UNIONS 2.0: How a "Virtual" Protest Can Bring Us to a "Real" Success

by Barillo Kohnke


Barillo is a member of IBM ITALY National Works Council, and the Italian Delegate to the IBM European Works Council, representing all 9000 employees from 11 IBM group companies.


photos supplied by Eremia Woodbury

(please scroll down page for additional Italian language version of this article).

For many years we are asking to ourselves how to rebuild the trust to the unions, because many workers consider them as "obsolete" and "ineffective". The low level of participation in strikes and union initiatives must open our eyes to the need fo rethinking our mode of being unionists.....a way that cannot be hinged on fights and mental schemes of the 20th century, but without leaving anything from our great history. We must build an union that is renewing itself to approach the new challanges that we are facing today. The goal is to find new tools to communicate with our workers, to create participation, to surpass new problems coming with globalization (job off-shoring, vendorizations, etc) and at the same time involve young employees, teleworkers, employees out of offices, and the subsidiarian companies.
What we are trying to do inside IBM, one of the biggest corporations worldwide, can become a model to build a Union 2.0.
These are two main points:
- in a "globally integrated company" scenario, only with a global union alliance we can confront problems and needs of employees at worldwide level.
- internet in all its evolutions (web 2.0 and 3D) opens new possibilities for a strong union usage of all electronic tools to increase participation, communication and efficiency of traditional union initiatives.

But let's see a concrete example: after a long year of inconclusive bargaining to get a company level agreement (supported by traditional strikes, etc) where we were asking a small salary increase (40euro) and IBM responded with a salary increase of 6 euro (and we remember that IBM is one company with highest profit).
The last action: IBM in July cancelled in a unilateral way a national union agreement, which for many years has given the "productive result benefit" (with a loss of 700-1500 euro per year to all 5000 IBM workers in Italy).

For this reason we launched the first virtual strike on SECOND LIFE, a metaverse where many companies like IBM are investing millions of (real) dollars in this new world, to transform it in a marketing field.
But...what is exactly Second Life ? It's not a game: it's a complex ecosystem, a virtual society, a digital organism in continuous expansion and evolution. It's a cybercultural phenomenon, which is involving millions of real people. So we decided to move the union fight in this new innovative scenario: because here, for the first time, we are really with the same weapons and we can use for our advantage the technology that IBM is showing to its customer.
After one month of work, we built a global union alliance, thanks to the great help of UNI GLOBAL UNION, and political support of EMF and IMF (international and european metalworkers federations).
A taskforce of 20 people was able to organize, from zero, the first virtual protest worldwide in SL..

and so....on 27th of September 2007, 1853 -true- persons protested for 12 hours with their computer from 30 different countries, giving solidarity to IBM Italian workers.





The protest took place in 7 IBM sims on SL, and in particular on IBM Italia and IBM Business Centre. The tension and atmosphere were like a real event.... as some "disturbing people" that our security service managed.

Many protesters picketed, with many impressive colours and original templates, which flooded the vision of the strikers. The protest was real, even if the place was virtual !







Second Life had technical problems, because we reached a high number of participants.
IBM was annoyed, because we touched with the protest a real strategic place for the company: IBM closed its Business Centre to all visitors and customers, and the strikers closed a real IBM staff meeting in SL during the afternoon.

Results: now we have a bigger power to be used in our bargaining in the "real world", thanks to the extensive media coverage of this initiative: radio, tv and the blogosphere demonstrated a great receptiveness to this new way of unionised protest.

We know that the weak point of a corporation is its image: here we hit, and we opened the eyes of global public opinion on the Italian case. The participation so big at international level, created a global union alliance, which covers all the countries where the employees' representatives are fighting for the same goals: better wages, increased rights, more professionality and security for their jobs, investments on peripheral centres and learning.

Today a new international solidarity between employees is born, which uses all these new tools to fight and win the 21st century challenges.

for more info:
official protest blog: http://ibmslprotest.blogspot.com/
IBM local workscouncil: www.rsuibmvimercate.it

for more photos of the event, please see:
http://www.4shared.com/dir/4005252/4f71bfa5/BestEditedHighResPix.html


SINDACATO 2.0: come una protesta "virtuale" puo' portare ad un successo "reale"
Di Davide Barillari

Da anni ci si chiede come recuperare la fiducia verso un sindacato che purtroppo troppi lavoratori considerano "obsoleto" e "inutile". La scarsa partecipazione a scioperi e iniziative sindacali ed iniziative ci devono far aprire gli occhi sulla necessita' di ripensare il nostro modo di fare sindacato...che non puo' restare fermo alle lotte e agli schemi mentali del XX secolo, ma che senza perdere nulla della propria storia deve anche profondamente rinnovarsi per affrontare le nuove sfide che abbiamo davanti. L'obiettivo e' cercare nuovi strumenti per comunicare con i lavoratori, per creare partecipazione e sensibilizzazione, per superare i nuovi problemi che ci pone la globalizzazione (delocalizzazioni, vendorizzazioni, ecc) e allo stesso tempo coinvolgere i giovani, i telelavoristi, i fuori sede e le aziende consociate. Quello che stiamo tentando di fare all' interno di IBM, una delle piu' grandi corporation al mondo, puo' essere un modello per la costruzione del Sindacato 2.0.
Questi i due punti principali:
- nel contesto di un'"azienda integrata globalmente", solo un'alleanza sindacale internazionale puo’ affrontare problemi ed esigenze dei lavoratori a livello globale
- internet in tutte le sue evoluzioni (web 2.0 e 3D) apre nuove possibilita' per un forte utilizzo sindacale di tutti gli strumenti elettronici per aumentare la partecipazione, la comunicazione e l'efficacia delle azioni sindacali tradizionali.
Ma entriamo in un esempio concreto: dopo un lungo anno di inconcludente trattativa per portare a casa un contratto integrativo aziendale (supportato da scioperi tradizionali, raccolte firme, ecc) nel quale chiedevamo, fra le varie cose un modesto aumento di salario (circa 40euro), l'azienda risponde con un aumento di 6euro (e ricordiamo che IBM e' fra le aziende al mondo con piu’ alti profitti).
E poi la goccia che ha fatto traboccare il vaso: a luglio IBM cancella unilateralmente un accordo sindacale che da anni garantisce il "premio di risultato" (circa 700-1200 euro in meno all'anno per tutti i 5000 lavoratori in Italia).
Abbiamo quindi lanciato la prima protesta su SECOND LIFE, un metaverso dove aziende come IBM stanno investendo milioni di dollari (reali) in questa nuova frontiera sociale per trasformarla in terreno di marketing.
Ma cosa e' davvero Second Life ? Non e' un gioco: e’ un complesso esosistema, una societa’ virtuale, un organismo digitale in continua fluttuazione ed espansione. E’ un fenomeno cyberculturale che sta coinvolgendo milioni di personi reali. Abbiamo quindi deciso di portare il conflitto sindacale su questo terreno innovativo: perche' qui, per la prima volta, siamo davvero ad armi pari e possiamo utilizzare a nostro vantaggio la tecnologia di cui IBM tanto si vanta con i clienti.
Dopo un mese di lavoro, abbiamo costruito un'alleanza sindacale internazionale, grazie al preziosissimo aiuto di UNI GLOBAL UNION, e del supporto politico di FEM e FISM (federazioni europee ed internazionali dei sindacati metalmeccanici).
Una taskforce di 20 persone e' riuscita ad organizzare, da zero, la prima protesta virtuale al mondo.
E quindi: il 27 settembre 2007, 1853 -vere- persone hanno protestato per 12 ore tramite i loro computer da oltre 30 diversi paesi, mostrando solidarieta' ai lavoratori italiani IBM.
La protesta si e' svolta nelle 7 isole IBM su Second Life, e in particolare su IBM Italia e l' IBM Business Centre. La tensione e l'atmosfera erano quelli di un evento reale...compresi disturbatori che il servizio di sicurezza ha subito gestito. Cartelloni di protesta a bizzeffe, dai colori sgargianti e dalle forme a volte davvero originali, hanno affollato gli schermi dei manifestanti. La protesta era vera,a che se il luogo era virtuale!
Second Life ha avuto problemi tecnici, poiche' e’ raggiunto un elevato numero di partecipanti. Da IBM moltissimo fastidio, poiche’ abbiamo toccato su un terreno strategico dove fa piu’ male: IBM ha chiuso parte del suo piu’ importante Business Centre a tutti i visitatori e ai clienti, ed i manifestanti hanno interrotto una vera riunione di manager IBM (in una meeting room su Second Life) durante il pomeriggio.
Risultato: ora abbiamo piu’ forza per la trattativa sindacale nel mondo “reale”, grazie all’ enorme copertura massmediatica dell' iniziativa: radio, giornali, tv e tutta la blogosfera ha dato un fortissimo risalto a questa nuova forma di protesta sindacale.
Sappiamo che il punto debole di una corporation e' la sua immagine: proprio qui abbiamo colpito e siamo riusciti ad accendere i riflettori dell'opinione pubblica mondiale sul caso italiano. La partecipazione cosi' ampia a livello internazionale inoltre ha sancito la nascita di un sindacato mondiale, che si estende a tutti i paesi che come noi lottano per gli stessi obiettivi: migliori salari, maggiori diritti, professionalita', sicurezza del contratto e del posto di lavoro, investimenti su centri periferici e garanzia di formazione.
Oggi nasce una nuova forma di solidarieta' internazionale fra lavoratori, che utilizza tutti i nuovi strumenti per affrontare e vincere le sfide del XXI secolo.

per info:
l blog ufficiale della protesta: http://ibmslprotest.blogspot.com/
il sito della RSU IBM di Vimercate: www.rsuibmvimercate.it

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EXPLOITED! and STEAMPUNK UTOPIA...

Steampunk an SL invention? Scroll down for the first in a short series of articles by Plot Tracer on Utopian SF Writers from the days of steam...


Remamber to visit the SLLU Factory Exhibition - in collaboration with Luna Box

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Isla%20Montevideo/234/88/33

Watch the stream and then enter the building for the exhibition about worker exploitation in the past and now!



After you have been to the exhibition, please go to the Tribute Garden on the island to place your tribute to the exploited.



The Tribute Garden is at the top left of the island...

PLOT TRACER Looks Backwards...
Click on slurl to go to Babbage - a "Steampunk" sim. Or alternatively click on the slurl below.
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Babbage%20Square/207/204/32

Caledon: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Caledon/255/128//

Steelhead -
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Steelhead/84/226/24

Looking Backwards

“Steampunk” isn’t new. The socialist science fiction writers of the 19^th and early 20^th Centuries were imagining utopian, steam driven worlds (with a bit of nuclear guess work thrown in) long before SL was dreamt of…

“Looking Backward” by Edward Bellamy, is a strange read and it is so for a number of reasons, not least being the fact that it was published in 1888 and is about the socialist utopia the writer envisages for the 20th century. In it he predicts credit cards, radio, television and covered pedestrian malls. Julian West, a middle class insomniac, employs the services of a hypnotist to put him to sleep at night. His manservant, Sawyer, is supposed to wake him the next morning with a special “reversal of the mesmerising process.” When he awakes, he finds he has slept over 100 years. It is the year 2000.

As well as being a critique of the social, economic and political situation of his own times, it is a romance and a science fiction fantasy. The ideas Bellamy wrote about, ie. the portrayed utopian society , influenced people such as Eugene V.Debs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_V._Debs) , John Dewey (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dewey) , Thorstein Veblen (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorstein_Veblen), and Norman Thomas (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Thomas ).

Bellamy’s twentieth century is a time when everyone shares in a common wealth. It is a time when there are no wars, no private profit, no starvation, no class war, equality and retiral on full pension at 45 (so you can, just with that fact, see that his prediction was wide off the mark!)

His twentieth century utopia is a very nineteenth century idea of utopia. Bellamy – West in the story – explains that everyone in the twentieth century speaks in the way the educated middle classes spoke in the nineteenth century, the dialect of the working classes having been eradicated by equality and education. He also tells us that because the relationship between money and married status has been eradicated, marriage has become freer – people marry only for love rather than to keep status in society. This has in turn led to an equality of sorts between men and women – though his nineteenth century mind could only imagine an “imperium in imperio” organisation of the “weaker sex”. Women do work and are paid equally but their working hours are less, they have more frequent vacations and “careful provision is made for rest when needed,” because women are “inferior in strength to men and further disqualified industrially in special ways.” What women have, ie. an equality unimaginable in 1887, has been given to them by the men, “We have given them a world of their own, with its emulations, ambitions and careers.”

Bellamy gives the moral authoritative voice to a protestant minister - modernity in the nineteenth century middle class mind was greatly effected by the individuality the church was allowing capitalist venture. The sermon is written in a way that today we find grating. The minister takes ownership for the change in society for the church (perhaps this would be a way we could sell socialism to Texas?).

Though these things are telling of the middle class Boston Bellamy is from, (he had studied law, though never practised and had become a journalist) his ideas on state capitalist organisation and equality were revolutionary enough to make the book the third biggest seller of its day after Uncle Tom's Cabin and Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ.
One of the most interesting parts of the book for me comes towards the end when he revisits the nineteenth century. He takes a walk around Boston, commenting on advertising, the banking system and poverty. He then goes to his fiancés house where he sits at a luxurious dinner table. Someone in the company asks him where he has been and he says,
"I have been in Golgotha," at last I answered. "I have seen
Humanity hanging on a cross! Do none of you know what sights
the sun and stars look down on in this city, that you can think
and talk of anything else? Do you not know that close to your
doors a great multitude of men and women, flesh of your flesh,
live lives that are one agony from birth to death? Listen! their
dwellings are so near that if you hush your laughter you will hear
their grievous voices, the piteous crying of the little ones that
suckle poverty, the hoarse curses of men sodden in misery turned
half-way back to brutes, the chaffering of an army of women
selling themselves for bread. With what have you stopped your
ears that you do not hear these doleful sounds? For me, I can
hear nothing else."
He looks around the table and sees the guests are shocked and he tells them he was not accusing them personally of the weaknesses of the nineteenth system. The guests, rather than seeing his point became “angry and scornful. Instead of enthusiasm, the ladies showed only aversion and dread, while the men interrupted me with shouts of reprobation and contempt. "Madman!" "Pestilent fellow!" "Fanatic!" "Enemy of society!" were some of their cries, and the one who had before taken his eyeglass to me exclaimed, "He says we are to have no more poor. Ha! ha!" He is then thrown out. I don’t know about you, but I have been to parties like that.
After this revisiting of his former time he feels shame, “For I had been a man of that former time. What had I done to help on the deliverance whereat I now presumed to rejoice? I who had lived in those cruel, insensate days, what had I done to bring then to an end?”
Perhaps, using the same dramatic devices Bellamy uses to prick his 19^th century audiences consciences. I should ask myself the same question on behalf of my descendants, what was I doing while New Labour papered over the cracks while Bush plundered the world and promoted “poverty with servility?’ What was I doing when “governments were accustomed, on the slightest international misunderstanding, to seize upon the bodies of citizens and deliver them over by hundreds of thousands to death and mutilation, wasting their treasures the while like water; and all this oftenest for no imaginable profit to the victims.” Bellamy makes a lot of metaphors – though I think his metaphor of the “prodigious coach” is his best. In it he describes society as a coach, the fortunates riding in the luxury seats – the unfortunates – the masses, pulling at the harness and driver, hunger. At times the road was bumpy and some might fall from their seats, but they tried their damndest to keep them and pass them to their children. He also says that those who sat in the seats were under the illusion that they were “made of finer clay” than those pulling the coach. He said that this illusion was quick to take hold of those who managed to climb up from the ground, “before they had outgrown the marks of the rope upon their hands, began to fall under its influence. Another telling line in this metaphor is when he says that the people up top can, “enjoy the scenery at their leisure or critically discuss the merits of the straining team”, something I feel, Bellamy is a tiny bit guilty of as he later pours scorn on the working class labor (sic) movements. He believed a solution could only come if the educated classes were persuaded are willing to do something. He believed class solutions were fragmentary narrow and the nation should unite patriotically to create the ‘ultimate nation’.
Bellamy’s ideas are not fully formed in this book. He talks about a loose treaty between nations who have adopted his socialist/state capitalist system and says that it is for future generations to sort out the future ‘unification of the world as one nation. Meanwhile, however the present system works so nearly perfectly that we are quite content to leave posterity the completion of the scheme’
Bellamy went on to write another book about this ‘time’ called Equality, in which he explores his ideas further. His ideas became the basis for a new political party in the US – The National Party.
This is an interesting read – giving an insight to the ideas that were being bandied about at the time and the belief that capitalism was in a state of imminent destruction. Bellamy was writing around the time when Marx’s ideas were becoming known to the world. Actually looking backwards, perhaps if all of those people with similar goals had come together and forced change perhaps a time-traveler arriving today would not see the increase of death, destruction and broken lives that has actually happened. Perhaps arriving today she wouldn’t know about the death and destruction happening in the name of capitalism as the capitalist press and capitalist politicians conspire to keep the west ignorant, but that is another story. Perhaps if all of the people with the same goal come together in our time, a time-traveler in 100 years will find a utopia were ‘long ago oppressor and oppressed, prophet and scorner, had been dust. For generations rich and poor had been forgotten words.’
Read Bellamy’s works online –

http://www.pagebypagebooks.com/Edward_Bellamy/Looking_Backward_From_2000_to_1887/

http://www.gutenberg.org/browse/authors/b#a327
The Parable of the Water-Tank from the book "Equality" published in 1897 http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Parable_of_the_Water-Tank
Edward Bellamy on wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bellamy

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A reply... Pornography.

This reply is from a friend of the SLLU. He also recommends this addition to the debate: http://www.dsp.org.au/dsp/porno.htm

...the extract below seems to conflate the experiences of women in pornography with that of children.....althought the quote provided from Jensen only refers to women.

There is undoubtedly similarities and some "intertwining" - but I think there is a case to separate discussing pornography involving adult women ( and men ) and that exploiting children.

Extract from Blog -
"Consent and choice have been central notions in debates around wider commercial sexual exploitation of women and children (pornography, prostitution, lapdancing, trafficking and so on), and are at the forefront too, with regards Second Life. Both concepts are intertwined, and, as Robert Jensen, in his book
'Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity' notes,
"A meaningful discussion of choice can't be restricted to the single moment when a woman decides to perform in a specific pornographic film but must include all the existing background conditions that affect not only the objective choices she faces but her subjective assessment of these choices.".
__________________

These are serious issues to address , but I don't agree with quote from Catherine McKinnon about all (adult) pornography

And this quote from Catherine Mckinnon-
"Pornography is the perfect preparation - motivator and instruction manual in one - for sexual atrocities" Catherine McKinnon.

Personnally I think a much deeper discussion needs to take place on issues relating to sexuality rather than just demanding the eradication of all pornography and prostitution.

DM.

Some extracts from DSP ( Australia ) pamphlet on Pornography and Censorship

Sexual images can be both positive and negative. They can challenge the old stereotypes of women as passive and sexuality as dangerous, presenting instead erotic imagery of women's sexuality as pleasurable and active. Pornographic images can also represent violence, abuse and degradation.

How to deal with the two sides of sexuality and its imagery in today's society has been hotly contested among feminists. Is censorship of pornography the most effective strategy or does it only deal with the images and not the acts of violence directed against women? Or does censorship throw the baby out with the bathwater — sweeping away positive explorations of sexuality through the imposition of a new repressive morality and bolstering the campaigns of the traditional conservative opponents of women's liberation?

..........Both Dworkin and MacKinnon have also argued that women who participate in or enjoy pornography or have heterosexual sex are brainwashed or programmed into these activities by men. In order to maintain this view they have to virtually obliterate the idea that women are active agents in the choices they make about their lives and their sexual activity. Dworkin and MacKinnon instead reinforce the idea of women as victims, as passive and helpless, needing to be guided into an understanding of the "errors of their ways" by those who "truly" understand the nature of sexuality.

.............Arguing against censorship of pornography does not mean condoning, ignoring or de-prioritising campaigns around the often violent and usually misogynist portrayal of women in capitalist society. We have a responsibility to counter in the most effective way images which are exploitative and sexist — not by seeking to have them banned, but by initiating a much more wide-ranging debate about sex; by campaigning for better sex education in schools; and by creating more informed and responsible social attitudes to the expression of sexuality.

However if we are going to effectively fight sexism we can't just focus on sexually explicit portrayals of women. The establishment media, advertising, education system and other institutions, as well as the right-wing moralists who also campaign against pornography, all reinforce women's traditional roles. All objectify and degrade women.

..........We need an analysis of violence that empowers women, not one that reinforces the view that women are inherently powerless, timid, non-aggressive and submissive. Feminism should be a critique of this society, of a society that promotes violence against women in many forms, not a blame-the-indvidual, knee-jerk reaction that looks to the capitalist state for the solutions. Instead, we need a mass, feminist movement that allies itself with all those fighting the system of social relations which perpetuates violence, competition and oppression.
link to full document -
http://www.dsp.org.au/dsp/porno.htm

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What's The Harm?

Big Brother or essential anti-exploitation measures? – SLLU member Ledoof Constantineau gives her considered view on the Second Life sexual violence debate.

What's the harm? It's a question debated endlessly on Second Life forums and blogs* concerning content and activities inworld that many find disturbing in their potential implications, and others defend resolutely lest the community become, in their eyes, a big brother state. There can be few who have wandered this brave new virtual world without coming upon, intentionally or otherwise, sexualised child avatars, profiles displaying membership for 'rape fantasy' groups, or women in slave poses speaking (when spoken to..) in the third person. As a feminist with a background working in the anti violence against women and children sector, I am firmly in the camp harbouring concerns, and decided to investigate for myself some of second life's more infamous settings.

I spent one day teleporting around hard alley, Gor locations, clubs and other related areas and took snapshots of some of what I found; adding sceenshots of various groups, and profiles, and adverts of interest and relevance. The images are now collated together in an exhibit of sorts and have been added to since then as I, and other people working on the project, have come across more and more content whose main themes seem to be misogyny and abuse of power.

But where is the harm in pixels engaging in what appears to be consensual role-play? It is here that we must revisit longstanding debates on pornography and censorship, as well as examining emerging opinions on Second Life itself (and other virtual worlds). Dutch psychologist Jos Buschman, has been widely quoted recently after stating that second life is "by definition, a school for paedophiles"*. The Home Office in the UK has produced a consultation document investigating potential harm and legislative action around 'non photographic visual depictions ' of children being abused, It states:
"..Police and children’s welfare groups report an increase in interest in these images..(and).. are concerned that these images could fuel the abuse of real children by reinforcing abusers' inappropriate feelings toward children. These images, particularly as they are often in cartoon or fantasy style format, could be used in 'grooming' or preparing children for sexual abuse."*
Second Life, and potentially other virtual worlds, allow the fantasy of pornography to be taken one step further by allowing users to actively participate in that fantasy, and, provides a community of other like-minded people who validate and reinforce that the fantasy is ok. The Save The Children Europe Group position paper on child pornography and internet related sexual exploitation of children reports that,
"..Research has.. shown that some sex offenders will overcome their own internal inhibitors by viewing child pornography. There is some material which suggests that one of the most critical functions of child pornography is as reinforcement and justification of the will to abuse. This contradicts the discredited 'cathartic hypothesis' used to suggest that the use of child pornography will help potential abusers control their urges.."*

Those wishing to role-play child sexual abuse scenarios have found themselves a safe haven in which to operate. There are groups (Candence elementary school - 262 members, Indafamily - 133 members, Hard Alley Family Fun - 60 members, Daddys Toy - 68 members, Gothic Lolita - 476 members, School Girls Gone Bad Detention Home - 1099 members, to name a few) in which members harbouring such fantasies can have contact with each other, and locations (Wonderland in Nemo, Playfair Mansion. Daddy's Darlin’s) which have children’s bedroom designs and sex and torture pose balls within where the role play scenarios can be enacted. If part of training for soldiers can be to utilise immersive MMORPG'S, partly to desensitize and prepare for violent acts, then what is the potential impact of immersion in role-play and abuse fantasy scenarios?








"Pornography is the perfect preparation - motivator and instruction manual in one - for sexual atrocities" Catherine McKinnon




It is beyond the scope of this short article to do justice to the debate on pornography, but if one is inclined to share the point of view of Catherine McKinnon and others (and I do), then the proliferation of violent pornography and associated groups and activities within Second Life becomes, frankly, terrifying in it's potential implications for harm. There is anecdotal evidence of women involved in Gor, for instance, who are, in addition to their daily online rituals of subjection to 'playful' sexual slavery and humiliation, forbidden to leave their PC unless given permission to do so by their 'master'. A BDSM 'master' on the official messageboard openly discussed his success in online training and how some trainees have become excellent slaves in their real lives, partly through his training. This person also talked of the several vulnerable young women in 'real life' who had dropped out of school, had alcohol and/or drug problems, but were now leading constructive lives under his control. The language of pornography (bitch, slut, whore) plays an integral role in reinforcing these fantasies of women, and children, as penis and male pleasure receptacles to be controlled; objects to be used and mastered. It is a language of overt woman-hating, and is both ubiquitous and conspicuous in Gor, in BDSM, in child sexual abuse role-play areas, in sex clubs, in groups.. Everywhere in Second Life. The late Andrea Dworkin, whose work has been central to feminist anti-pornography arguments, captured, for me, its essence and function with the following words.

"Contemporary pornography strictly and literally conforms to the word's root meaning: the graphic depiction of vile whore, or, in our language, sluts, cows (as in: sexual cattle, sexual chattel), cunts.. The methods of graphic depiction have increased in number and in kind; the content is still the same; the meaning is the same; the purpose is the same; the sexuality of the women depicted is the same; the value of the women depicted is the same..".

It is through pornography that the areas of Gor and BDSM and 'ageplay' (specifically child sexual abuse roleplaying 'ageplay') and Dolcett (sexualised cannibalism of women) and Hard Alley's 'rape fantasists' are linked. The audience and particpants for each may differ, the backstories and pseudo-intellectualising justifying each may vary, but they speak the same language and the fantasies are centred around abuse of power. The language takes on more importance, perhaps, in a virtual world environment, where physical harm is not present (but could be should the relationship enter first lives..) but rather emotional and psychological harm, manipulation and abuse, and in some cases, indoctrination into a particular-mind set and way of being.







Consent and choice have been central notions in debates around wider commercial sexual exploitation of women and children (pornography, prostitution, lapdancing, trafficking and so on), and are at the forefront too, with regards Second Life. Both concepts are intertwined, and, as Robert Jensen, in his book 'Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity' notes,
"A meaningful discussion of choice can't be restricted to the single moment when a woman decides to perform in a specific pornographic film but must include all the existing background conditions that affect not only the objective choices she faces but her subjective assessment of these choices.".
We do not know the histories of those who engage in say, a rape role play scenario which ends with their avatar being mutilated and murdered (a scenario outlined by a poster in a messageboard debate), but it seems quite a stretch to agree that this is somehow sexually liberating for women.

The campaign to 'Keep Second Life Free' and 'united protest' are organised and highly visible; their aim to keep second life unrestricted in its content and activities (I came across posters mainly in Gor, BDSM, ageplay, Dolcett, Rape, 'extreme' sex etc areas). Who are we keeping SL free for? Whose interests are being served? Is real freedom the unyielding propagation of sexist, women-hating, violence and abuse ridden fantasy fodder?
My favourite snapshot was taken at a Gorean brothel. Outside the front door was the keeping SL free poster, and, by it's side, a shackling post for kajira (female slave)'Camper Slut' to be trussed up and displayed..

References:

1 Keeping SL Safe Together
http://blog.secondlife.com/2007/05/31/keeping-second-life-safe-together/

Slave Debate
http://forums.secondlife.com/showthread.php?t=192120

Gor Debate
http://forums.secondlife.com/showthread.php?t=196812

2 Libbenga, Jan, 'The Register' online magazine (21/2/07)

3 Home Office UK ( 2007) http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/documents/cons-2007-depiction-sex-abuse?version=1

4 Save The Children Europe Group: Position Paper on Child
Pornography and Internet Related Sexual Expoloitation of
Children (2004)

5 McKinnon, Catherine - source text unknown

6 See 1

7 Dworkin, Andrea, 'Pornography: Men Possessing Women"
(1994 edn)

8 Jensen, Robert, 'Getting Off: Pornography and the End of
Masculinity' (2007)

"..(research).. virtually unanimously shows that exposure to sexually violent material increases the likelihood of agression toward women..(and).. the available evidence strongly suggests the hypothesis that substantial exposure to sexually violent materials.. bears a causal relationship to antisocial acts of sexual violence... report also found that non-violent but degrading pornographic material produced effects similar to but not as extensive as those involved with non-violent pornography.."
Attorney General Commission on Pornography, US, 1986

Please note: This is a personal opinion from an individual SLLU member. We have published it in keeping with this blog's and our organisation's aim to represent and reflect a diversity of left opinions. The opinions contained within this article do not represent an SLLU group consensus, and the article is intended to provoke thought, debate, and further discussion. Please submit YOUR view to SLUL Revolution inworld or post replies to the blog piece.

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