Originally written by Isabelle Pavlova for mmorgy.com

Reaching way back into the MUD/MUCK archive (and proving how incredibly far ahead of us graphics whores the text people are), we find a thesis called Texuality in Cyberspace. This paper from 1994 covers the many types of social interaction and influence that can happen in virtual worlds, including sex in cyberspace.

We've included the sex portion of the paper in the extended part of this entry, just in case the link to the refering page goes defunct.

Taken from MUDs and Written Experience: A Thesis on Textuality in Cyberspace, Jeffrey R. Young, 1994

NETSEX AND PHYSICAL VS. EMOTIONAL DISTANCE

    Perhaps most curious to outsiders (and greatest cause of
    criticism of these new cybercommunities) is the phenomena of
    MUDsex: high-speed two-way erotica typing, which sometimes
    involves masturbation. Those hoping to do some info-highway
    rubbernecking on MUD will certainly be disappointed -- believe
    it or not, players on MUDs are, for the most part, discreet in
    their online heavy petting. MUDs provide private areas where
    characters can close the door and turn off the virtual lights,
    and it is in the virtual back rooms and bedrooms that NetSex
    occurs. What do couples get out of this highly emotional
    activity when it's filtered through cyberspace?

    The easiest comparison to NetSex is phone sex, but this
    comparison may be unfortunate. If a player were hooked into
    MUDs just for NetSex, then this link would be appropriate, but
    most people who take the time to learn the MUD programming
    languages and design their character are interested in more
    than a one-night stand. Picking up the phone and dialing a sex
    line invests no commitment, whereas the hours of learning
    required just to be fluent enough in the MUD system to have
    NetSex (much less find someone to have it with) makes the
    event more significant. As communities that are often looking
    for a self-respecting communal identity, MUDs try to resist
    being characterized as online whorehouses. Marshdarter
    (author's character) mentioned a recent Wired magazine article
    about MUDs (which focused heavily on NetSex) to one character
    and met a disgruntled reply: Leticia murmurs, "THAT article
    again. :("Leticia murmurs, "THAT article, if you noticed, had
    two descriptionss, and about a paragraph (rather biased) about
    Furry.. the rest about LambdaMOO, but they decided to portray
    Furry as a den of iniquity.."

    People on MUDs don't walk up and proposition you with NetSex.
    The event generally occurs between characters who have first
    'talked' and interacted over a period of time. Once NetSex is
    considered in relation to real life sex, it is interesting to
    note the implications of online intercourse.

    Participants in NetSex maintain a strict physical and
    emotional distance while still enjoying what can be a
    fulfilling exchange between two people. With all the fears our
    society associates with casual sex (pregnancy, disease, etc.),
    NetSex provides a safe opportunity for sexual play. In fact it
    is possible that MUDs provide an outlet for those who are shy
    in real life to be more aggressive sexually. Just as MORE
    OPINIONS ARE OFFERED on the Net than in real life, some MUDers
    are more open in their affections. So much so that the amount
    of sexual innuendo and flirtation becomes notable to other
    players. Diadalos says, "has there ever been two minutes on
    this thing where there hasn't been the mention of sex... do
    you guys conduct yourself like this in RL?" The answer clearly
    is no. These players use the semi-anonymous medium of MUDs to
    explore aspects of self and expression they would not
    ordinarily venture in face-to-face exchanges.

Originally written by Isabelle Pavlova for mmorgy.com

For all of our coverage of virtual world sex, it would logically follow that at some point, someone would want to simulate full reproduction. Virtual conception and pregnancy are by no means a new idea. From the BBS days when couples could have children in LORD, games have evolved in terms of what players could do with conceiving children, with games like Sociolotron having built in rule systems for pregnancy (including menstural cycles), and virtual worlds like Second Life have emergent conception and pregnancy markets.

All pictures taken at Vindi's Baby Heaven, Second Life

In this article, we start our series on in world pregnancy by covering something that general to all of the virtual worlds, reasons for wanting to engage in virtual conception and pregnancy. Though each world offers a different setting and rule structure, many of the reasons users would want to experience childbirth and raising in a simulated environment stay the same.

The first question that comes to the non-user's mind is probably "What's available?". Though we'll be covering this for pecific worlds in later articles, we'll discuss pregnancy in some of the MMOrgy covered worlds briefly. Second Life has a rather large pregnancy market. From ultrasound units and delivery rooms to scripted babies and nursery sets, the amount of baby related user built content is massive. Sociolotron not only has breeding schedules built into female characters, conception and abortion are available (and sometimes required to have certain events happen in game). Heavenly Bodies (not yet released) will allow users to alter the genetic sequence of their children, with children being NPCs until they reach 18 years of age in game, at which point they can be taken over by a user. Child bearing also affects the stats of the player.

The next question is... why? In a world where you can do anything, be anything, why procreate in the same way we do in the real world? The answer mirrors the same reasons behind the act of conception or sex in general in virtual worlds. We do what we know how to do, we do what we want to do, we do what we sometimes can't do.

Therapy

Probably the most talked about reasoning on the Second Life Forums is therapy. Many couples have expressed that they use Second Life to get over a miscarriage or infertility issues in real life. Whether or not this is safe is not something any of us here at MMOrgy are licensed to judge. The fact that material/virtual things can make people feel better or worse is something that has kept therapists paid well for many a year...

From the Second Life Forums (Free SL account required):

_Second Life is different things to different people. Prims assembled into symbols can be very powerful. I can think of people who have left Second Life because of Symbols made of prims.

I can't help but be reminded of the first person that I remember seeing with a baby in SL. She really had lost a baby in RL, that's why she made babies in SL. Maybe it was a way to work through things, I'm not sure.

I do know that when I started SL I was very homesick and so one of the first things I created was my old home back in Kamloops. I don't know why but somehow it made me feel better, like painting a picture of it._

Practice

Virtual world babies are absolutely no replacement for real babies, but in terms of the "take care of an egg/sack of flour for a week" assignments of secondary school students, online environments can certainly teach as much, if not more. New couples can use virtual babies to get into the habit of child raising schedules and chores, and talk to other couples about their experiences. The AI right now is such that the realism of a virtual environment isn't going to be a boon to real life experience, but it could certainly supplement topics learned from other mediums (books, tv, etc...).

Can't/Roleplay

Obviously, this can't happen in real life:

No matter how much you wish and dream and squeeze kittens and put your real baby in a fursuit (MMOrgy takes no responsibility squozen kittens or for you putting your real baby in a fursuit), it won't be the same as a furry baby. As virtual worlds provide a way for people to act out fetishes that are not physically possible, it also allows them to live situations that can never be realized. Furry babies are a rather extreme example of this. A couple/group in a long distance relationship may be interested in having a family, and scripted babies may be as close as they can get. In situations such as that (where both parties are mentally stable enough to deal with the gap between reality and the virtual world), anything is better than nothing.

Fun

No one usually references the "Fun" reasons, because there's just not much to say.

Virtual worlds are built for fun as much as anything else, and playing house is popular among children not only because it's mimicing actions of adults, but because it's also entertaining. If you can have a no strings attached baby, why not? There's no excuse not to have the experience if all it's going to cost is some virtual money. You may get bored with it in 5 minutes, or it may deepen your roleplay. But, it's something you can say you did, at least.

We don't claim this to be anywhere near a full list of the reasons users would want to have virtual children. As with all things in MMOs, experience and personal context are what drive the humans behind the avs to do things, and number the combinations of those is infinite.

In our next articles in the series, we'll be covering pregnancy in Second Life and Sociolotron, as well as the future of online conception and pregnancy in virtual worlds.

Originally written by Isabelle Pavlova for mmorgy.com

Naughty America is a new MMOEG being produced by... we're not real sure. There's no company listing on the page, nor is there much information.

This looks to be something similar to Habbo Hotel, minus the pixelation, same with the isometric view, and plus built in sex. According to the screen shots, it also has a video interface, which lets us assume that there's voice chat, too.

I don't usually make a habit of being harsh to a game that hasn't even been released yet, but this whole idea of avoiding the Uncanny Valley in MMOEGs by going so incredibly cartoony that it feels like you're screwing an animated ad for TRL is a little much. I don't hold out much hope for this one, but I suppose there are people that play Seducity, too.

Originally written by Isabelle Pavlova for mmorgy.com

Utopian Hell has a rant concerning sexuality and female characters in video games, with specific examples of sexism in MMO's.

After level twenty in World of Warcraft, a Warlock gets a pet ‘Succubus’. She’s busty, barely dressed, and she possesses the ability to stun her targets by mesmerizing them with her sexiness. As if that weren’t bad enough, her idle animation is slapping her ass and making a squeaking sound.

via IGDA Sex In Games SIG Blog

Originally written by Isabelle Pavlova for mmorgy.com

A long-running debate between the players of World of Warcraft is over the often-drastic differences between the art styles of clothing and armor for males and females. Some are of the opinion that the artists aren't stressing the 'Heavy' in 'Heavy Metal' very much. However, when it comes to pictures like these, it's not hard to understand why.

The posters over at wow.com's community have been debating the topic for a week now. Join the discussion here.