180: When I was a Sex Goddess

[Amanda Yesilbas]

When I was a Sex Goddess

Some online conquests earn you loot. Others just earn you baggage. Amanda Yesilbas looks back at her time spent roleplaying a virtual temptress.

Read Full Article

 

[mattaui]

A very interesting story, and one I'm familiar enough with given 15+ years I've been texting around, and still do to this day. I'm glad to see someone else who thinks, as I do, that there are still no graphics that are as compelling as well-written text, even though I'm one of those MMO players you mentioned.

I'd have been a total sucker for your dryad in a cabin trick. That's so mean!

 

[Mariena]

I just have to say this: Text can indeed be very arousing, as long as you do it with the right person.

With that said, I shall speak no more on this.

 

[Jackpot]

"Amanda Yesilbas is a librarian by trade and gamer by calling."

Out of all the things in the article, this hit me the hardest.

 

[BadXAsh]

I know your story well Mrs. Yesilbas. Everything from humble beginnings in MUDs to if RPing sex is cheating or not, to giving into ones desires. Even your feelings on Text is much better then graphics when it comes to painting a detailed image.

I still play to this day, in both MUDs and Graphical MMOs. I hold myself to a higher standard calling my years of training at detailed RPing text 'classically trained text RPer'. One such MMOG I play in now a days is Second Life. I thought to myself that this would be a perfect platform to RP on. Not only is everything fully customizable, and what you can't make you can buy, but for the simple fact you can literally be any thing and completely anatomically correct... or incorrect. They even have pose balls that will put you into different sexual positions that make the Kama sutra seem like light reading.

However I came to realize that, while pose balls are fine an all for something to look at while your partner is typing up a nice long detailed pose, filled with details that excite and stimulate all the different sense, that a majority of the folks in SL are not Roleplayers and further more couldn't type a detailed sexual pose if one was typed up and handed to them by someone else. They are content to watch the pixels go at it on the screen on the pose ball and throw out the occasional 'Ooooh' Or 'Ahhh'. The whole thing is rather disheartening.

That's why I have taken it upon myself to teach and train a younger generation of gamers the wonders of painting a detailed picture with text and letting the Graphics simply be a fun thing to watch while waiting in anticipation for the next stimulating post! I have shown others just how fun text can be and at the end of the scene, I have the ability to leave my partners breathless both in and out of game, saying OOCly (Out of character-ly) 'Wow! I never knew a scene could be this intense and enjoyable!' I simply tell them that with practice and effort they can do it to! I'm hoping this will have a viral effect, sending them off into vast cyber space expecting nay demanding better but also ups their game to strive to present themselves as better as well.

I hope that our art of painting a detailed picture of text to RP will not die out as games tend to take a lot of the imagination away from RPing, and with each new person I expose to the old ways, I have a little more hope for the future!

 

[Adair_the_Skull]

Its funny how some things start. I, personally, am enthralled by how people think about and handle sex. I used to do all of the things Amanda did, save mix some of my games with sex. It does become a slippery slop. Eventually text, no matter how good, isn't good enough. It can get you excited and ready, but not really feel as though it delivers with the same impact it used to. This is compounded by the fact that some people are just better to play with than others, and after having a good partner others just don't seem as good. Once you move beyond text it can become extremely scary as well. Who is seeing what your showing, what will they think, and most importantly, what will they do with what you show them? And that becomes part of the thrill, if you plan on not becoming a politician or something.

Standard avatars can never be as good as text, but take it from me, be careful if words start seeming like they are not enough.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

I just have to say this: Text can indeed be very arousing, as long as you do it with the right person.

With that said, I shall speak no more on this.

I will agree wholeheartedly.

Just be very careful of those mis-tells.

 

[BlueInkAlchemist]

A very well-written and very true article about the power of text to arouse and ensnare.

Even with the ever-increasing visual power that exists in such MMO environments, it's still the text that tells the stories and brings us back to our computer desks every night.

 

[LaxLuster]

I agree whole-heartedly about this being very well written and very accurate of the old MUD or even Free-form RPGs from IRC. It was one of those things that I was always excited by back when I used to MUD, but I was still young and mildly innocent and the whole subject was taboo.

Instead of sexuality, I got bored with the 'everybody's a hero' lifestyle and looked to the other field. The antagonists were generally bad for the sake of sadism and I wanted actual character development, so I began to rationalize evil behavior. It's one of the reasons I love writing today with heroes never being officially 'good' people and villains always having plausible reasons for their behavior.

 

[Milkman Dan]

I never could roleplay on MUDs. To me, it felt like trying to roleplay while playing, say, Doom or Quake. I was just stuck in the mindest of "must level up" and didn't pay that much attention to anything else. But other formats like TinyMUSH/MUX, now you're talking. They normally had a very detailed background, and roleplaying was pretty much the only thing to do.

I'm sorry to say, though, I usually found myself very annoyed at people that were blatantly seducing people left and right. I probably would have made fun of you, or not thought much of you. To be fair, I'm often rather mean-spirited when involved in that kind of game, or at the very least facetious and mocking, and I have to consciously go out of my way to "play nice."

 

[TsunamiWombat]

A very fascinating look at sexuality and self exploration. It's nice to know one CAN explore their romantic selves through an online setting and turn out completly normal and not...y'know, some kinda twitchy pale freak.

My own online romances tended to be through NWN, roleplaying characters. Many times both of us were aware that we were infact, both dudes in real life, and many times I was playing the female! Betrayels and relationship crisis all felt real and hurt, though it sounds strange to admit it. Incidentally one of the sweetest i'd ever been involved with was one where we were both dudes and I was playing the male character for a change. People actually thought we were a couple in real life. Eventually her story killed the character off, leading to new development for mine who had to deal with his loss.

 

[ckeymel]

I know your story well Mrs. Yesilbas. Everything from humble beginnings in MUDs to if RPing sex is cheating or not, to giving into ones desires. Even your feelings on Text is much better then graphics when it comes to painting a detailed image.

I still play to this day, in both MUDs and Graphical MMOs. I hold myself to a higher standard calling my years of training at detailed RPing text 'classically trained text RPer'. One such MMOG I play in now a days is Second Life. I thought to myself that this would be a perfect platform to RP on. Not only is everything fully customizable, and what you can't make you can buy, but for the simple fact you can literally be any thing and completely anatomically correct... or incorrect. They even have pose balls that will put you into different sexual positions that make the Kama sutra seem like light reading.

However I came to realize that, while pose balls are fine an all for something to look at while your partner is typing up a nice long detailed pose, filled with details that excite and stimulate all the different sense, that a majority of the folks in SL are not Roleplayers and further more couldn't type a detailed sexual pose if one was typed up and handed to them by someone else. They are content to watch the pixels go at it on the screen on the pose ball and throw out the occasional 'Ooooh' Or 'Ahhh'. The whole thing is rather disheartening.

That's why I have taken it upon myself to teach and train a younger generation of gamers the wonders of painting a detailed picture with text and letting the Graphics simply be a fun thing to watch while waiting in anticipation for the next stimulating post! I have shown others just how fun text can be and at the end of the scene, I have the ability to leave my partners breathless both in and out of game, saying OOCly (Out of character-ly) 'Wow! I never knew a scene could be this intense and enjoyable!' I simply tell them that with practice and effort they can do it to! I'm hoping this will have a viral effect, sending them off into vast cyber space expecting nay demanding better but also ups their game to strive to present themselves as better as well.

I hope that our art of painting a detailed picture of text to RP will not die out as games tend to take a lot of the imagination away from RPing, and with each new person I expose to the old ways, I have a little more hope for the future!

A perfect example of leave em better than you got em!

 

[ShadokatRegn]

Brilliant, and now you need to write books based on your adventures, even though you don't do that anymore. Exploring sexuality in games/fantasy is always interesting, because it's different depending on the person. Great read!

 

[Lustwane]

role playing eroticism in MUDs is how i learned to type at more then three words a minuet. (and a few other things I'll not mention here) Now if only i wasn't to distracted to learn how to spell. Thank you little red line and thank you Amanda for that fun romp down memory lane.

 

[Littaly]

I wish modern online game masters would do that

 

[Madshaw]

is there anything like this still out there? would anyone post a link if there was?

Edit : that sounds a bit wrong, but i havn't been on the internet for very long and this kind of thing sounds like it could be fun t try out, I love to write short stories etc. and think that the idea of an MUD sounds quite fun, all sex aside

 

[Gxas]

I greatly enjoyed this story. I've been thinking about getting into this sort of thing for a bit now and can't really decide whether or not to do it. I'll meet people online and then worry about the predator aspect of it and all of that... I obviously (to me at least), can't keep, let alone find, someone outside of the internet. I guess it's a good thing that I haven't acted upon any of these compulsions I get. They probably wouldn't turn out too well now that I see what some people do to others lol.

To the poster above me, try Valheru.com. It used to be up, I haven't checked in a looong while.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

I just have to say this: Text can indeed be very arousing, as long as you do it with the right person.

With that said, I shall speak no more on this.

They say there is no image, no moving picture that can compete with the theatre of the mind.

And... well, I'mma shut up now.

 

[Lord_Ascendant]

interesting article

4-5 stars