Tag: Community

The White Pearl Salon: A Home for the Trans Community in Second Life (and in Real Life!)

Have you read my previous blogpost on Sex and Gender Issues in Virtual Worlds? Or on LGBTQ Spaces in the Metaverse?

The entrance to the White Pearl Salon

At a time when many red states in the U.S. are passing laws against drag performers and transgender people, it’s vitally important for LGBTQ people and their allies to have safe places in which to gather and find like-minded community, both in real life and in virtual life. Second Life has always been a welcoming virtual space for the LGBTQ community, with its own special landing page and numerous sims devoted to any and every aspect of the queer community (of which I, a cisgender gay man, am a part).

Last week, while club hopping as Vanity Fair, I came across the White Pearl Salon, an LGBTQ-friendly space which caters to the trans community. I received such a warm welcome from the staff and patrons of the club, that I have paid many return visits! I think I might have found my new hangout spot in Second Life, the first since Bray’s Place Blues club sadly closed its doors (you can read more about it here on my blog).

The White Pearl Salon is the brainchild of its proprietor, Robin Palmer (Robinpalmer7 Resident), who describes herself as “just a simple garden variety cross-dresser”, and who very kindly agreed to be interviewed for this blogpost, while she worked a DJ set at her club:

Robin Palmer (R): I was a guy first, then a woman.

Ryan Schultz as Vanity Fair (V): In real life, or in Second Life?

R: LOL… SL only. I came out as trans 30 months ago. I go to real-life trans parties when on the road (not in my town).

V: It can be a scary step to do in real life. I have a lot of respect for the trans people I have met at my local bars and elsewhere. And what is happening right now in some U.S. states just enrages me. So I fully support what you are trying to do here, Robin.

R: Oh yes. And it’s good that, in my experience, there is no judging.  Some are out, others in.  No pressure ever to “come out.”

V: First question: when did you join Second Life?

R: 12 years ago? Let me check. It was before this account. Yes, about 12 years.

V: When did you decide to create the White Pearl Salon, and why?

R: Well, first, my old avatar was a guy. I dated some ladies, and they told me [most] guys are creeps in SL. So then I created a lady account… this one…”Old Robin.” I created an entire sim dedicated to Victorian art and culture, a “Disneyland for Victoriana,” as a lady. About 30 months ago, I came out as trans. I visited the other [trans] clubs, and thought there should be at least ONE with a focus on relationships, not quickie pose ball sex. Thus the Pearl. 🙂

V: Tell me a bit about the art gallery in the Pearl.

R: Well, the one in this club is called the Gerda Wegener Art Gallery. Did you see The Danish Girl?

V: Not yet, no. It’s on my list of movie to watch, though.

R: Eddie Redemayne won an Oscar as a 1920s SRS [Sex Reassignment Surgery] trans. His wife was Gerda Wegener. Gerda was fem, but an advocate for trans in the 1920s, a heroic person and great artist. I created the gallery as a draw to real-life trans people. We can have exhibits that no other gallery in the real-life world can ever have. I want to promote trans and trans-friendly artists like Gerda. No porn, no BDSM; pride, dignity, beauty, and elegance only.

V: So you want to bring more real-life trans people into Second Life?

R: Exactly. I forget the figures, but the UN estimates at least 2% globally are trans. So, of 8 billion people….we’re talking millions.

V: Can you tell me what sets your club apart from other trans clubs in SL?

R: I’ve come to feel that a huge majority of current “SL trans” are cosplay trans… young boys playing games for some quick sex. And the other [SL trans] clubs are mainly part of the global “Adult Entertainment” industry…i.e. porn/BDSM.

V: And you wanted to provide an alternative space?

R: Yes. One tiny island of social engagement, love, joy, laughs, chat, romance. and relationships for SL trans people. I am liberal. I do not judge.  If you want porn/BDSM, fine… but I just want to offer an option.

V: How long has the White Pearl Salon been operating?

R: 25 months. We have 1,030 members now, and over 7.5 million views of our White Pearl Salon Flickr photo pool.

V: Cool!

R: Yes, we’ve been growing a lot after the “Covid drop.” As COVID restrictions eased, visits here fell. I guess it was true for all SL.

V: Yes.

R: Since January 2023, we have had strong growth We track traffic to the club. I try to run Pearl as a real-life business.

V: Oh, interesting. I notice that you also have a room devoted to a matchmaking and/or dating service. Could you tell me more about that?

R: Well, as a great part of my vision is relationships. I thought a direct dating service for trans would be useful. Again, not porn or escort stuff.

V: Understood.

R: This year, I’ll try to get some RL corporate sponsors…. perhaps Bud Lite? LOLOLOL!

V: You can always dream! Tell me your vision for the White Pearl Salon, Robin. What is your dream for this place?

R: To have 1-2 million members. 🙂 Truly, the global potential is almost infinite. Within SL, it is limited; Linden Lab does not [really] understand that at all. Of LGBTQ, the T can use SL the most. A huge percentage of global trans people are in the closet. Second Life can be a path out of that closet.

V: So you see SL as a way for trans people to step out of the closet.

R: Exactly.

V: Experiment with how they wish to be perceived by others.

R: Exactly.  🙂

V: Thank you! Before we end this interview, is there anything else you want to add, Robin?

R: One sec. About 20% of our Flickr photos have a text. Let me get it for you:

SECOND LIFE – A Path Out of the Closet

For the LGBT community, and especially for transgender Ladies and Gentlemen, Second Live (secondlife.com) offers a world of opportunities to explore new worlds, both romantic and exotic, adventurous and relaxing, beautiful and mysterious.

But most importantly, Second Life (SL) allows you to explore yourself – your heart, needs and desires – and to share your journey with thousands of other lovely people – both transgenders (TGs) and their friends and admirers.

Basic membership in SL is free.  Create your account, your avatar, your wardrobe and begin exploring.

Searching for a friendly companion?  Come to SL. Searching for a shoulder to cry on?  Come to SL. Searching for virtual romance?  Come to SL.

As in Real Life (RL), SL is not without perils.  We are all avatars—we all create our perfect self-images, whether close to our real selves, or dreamboats. But take a chance.  Step into a world of endless virtual possibilities.

And if you do, please visit the White Pearl Salon (in your Second Life client, Search > Places > “White Pearl Salon”). Here’s your limousine to the Pearl. Our calendar of exciting DJ dance and costume/theme parties is here. Photo albums of past and future events are in our award-winning 7,000,000 view Flickr albums can be found here (there’s also a visitor’s photo pool). We also run a fashion blog.

For transgenders, their friends and all people, the White Pearl Salon is dedicated to the principles of respect, dignity, pride, beauty, charm and, well, the best time ever in a virtual environment.  The Pearl is Second Life’s most “safe space” for transgender people.

So take the next step and join Second Life. Celebrate the woman… or man… within.

In addition to the main club, there is a small store, The Cultured Pearl, off to the left of the main entrance, selling fashions for avatars of all genders (along with a generous selection of fashionable freebies, no group required!):

A selection of gifts available for free from The Cultured Pearl

Also off the upstairs balcony are a changing room, a ballet studio, the previously mentioned matchmaking/dating services room (please click on each image in the gallery below to see it in full size).

Upstairs, you can also find the previously=mentioned Greta Wegener Art Gallery:

Please note that there will soon be a second art gallery on the same sim, the White Pearl Art Center (SLURL), which will have its official grand opening on May 7th, 2023. If you are an artist who is interested in having your work shown at any of the galleries, please contact the White Pearl Salon art curator, Juana Ametza (Juana Secretspy).

The main floor of the White Pearl Salon is down the winding staircases. Tucked under the stairs is a cozy, well-decorated bar:

The dance floor offers both couples and singles dances, as well as one of those fancy synchronized dance floors! Just touch the gold ball next to the grand piano to dance in sync with the other avatars, or use the pink dance balls for couples and singles dances. There’s even a blind dance board if you want to find a dance partner!

The main stage at the White Pearl Salon

There’s an extensive calendar of events, with a list of DJs performing. Many days at the White Pearl Salon have a theme (e.g. Formal Friday, Hat Day, Angels and Devils, Spring Fling).

The recent Spring Fling day at the White Pearl Salon

I leave you with a two-hour Netflix documentary on YouTube, which Robin Palmer highly encourages those people, who might want to learn more about the trans community and why she created the White Pearl Salon, to watch:

Why not pay a visit to the White Pearl Salon? Tell’em Vanity sent you… 😉

Finding Community in Second Life: Bray’s Place Blues Club and Social Community

In a virtual world where you can do anything (or be anything) you want, it can be surprisingly difficult to find a place to call home. Community can sometimes be elusive in Second Life, which is why sims such as Bray’s Place are deserving of note.

Bray’s Place describes itself as:

Bray’s Place is a “location” in the virtual world of Second Life. We are a club located within a community to listen to Blues music with live and interactive DJs in a friendly atmosphere dedicated to great music. Our visitors are located around the world and visit as avatars in Second Life.

Most importantly, however, we are built by community for community, established in February 2018 in response to a need for like-minded people to have a place they can call their own, in a safe, classy and decent oasis.

Bray Preston-Rising (Braytania Resident), the owner and operator of the Bray’s Place sim (Second Life destination guide; SLURL; website), works in Second Life as a full-time minister and counselor, from her home in Costa Rica. She and her tireless team of volunteers have slowly built up a remarkably friendly, blues-centered community, where I have been fortunate to receive one of the warmest welcomes I have ever experienced in 14 years of Second Life (and let me tell you, I have visited a lot of places in that time!).

This is not one of those SL blues joints which is packed to the rafters; there is usually a small but appreciative crowd of avatars present most times when I pay a visit (furries, newbies, and LGBTQ folk are welcomed). Upon arrival, you will be greeted by the host and DJ, and offered a branded mug of coffee as a free gift.

The attention is not effusive or intrusive; if you wish to be a wall-flower and observe the scene, you are more than welcome. But if you are looking for a place to hang out and chat, you will certainly find some good conversation here. There is zero pressure to join the Braysville Blues group, which advertises the sim’s upcoming events (they also have a subscriber list if you are running short of group space). You can stay for just one set, or hang out all day if you wish. Bray herself is a frequent DJ, and a absolute fountain of esoteric and arcane blues knowledge; I joking call Bray’s Place my “blues school” because I learn so much!

I have noticed that many of the strongest and healthiest communities which I have been fortunate enough to be a part of, over the almost 57 years of my existence on this planet, have tended to develop some form of community standards, which make it clear what the community is about, and what behaviour is (and is not) acceptable. For example, here are the community standards for the RyanSchultz.com Discord (and yes, I regularly bring out the banhammer for people who break the rules).

Bray’s Place has such a statement, which I quite like, and I share it here in full (source):

Brayniac Community Vision

We are a supportive and welcoming community founded to promote quality Blues, genuine social connections within a safe, kind, friendly, comfortable yet fun and classy oasis on the SL grid – We are a diverse, politically neutral community accepting of avatar creativity, ethnic origins, individuality, sexual orientation, gender identity, race and religion.

To achieve this vision, Brayniacs & all guests choose to bring their best to the community and adhere to core, decency standards of speech, conduct, and dress.

We are an upscale, cozy, Blues club founded by the community with professional & amazing DJs on a full sim that includes:

  • Blues Club Building where only Blues is played
  • Waterfront home rentals
  • Beach – All Saturday sets are on the Beach with Blues and Mixed genre sets
  • Ballroom venue Hours: Wed 6 AM to Midnight – Dress: Fancy to Formal (Note: the ballroom has recently been changed to a country and western barn dance day.)
  • The Meadow, where we do mixed genre music sets, Thursdays, 6:00 a.m. to midnight
  • Games Building with voice 24/7 – Greedy, Skippo and other fun games
  • Free Photo Studio
  • Camping Grounds for overnight guests
  • Free Courtesy Landing Area with set to home and rez rights (ask for a tag)
  • Chill Out Loft in the club complete with cuddles & an intimate dance area.
  • Frequent fun special events

We also have the largest selection of new couples and singles dances on the grid for your dancing enjoyment!

We would love to have you be part of the community and the fun here so, there is a group join on the wall to the left of the front door & a subscriber there also if you are short of group space!

I am pleased to welcome you and if I can do anything to make you feel more cozy and welcomed, please feel free to contact me. (Braytania resident).

Please do find your cozy spot and make yourself at home!

With a very warm welcome,
Bray Preston-Rising and The Brayniac Team

The main blues club house, where you land most days when you arrive at Bray’s Place, has a regular schedule of blues deejays, who usually work a two-hour set. You can join the line dancers by clicking a round spot on the floor, or select one of the high-quality, Bento male and female dance animations from MOVE! from the dance stands located by the stage, or choose one of the available (non-bot) dance partners if you feel like a couples dance (everything from salsa to ballroom dancing). Or you can wander upstairs to the quiet lounge, grab a comfortable seat and have a listen. Something for everybody!

Bray’s Blues Clubhouse

On Thursdays, the music venue shifts to a nearby meadow, with a mix of many different kinds of music:

The Meadow at Bray’s

Every Sunday, Bray hosts a non-denominational, evangelical Christian worship service in her meadow. Despite my being a queer atheist who hasn’t set foot in a real-life church in years, I still pop in sometimes for some uplifting gospel music and Bray’s sermon.

Hey, where else can I show up at church in all my 1980’s roller disco diva glory? 😉

(By the way, these wonderful retro quad roller skates are a free Hallowe’en hunt prize from Nerido at the Masoom SPOOKAY Hunt, which you can still pick up today if you hurry; they come with a really good AO, plus a HUD to change the colours of the laces and several other parts of the roller skate boot. Here’s a hint: check the coffins in the haunted house.)

If you’re interested, Bray’s Place offers waterfront home rentals for reasonable rates, which is one of the main ways the sim supports itself. Instead of supporting the sim by renting a house, I choose to tip the deejays, hosts, and the venue’s signature brain tipjar whenever I drop in, which is quite often lately, as I work away in self-isolation for my university library system during the coronavirus pandemic.

Bray’s iconic “brayn” tip jar

If you see Vanity Fair at Bray’s Place, please be sure to say hello! (I might be away from the keyboard, though; I have been known to use Bray’s Place as my online blues radio station while working away on a report, spreadsheet, or slide presentation in another window!)

For more information about Bray’s Place, please visit their website, peruse their blog, or join their Discord server. I commend Bray Preston-Rising for her work, and I give Bray’s my best and warmest recommendation as a great community in Second Life!

The Value of Community in Social VR and Virtual Worlds: Why Fostering Community Is Such a Critical Task for the Newer Virtual Worlds and Social VR Platforms

Chatting around the campfire at the weekly Morning Buzzz event in Sinespace

Today, I did something that I have never done before: I attended the regular Wednesday Morning Buzzz event, which is hosted by Mimi Marie and held in the Greenela world in Sinespace. I was told that I should attend at least one of these meetings (which normally I don’t go to, because they usually fall during my workday in my local time zone up here in Winnipeg), because it was one of the best ways to get the pulse of what was going on in Sinespace, and glean ideas for future blogposts.

(Working in self-isolation from home during the coronavirus pandemic gives me a bit more flexibility to be able to attend those events which I normally would have to miss, which is a rather unexpected perk of the pandemic! But it also means that I find myself responding to work emails and editing collections spreadsheets on Sunday mornings, so obviously, this cuts both ways.)

Anyways, back to the topic of this editorial. As my friend had suggested, it was well worth my time to attend this morning’s events (in addition to Morning Buzzz, the Technical Office Hours was held this morning, another in-world event that I had never attended in person before today).

Technical Office Hours in Sinespace

I had quite wonderful, wide-ranging, and very informative conversations with a number of different people, whom I had not gotten to know nearly as well as I should have by now (especially since I am the embedded reporter for Sinespace!). In fact, my whole experience today in Sinespace was highly instructive, and it got me to thinking.

And I was reminded, yet again, of a universal truth: that the success and longevity of any social VR platform or virtual world lies in its ability to foster, build, sustain and enhance community. The connections made between avatars, and the communities that form around those bonds, are what bring people back, time and again, to particular virtual worlds. In fact, I would suggest that community-building is absolutely critical to the long-term success of social VR and virtual worlds.

One of the reasons that Second Life’s user community has been so resistant to even contemplate a move to another virtual world, is that in all the years that they have spent in SL, many people have made a sizable investment, not so much in the number of items in their inventory (although that is certainly a consideration), but in the number and quality of their in-world relationships.

Think of all the vibrant Second Life role-play communities that have proved to be perennially popular, for example. Think of popular in-world gathering places in SL like Frank’s Jazz Club, Muddy’s Music Café, and FogBound Blues, for example. These are places where people meet each other, friendships are formed, and community is forged. And people tend to tell each other about these places and these communities, always bringing more people into the fold.

Sometimes, I think that the various companies that are busily building various incarnations of the metaverse focus too much on the technical features, at the expense of something more important to any platform’s success: the ability for people to form common communities of interest, and create virtual spaces that meet their community needs, goals, and dreams. This is why such community-building features as text and voice chat, user profiles, and user groups and notices, are so vitally important. (Remember the unholy fuss that erupted when Linden Lab wanted to cut the number of groups that Basic account members could subscribe to? They quickly backtracked from that particular corporate decision.)

What I do find interesting is that, even on platforms that have sometimes struggled to get higher concurrent user figures (e.g. Sansar, High Fidelity), there are still small but stubbornly committed groups of people who continue to plan events and promote them. Witness the tireless work of the volunteer COMETS team in Sansar, who are behind many of the events in the Sansar Events calendar.

Community is critically important. Never forget that!

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels.com

Question for My Second Life Readers: Where Are All the LGBTQ Meeting Places in Second Life?

Second Life has seen a resurgence of returning users in recent months, as a result of the imposition of social distancing policies, lockdowns, and quarantines in the face of the ongoing public health crisis that is the coronavirus pandemic.

I recently received an inquiry from someone returning to Second Life after an absence, who asked me:

You seem nice and knowledgeable here: I have been on SL 15 years ago or so, and would now like to return and find gay places, ideally catering to bears and chubs. But that’s not a mandatory at all.

I just wondered whether you know a place that’s a little busy – all places I went to were deserted.

Thank you so very much in advance!

Now, this is a puzzler for me. When I first set foot into SL fourteen years ago, I used to frequent any number of gay bars, fun places that were packed full of avatars. Over time, many of those places had closed down.

When I replied that there used to be a couple of spots for bears (i.e. chubby or overweight gay men, usually but not always bearded and/or hairy, hence the name “bears”), but that they had long since shut down, he replied:

Thank you very very much, you’re my star – not easy finding one’s way here nowadays with so many places deserted!

Are there any other places where simply a lot of gay guys go, also non-bears?

Any help is greatly appreciated!

So, I thought I would broaden the question to include spaces welcoming to all LGBTQ folks in Second Life, and throw the question out to you, my faithful readers:

Where are the places in Second Life where lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer people can gather and meet each other? Please note that I am not talking about the places where you go to have hookups or sex (God knows, those are easy enough to find!).

I will compile all the responses received as updates to this blogpost, and I will keep this blogpost updated as new information comes in about community spots, since they tend to change over time.

Please feel free to submit a comment. Thanks in advance for your help!