The World's Oldest Profession in the "New World"

During discussion on February 18th, 2009 in discussion, someone mentioned that while they were in Second Life, there was sex everywhere. It was nearly unavoidable. Then I suddenly had a flashback about a funny article that my friend sent me awhile ago about prostitution on Second Life.

Link: http://blog.wired.com/games/2009/01/italian-woman-e.html

The rate is debatable, but some sites such as Joystiq state that some "escorts" make as much as 10,000 lindens a week (which is about 20 USD? I am not sure about the current exchange rate, I don't play Second Life). My research has nothing to do with Second Life, but I thought sex on the virtual world might be something of interest to one of the other groups.

In this case, a young Italian woman (who is not a prostitute offline) decided to explore her strange curiosity on the internet and she made money. Though I found it interesting what she said toward the end of the article:

"In Second Life I look similar to the real me, even if I don't use the red hair extensions every day," Alderson says. "I try to minimize the differences between real life and Second Life -- my avatar looks like me because it's me that's doing these things, not a character or an actress."