the stigma of the word “adult” when applied in certain phrases conjures up creepy images; like an adult bookstore, adult movies, and adult virtual land, of course, that’s just our opinion

adult virtual land? o_O

what does “adult” mean to you?

many residents are confused with what that means for them in second life. private estates have their rating set by the estate owner. we have always wanted to use “Age Verification” from the very beginning, not because of adult stuff, but as an effective anti-griefing tool. few griefers would have age-verified accounts

but . . . one of the benefits of a private estate is that you don’t neeed to have a premium membership to own land – that outweighed all other considerations for us. and many people are age verified but don’t realize it. if you ever were a premium member or have added US dollars to your XStreet account via PayPal, then you are probably age verified

age verification does NOT add your personal info to your account at Linden Lab as far as we know. it’s a third party system called Aristoltle that is used (and a quick Google and you can see that it’s easy to beat the Aristotle system – we are not condoning that and our accounts are linked to each other, all verified, and all premium). Aristotle is used by alcohol companies for their websites

to clarify what adult is, here are the words from the “final” definition by Linden Lab (our emphasis in bold):

The Adult designation applies to Second Life® Regions that host conduct or display content that is sexually explicit or intensely violent, or depicts illicit drug use. Any Region must be designated Adult and therefore require account verification, if it advertises or publicly promotes the following:

* Representations of intensely violent acts, whether or not photo-realistic (for example, depicting death, torture, dismemberment or other severe bodily harm)
* Photo-realistic nudity; photo-realistic means that an image either is or cannot be distinguished from a photograph
* Expressly sexually themed content, spaces or activities (whether or not photo-realistic); we will broadly define what is “sexually themed” to include any sexually oriented activities and conduct

Groups, event listings and classified ads that reference these themes or content must also be designated Adult.

so that means you can have all the sex stuff you want in your home for your own use, but you can’t have it advertised for the public, meaning as long as your home is not a public place, it’s okay. you don’t need to throw up ban lines if it’s your home

it is still confusing as it applies to shops that sell clothes and skins, it says “image either is or cannot be distinguished from a photograph”. well most skins to me are clearly avatar skins and not real photos, so i would assume (cringe) that those shops are okay on mature sims (all iliveisl sims are mature already)

speak up here and on the sl blogs =)

UPDATE: read Winter Seale’s very thorough (and more accurate) explanation on this