Last night I discovered the seedy underside of the simulated world of Second Life. There I was, minding my own business, when a stranger walked up and handed me the directions to a club. Alright, I thought. Why not check it out?

As it turns out, it's a strip club. That's right, someone built a strip club in the Second Life world, in a region known as "DaBoom" (sigh). You can walk into this simulated club and watch simulated women take off simulated clothes. The whole concept is bizarre. Certainly, in SL your character, or "avatar", can be dressed any way you want, and you can even remove the clothes entirely. Underneath the clothing, however, the avatar is about as anatomically correct as Barbie and Ken dolls. Because the club was empty when I showed up, I spoke to someone who worked there. She told me that people payed SL cash to see them dance. I honestly didn't know what to say to that. The idea of paying money to watch a manniquin-like figure prance around baffles me.

That's not all. On a different occasion, someone handed me a drink. It wasn't literally a liquid, of course, because it's a simulation. However, the object, which looked like a cocktail glass, contained a script that made my avatar wobble and fall down a lot. Drunk, basically. Are there drug-scripts too?

So. Yes, the simulated world has a sex and alcohol problem. I shouldn't be surprised--after all, SL is an open-ended simulator in which the users create all the content. People inevitably bring their vices with them from the real world.

This will be my last entry about Second Life, I swear... mainly because my free trial account is expiring soon, and I don't think I want to pay money for this. It's all too weird.