When this photostream was created in January 2009, I was not quite thirty-seven years of age, and my creation, the Second Life avatar "Else Barnard", was barely thirty months old. As we write this now in the summer of 2021, Else is over fifteen years old, and I'm pushing fifty. It feels like the world has changed in that time, but maybe we just understand it a little better.

I'm no longer interested in the illusion that Second Life is somehow separate from the world beyond. For all its superficial strangeness, SL is still a creation of human minds, fostering interaction between humans. What happens in SL does not stay in SL, and there are no true barriers to prevent harm done there from spreading past its borders.

I'm not going to turn this into a lecture, and I don't imagine that anyone changes their ways, just because someone wags a scolding finger. But please understand, I no longer regard Second Life as somehow exempt from moral consequence. Our words and actions carry weight there, as they do anywhere else, and if we choose those words and actions without care, we will bring harm and misfortune, to others and to ourselves.

Just so I'm clear --- your kink is okay. So is mine. What isn't okay, is pushing the narrative that "it's just a game". It's not, and other people are real, no matter what avatar they're wearing.

Do as thou wilt --- but take a moment for reflection now and then. And if upon reflection, you realize that your actions may be harmful, then take another moment and ask yourself if they're really necessary.