I sit here with a heavy heart, as an academic I feel exploring sexuality in a virtual world is
important, but as a human being I feel like a pedophile, and that Chris Hanson will be watching
my every move. I was not exactly sure how to go about doing this in a safe, secure, no explicit
conversation, and without feeling like pedophile.
I decided that the best way to see what really goes on in Habbo was to join the most popular room, “ Nightclub X.” I entered the room and just as I thought, the room looked like a nightclub. As “Banter” entered, he was immediately adjacent to a bar, complete with bottles on the shelves and martini glasses on the wall. I continued into the club, and saw that couches were lining the wall with two large tables in the center with girl avatars dancing on top of them, there were also two large dance floors on each end of “Nightclub X” with flashing lights. I decided to take my avatar to a couch and just watch the conversations unfold.
I witnessed what seems to be the seventh circle of hell in teenage form. I watched as one of the girls in flesh color clothing danced in front of a male toon, and role- played the job of a stripper. This girl, “rockerswet” as she had named herself, was dancing and saying things in chat such as “ * I take off my Bra*” (On the internet the asterisks denote an action), and continued by saying “ * I take my bra and wrap it around your neck and dance. *” I was unaware, at this point, of how far my jaw could actually drop. I decided that I really needed to move away from the pseudo strippers before Chris Hanson shows up in my kitchen saying that he has my chat logs.
The conversations were all very dull and were in poor English. The girl would go up to someone and say “hi” the male would then respond with the typical “what’s up?” I found this to be a very normal trend in the ritual of Internet conversation, but after “what’s up?” is when things became strange. The girl then told the guy that he looked cute, keep in mind that these are two-dimensional avatars that all have the same proportions; it looks much like a Utopian high school. The guy returned the compliment, and proceeded to ask if the girl would like to go back to his place, the girl obliged. The fact that these 13 year old boys were able to bring girls back to their internet domain with such ease will only cause them emotional pain in the future, because It is not that easy in the real world.
I decided that Habbo Hotel is a sexual cesspool of internet STD's as it seems the whole hotel of people looking for quick internet nookie. This promotes terrible norms for young tweens and is just one reason I think that Habbo Hotel is the absolute worst place on the internet, even worse than 4chan... oh wait, maybe I wont go that far. Do you feel that this sort of sexuality is bad for tweens? Its said that this is a time where kids are becoming curious but does this cause unattainable sexual ideals for the future? Does the notion of have cyber sex with anyone with no consequence translate into teens having the idea that they can have sex with anybody with no consequence? Whats your opinion on tweens being exposed to sexual themes through virtual worlds?
I feel that those sorts of interactions is very inappropriate for kids, my cousins are getting to that age now, and I would be completely freaked if I found out they were having cyber experiences.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was this age, kids getting on the internet wasn't as common as it is today. My dad actually heard about a website for kids with chat rooms. He helped me sign up for that, and let me use it for a short period of time every few days. The site had a number of monitors for each room, and it was very easy to report inappropriate behavior. The most risque it ever got was **wearing bikini** to the pool party. Occasionally some girl would say g-string and then 20 people would say, what is a g-string?
I think the media has also had a serious effect on the way kids behave in virtual worlds. They see the teens on TV having sex and making babies.
My high school was very small and the number of people getting pregnant was also small. In the few years before me, I only know of 1 for sure. Then my grade had 2 babies in bellies by graduation, and 2 more half way in to our first year of college. The grades below me started having more and more teen pregnancies, even before the girls had reach junior year, and there were rumors that one guy had gotten at least 3 girls pregnant.
By that time online chat rooms and virtual worlds had already gained a decent amount of popularity, as well as more TV shows containing sexual context aimed at teenagers.
I know people in my grade were doing all the things the younger kids are doing, most of my grade waited a little longer though. I'm curious about how, in the 3-4 year age difference between my grade and the grade with 3 babies before senior year, some how the notion of safe sex got lost, or if they are just more promiscuous, or more intoxicated than we were. I feel that them being exposed to these things at younger ages than we were has totally changed their concept of relationships and sex. If the world continues this way, my future kids are going to hate me and think I'm lame. I don't really care, I'm going to try my best to keep them from developing this promiscuous mindset.