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SL London continues to expand both by area and by traffic of people.  It is one of the big successes of SL, bringing both real businesses and SL businesses into its bustling virtual copy of the real London.  A new sim had been added a few months ago and I waited eagerly for the opening.  Instead of the up-market London locations that already make up SL London, this sim copies a slightly more dubious part of London known for it’s nightlife and sex trade.  Realistically it has a right to be included as it is very famous worldwide and today it is a trendy place to live, in spite of it’s still slightly seedy reputation.  It’s an area called Soho and in real life it is tucked just behind the wealthy shopping areas of central London. 

Because I’m a Londoner I couldn’t wait to go in and see what the SL London Team had made of mimicking the original Soho.  Fellow writer Hibiscus Hastings and I had a grand tour by SL London Director Das Wade, and one of the builders who has put so much into it, Menolly Riederer.

The real Soho today is an extremely popular area of London, with a unique tapestry of all sorts of lifestyles, but it is still most famous for it’s sex industry, which dates back to the 1800s.  It has a strange history, being surrounded by the most influential neighbouring London Boroughs such as Bloomsbury, Marylebone and Mayfair, it was shunned by the aristocrats in the 1700s and never became a fashionable location for the rich.   By the mid 1800s it had a high immigrant population and prostitutes and small theatres and music halls started to appear.  By the 1900s cheap eating-houses were opened by foreign nationals and it started to become favoured by the artistic and intellectual set.

So what of SL London owner Debs Regent’s virtual Soho, well the in-world location is largely based on the more risqué side of the real district and I suspect will attract a great many avatars who seek cyber thrills in one form or another.  In this, the Linden Labs, along with Debs are taking no chances of under age avatars being able to have access, as the sim will be classified as ‘Adult’ and avatars will have to be age verified, and prove they are over 18 years old, to get in (see Second Life.com for age verification procedures).

At the hub of the sim is the Phoenix club which is presently recruiting for escorts, dancers, and strippers along with other staff.  The Phoenix club, with it’s basement location, decorated in plush red, somehow exudes the slightly tacky atmosphere that will appeal to clubbers who like nudity and sexual favours with their beer.  There are the usual pole dance stages set up all around the club and one elegant feature, in spite of it being striptease, is the giant champagne Bottle and glass where the striptease artist bathes in a shower of champers as she rotates gracefully in the wineglass.  One of the SL London Team, Cleo Charleville, gave us a demonstration.  She tastefully had a binkini on for her peformance though, but we got the general idea.

Behind the main body of the club there is a room put aside for slightly more sinister stuff, BDSM (Bondage and Discipline Dominance and Submission Sadism and Masochism).  There are various instruments of torture (or pleasure, depending on your perspective!) and I suspect this will get it’s share of the traffic, as BDSM sims are quite popular in SL, although I suspect many people will wander into them once or twice just out of curiosity.  Hibiscus and I tried some of the pose balls, when no one was around, and found ourselves in fits of laughter, then we got worried that we may get stuck in the poses, so quickly decided to move on!!  There are more rooms for private dances behind the main part of the club as well.

There is a cinema a little further along showing steamy films.  You can watch real life soft porn movies in-world and there is a list of films you can pick from.  It makes me wonder what sort of avatars will be frequenting such a place, I can’t imagine just going there to watch a movie, as I’d be a bit worried about who I sat next to, but then again you have to be prepared for the consequences if you choose to sit in on those sorts of films.  Once in the mood, people can choose one of the many brothel rooms, which will be dotted all over the sim.  The room that Menolly showed us was actually really nicely decorated with a luxurious bed (with it’s pose balls for various sexual play), a bath, and behind a little screen more BDSM furniture.  I am told that these rooms will be private so no one can see what is going on.  I would stress here that people will all be over 18 and they have the option of either teleporting out or switching off their computers if they are unhappy with the situation in which they find themselves in.

Das and Menolly took us to a gym, not any gym, but a gym set up purely for the male gay community.   There we met the man who built the gym, Aeneas Beaumont, and a fine job he has made of it too.  He told me ‘I hope I have made it welcoming, that’s what I aimed for.’  Menolly grinned and said to Aeneas ‘well since it’s the last time us girls will be allowed in here, show us around hun.’  And show us around he did, there is the work-out area with equipment scripted to actually work, plus a massage bed.  Teleport buttons that take you to a further two floors.  There is a nice pool area where Aeneas says ‘people can relax and hang out.’  And also working showers! I had to have a go! fully clothed of course, and felt really clean afterwards!!  Then there is the toilets, a nicely designed block, but with pose balls I’d rather not print about in this column!  As the real Soho has a large gay community, I suspect the virtual gym will appeal to many gay avatars.

One thing I loved seeing was Carnaby Street, the focal point for the swinging sixties in real life London, it has been re-created in SL Soho and I am looking forward to the many little shops being filled with trendy SL clothes etc.  I noticed that a lot of the shops have been reserved by some of our top designers, Nils Tomorrow has reserved a store right next to the Phoenix, a good business move on her part, well done Nils!  I can only think SL trade will flourish in the area as people will come into the sim, either wanting to take part in the sexual side of things or just out of curiosity, so it is a good place to own an SL store.

Lastly one of the areas I really liked was a gathering place in one of the tower blocks.  Looking like a converted warehouse inside, it has sprawling sofas and comfy chairs where people can just come and chat.  Nothing sexual going on there, but I feel it will get it’s regulars who like nothing better than meeting up and chilling with their friends.

A big thank you to Das Wade and Cleo Charleville for showing us around and also to Menolly Riederer, who along with Rails Bailey, have turned the sim into a simply amazing build.  Also thank you to Aeneas Beaumont for showing us around his amazing gym.   I think SL Soho will prove to be a very interesting place in the future.

Soho Opens as an Adult sim on the 1 August 2009

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Soho%20W1%20London/50/40/42

SL London http://slurl.com/secondlife/Knightsbridge/216/55/28