean with his money? Why call it 'making love', though? Why not call it 'sex'? There is that hint of manipulation, that idea that to call sex 'making love' - even in virtual space - transgresses natural boundaries and covers over the fact that contact here was transitory and makes it, apparently 'alright'. It is not to say the contact was not real, for even virtual contact is real; it augments the here and now being in the world.

My response to him was not what he expected and he got very huffy and said a rather pointless thing, that he knew a lot of people here on SL. I responded and said I knew a lot of people here too. As if that mattered at all.

Experimenting with a bag lady persona

    All my life I'd always had a fear of ending up on the streets, of becoming a bag lady - you know the old lady who trundles around the streets with all her belongings in plastic bags and wearing all her clothes at once; a homeless old soul, sad and mad.
    When I was doing my PhD at university I discovered an interesting fact that many of my single (female) colleagues shared this fear. It drove us to take as much teaching work as we could manage, while still working on our various projects. Our male colleagues didn't have that fear, interestingly. I'd wondered about this fear so often that when I joined the computer generated virtual environment that is Second Life I thought I'd examine it more closely, examine my repulsion, attraction (for that was in "there" as well) and the nitty gritty of the anxieties that drove it. So I found a disgusting old skin and shape (not easy to locate in this virtual space because most people like beautiful bodies and that's what are in the marketplace) and clothed her in unmatching rags and took her to fashionable places where she'd sit or just get in people's way. Every avatar avoided her. I could barely stand being her, but I stuck with my discomfort (through upwelling nausea) and after 3 consecutive evenings I completely lost my fear.
     Part of my bag-lady fear was a money anxiety so profound that I couldn't invest money, but had to have it available - at hand - in short term deposits (a bank equivalent of money under the mattress). I'd been to a financial adviser a year or so previously, but couldn't go ahead with the plan she drew up. After the bag-lady experiment I felt able to return to the financial adviser, draw up another plan, and invest my money properly.
     The bag lady experiment was a success and alerted me to other useful experiments. I intend to use this blog to write about some of these.