Noche Kandora–a.k.a. the lovely Cheri Horton–has a news piece up about the real-life sex of female escorts in Second Life. Noche’s main focus seems to be the (albeit interesting) fact that most escort customers never even ask about the RL sex and/or gender of the SL women they hire. To me, what’s even more interesting though (and honestly somewhat unsettling) is that the major escort clubs Noche talked with all seemed to agree: if they were to ever find out one of their “girls” was an RL guy, she/he would be fired on the spot.
Club owners claim their customers should be “getting what they pay for”: namely an SL experience with a RL woman. Whether that idea holds water or not, it appears from some of the comments left on Noche’s story that means female escorts who are RL men simply don’t work for clubs; they’re freelancers. Still, the larger question is, if most customers don’t break the RL/SL barrier and ask about sex/gender anyways, why are the club owners so quick to discriminate?
May 22nd, 2007 at 11:10 am
Since I am only a third party observer of SL (I have yet to delve into the realms but hear plenty from friends) My guess would be it’s similar to people hiring escorts in real life. The owners may simply fear that if someone is dissatisfied or feels the service(s) are misrespresenting themselves they may complain and thus could cause a lull in business or be accused of false advertising.
May 23rd, 2007 at 7:11 am
I’m sure that’s the thinking, and it’s reasonable enough. I guess my real question isn’t just directed to the club owners, but to the SL community in general, which seems to have something of a double standard about real-life gender…
September 29th, 2007 at 3:23 pm
I’m sure that’s the thinking, and it’s reasonable enough. I guess my real question isn’t just directed to the club owners, but to the SL community in general, which seems to have something of a double standard about real-life gender
September 29th, 2007 at 3:24 pm
Since I am only a third party observer of SL (I have yet to delve into the realms but hear plenty from friends) My guess would be it’s similar to people hiring escorts in real life. The owners may simply fear that if someone is dissatisfied or feels the service(s) are misrespresenting themselves they may complain and thus could cause a lull in business or be accused of false advertising