In SL, you can be anything you want. Vampire, Neko, furry, short, tall, big, small, male, female, animal, monster, alien, ad infinitum. Whatever your game or fantasy, whatever your kink or fetish, in this 3D modeling environment, the world is your oyster. Do it or be it, and have fun.
However, I, like many people, merely play myself. Okay, I joke that we all seem to be a good-looking, physically fit twentysomething which I suppose is some sort of idealized version of our RL self. I'm not saying I'm ugly and unfit in RL, but it would be a stretch to say my avatar is an exact duplicate of me. Despite my best efforts, I've found certain limitations to the SL technology, preventing me from a more accurate representation of my RL self.
I got to thinking. When I run across someone, that is, their avatar, am I seeing the best they can do based on their expertise in customizing an avatar? Or have they created their best representation of their RL self? Or have they created what they think is a desirable form of beauty?
In RL, few of us ever reach the upper echelons of what our society considers good-looking. None of us are going to be walking down the runway for Victoria's Secrets or Menswear Fashions. However, in SL, we can be whoever we want to be. And yet, I sometimes meet someone with what I think is an unusual avatar and wonder what motivated their choice. I have a picture gallery of people I've met and places I've visited over the years, and in amongst all this is a folder entitled Weird People with the strange of the strange. Hyper-muscular men, blow-up Barbie dolls, not just large but fat people, inordinately big or small, I've thought the owner decided to go for an over-the-top, exaggerated version of themselves or their own vision of desirability. Is it a cartoon version of themselves? Is it a charicature of their RL self? Instead of attractive, is ridiculous the goal? Then again, are some people attracted to the opposite of good-looking? Is ugly a fetish?
Aside: It is common to find a Pick in somebody's profile labelled Likes and Dislikes. I've seen several women write under their Dislikes: Men with cocks the size of my forearm. Holy cow! In this virtual fantasyland, I suppose any of us guys could be guilty of a little exaggeration (7 inches instead of 6) but a forearm? Whoa! Ha, ha!
BBW
BBW or Big Beautiful Women, a euphemism for — How to put this delicately? — the overweight. The other week, I was standing in a club, reading profiles when a woman hesitantly IMd me. She was a BBW and as we chatted, she revealed her avatar was meant to duplicate her RL self. She stressed she wasn't obese, but she was big. She also mentioned that she didn't get many IMs when standing around in clubs. It turned out she was a charming personality and an interesting character with a plethora of life experiences. How many of us lose out because we rely on our first impression?
This woman answered a question of mine. She was playing SL realistically. Her avatar was based on her RL; she had consciously decided to not be some fantasy version of what she might have thought how beauty was defined. She didn't want to be a Victoria Secrets model but wanted to be herself, including her imperfections.
A woman is a gift: The packaging may catch my eye, but it's the contents which keep me coming back.
I like a woman with big brains.
Years ago, a female friend on RL social media, ran a series of articles on women with photo shoots and their stories. Each woman talked about dealing with body image issues, not feeling beautiful and lacking self-confidence. For me, the surprise was that in each photo series, I saw an attractive woman. Okay, they weren't models; they weren't going to be on a Victoria Secrets runway, but they were attractive. I would have been delighted to take each one of them out on a dinner date to get to know them better. They were focusing strictly on their looks without considering all the other aspects which make us a complete package and hence, attractive.
It's not what you've got; it's what you do with it.
Confidence is the sexiest of all characteristics.
I don't believe anybody is truly ugly. Over the years, I've seen pictures of people badly disfigured in an accident or ravaged by disease and yet these people were still loved and even desired. But that's just the physical. Ugly can certainly come out with the personality. Some people, for whatever reason, just don't know how to be nice.
Final Word
The point of all this was my curiosity about how an individual arrives at their avatar. Are they lacking technical skills which leaves them with odd bodies? Or is this a deliberate attempt at doing something different, and is that different thing some sort of exaggerated version of what they consider attractive? I like to say that in SL, our only limitation is our imagination. Some people are pushing the boundaries.
My thanks to Manon Mirabeau for the picture of the two of us.
Wikipedia: Big Beautiful Women
"Big Beautiful Woman" (commonly abbreviated as BBW) is a euphemism for an overweight woman. The terms "Big Beautiful Women" and "BBW" were coined by Carole Shaw in 1979, when she launched BBW Magazine, a fashion and lifestyle magazine for "plus-size" women. BBW Magazine trademarked the term Big Beautiful Woman, which was later transferred to Dimensions Magazine.
I ran across the following article and this woman seems like an extraordinary personality.
xojane - Jan 9/2014 via Wayback Machine (wayback.archive.org)
I'm Fat, Forty And Single And I'm Having No Problems Getting Laid All The Time By Christine Whelan
I should note that when I tell you I'm fat, I really mean it. I'm not just slightly chubby and complaining about those last 15 pounds. I'm rather short and weigh almost precisely 300 lbs. I wear size 28 clothing. Unless you think such things are mutually exclusive, I would describe myself as reasonably pretty, in a natural, low-maintenance, naughty librarian kind of way. I am fiercely intelligent, deeply hilarious, casually stylish, utterly unselfconscious and really, genuinely nice. I am also an absolute riot in the sack. And I've been getting laid like crazy.
You must read the entire article. Ms. Whelan sounds like an amazing woman. And she's size 28. Confidence truly is sexy.
2023-12-01
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