Recently proto virtual-world Second Life banned in-world gambling using it’s native currency, Linden Dollars. This really shouldn’t have come as a shock to anyone, given the government’s recent war against online gambling. Linden Labs, who administers Second Life, could not take the chance that the feds would come and seize their business. States have lobbied hard to eliminate online gambling, as it undermines their total control of the industry: an arrangement which is ripe with enormousness state revenues and corruption.

Now comes word that Second Life may ban bestiality among avatars. Controversy over alternative sex practices are nothing new in the virtual world. There has been, and remains, a long standing controversy over age-play, in which adults maintain avatars which appear significantly younger than themselves, and occasionally engage in sex acts with each other or with older appearing avatars.

Technology and sex have been intertwined since man first developed civilization. Some of the erotic pottery and writings of ancient Greece and Rome are still with us to, The great Print Culture of 17th century Europe gave us not only Shakespeare and Dunne , but also”Sodom” by John Wilmot, the first printed pornography. In the 19th century the new technology of photography was quickly adapted to nudes and erotic imagery. The first truly erotic and fetish films began appearing around 1910, less than tens years after the equipment became readily available. The availability of consumer computers in the 1980s spurred sex related bulletin board systems (BBS): there were Gay BBS’, Straight BBS’, Fetish BBS’, and a huge host of others that were simply a potpourri of sexual desire. With the first coherent Internet nodes came sex – alt.sex newsgroups, sex.* IRC channels, sex.stories ftp reservoirs, etc . . .

Technological sophistication does seem to bring to light more unusual sexual practices then seen in lower forms of technology. No doubt, Freud would argue that anonymity coupled with our unease with new technology is a breeding ground for perversity. However, human sexual imagination is not limited by technology. The various fetishes encountered in Second Life, or online in general, would not disappear if the technology to act them out ceased to be. At this point, the technology is simply a tool which allows human sexuality to be explored — it does not engender the desires it reflects. Thus it seems particularly silly, and perhaps overbearingly paternalistic, to suggest that certain sexual acts — virtual acts at that — between consenting players be limited in Second Life. Even in areas which are legally abhorred, such as age-play, there is adult consent, and therefore no law is, or should be considered, broken. Some elements in all societies are always preoccupied with the sexual practices of others. There is always a great wringing of hands and cries of sin and damnation. But these acts are never eliminated. The questionable acts are simply further hidden from the hand wringers. Advanced networking has allowed humans to explore their sexual desires and identities. The purpose of technology must include the furthering any understanding of ourselves and each other; otherwise, it serves no real purpose.

Given the amount of apparent sinning and perversity occurring in Second Life, it should come as no surprise that Catholics have taken a strong interest in the world. Recently, the Jesuits have decided to pursue an evangelical mission into the virtual world. There really is no better choice to journey to this badly rendered 3D wilderness then the Jesuits. They have missions in nearly every country in the world, and though the order contains many great scholars and thinkers, they are fanatical in their beliefs: as their founder Ignatius Loyola said, “I will believe that the white that I see is black if the hierarchical Church so defines it.”

Of course, theology in Second Life raises far more questions then issues of sexuality. For instance, does an avatar have a soul? Is that soul an equal extension of the player’s soul, or is it a minor or lesser extension? Does praying in Second Life carry equal weight as prayer in real life? Can one receive virtual communion? Can one commit virtual sin? All of this should generate a great theological debate, not unlike the age old stercorarian debates in the church — which argue about the nature of the transubstantiated host during digestion.

Of course one must wonder what a good religious man will do when confronted by a twenty-something year old man, appearing as a 15 year old girl asking her parish priest for a spanking. . . . .

It seems a group of atheist students at the University of Texas, San Antonio, have set up an interesting program to trade pornography for bibles — not vice versa, however. I am not sure that the two, bibles and porn, are mutually exclusive though, that one would have to give up the latter for the former. Rick Hawkins, paster at UTSA, stated: “I don’t know one believer that would take his Bible and turn it in for pornography.” But paster Hawkins may put too much faith into his flock. A poll conducted last year suggested that 50% of, self-proclaimed, Christian men consumed pornography, and 20% of Christian women admitted to do so as well. One would assume that good Christians possess more then a single bible, making such an exchange less of a burden.