Burning Freedom

The Second Life Insider today made me drop my jaw. Read it here and don’t forget the follow-up. The short version: the Burning Life event sported a nude statue with a marble texture in a PG sim and Linden Lab stepped in to have it censored. Result - statue ruined while being moved to a ‘more appropriate’ spot.

Forget Lolita. Forget being unable to call yourself Massimo because there’s ass in that name (and forget that my fellow Mentors and me have recently run into the work of a griefer named KikeSpicNigger, which apparently is possible) and forget the whole song and dance about broadly offensive. This one takes the cake, with a cherry on top.

I am actually lost for words here. The level of insanity simply defies description. Do I really have to explain in here what the differences are between art and porn, or between nudity and porn? Do I have to somehow explain with examples why only the most overzealous, dangerously extremist religious fringe groups would object to an artistic, non-sexual representation of the female body?

Nudity is our natural state. The human body is not offensive - it’s nature, it’s God’s creation according to some. Nudity does not hurt the tender souls of little kids - it just hurts adults who fear the freedom nudity implies. Nudity does not equal sex or porn. The flipping Vatican, that temple of backwards religious ideology filled with men and women who shy away from sex as if it were the plague, is filled with nude art.

Now really, I have no leaverage at all at Linden Lab. But hell, here goes: I demand an official apology on the Second Life blog, containing the words overzealous, overstepped, clear and boundary. I demand that the statue be allowed to stand on the intended spot, in her full nude glory, with a notecard giver next to it to give out the full text of said blog.

What the fuck were you people thinking.

Update from the Burning Life blog:

[10:10]  Iridium Linden: Hi GavinLeigh. Thanks for your note. I did tell Vicero that bits (ex:  nipples) could not be shown in a PG sim. Perhaps we can reassign your  plot to a Mature Burning Life sim. I’ll investigate and get back to you.  Or perhaps you can make the breast without so much detail. I know that’s  a lot to ask, but let’s see if we can find an alternative first.

NippleGate, anyone?