First off, I’ll admit, the experience of playing Alice isn’t as enthralling as I’d hoped. That’s due largely to the fact that I suck at precision platforming (and at fighting with a mouse, apparently), so instead of enjoying the macabre scenery and the bizarre twists on Lewis Carroll’s “classic tale” I’m busy missing rope swings and falling into the abyss.

That said, the concepts behind Alice score 100% on the awesome scale (very official, I know). Alice in Wonderland has always been dark for a children’s story, and the American McGee version brings that juxtaposition of innocence and strangeness to the surface. Here we have a youthful but grown Alice who’s caused the death of her parents, ended up in an asylum, and slit her wrists. We know this character from our own childhoods, and yet we don’t.

Also commendable is the semi-sexual appeal of this older, sadder Alice. Carroll himself had a questionable relationship with Alice Liddell, the girl he fashioned his main character on–and there’s something arguable charged in the mere act of traveling “down the rabbit hole” inside Alice’s mind–and by her extension her body. Once again we’re back inside Alice, this new Alice who’s deranged mental state is corrupting Wonderland, penetrating her in multiple senses.

Back in February we talked about Lila Dreams, a promising, indie, in-the-works MMO based on exploring imaginative landscapes in the mind of an eleven-year-old girl. It’s an awesome idea, but the question is: will it pan out?

Designer Jason McIntosh has been updating the Lila Dreams blog with concept art, info about classes, and even fiction vignettes inspired by the game world. Still, the site feels more like an effort in creative brainstorming than the annals of project well underway. And with an estimated beta release at the end of this year, implementing all those imaginative ideas sounds pretty ambitious. Still, when a game maker describes a world like this, I can’t help but get my hopes up:

“There isn’t really any single ‘goal’ for the game, since it’s more like an ongoing world that you can explore. But there are creatures, villains, and some characters to meet. The game is very light on story, though, and is more about exploring and going on short adventures with others.”

That sounds like, well, pretty much everything I’ve ever wanted in a game. So fingers crossed.

Club Penguin, the giant of a kids’ MMO, reportedly adds 500-1,000 new words to its banned list each day in an attempt to keep up with inappropriate slang. According to the game’s co-founder Lane Merrifield, two thirds of the company’s staff is dedicated to safety moderating and customer service. Despite Club Penguin‘s sheer numbers (its players add up in the millions), the company hasn’t had a single “reportable incident.”

While my gut response to banning words is always an anti-censorship twitch, my own research has shown that Club Penguin–unlike practically every other virtual world–is indeed free of virtual sex. For better or worse, it sure seems like an uphill battle. Personally, I’d love to get my hands on that ever-growing list of banned words–even just to see how internet slang evolves and works around barriers. The mere fact that so many words get added every day means players (presumably children) are trying pretty damn hard to communicate about sex…

Update: So I’ve contact Club Penguin to talk about their list of forbidden words, and for the first time in the three plus years I’ve been doing this, I’ve been told there was literally no one was willing to speak to me on the subject. Thanks, Club Penguin. Personally, I can’t help but wonder if that means Merrifield was exagerrating, or even just wrong. Because really, how top secret can that list be?

Regina Lynn put up an interesting post a while back about teens “creating adult content,” i.e. writing erotic fiction and publishing it on the internet. Her point was that angsty teenage erotica is totally normal, and I agree. What I want to ask instead is, is it kosher to read erotica written by underage authors?

When it comes to sex, kids, and age laws, the internet makes things fuzzy. Obviously I don’t condone adults engaging in cybersex with minors, but at what point online activity becomes illegal, it’s hard to tell. Cybersex regulars also know it can be seriously difficult to tell who’s over and under eighteen online. I’ve talked to forty-year-olds who type in LOLspeak and fourteen-year-olds who compose beautiful, coherent sentences.

That problem obviously gets more pronounced when you’re reading a piece of erotic fiction, not talking to someone online. How can you tell the age of the author? Sure, we can assume that immature pieces are written by immature writers. But what does it mean if we get turned on by a story written by someone under eighteen? Does that cross the line?

It’s an uncomfortable question, but one that’s got to be asked. Thoughts?

P.S. Fellow surrealism dorks get extra points for correctly identifying this photo.

My hooligans, thank goodness, have no idea what I write about. If they knew my last name, if they Googled me, and if they actually understood the results (those are big ifs), the classroom might be a very different place. So far, the few teachers I’ve talked to about my writing have been surprisingly supportive and nonchalant. Still, the teaching/sex writing combination sometimes makes me feel funny. And I’m the last person to be embarrassed or apologetic about what I do.

It was with all that in mind that I came across Regina Lynn’s recent column about teachers in Ohio who were told they couldn’t use social networking or dating sites because it would encourage inappropriate relationships with their students. Eek! I wonder what the state of Ohio would have to say about cybersex. Luckily, I don’t think there’s a chance that my English-speaking lovers are secretly French technical school students–though they’re knowledge of sex words (and there lack of knowledge of anything else) does sometimes amaze me.

Anyways, thank to Regina for sticking up for the sexy rights of us teachers. As for this teacher, I’m off to Sweden for the weekend to frolic in Christmas markets and ingest Glogg. It may not be sexy, but it promises to be delicious!

When the series was announced, it got heat for being, well, amazingly sexist. Sure, girls games aren’t all bad. They appeal to female players who might not otherwise take up gaming. Besides, professions like veterinarian or chef are hardly career choices to scoff at. Still, the fact of the matter remains: aside from being plain old lower quality than non-girl games, titles like these pigeon hole female players into “women’s professions.” Where’s the pretty pink version of Imagine Firefighter, or Imagine Corporate Lawyer?

Of the Imagine games, Babyz has incited the most finger wagging. Why? It turns child rearing into a game, it inspires young girls to want children, it seems to have the gender sense of a 1950′s health ed teacher: take your pick. Of course, early speculation that Babyz was a game about actually having children were quelled when it turned out the game was a mere babysitting simulator. Still, taking care of infants is taking care of infants–whether they they popped out of your uterus or someone just dropped them at your grandma’s house for the afternoon.

I’d like to be able to say Imagine Babyz is bad. Or good. Or anything. Honestly, I have zero gameplay input–though the singular review I’ve come across gives it a whopping 3.5. So in the place of actual constructive criticism, I give you sex and gender deconstruction.

First there’s the idea of “playing mom.” Pick up Babyz, and you’re doing this in two senses: first, as a babysitter, you’re playing the role of the mother substitute. Second, as the game player you’re playing the role of the babysitter. Lots of children “play mother” to their dolls, their friends, etc. That in and of itself is nothing new. What’s interesting is to see the role played in a structured, game format with preset gameplay rewards. Rock the cradle well, gain points. Forget to feed your charges, lose them. Oddly enough, what we’re being reminded of here is that motherhood itself–like gender–is a role to be played, not an inherent state. For such a sexist game, it’s a strangely feminist message.

We could also talk about why children play mother in the first place. Have you ever watched a toddler pretend to coddle a plastic doll? To tell the truth, it’s kind of creepy. Why would a child that small want to be a mom? Kristeva says (yes, I’m breaking out the psychoanalysis) it’s because the female child wants to be closer to her father. Subconsciously, she believes the father of her new baby is her own father. She replaces her mother as an object of affection by becoming a mother herself.

Now it’s time for the fun over-analyzing! Can we read Kristeva’s theory into girl games? Are Imagine Babyz players somehow usurping the power they currently lack as consumers in the games industry? If Babyz is the toy baby in question, then the industry would be its “father,” and us reviewers and players are the child busy coddling it. That would mean the attention we give to the game–both negative and positive–is really be energy diverted from the paternal “industry,” who’s love we’re hoping to turn toward ourselves. But then who would be our mother?

First there was Build-a-Bear. Then there was the (just released) Build-a-Bear game for the DS. As if that didn’t incite enough of a WTF, now apparently there’s a Build-a-Bear virtual world in the works, due out this winter. Seriously. It’s called Build-a-Bearville. And it’s “stuffed with fun.” Kill me now.

My bear-loving gut tells me this brightly-colored company is plotting some sort of world domination. You can just see their beady plastic eyes glistening with the reflected light of Club Penguin. I should have listened to my friends when they told me Build-a-Bear was evil. I should have known something was wrong the first time I stuffed an ID tag with a track-able bar code into the gaping hole in a teddy bear’s back.

Ok, before I sound like some sort of teddy bear lunatic, let me explain. I am a Build-a-Bear survivor. Yes, for one year in high school the girl who writes about sex made stuffed animals for children–and goddamn it, she liked it. At least, for a little while. Granted, it was my first (and last) retail job, but it seemed perfect. I got to work with kids. I got to work with toys. I’m a total sucker for cuteness, so both of those things work. Then, I began to see the problem with actually liking children and working for Build-a-Bear. I wanted to make kids happy, not convince them they had to make their mommies buy their bears three different pairs of shoes. No lie: I was instructed to tell them that their stuffed animals would love them more if they had accessories.

Four years later, I still haven’t totally gotten over my bear-related trauma. I see Build-a-Bears in malls and I instinctively hide. Some part of me must be thinking: what if they want me to take over a shift!? My first published article was actually something of a Marxist rant against my time among the teddy bears. Then, while I was in San Fran last year for the Sex & Games Conference, I was amazed to find The Basic Brown Bear Factory at the Cannery–the adorable, earnest little shop that Build-a-Bear had stolen its ideas from, even its color scheme. Just this September I was back at the Cannery. To my horror, the Basic Brown Bear Factory was totally empty. You could practically see the tumble weeds of teddy bear fuzz rolling past the windows.

So it’s fair to say I’m not approaching this from an objective (or probably even a reasonable) angle. The fact remains: Build-a-Bear is taking over the world. While the DS game just recreates the process of “making” a bear you’d experience in a store, the MMO “lets you bring your furry friends to life” by decorating their rooms, collecting points, and of course getting special rewards for each new one you buy. Stuffed animals rock. Kids who like stuffed animals rock. Why must this be so sucky?

I’m hoping to write a longer piece for the Voice on the excellent-ness that is Bioshock. In the meantime, let’s tease out some sex and gender themes together, shall we?

First, of course, we’ve got the Little Sisters. Seeing as how they symbolize corrupted innocence, how they can be “used” by the adult male protagonist, and how they come paired with–protective but curiously named–Big Daddies, we can agree with Penny Arcade and say they come with overtones of pedophilia. At the same time, the Little Sisters’ actual (as opposed to linguistic) relationship to the Big Daddies is far from sexual. Each of the girls refers to her protector, like a pet or a stuffed animal, as Mr. Bubbles.

There’s also the strange fact the girls seem younger when they’re possessed by sea slugs. Free them, and they turn eerily adult, looking players in the first-person eye and saying only, “Thank you.” It’s the possessed little girls that have power. (After all, they do wield super-phallic needles and shove them in and out of–albeit dead–bodies.) As for the saved little girls… Only time and x more hours of obsessive playing will tell.

More Bioshock-related sex and gender ramblings to come? You bet!

Of course, some people are already raising red flags over the fact that, simply put, players can kill what appear to be young girls. What’s even more interesting are the players’ own responses to the question: Do you harvest or save the Little Sisters? Most seem to be sparing the girls, or at least promising to play the game a second time and spare them. As Wired has pointed out, Bioshock itself takes place in an Ayn Rand kind of world–which is to say, among other things, that the individual (i.e. you) comes first–so it’s not surprising that many players are approaching the question strategically. Myself, I’m just fascinated by the role of monstrous female enemies in games, as well as the role of little girls. So the fact that the two have come together… Let’s just say there’s going to be some seriously giddy analysis going on here once that game final arrives.

Update: My copy just came in. I know what I’m doing this weekend…

Updated update: Leigh, who is somehow my magical video game doppelganger, wrote her Aberrant Gamer column this week on the same subject. Check it out for much more on morals, humanity, redemption… and the rest of those Billy Idol lyrics.

Now that Club Penguin has become Disney’s Club Penguin, I feel like I have even more to fear as the “pervert” who dared to ask whether sex might be going on in a children’s MMO. I mean, hate mail is one thing (and don’t get me wrong, I’m getting plenty of that after the Resident Evil 5 article I wrote earlier this week), but I feel like Disney is the kind of happy-go-lucky company who might break your legs in your sleep just for soiling their good name. Lucky for them, it seems Club Penguin really is air tight.

Still, it’s interesting to hear that safety played a big part in the buy-out. Says Lane Merrifield, one of the game’s three founders, “As a former employee of Disneyland, I’ve always had a great respect for what Walt created. When he first envisioned Disneyland, he wanted to create a safe place that he and his daughters could enjoy. In the process of creating Club Penguin, we shared that passion and often pulled from Walt’s vision in the hope of creating a unique place online that we would be comfortable letting our own children visit.” Safe? Comfortable? Does this mean that now no one can die on Club Penguin property? Those penguins will live forever!