Please help me Bella!
In real life, I am a very moderate person, but being in SL just makes me want to do wild things!!!! I want to drink and smoke and have sex with strangers. This is just not like me. I go to church and don't do anything outlandish, so I'm worried that God will punish me for being wanton.
I don't like the smell or taste of cigarettes and yet the other day, when someone offered me a joint, I thought, "Why the hell not!" Now that's something I would never, ever, ever do in real life. But I DID think, "Why the hell not?" It's not as though I am REALLY doing it, so what's the harm?
But still, I'm worried that I will be punished for doing these things. I'm in conflict with my conscience, but I can't stop.
Wanton Woman
Dear Wanton,
Oh you poor pet. We are all faced with moral dilemmas in SL. This is, after all, the place where all our fantasies can come true. Some people dream of finding true love and others dream of having sex with a rabbit.
Your conscience IS your best guide though (even if it has been tainted by religious teachings). In your heart of hearts, what do YOU really think? Is having a drink such a bad thing? Smoking a cigarette? What law are your breaking? What moral law?
The sex dilemma is really between you and your husband and your conscience. I know couples where one partner or the other has a greater sexual appetite than the other and SL is the perfect solution to their differing needs; other partners would be horrified at the thought of their wife or husband being sexually 'intimate' with anybody else. That one you will have to solve for yourself.
But you are not alone in your moral deliberations. Why, just the other day, I came across a collection of fur coats in SL. Now this is something I would MOST DEFINITELY NOT WEAR in real life. I mean, in all conscience, how could you feel glamorous in the skin of a murdered animal?
But the thought did cross my mind, "Oh how luxurious - I wonder what I would look like in it?" But my next immediate thought was that the animal liberationists would come down on me like a ton of bricks! But still, I was tempted.
Should MY behaviour be moderated by someone else's conscience? And before all you vegetarians and animal liberationists out there come pelting me with eggs - I am no better or no worse that anyone else when it comes to weighing up my desire to eat meat with the philosophical argument of not killing any other living creature. You look after your morality, and I'll look after mine.
Sinner, if you are sincerely troubled by the decisions you are making - maybe they are the wrong ones for you. Just because there is a banquet out there, doesn't mean we HAVE to stuff ourselves.
I wish you luck in your moral deliberations.
Bella
