What Would a Penis Say?

“Plunder this, baby.”

Well, no, that’s probably not what a penis would say. That line just went so well with the picture I couldn’t resist. A penis might say:

“Sheathe this, baby.”

or

“Wanna play with my sword?”

Before I get too carried away, I should fill in some backstory. Last week I took my first roleplaying class — Forceme Silverspar’s four part ROPE(Roleplay for Everyone) training — at Secondlife. I’ve been wanting to roleplay with the Pirates on the Barbary Coast and thought this would be a good place to pick up some tricks and tips.

This session was taught by Hamilton Outlander, Hammer for short. The goal is to learn to emote and interact in roleplay games so that the scene is an immersive experience for the players. Many of the historical simulations on Second Life are researched in detail, and the creators spend hours replicating an authentic environment. Players, hopefully, show respect for those efforts by learning to act as someone would in that period of time and by learning to emote. All of those things represent a great resource to a writer interested in getting a feel for an era or genre. I couldn’t wait to get started. But I didn’t want to disrupt fantasy play with the bumbling of a newbie, and that’s how I wound up in the ROPE class.

What has that got to do with talking penises? Well, like you, I wouldn’t have thought it would have anthing to do with penises talking. In fact, until my first class, I was under the impression a penis was more of a doer than a talker. Apparently that is not always so in Secondlife, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

We progressed well enough through learning that emoting involved setting the scene around you and describing your actions in a way that involves the senses. Everyone practiced basic emote styles. But when the conversation moved to body parts that emote for you, I was lost. Letting your body parts leap into the conversation and express themselves was considered lazy, and bad form. Huh?

The entire group was nodding, snickering, disdain obvious.

We’re talking about conversations exchanged via IM or group chat. I couldn’t figure out how a body part, other than my fingers typing on the keyboard, inserted comments into a conversation. Don’t laugh. I was thinking along the lines of when you accidentally walk into a wall or a bush. Do you then see in the chat: Nara’s nose says, “Watch where you’re going, dimwit!”

Nine times out of ten, when you’re completely lost in a class, someone else is too. So I admitted ignorance and asked what they were talking about. They weren’t talking noses.

Scripted genitals? Can you imagine the dialogs?

I looked down to make sure my pixel knees were tightly pressed together while I launched a browser and did some quick research.

Apparently some programmers–being blessed with an ever helpful and inventive mindset–thought it might be handy if genitals were able to carry on the conversation when hands got busy elsewhere. But, fortunately, those types of body parts are add-ons that you knowingly purchase for yourself.

I was relieved to know that my private, garden-variety, pixels weren’t capable of expressing verbal opinions without my consent. I keep my chat window closed most of the time, so I would have been unaware of those “under-the-table” conversations.

But right behind relief was another thought–Damn, if a penis could talk, what would it say?

I had a tough time concentrating on my roleplaying after that. Dialog snippets kept popping into my head:

“Hey, sugar, send down a head lamp.”

“Tease me, squeeze me, never let me go.”

I know, awful. I’ve got to stop. But, what do you think a penis would say?