Ok, so the title of this blog is a little vague to say the least, but there is a point to it.  My boss, being the great person she is, thinks of me when she sees or hears something about Second Life (SL), so she sent me a link to a blog post yesterday.  The author, Kelly Kessler from DePaul University, entitles her post “Where Does a Girl Have to Go to Find a Pool Table: Gender Performance, Leisure, and The L Word in Second Life.”  She seems to bemoan the fact that the "white, femme, and upwardly mobile" representation of lesbian life portrayed in The L Word is recreated in the virtual reality of Second Life.  Hmmmm, let me see here, people who are fans of The L Word see a promotional saying they can join a community of like minded lesbians in a virtual paradise, and Kessler somehow expects that the demographics will somehow change?  I don't think so.  But the fact that all Kessler found in the virtual L Word was a repeat of what one would find on the show is not really the point of this post.
 
But before I go further, let me set the record straight on a couple of things.  Kessler wrote her blog post back in 2008, or as my dad would say, "back in my day . . . ."  The point here is that with technology things change rapidly, and 2 years seems like eons ago.  Yes, there weren't a great deal of choices for the noob avatar, and it's likely that there still aren't any stock avatars that would do justice to a woman wanting to perform butchness.  But there are plenty of opportunities to become that butch in SL, and there are plenty of opportunities to shoot a game of pool.  You just have to know how to do a search in SL.  Another point worth mentioning here is that as far as I can tell, The L Word has pulled out of SL.  When I go to sho.com and search for The L Word in Second Life, I get nothing.  When I do a search in SL for The L Word I get one hit for The L Word South, but it is apparently a locked community, as it will not let me teleport there.  So I guess The L Word, like so many, went into SL expecting one thing and when that didn't happen, they pulled out. 

So let me get to my point (finally, you say).  I understand that SL is not the easiest place to go and immediately feel at home.  But guess what, I bet I couldn't go to China, or Japan, or some other totally foreign  culture and immediately know where to go, how to act, or find people to immediately start talking to me.  So why do people think they can create an avatar, log into SL, and feel right at home?  Kessler argue that "without scads of leisure time and mad computer literacy, one will have a hard time in 2nd Life. I for one spent a lot of time running into walls, through the ocean, into folks, etc. (and I have a PhD). I still have no idea how to do much or get anywhere interesting. One must have serious patience, time, and money and/or skills to obtain stuff . . ." ("Where Does a Girl"). 

Bottom line?  I'm tired of people expecting to go into SL and have everything, or anything for that matter, handed to them.  Sorry folks, but SL is just that. . . it's a second life.  If you want to have a meaningful experience then you are going to have to work for it just like you do in real life.  It's not a computer game that you can learn a few key strokes for and have a great time killing monsters, leveling up, or completing quest.  If you don't have time to observe the culture and find your way into it, then don't even bother signing up. 

As I sat in DMAC today and discussed the idea of identity and gender performance with Cheryl Ball, she mentioned a book chapter that she had recently read by Michelle Gibson, Martha Marinara, and Deborah Meem entitled "Bi, Butch, Bar Dyke: Pedagogical Performance of Class, Gender, and Sexuality."  This was an article I couldn't wait to read, so I secured a copy for tonight's blog post.  While technology is something that gets my heart pumping, issues of identity, gender, sexuality, and the performance of these things is another topic I find VERY interesting.

I thought I would read the entire article for tonight's post, but after reading the brief introduction,and realizing that each section was written by one author and basically related their experiences and narratives on the subject, I have decided I will deal with them individually.  After the introduction, tonight's section was the Bi narrative by Martha Marinara.  My head is still reeling from just this one section. 

Marinara discusses her position as a bisexual, working class female, who has entered the academy as a professional: a position I'm not totally unfamiliar with.  She argues that we see identity primarily in terms of binaries.  We can be either working class or professional, we can be either straight or homorsexual, we can be either man or woman (although Marinara does not mention this).  But the point is that we see things as black or white.  As Marinara point out, "most lesbian and working-class autobiographies, rather than defying the fixity of identity, merely redraw the boundaries and serve to categorize individual subjects as different from those defined as 'straight' and 'professional'" (538).  It may not be the "normal" binaries we are use to, but they are still binaries.  The fact is, however, that identity is sooooo much more than black and white.  I, like Marinara, see myself as a working class individual in a professional world.  That can be a tough position to be in.  Marinara is also both straight and lesbian, and that certainly does not fit the "universals" that we live by.

The fact is, I underlined, noted, and set off by parenthesis so much of what I read in these few pages, that it is mind numbing.  The gist, though, is that identity is ever shifting.  Marinara's narratives are interesting and thought provoking and I can't wait to finish the rest of the article.