Daniel Terdiman does a excellent job of covering the unusual world of "age play" in Second Life for Cnet. Age Play is when adults pretend to be children pretending to have sex. While the act is very much a small, tiny, miniscule fraction of what goes on in the game, it's still worth covering.

And Terdiman makes it a point to say very high up that Linden Labs makes sure no real children are involved and they they have a zero tolerance policy to child pornography.

From the story:

Another player, known in the virtual world as "Usagi Musashi," said that when pretending to work in a virtual sex club in "Second Life," she often saw child avatars trying to pick up adult avatars.

"One day in the welcome area, I saw one child" avatar, Musashi said. "This one was just posing like she wanted some action. They stand around and look for action like escorts...then (they) age play."

That's the sort of role-playing that can be quite disconcerting to some people. "I would say it's virtual pedophilia," said one veteran game designer with significant experience studying online community standards. "I've got three kids, so I have zero tolerance for these kinds of things."

The story goes on to address whether psychologists believe whether pretending can predict real-life pedophilia. It's a great read and once more shows how Second Life can be a petri dish for all sorts of behavioral studies.

Age Play [Cnet]

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