Fast Girls and an Interview with a Virtual Madam
Welcome to my leg of the virtual book tour for Fast Girls. Thank you, Rachel, for this great idea and for a chance to introduce some new readers to my blog.My story in Fast Girls, "Playing the Market," is about the world’s oldest profession in the post-2008 economy. My heroine Jessie is an unemployed bond trader who decides to offer herself on the market with some surprising results.
I loved exploring the theme of prostitution with a woman confident enough to choose to make a commodity of her body. Jessie and her adventures were great fun to write, and I realized as the story unfolded in my brain, I might have found inspiration from an unusual source.
While I was writing "Playing the Market," I was also playing the online game Age of Conan. One of my playmates was a woman that was roleplaying a madam in the virtual world. We played together enough that she became an online friend, and I watched her experiment in fictional procurement with fascination.
As a token of gratitude to my friend and the time I spent exploring virtual vice with her, I thought I would offer an unusual treat for this stop on the blog tour - an interview with a madam who operates a house of pleasure in the multi-player fantasy adventure game Age of Conan.
I’ve written about Age of Conan before and about sexy mod artist Tessera’s nude skins for AoC and other games. In brief, Age of Conan is an online game like the more popular World of Warcraft. Games of this type are called Massive Multiplayer Online games or MMOs. What AoC lacks in player numbers, it makes up for in gorgeous graphics and a steamy layer of adult content that more family friendly games don’t touch. Most players play AoC like they would any other adventure game – exploring, killing enemies, and collecting rewards -- but there is a solid core of roleplayers who use the game to tell stories, some of them erotic, and create characters with depth and history. Online roleplay between good players can be very challenging – a unique combination of storytelling and improv acting.
Player organizations in these games are called guilds. Virtual money is an important element in games like AoC and some virtual world economies have projected significant value into the real world, challenging the very concept of currency.
My friend's madam character in the game is named Phaityl. She runs a guild called Forbidden. She agreed to answer a few questions about her experience operating an exotic bordello in an online world.
How did you come up with the idea for your virtual brothel?
I came up with idea when the RP community was working on a storyline involving the finding of various pieces of a rare artifact. Each week an event would be held that was somewhat social in nature and clues would be dropped, information bartered for, etc. I started thinking about how information and gossip would be circulated in a world like the one in Age of Conan and it seemed to me that courtesans who were also spies would be as good as any information source available. What I had hoped to create was a fully functional brothel that had a much darker and more clandestine purpose.
What did you hope to accomplish by creating such an unusual group in the game?
The Age of Conan MMO world is very savage and male dominated. I wanted to create something that would empower women, not exploit them….so it was sort of an odd choice I suppose. I thought this was a unique way of turning the tables. The inner circle of the guild was always meant to be run by a group of women using seduction and blackmail to influence political and religious figures of import. The soft whisper in the ear that changes the world to our desires. It was a way for us to become powerful and influential without having to utilize brute strength.Did you have many people offering to play courtesans and prostitutes?
Unfortunately not many. When I first started the guild I had to convince a friend to help me out and play a courtesan role. She was very hesitant at first but I think she had fun with it. We added another girl who recently left the game after being with us for almost 2 years. The three of us were the main courtesans. We have had a few more come and go over the course of our existence but not many.
Can you tell us about some of them?
Well one of them being my best friend I could tell you plenty about her….but she might kill me…
Originally, you planned to charge actual game money for your courtesans’ services. How did that work out?
There was some resistance from some of the community leaders when we first announced our intentions to do this. They did present some fair arguments against it but I am fairly stubborn at times. Further, from a roleplaying perspective, I could not justify having a bunch of courtesans running around mining for materials to build a city. (Resource gathering is an important, time-consuming, and fairly boring part of the game, AC) To be honest it actually worked out much better than I thought it would. We would have competitions between the girls to see who could get the most money out of a patron. It was fun until we needed to actually have schedules, then it started to feel too much like a job so we quit doing things that way.
Gender in video games is a fascinating thing. In a world where anyone can manifest as male or female, sex and gender take on new dimensions. From your experience as a virtual madam, do you have any observations on why people choose particular roles, especially sex roles, in virtual worlds?
I really think it was a way for people to explore fantasies or things that they would never dare in the real world. The whole idea of providing sex for money can be somewhat glamorous in a fictional setting but is not something I would dream of doing (not that I am judging those who do). I think it also allowed people a space where they could explore roles and sexual activity without any repercussions or judgments. Interestingly enough it was really the patrons who were the ones requesting the more taboo types of roleplayed sex. I think, for the girls who were roleplaying as courtesans, it was sort of the thrill of seeing how far they could get someone to go in exchange for their time…to put it politely.
Okay, a real voyeur’s question to close here. Can you tell us about your hottest in-game encounter in your brothel?
I have a bit of a … fetish I guess you would call it. I love to be spanked. My hottest encounter involved a bit of discipline shall we say? There were a few other things I would have liked to explore but unfortunately they have not happened …yet. Maybe some day. *wolfish grin*
To be honest there are probably a lot more humorous stories than hot ones...
Okay. I wouldn’t be a good interviewer if I didn’t follow up on that. Do tell?
One funny story. As this is a fictional/fantasy environment I quickly came to realize how much importance males put into their um…size. The consistent theme that nearly every guy had in his fantasy description of himself always involved endowments that, to be frank, would not be in the least bit pleasing. One such client insisted that his particular piece of equipment be referred to as the ’The Great Python’. Imagine this while the person is sending tells (tells are direct messages that are out of character) “is this turning you on?” and “are you getting hot?”. As Phaityl, my role is to be sensual, seductive, erotic, and make the scene intimate and passionate, but, between the great python and the messages, I am sitting behind my computer laughing so hard I am in tears. Interestingly enough another girl had the same experience with the same client and we shared some laughs. In fairness though he was a nice guy…
Thank you so much, Phaityl. Anything else you want to add?
Role Play is like creating a character in a story. The only real difference is the other characters in the story are not your creations and therefore have their own ideas, thoughts, agendas etc. If anyone reading this has an interest in online roleplay, I would stress that the jointly created stories are works of fiction that require some flexibility on the part of the creator(s). There are also occasions where the choice to RP a controversial character can create some difficulties. Sexuality can be especially tricky. Some people have a tendency to perhaps project the personality of the character on to the creator, just as some readers can confuse an author with her creations. If you are considering exploring RP I would caution that this is a rare but unfortunate occurrence.
That being said, the majority of the community that I have had experience with certainly realizes that there is a significant division between a fictional character and the person behind the keyboard but there is the occasional person who may not make that distinction. Overall, RP can be an incredibly rewarding creative experience between two (or more) minds. But anytime you are interacting with individuals, sometimes things do not go according to plan. Keep an open mind, be creative, and, most importantly, have fun and be respectful of the people you play with.
An important note. Phaityl and her guildmates were always very careful not to have inappropriate interaction with any player who might be underage. In theory, all players of AoC are legally adults but because the game is online, it was necessary to ask the question. Any suspicion of a player being under 18 was enough to keep them from receiving service.
The website for the Forbidden guild is located here.
Age of Conan seems to be in a bit of a summer lull now and the guild isn’t as active as it was a few months ago, but Phaityl welcomes visitors and if you are an adult player with a good sense of humor and a desire to explore the world of online adventure of a different sort, she might enjoy hearing from you.
Posted by Angela Caperton at 8/25/2010 9:01 PM 
Categories: Age of Conan, Rachel Kramer Bussel, Angela Caperton, Fast Girls, Cleis
Tags: Age of Conan Rachel Kramer Bussel Angela Caperton Fast Girls Cleis
Categories: Age of Conan, Rachel Kramer Bussel, Angela Caperton, Fast Girls, Cleis
Tags: Age of Conan Rachel Kramer Bussel Angela Caperton Fast Girls Cleis
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