On the blurring of reality and play

Sex in world of Warcraft - screenshot by Jeremy Clarke

While we’re on the subject of the thinning effect social online games have on the line between reality and fiction I thought I’d share this, which I (I being the little gnome on the right) stumbled upon in the human land of Ellwin near the town of Goldshire.

Yes, those are two naked (in-game the underwear is as naked as it gets so it’s considered all-the-way) Night Elves and one naked human. Yes, the human is lying down with the elf sitting on top of him so it kind of looks like they’re having sex (no doubt it was a close enough resemblance for their purposes) and no, I’m not sure exactly what the third player is supposed to be doing.

While this doesn’t happen all the time in WoW, I think it happens enough that most people would be surprised. The lesson is that people will find ways to simulate sex in any and every virtual context you can throw at them, the only thing you can do is make them look dorky in the process by putting obstacles in their way.

(for proof of this, see Second Life where no burdens were placed on anything [the world is completely open to be designed by it’s users], and almost everything is somehow related to sex.)

6 Replies to “On the blurring of reality and play”

  1. we’re totally, officially no longer friends.

    official: because it was stated in the comments section of your blog.

    no longer friends: because YOU’VE LOST IT, THIS IS NUTS! I’m serious, please consider how fucked up you’re behavior has become.

    the other night elf is waiting to be tagged in btw.

  2. Maintaining cheerfulness in the midst of a gloomy task, fraught with immeasurable responsibility, is no small feat; and yet what is needed more than cheerfulness? Nothing succeeds if prankishness has no part in it. Excess strength alone is the proof of strength.

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