Clothes For Boys in SL: Kinda Not Really

I was asked recently by someone - not a noob, I might add - about where to find decent shapes and skins for male kid avs in Second Life. I was of course able to direct him to a couple of vendors which immediately sprung to mind. After helping him, he asked about clothes. And I kind of stammered for a bit. It's the same problem, believe it or not, that I ran into when I was asked a similar question right around SL5B by an adult friend of mine who wanted to try being a kid for a while, just for kicks.

The problem is, I can't really recommend any "boys" clothes vendors, for a couple of reasons. I'm not going to name any specific vendors, because I don't want a vendor to get all offended and come yell at me (although I suppose that by not being specific, I risk all boys' clothing vendors getting offended and coming to yell at me), but I have some problems with most of the boys clothing that is available out there.

Problem 1: For some reason, a surprisingly-small number of boys' clothes-makers have discovered the upper-most limit of the pants layer. I've encountered any number of pants, like the ones shown above, where the artist has almost meticulously failed to fill in the entire pants layer to the very top. Why is this a problem? Because, as illustrated, the bottom limit of the shirt layer exactly meets the top limit of the pants layer; thus, when your pants aren't "tall" enough, there's a really thin strip of tummy showing between your pants and your shirt. If the pants are really bad enough, your underwear shows. According to the unwritten rules of my childhood, your underwear showing in public is simply the most humiliating circumstance that can befall a boy of any age, and simply will not do. But even if you avoid the underwear problem by not wearing any (...that's right - so???), you still have that strip of skin there, which makes your shirt look too small (ironic, considering the shirt is as long as it can get and the problem actually lies with the pants) and you just look like a dork. To be absolutely fair, this is a problem with ALL male pants in Second Life, not just boys' clothes. The only workaround for an item like this is to wear a shirt on the jacket layer, so that it can extend down past the waistline of your pants and cover the awful glitch. But what if there's something else you want to wear on the jacket layer, like (imagine this) an actual jacket? With an open front, so the shirt beneath is visible?

Problem 2: There are some boys' clothes-makers whose jeans are so low, and/or whose shirts are so short, that it can't be written off as accidental and this too-small-clothes look is the intention of the artist. There is a significant number of these styles marketed to boy avatars; I can't really say anything about them save that even though I am boy avatar, these clothes are aimed at a consumer base I don't belong to.

Problem 3: There are some boys clothes that do manage to fit just fine, but they have cutesy designs on them which make it obvious that they're for much "younger" avatars than mine. In other cases, the clothes are much to "trendy" - i.e., they're ad-shirts for toys or TV shows or various products that appeal to kids, or they include baked-on accessories that don't appeal to me, etc. These things don't really interest me, so I avoid those clothes as well.

So what's left, then? Well, in the boys' clothing market - nothing, sadly. Therefore, I tend to buy my clothes from adult-av clothing vendors. And why not? Sizes don't matter in SL; the garment scales down just fine, and although (as mentioned) there's still the occasional brush with Problem 1, but it's easier to spot on the adult avatar models and thus avoid. All but a small number of the clothes in my inventory are "adult" clothes. And that's what I end up telling people who ask: until things change, it's probably better to Buy Adult.

Choices and Consequences

With rights and privileges comes the responsibility to use them sensibly and with consideration.

In SL, as I've before mentioned, you can look like anything you want. I - along with the majority of residents, I expect - rather enjoy seeing the level of creativity and originality (or, if not originality, then humor or all-round coolness) displayed by the way people choose to present themselves. I've seen walking popsicle sticks and talking dragons. It's lots of fun!

But of course, there are limitations. While there are a multitude of places where you are free to roam and mingle, the fact is that, depending on what you choose to look like, there are some places you may not belong as long as you look like that. If you choose to dress like a robot, for instance, you really don't belong in an ancient Roman-themed role-play sim, and probably oughtn't go there. If you go there anyway, you're likely to be removed. This can't fairly be termed "discrimination", since you choose what you look like in SL, and can change anytime or go somewhere else (options which aren't always available in RL). Someone's wish to build an area where everyone is exclusively medieval does not impinge on your wish to be an alien.

Being a kid in SL likewise places some limitations on where I can and should go. There are, shall we say, certain "adult-themed" places in SL where it's just plain wrong to take a child avatar. I think the vast overwhelming majority of SL residents, including kid avs, knows and has no problem with this. The remaining few - well, I have my own opinion of such people, and it's not a flattering one. In any case, not only is it just plain wrong to take a child avatar to those places, it's actually against the SL Terms of Service - something the wayward robot in the Roman sim doesn't have to worry about.

It's not always so cut-and-dried, either. There are other places where kids aren't welcome, for less-than-obvious but equally valid reasons. Perhaps it's an RP sim, perhaps not. There are some people who simply can not tolerate kid avs, and get highly (very highly) irate whenever they see one. They are just as entitled to their opinions as I am to mine.

I've explained how I came to be a kid av. I don't think I adequately explained, though, just what a surprise the whole "kid subculture" was to me. I had no clue it existed when I was looking around for my Twain-esque shape, and only found out about it by piecing together clues I found at the shops I visited. There's shops, malls, clubs, and other venues pretty much dedicated to kid avs. There are specific places kids tend to gather and hang out.

SL kids are a cagey bunch, though, and they have a right to be on edge. Certain tabloid news stories in some countries have exposed the fact that there are individuals in SL who choose kid avatars for less-than-innocent and frankly disgusting purposes. I don't think I have to worry about running into such people, and I'm pretty sure they're few and far between. The problem is, when people see a news story about kid avs being used in SL for such things, people often come to think of ALL kid avs in SL that way. It's gotten to the point where often, many (perhaps most) "normal" adult avs will simply refuse to talk to or acknowledge kid avs at best. At worst, they harass and grief us. A lot of the kids who have been here a while have counseled me against hanging out at too many "normal" adult places, for concern that I'll be ignored, griefed, or worse. It seems to me an awful, awful shame that just about anyone can be anything they want to be, and hang out anywhere they want with anyone they want with confidence - unless you choose to look like a kid, in which case you're pretty much limited to hanging out with other kids if you want to have that same feeling of safety. It just seems a bit unfair to me. Perhaps that's another one of the reasons that I stayed a kid av, after my original purpose had been fulfilled.

But I'm a very foolish person. Unless there's an obvious reason I shouldn't, I don't feel reticent about going to a place that isn't a designated kid place. I'm glad for it, too, because I met some of my closest friends by going to non-kid places. My goal is not to start trouble, though - if I'm someplace and a resident explains that my presence there is not wanted, I leave. SL is huge, and there's lots of places my presence is accepted.

Why be a kid in SL?

Since I'm regrettably lacking in the creativity department (now and then, anyway), I found myself at a loss for what to make my first blog post about. No, that introductory post doesn't count. So, I decided to check out some other SL kids' blogs and see what sorts of things they posted about first. By and large, they've usually got some kind of entry about why they're a kid in Second Life.

It's a viable question. In SL, you can be anything - male, female, black, white, or purple; you don't even have to be human. You can be an animal. Or something that is a cross between human and animal. You can be something else entirely - one of my favorite "disguises" is as nothing but a set of floating, rotating cubes. The sky's the limit, really. So, given that sort of freedom, why would an adult decide to be a kid? Allow me to step out of character for a minute and tackle this problem.

There may be as many answers to this question as there are kid avatars in SL (and there's probably more kid avs in SL than you think there are); I'll tell you how it happened with me. I started out as an adult human, like everyone else in SL. I did some wandering and exploring and bought various items and objects to change the way my avatar looked, experimenting with different appearances. I settled on one eventually - a Civil War-era Union officer (the Union Forever!). Of course, I remained open-minded about changing it.

One day, I came upon this unique (and free) vehicle - an old-looking wooden raft, with a makeshift sail, a tent, and a couple of barrels on board serving as seats. It was very Mark Twain-esque, and that appealed to me. I rezzed the thing, got on it, and spent an hour sailing around the incredibly expansive Mainland Waterway. It was calm, soothing, and unbelievably fun - to me, anyway. I had dreamed of getting ahold of such a raft and doing something very similar in RL, ever since I was a kid. Suddenly it occurred to me - wouldn't this look much cooler if my avatar was, indeed, a kid? I kicked around the idea for a while, and finally decided to drop some money on a (somewhat unconvincing) kid shape, and a cheap and bland kid "skin". I found that my adult clothes automatically shrunk down to fit my new shape, so I considered myself set. Off I went! I've said the shape and skin weren't all that great, but they were close enough to lend the desired illusion.

I noticed while shopping certain ads for kid-avatar "groups" within SL, and eventually I began to inquire about them. I found kid-centric places and sims, and visited them, and met many people who also chose, for whatever reason, to be kids in SL. I made friends with many of them - more friends than I'd made whilst having a "normal" adult avatar; so, I decided to stick with my new appearance, and that was pretty much that. I was encouraged to find a much, much better shape and skin, so I don't look so plastic anymore. There are shops which sell clothes geared towards kid avatars, but I mostly buy regular mens' clothes - they fit just as well.

There are certain advantages, and some perceived disadvantages, in being a kid in SL - I'll get to those in another post. But, I will say that being a kid doesn't limit me to places and groups exclusive to kid avatars. I belong to one active group, for instance, in which I am the only kid; but I feel accepted and welcome there all the same - I consider all of them good friends. So while I must necessarily avoid some things because of my choice of appearance, I don't feel that I'm missing out on anything I'll regret. I have my fun!

Well, that's enough for now. More to come later.