Are you for real? Inside Second Life: interview with Khannea Suntzu
Lily Lynch jumps into the virtual world to find out who the hell is this transhumanist, blogger, activist, conceptual artist and Second Life genderqueer prostitute. If you’d like to see for yourself, you can catch up with Khannea in person at SHARE Conference in Belgrade, Apr 26-28
It’s midday on a Tuesday and I’m in the Abbey Island Pub inside Second Life. My avatar, WhitneyWinehouse (tastelessly named, I know; I’d confused “Second Life” with “afterlife”), has been teleported to a place that proudly boasts a clientele of self-described “demons, vampires, bukkake aficionados and flashers”. A bit awkwardly dressed and obviously n00bish, my avatar struggles to blend in with the crowd, which is looking a little thinned out today.
In case you don’t remember (or don’t care), Second Life (SL) is the “online virtual world” that allows users to own the intellectual property rights for the creation of “places” like the Abbey Island Pub I’m “in”. Though the Second Life economy (and number of registered users) has been in steady decline for several years now, it once had more cash flowing in and out of it than several Third World countries.
I am in this virtual pub to interview the transhumanist, blogger, activist, conceptual artist and genderqueer SL sex worker Khannea Suntzu. Khannea is perhaps most famous for her status as an allegedly “highly desirable virtual call girl”. Several major media outlets, including Le Monde and Forbes.com, have published profiles of Khannea highlighting her virtual sex work. What makes Khannea noteworthy is that in addition to her participation in fantasy and the virtual, she uses her SL avatar to engage with real world social issues, including human rights and technology, social justice, and the subversion of traditional gender roles. Among her well-known actions in this area has been her ongoing attempt to have her legal gender officially changed to “metagender” (I refer to Khannea in the feminine throughout this article because she says that she identifies as an “avid lesbian/bisexual woman caught in a male body”).
Full article is available at Bturn
