I’ve finally found the least sexual, most wholesomely family values orientated part of Second Life.
Yup.
Welcome to Playboy Island.
OK, a bit of hyperbole, but in a moment you’ll see what I mean.
Thing is, I’ve probably missed the boat with Playboy. Maybe it never really had much to do with sex at all. Certainly from its showing in Second Life and from what I see in the UK, Playboy as a brand has about as much to do with sex as Harley-Davidson has to do with motorbikes[1]. That is, the brand iconography is so far removed from its original purpose that it’s off in a world of its own, a simulacrum of a sexual trope or something like that.
The one cute thing about Playboy island is its profile in the mini-map. It’s a bunny, of course. After that it’s branded clothes and trinkets. There are videos on the second floor but these all seemed to be a wholesome, if pneumatic, gals talking about their first date. You can sit and watch these on Playboy beds replete with pose balls. Pose balls I should add that put you about a foot away from the person you are with in what actually looks more like a booth in an old-school diner than a bed.
There is e-commerce integration though. Click on an image of this month’s magazine and it opens up the web site. That would be the integration I guess. No reference to Second Life or anything to contextualize where you are other than the subscribe button. Even thought there is an electronic version it does not seem to be delivered through SL and I could not find an option to buy in Lindens.
In a place that is all about sex, the one thing you can’t buy at Playboy, or so it seems, is sex. But of course Playboy is not about that, at least not in any obvious way.
And there’s the problem. Second Life is about sex in very very obvious way. It’s an economy that grew on sex. An, all permutations you can prim, sex. A, people standing around with an air of board contempt watching each other virtually doing it, sex.
Which is surely the problem for Playboy. Compared to the paranoid conservatism of US mainstream media Playboy stands as something acceptably naughty. In Second Life it’s a nun. And not in a naughty skimpy nun outfit kinda way, but in an honestly shocked at the sins of the world way.
The Island was of course completely empty for most of the time I was there.
So I started to search for other ‘sex brands’. Hooters, Hustler – even brands that don’t start with H; not one could I find. May be SL is nu-sex, a DIY sex that is undercutting corporatization of sex (but more of that in another post).
What disappointed me most of all was that I could not find Trojen or Durex. Surely it’s a very small step to make a place famous for flying penis into a place famous for flying condoms. SL is place you can fun with sex so why not get in there, get down and dirty and start talking about safe sex.
--------
[1] according to a 2006 SEC filing licensing was both the fastest growing and highest margin of Playboy Inc.'s three business Units.
