Well there have been a number of people over the past week who have been viewing this blog, and who have IMed me asking questions, and one of them that I’ve chosen to address for this blog entry is on PG vs Mature areas with SecondLife, as it does seem some people don’t 100% understand the difference between the two area or what they can and can’t do in said areas.
PG areas of Second life might not be as many as Mature, but there are over 1,000 PG rated areas with Second Life to Explore, that being said what is a PG area?
A PG area in basic terms within Second Life is an area where no sexual conduct is allowed, you can not walk around naked or in overly sexual clothing (bust and privates must be 100% covered) and wearing sexual items is in general not allowed (this means no item that if clicked by another will generate a response from the person touching it) but this also includes sexual comments of a lurid nature. Wearing items such as “plastic” vibrators is also something which is frowned upon.
In general all PG areas are areas with in SecondLife that a “minor” could in theory walk around and not have to worry about what would happen to them .. aka PG areas are like a safe area, no weapons, no violence, safe and happy is the idea.
Now Mature areas, this can get fun to various degrees. Unlike PG areas Mature areas actually do vary on what is considered right and what is frowned upon.
In general Mature areas allow sexual behavior and in many areas actually encourage it. In a mature area it might not be uncommon to see naked women walking around or next to naked depending on the sim. Seeing people engaged in sexual activities is not uncommon as well depending on the sim, just remember HANDS OFF unless invited to participate, its one of those unwritten rules that will stand you will. Same goes for when you IM another AV, making suggestive comments is not always the best first line to say to someone regardless of location, politeness does count for something and actually might get to some where.
Some mature areas even allow use of force or weapons which can if you agree kill your avatar. However, you cant really kill you AV off, but when they get killed you get sent back to your home point (so to get back to the killing area you have to TP there from your home point again). Areas that allow this vary, common ones are WWI and WWII based, but there are other areas as well which have nothing to do with war that allow killing or out right violence to occur.
Like the PG areas each Mature sim has it own set of rules which you as the visitor are expected to follow, if you don’t you will be asked to leave and if that doesn’t work in many cases you will be removed with force. How do you know the rules? Simple many sim’s hand out note cards upon your arrival – READ the note card if its provided and follow any rules that are listed. If you don’t know the rules to the area you are in, best to just be conservative and watch what others are doing, wearing and saying for an idea and if you can ask someone who is there, many are more then willing to give a hand to a new comer to a sim that they call their own.
Well that I think gives a fair idea of the difference between the two, will post more about the two areas as time passes.