Damn them for making us Mac users wait for all the virtual fun! I can't wait to check this out.

This is cool! The gaming world is usually pretty non-inclusive to LGBT people, so this is a great!

But seriously, Bil, couldn't you have given us boys something to look at? ;)

This looks interesting, but I have to say that I think both the avatars and the graphics in general look a lot better in Second Life. I'd have to investigate further to really compare the two, but from just a couple of pics, SL just comes off to me as nicer looking...

And yes, I've had my share of smoking hot lesbian sex in SL. Look for a post from me on that soon. :)

Oh and hey Michael, not that this has anything to do with LGBT, but as great as Macs are for a lot of different tasks, if you're a gamer a well-tweaked PC is the ONLY way to go, especially if it involves anything played online.

While I highlighted a wedding ceremony here on the front page, screenshots of lesbian sex after the jump are not safe for work!

Now, Bil, you knew this would most everyone to flip the page!!!

You mention that they are LGBT advocates, and this looks really great, but you don't mention anything about how trans people are included. Beyond the ability to choose your gender that most games include, are there other features that try to include and accommodate trans people?

I think what I'd be most interested in would be the avatars. It can be fun fantasy to play a character with a different body type, but after a while I'm going to get bored if I have to pretend that my body looks like someone else's in order to participate.

'm going to get bored if I have to pretend that my body looks like someone else's in order to participate.

Very good point, Toby.

Although my first thought was, "Wow, I can have sex with a 'real' male body!" Not very evolved nor emotionally integrated of me, I'll confess. But there you go.

I think what I'd be most interested in would be the avatars. It can be fun fantasy to play a character with a different body type, but after a while I'm going to get bored if I have to pretend that my body looks like someone else's in order to participate.

That's a really good question, Tobi. My understanding is that you can choose whichever gender you'd prefer, but it's an either/or proposition. However, cross-dressing is common and gender bending is pretty normal too.

Becky - as to SecondLife... Are they actively seeking out LGBT people to participate? I know Utherverse is.

However, cross-dressing is common and gender bending is pretty normal too.

Yeah, I would imagine as much. But especially in something that includes as much sex as this, the body is as important, if not more so, then clothes. A man in women's clothing looks very different than a trans woman. And most mainstream perspectives of women in men's clothing is still extremely femme.

I couldn't find any contact page following the link. Do you have public contact information that I could forward my concerns to them through?

Bil,

There's plenty of gay, lesbian, and trans-relevant things to do, see, and whatever with in Second Life, but there's no actual specific outreach I'm aware of. There's a Transgender Resource Center, and similar sorts of Pride Centers and such for the community-based happenings. There's also a thriving LGBT "nitelife", and when I use LGBT here, I really mean it. There's literally something for just about everyone in Second Life, socially, sexually, and just plain old fun.

Where have ya'all been I came out as a Crossdresser in web chats long ago im just now now coming out in real.There used to be a program called Rose chat there was a large community of Transgirls and we had some pretty wicked 3d avs smiles I had several made just for me. Now you can find me over on Voodoochat.com its just 2d but theres several trans and wannabe trans girls there.The wannabes are usaly guys who cant get laid cyber or otherwise till they say there a Tgurl.

I couldn't find any contact page following the link. Do you have public contact information that I could forward my concerns to them through?

Tobi, I know Jezebel will be catching up on the comments threads here soon, but I'll also pass along your contact info to her.

Tobi and everyone,

I'm going to be writing something on being trans in Second Life, and I'll also be checking out Utherverse and probably making some comparisons. I'm a longtime gamer, but fairly new to Second Life and brand new to the experience of cybersex and online sexual interaction in general. I think there's plenty of fertile ground here for the exploration of all kinds of topics relevant to Queer and especially gender-variant lives.

Stay tuned.

Excellent, I'll look forward to seeing what you write. I've never done Second Life, myself, but I've heard lots about it.

PLEASE READ THIS!!!

I tried a beta version of Utherverse tonight and it crashed my computer repeatedly, almost causing an unrecoverable error in my operating system due to bad drivers.

Do not, do not, do not install or run this program in your computer! It is clearly still far too buggy and unstable to be truly functional, and in my opinion could most definitely be dangerous to run on your computer.

I did briefly get to see some of the graphics and capabilities, and I'll talk about that in my upcoming piece, but I strongly recommend that no one sign up for Utherverse or try to install the software until it is considerably further ahead in its development than it is now.

I had similar problems, Becky, although it just kept crashing on me and didn't do anything to my comp.

Wait a year, and maybe it'll be worth trying.

I put it on my computer and had no problems at all. Is your Windows installation up to date? Did you meet the minimum requirement for the software to run?

It ran just fine for me for over an hour. I thought the game itself was rather crappy - lots of "this room isn't ready yet" type messages and very few people were actually there compared to the size of the space.

Whatever the case, this game itself doesn't seem to break computers. It may exacerbate existing issues (I've worked on Alex's computer, so I know it's not in the best condition) that already existed, but there is nothing wrong with the code on the game itself.

This game requires a decent graphics card and lots of memory. If you were short in either area, that would explain a crash. So would existing problems with Windows, such as other apps that crashed regularly, system slowdown, viruses, spyware, etc. I'd be willing to be it's Windows crappiness before it's the app.

Funny how we all went to go check it out, lol. No! We're not all into internet sex trolling! LOL!

OK, yeah, I assumed I had the right system requirements without checking, and I just did, and I have nowhere near enough memory. It requires 1 gig of RAM, and I'm stuck at 192 after you take out video memory.

Oh, well!