The official Secondlife website, when introducing potential new players to our online community, explains about how we can all create our unique avatars, to represent ourselves in world: "Second Life is about personal expression and your avatar is the most personal expression of all...Despite offering almost infinite possibilities, the tool to personalize your avatar is very simple to use and allows you to change anything you like, from the tip of your nose to the tint of your skin."
However, there is a group of people who believe that the almost infinite possibilities are not nearly infinite enough. Although the arguments about the need for more flexibility in the avatar builder range from height, to bulk, to smoothness, one aspect of the form has been raised as a major bone of contention and a desire by some for improvement: female breast size. In fact, some women (and in some cases men with female avatars) feel that the breast size available through the avatar builder is so inadequate, that they have built XXL sized boobs, and attached them to their chests, in the same way that others attach prim hair, boots, belts or wings. However, these have other difficulties, as SL clothing paints itself over your avatar form, and therefore doesn't cover the prim breasts.
One person who is very vocal on her desire to have improved bigger breasts is Melissa Yeuxdoux, who talks at length on the subject on her blog (http://vidasegunda.blogspot.com/). I tracked her down in SL, to discuss this further:
Voodoo: I was reading your blog, and you seem to feel very strongly on the subject of the body shape maker.... could you explain you complaints to our readers?
Melissa Yeuxdoux: Well... it's that the variation it allows is not as large as I would like, or even as large as the variation in people's shapes that appear in RL. If Sandy Allen (tallest living woman in the world at 7' 7¼ inches) were to come to SL, she couldn't make her avatar her height. Similarly, there's a lot more variation in breast size than SL allows for. Are you familiar with Snakekiss Noir's Proposition 125?
Voodoo: I have read some of it... to do with asking for larger less blocky breasts?
Melissa Yeuxdoux: Yes, in part; actually, she requested wider variation in all body parameters.
Voodoo: right (You can find the proposition itself here)
Melissa Yeuxdoux: I can understand LL's wanting efficiency, and probably having to compromise on something that will meet most people's wishes, but I guess I'm just disappointed. I'm hoping that the sculpted prims will help a great deal, but still, in a way, putting on prim breasts feels like wearing a VERY padded bra. :)
Voodoo: so, is your personal quest to make sure that you can look more like you do in real life?
Melissa Yeuxdoux: Goodness, no. I try to look here the way I wish I looked in real life! That is what others wish, though.
Voodoo: I guess some of this is why I wanted to discuss this fully with you... your blog argues very strongly for the right to make yourself look real.. and yet, and please don't take offence... you're av looks very unreal... a fantasised version...
Melissa Yeuxdoux: That's true.
Voodoo: There are those who would say that you are turning yourself into a breast fetishist’s fantasy... to excite men, rather than express yourself. How would to respond to that?
Melissa Yeuxdoux: I would say that I do this to please myself. And about the question of realism... perhaps the better term is "verisimilitude."
Voodoo: Could you explain further?
Melissa Yeuxdoux: Sure. I think that word originated in discussion of fiction, which of course isn't real, but the idea is to be real enough that you can suspend your disbelief. Nobody can fly or teleport, but we take it for granted in SL, just as we take furry avatars for granted. SL is a place where people can realize their dreams, but if you can't do it in a believable fashion, it's not satisfying. Of course, in some ways SL requires independent twin I-beam suspension of disbelief. Objects go through each other, things like that.
Voodoo: yes... so in here, you can have breasts like yours, on your frame, without crippling back pain
Melissa Yeuxdoux: Yes.
Voodoo: Have you found that you get attention in SL based purely on the breasts... rather than you?
Melissa Yeuxdoux: To an extent, yes... and sometimes, I guess I take a little advantage of it, mostly to get conversation going. Sometimes I've made friends that way, which is always nice.
Voodoo: but it's a case of maximizing on having the breasts, and the attention they bring, rather than wearing them for attention, yes?
Melissa Yeuxdoux: Yes. That isn't my goal in having them; the goal is to make myself happy. That's just a pleasant side effect.
Voodoo: Do you wear them all the time?
Melissa Yeuxdoux: No, I don't. SL is, in a bizarre fashion, like RL. Large-breasted women have a very restricted selection of clothing! I'm torn between being well dressed and well endowed.
Voodoo: and I suppose there isn't a big enough group of women with prim breasts to get a lot of shops opening?
Melissa Yeuxdoux: Exactly.... so what I hope for is that sculpted prims will either make it so easy to accommodate prim breast wearers that the fashion houses will consider it worth the minimal trouble, or will at least make it easy enough that someone can use the standard clothes-making methods to dress women with prim breasts. One big part of that will have to be some kind of standardization. The market is fragmented still further by the number of makers of prim breasts, each needing custom clothing. No offence intended to those makers; bless them for their ingenuity in overcoming the limitations of SL body forms!
Voodoo: But again... We then end up in the argument of want to make yourself individual and unique.... What is the right size big for one person, isn't for another, I suppose
Melissa Yeuxdoux: Right. But if prim breasts can be made from a single sculpted prim, clothing can be painted on as a texture, as it is for the regular avatar... and with a standard choice of coordinates, I'm hoping one texture will for the most part fit all.
Voodoo: ahh... yes
Melissa Yeuxdoux: Think in terms of topology, and (I shake my head to think of what the professor who lectured about this would say about this application) strong deformation retracts. All those prim breasts will be topologically equivalent in a way.
Voodoo: and have you had much negative responses to your look by the SL populace?
Melissa Yeuxdoux: A few. I've been told I look ridiculous, and asked why I do it.
Voodoo: So... for you, the breasts are not an overtly sexual thing?Melissa Yeuxdoux: Hmmm... They can't help being that way to an extent... but I'm not an escort or dancer--though I don't think anything's wrong with those occupations--I'm just another person in SL. I would like to be in SL like a large-breasted woman is in RL, i.e. live with them. I do try to wear them just as an everyday thing, save when fashion tempts me. After all, in RL, you can't detach your breasts.
However, there is a group of people who believe that the almost infinite possibilities are not nearly infinite enough. Although the arguments about the need for more flexibility in the avatar builder range from height, to bulk, to smoothness, one aspect of the form has been raised as a major bone of contention and a desire by some for improvement: female breast size. In fact, some women (and in some cases men with female avatars) feel that the breast size available through the avatar builder is so inadequate, that they have built XXL sized boobs, and attached them to their chests, in the same way that others attach prim hair, boots, belts or wings. However, these have other difficulties, as SL clothing paints itself over your avatar form, and therefore doesn't cover the prim breasts.
One person who is very vocal on her desire to have improved bigger breasts is Melissa Yeuxdoux, who talks at length on the subject on her blog (http://vidasegunda.blogspot.com/). I tracked her down in SL, to discuss this further:
Voodoo: I was reading your blog, and you seem to feel very strongly on the subject of the body shape maker.... could you explain you complaints to our readers?Melissa Yeuxdoux: Well... it's that the variation it allows is not as large as I would like, or even as large as the variation in people's shapes that appear in RL. If Sandy Allen (tallest living woman in the world at 7' 7¼ inches) were to come to SL, she couldn't make her avatar her height. Similarly, there's a lot more variation in breast size than SL allows for. Are you familiar with Snakekiss Noir's Proposition 125?
Voodoo: I have read some of it... to do with asking for larger less blocky breasts?
Melissa Yeuxdoux: Yes, in part; actually, she requested wider variation in all body parameters.
Voodoo: right (You can find the proposition itself here)
Melissa Yeuxdoux: I can understand LL's wanting efficiency, and probably having to compromise on something that will meet most people's wishes, but I guess I'm just disappointed. I'm hoping that the sculpted prims will help a great deal, but still, in a way, putting on prim breasts feels like wearing a VERY padded bra. :)
Voodoo: so, is your personal quest to make sure that you can look more like you do in real life?
Melissa Yeuxdoux: Goodness, no. I try to look here the way I wish I looked in real life! That is what others wish, though.
Voodoo: I guess some of this is why I wanted to discuss this fully with you... your blog argues very strongly for the right to make yourself look real.. and yet, and please don't take offence... you're av looks very unreal... a fantasised version...
Melissa Yeuxdoux: That's true.
Voodoo: There are those who would say that you are turning yourself into a breast fetishist’s fantasy... to excite men, rather than express yourself. How would to respond to that?
Melissa Yeuxdoux: I would say that I do this to please myself. And about the question of realism... perhaps the better term is "verisimilitude."
Voodoo: Could you explain further?
Melissa Yeuxdoux: Sure. I think that word originated in discussion of fiction, which of course isn't real, but the idea is to be real enough that you can suspend your disbelief. Nobody can fly or teleport, but we take it for granted in SL, just as we take furry avatars for granted. SL is a place where people can realize their dreams, but if you can't do it in a believable fashion, it's not satisfying. Of course, in some ways SL requires independent twin I-beam suspension of disbelief. Objects go through each other, things like that.
Voodoo: yes... so in here, you can have breasts like yours, on your frame, without crippling back pain
Melissa Yeuxdoux: Yes.
Voodoo: Have you found that you get attention in SL based purely on the breasts... rather than you?
Melissa Yeuxdoux: To an extent, yes... and sometimes, I guess I take a little advantage of it, mostly to get conversation going. Sometimes I've made friends that way, which is always nice.
Voodoo: but it's a case of maximizing on having the breasts, and the attention they bring, rather than wearing them for attention, yes?
Melissa Yeuxdoux: Yes. That isn't my goal in having them; the goal is to make myself happy. That's just a pleasant side effect.
Voodoo: Do you wear them all the time?
Melissa Yeuxdoux: No, I don't. SL is, in a bizarre fashion, like RL. Large-breasted women have a very restricted selection of clothing! I'm torn between being well dressed and well endowed.
Voodoo: and I suppose there isn't a big enough group of women with prim breasts to get a lot of shops opening?
Melissa Yeuxdoux: Exactly.... so what I hope for is that sculpted prims will either make it so easy to accommodate prim breast wearers that the fashion houses will consider it worth the minimal trouble, or will at least make it easy enough that someone can use the standard clothes-making methods to dress women with prim breasts. One big part of that will have to be some kind of standardization. The market is fragmented still further by the number of makers of prim breasts, each needing custom clothing. No offence intended to those makers; bless them for their ingenuity in overcoming the limitations of SL body forms!
Voodoo: But again... We then end up in the argument of want to make yourself individual and unique.... What is the right size big for one person, isn't for another, I suppose
Melissa Yeuxdoux: Right. But if prim breasts can be made from a single sculpted prim, clothing can be painted on as a texture, as it is for the regular avatar... and with a standard choice of coordinates, I'm hoping one texture will for the most part fit all.
Voodoo: ahh... yes
Melissa Yeuxdoux: Think in terms of topology, and (I shake my head to think of what the professor who lectured about this would say about this application) strong deformation retracts. All those prim breasts will be topologically equivalent in a way.
Voodoo: and have you had much negative responses to your look by the SL populace?
Melissa Yeuxdoux: A few. I've been told I look ridiculous, and asked why I do it.
Voodoo: So... for you, the breasts are not an overtly sexual thing?Melissa Yeuxdoux: Hmmm... They can't help being that way to an extent... but I'm not an escort or dancer--though I don't think anything's wrong with those occupations--I'm just another person in SL. I would like to be in SL like a large-breasted woman is in RL, i.e. live with them. I do try to wear them just as an everyday thing, save when fashion tempts me. After all, in RL, you can't detach your breasts.
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