"We'll Always Have Paris" or in Second Life maybe we'll always have Austin Island. The sim has an Eiffel Tower - sorry you can't climb it, a cafe, metro stations with a train you can ride, a cinema, nightclub and art galleries, probably even a brasserie that only a couple of people have discovered.
As you enjoy wandering round the city if you look up, you will see a large chateau lowering over the buildings. You would find it hard to get to the chateau and if you found an entrance it would be barred to you. Dig deeper and you find this is based on the Chateau in Roissy, that features so largely in the erotic classic "The Story of O".
Alongside the dances, the events, the talks to which all are openly welcomed, there is an educational program on Domination/submission (D/s) and BDSM. I have made friends with a number of the regular inhabitants of Austin and find the mixture of seriousness and enjoyment intriguing. To find out more I tracked down the owner and originator, Ratzu Darkstone, in one of his galleries and he agreed to answer some of my questions. I first asked him to tell me a little of the history of the community.
"This group began in September of 2008 on the current sim (Austin Island). It was not the first group based on "The Story of O" in Second Life but we introduced some rules that make it unique. It surely is a role play group, but also dedicated to education on dominance and submission involving dominant males and submissive females. We require people to play their own rl gender for this group because of our dedication. The group has changed over time but our goals and principles remained the same."
I was intrigued about the decision to base the education around "The Story of O" and how faithfully the book is followed. He responded
"We chose "The Story of O" as a model to follow as it is well known with a story to explain D/s both in book and film form. It gets people up to speed about what we do in an entertaining way. We try to follow the story as faithfully as possible, especially the first chapter when O is in the Chateau. Much after that varies from the book to the movie but the principles are mostly consistent. There are areas where following the book or movie strictly is either impossible, impractical or just not good practice but we strive to follow it as much as possible in terms of inspiration."