OK, listen. Sian has written a few times now about the concept of doing things for realsies. And the general idea with that has been really that fantasy is fantasy, pretend is pretend. And when you are playing out role play fantasies that would be a bit unethical in the meat world, that is a good thing to remember. We balance this, however, with the fact that there is a realness to it.
If kink is involved, if not sex (and no, they are not the same), the real person at the other end is likely to have some sort of real feeling about it, even if that real feeling is indifference sometimes. It seems a bit counterintuitive perhaps, but Sian is not a believer in duality. She believes that we are emergent consciousnesses, that who we are is a confluence of body, experience, history, interaction, and everything else. A rare insight: RL!Sian is writing this part while lying flat on her bed and is experiencing some pretty gnarly back pain, for example. She has not really slept for a few days. She is irritable and sore. Her interactions with objects, media, books and the people around her reflect that right now.
And our interactions in virtual spaces, even anonymous or semi-anonymous ones like SecondLife, reflect that too. Virtual Sian is in some ways the real Sian. She was, after all, the tryout, the opportunity to regender herself in the virtual world before she had the courage to do so in the solid. Virtual Sian is a goal. And look at her.
Her relationships are real. Sure there are pretend kink things, and dystopian roleplay, but underneath it all there is a genuine wealth of feeling. Is Sian turning people into dehumanised dolls for realsies? Of course not. Are real people getting excited by the idea? Yes. Is there a real, consensual power exchange that works to a mutual benefit? Also, yes.
Look, you can cheat out of an RLV restraint at any time. All you have to do is turn RLV off. To an outsider, this might look like a reason why none of this counts, and it is all pretend. But the fact is, what it means is that it matters more. It matters more because you have adopted a social contract, a set of rules for how you treat this relationship.
When someone cheats out, it matters. Unticking a menu option in a needlessly complex third -party interface for a virtual world sandbox videogame suddenly becomes a profound gesture. And it is a safeword. Like a safeword, it ends the scene. It closes things off. It turns the lights on. If you needed to safeword, something might have gone wrong. But if you use your safeword, you are doing it right.
Sian refuses to play with people who don’t have formal limits. If she’s going to play with a person, their safeword is the first thing she asks them. And in SecondLife, this is often met with absolute bafflement. Some people just want to pretend, to playact. That’s cool. You do you, you can move on, you are not for Sian. Some people, on the other hand, deny they have any limits at all. That’s actually a lie, everyone has a limit, but knowing those limits is important when you’re dealing with the kind of play Sian engages in.
Some people want the wrong things to be for realsies. We’ve talked about those. Just run away from them.
Cheating out is serious. Sian remembers, a good 15 years ago, doing a public scene in a SecondLife venue and the person cheating out immediately after the scene was done, right in front of the audience, and then being baffled when Sian kicked them from her group and blocked them. That isn’t how you do it. If you weren’t prepared to be locked, you shouldn’t have started. Sian is older and wiser now, and wouldn’t have even started that scene these days, but she thinks about it from time to time. The problem there was the disconnect. Sian was playing for keeps. The other person was playing for playing. It was a casual getting off of rocks for them.
Yes, please get your rocks off casually. But Sian wants more than that.
Toggling the RLV option and cheating out is more than a safeword. This is part of why Sian wants to know your safeword. If you have a safeword and you use it, Sian ends the scene and she lets you go. She will talk about it if you want. But in giving her the safeword, it gives her the respect and agency to take responsibility for her part in what went wrong and the chance to either make amends and fix it, or accept the social consequences for messing up.
On the day of writing in fact, someone safeworded Sian. And it was a positive experience. It affirmed both the submissive and Sian. They said they wouldn’t do a thing. Sian said, is that a hard line? They said yes. Sian said, is that a safeword? They said yes. Sian immediately stepped back. It expressed a boundary, and Sian was grateful for that because it was the first time that particular person had stated a clear line, and they were empowered and safer for being heard. Both Sian and the sub were happier for it and moved on.
And no one fucked up. That time.
(Sian has fucked up in the past. Quite a lot, in fact.)
In the real world you can’t cheat out. In SecondLife, you can, but you do it because either you’re in danger or you don’t care, for it breaks the dynamic entirely. A safeword allows for the dominant to back down, to take responsibility, to fulfil a duty of care, and to make amends. And this might be the end of the scene, and the end of the relationship, but it allows for closure. It allows for both sub and domx to have respect.
The good side is that sometimes you have to. Sometimes they’re abusive. Sometimes they’re a monster. Sometimes you have to cheat out. Sometimes running away and blocking the fuck out of them is necessary. Sian had to do that one time, and she was right to do so, and that person pursued her for years. You wouldn’t think that SecondLife would create these situations. But it does. Because the feelings are real, and the emotions are real, and sometimes there’s real abuse because a real emotional world admits the risk of real abuse.
But then that’s why it matters. Because a simple unchecking of a menu item holds in it the symbolic ability to burn a relationship down to the ground and salt the earth on which it stood.
Featured Outfit:
ABYSSAL JAGGER catsuit (BoM/appliers); CAMILLE boots (black latex); JETT pants (black latex); SKYLA belt
:::SOLE::: SA – Backpack TriEye (Hacked, pieces of two different versions)
AVEC TOI Adrienne Short Gloves (right hand))
Aspect Carrie Arm Bands, Squishy Version (right arm)
ContraptioN SK3LE2 Prosthetic Arm (left arm, right shoulder)
Cruel Sulfur Gorget
Nipple pasties: Sian’s own (Appliers for Reborn HD nipples add-on: drop Sian a notecard inworld if you’d like some)
Makeup:
Mad Stripes Lips
Miamai Malefica Eyeshadow (variant 1)
Amaite Luna Eyeliner; Luna Eyeshadow
MILA Ominous Eyebrows (red variant)
Shiny Stuffs EvoX Glorious lipstick (variant 30)
Zibska Enyo Makeup (variant 05)
Notes:
OK, look, this isn’t a blog that exists for clout. It isn’t really a fashion blog. There are very few things here you haven’t seen before. But Sian really likes this fit. And there is a real pleasure in taking things and mixing them in new ways, splitting sets and altering things. That’s all.
