Son, about those hairy palms....

You know that feeling, where you look at yourself in the mirror and think "Hey, these fangs, this excess body hair and the compulsion to harvest Lumen just make me feel like an outsider. Just why is it that i am different to all my friends?".

Well, your friends may be vampires (which makes them cool) or humans (which makes them tasty), but you, it would seem, have found yourself to be among a select group known to the layperson as werewolves. Chances are that if you were a furry, or a neko, you would probably feel ok about that, but being a werewolf is something that comes and goes, which can be confusing. Almost as confusing as when your dad is also your mom.

Yup, this blog entry is about Zeke, who was minding his own business, savaging villagers and howling at the moon, when he receieved the alarming news that he was, in fact, pregnant. I`m not sure how he took this, as he if usually online when i am not (something due to lunar hormonal cycles no doubt) and we have never met, but when i heard of his rather unique situation, i felt compelled to write a little something about him. Oh yes, sorry to inform you, but you may be pregnant too and this applies to male readers, be they of wolfy nature or no.

Vicky Caramel (previously known as Vinvella), alerted me to all of this a few days back. I had planned to write something about second life relationships as my debut on Vinter's blog. This being largely as i have just entered a second life partnership and the whole online couple thing struck me as something that none of us have got the hang of yet. Anyway, Vicky raised the subject of pregnancy on Vinter's group-chat and in but a few moments i found myself in a second life clinic, looking at pictures of babies and what purported to be a "pregnancy test", telling me if my avatar was "up the spout".

I took the test and was told i was not pregnant, but that i had to look for "alpha males" and "onduty" men in order to become so. I guess this means that policemen and other hunky types are highly fertile, but the alpha thing may explain Zeke's unique predicament. Maybe werewolves are just too healthy for their own good and even looking at a poseball can get them "up the duff".

Oh yes, poseballs, apparently they can get you pregnant too, so be careful what you sit on -Seems balls got tired of being on men and have embarked on a solo impregnation career.

So, i spoke to Vicky and tried to find out more. As i did so i looked over the advertising and tried to figure out just what a "unisex" baby actually was and why anyone would want one over the male and female options on sale. She told me a tale of something that was a little like bloodlines, which we all know well from this blog, but without any consent at all. Replace "bite request" with simply being told "you're pregnant" and you are about where it's at. There is even a master list of pregnant avatars in the clinic and all they had the misfortune of doing was running into someone running round using their Prim-Wang as a nuisance spray gun in public or they may have sat on a poseball that someone has tampered with. It is a lot like people spiking your drinks at a bar and is really no fault of the avatar involved.

I spoke to Vicky about this and asked her thoughts. Some of these i cant really print here, which shows that she was none too keen, but she had put a lot of thought into it and had some strong things to say, especially as she has gone through all this (the normal way) in real life.

Vicky says...."Why would anyone in second life want to do this? Don't most of us come to second life to escape our kids, washing and husbands? I think they are nuts, in fact, i can't imagine that anybody who has actually been pregnant would want to do this".

Vicky goes on to say..."I don't give a monkey about bloodlines or who has my "soul", but the idea that i could sit on something, have somebody jizz on me or what-not and get pregnant makes me feel violated".

Strong words, especially as we are alluding to what appears to be virtual rape and impregnation or something that is very close to it. It isn't hard to see what the makers of this bizarre HUD and clinic have to gain from it all, as there are prim babies on sale as one would expect. It did not take much to see that there was something even more insidious going on, which i realised when i ran into this poster...

It's a little small on the picture, but the posters rather distastefully says "want to get rid of that baby?" and advertises a pill that will do the job, for only 150 lindens. Thats right, they put you on a database and are charging you 150L to take you off again. So we have moved from virtual rape into robbing people at gunpoint. Vinter tells me that she is on their "list" and is 450 days overdue. She is seriously considering paying up, not least to prevent some kind of "alien film dinner scene" whereby she asplodes all over her gathered bloodlines clan. Can vampires even get pregnant? Has Vinter become sparkly?

This all freaked me out, so i went outside and took a breather. Things then proceeded to become worse. In short order i ran into a visitor to the clinic, a strapping black man who offered to help me get a baby of my own....apparently in the old fashioned manner....despite coming in with his girlfriend. I then went out and saw a shop across the road that boasted "we also sell babies" and the advert was textured to look like grafitti scrawled on the wall as if it were a crack den. I wont post the picture below as it is just too twisted for words, but if you really want to see, go there for yourself and look around. People may grumble about bloodlines, or meeroos, but at least they are regulated and involve consent and a way to opt out (garlic necklace, dont buy a meeroo). Even after writing this blog, i dont know what to make of all this, so see this as a heads up and a healthy warning that even after stooping low, someone on second life will always find a shovel and the urge to get digging.

As to Zeke, well, he's propably accepting gifts of baby booties, prams and hogtied villagers. This blogger, however, has not been told the due date...but it's probably after he visits the clinic and leaves it a smoldering ruin.