Being sexy in OpenSim requires illegal content all over that's as new as possible and absolutely over the top and impractical, but don't you dare reject it
I think I've figured out OpenSim's current "sexiness standards" for female avatars.
The thing in OpenSim in 2025 is: Not only are the sexiness standards completely absurd by now, but female avatars seem to be required to be as sexy as possible, always and everywhere. Refuse, and you're likely to be ostracised for it.
In general, legal content disfigures you greatly because it isn't on the same level as the best premium payware in Second Life. Hardly anyone will openly admit that their avatars consist entirely of illegal parts, down to the often unmodified shape. But not few are ready and willing to roast you for wearing anything legal.
On top of that, the Second Life rat race for always having only the newest and hottest stuff on your avatar has reached OpenSim. Not only must you wear ripped Second Life content, but you must wear Second Life content that was ripped no more than two years ago. Not even one year for clothes.
Just like in Second Life, the "best" female mesh body is Legacy. It's apparently the very definition of "sexy". After all, there are freebie stores that only offer female clothes for Legacy now. I don't know what it's like in Second Life, but here in OpenSim, female avatars seem to also be required to have hips twice as wide as their waist and thighs that are way thicker than their head is big. Tone your shape down, and you're no longer sexy.
As so many freebie store owners wanted to offer Legacy and wanted to offer that body exclusively, there are at least ten different independent Legacy imports. I guess all of them were no-transfer originally. Those who imported them didn't want other freebie store owners to steal their stolen mesh bodies and harvest the visitors they wanted to claim for themselves. In the meantime, at least some Legacy variants were god-moded, either to full perms or simply to be put up in another freebie store while remaining no-transfer.
By the way: It doesn't look like anyone could ever be bothered to give Legacy a new name.
Next comes LaraX. Its target audience appears to be those who want a new hot body while largely keeping the looks of their avatars. Except for the face because they replace the head that often.
On a distant third place, there's Simona. To my best knowledge, this ripped copy of Maitreya Lara 5.3 is only available on the one sim in Trianon-World for which it was "created". That sim also offers LaraX under the name of Xara.
I guess nobody acquires Athena for new avatars anymore. The same goes for any variant of SLink Physique Hourglass (BBHG, Je'Thai HG and especially Decadence-HG, the only one that was given basic BoM support as far as I know) even though that body is even more extreme in shape than Legacy. A typical HG avatar used to have hips
three times as wide as the waist.
Of course, an EvoX head is mandatory for "good-looking" avatars nowadays. The same goes for Doux hair. By next year, your avatar will be painfully outdated without 2K skins. 2K PBR skins even if PBR support is added to BoM until then. I'm not sure whether veins have become a must now; I guess the community is torn between the highest possible detail level and perfection. I mean, if realism really was that essential, female avatars would be based on Legacy Perky or LaraX Petite, and I would be criticised for my absurdly big boobs. But as things are right now, Legacy Perky and LaraX Petite are still constantly on the verge of being regarded underage because everyone is used to huge boobs.
Clothing really shows the shift in what's considered sexy.
For example, five years ago, 15cm stilettos were the sexiness benchmark. Back then already, almost all female avatars ran around with their feet permanently in a high-heel position, even when they were barefoot. I mean, at most beach events, I was the only one capable of changing the foot position without requiring working avatar scripts and changing my height accordingly without using the hover height slider. All the Athenas were often powerless after Hypergridding because their avatar scripts no longer worked, and Athena is notorious for blowing up when detached and re-attached while out and about on the Hypergrid. Something else, by the way, that I can do with Ruth2 v4 with no problems, even if Ruth2 v4 has much more advanced scripted BoM support than any ripped Second Life body.
Nowadays, 15cm stilettos are the absolute minimum requirement for not being compared with an ugly old granny. If you want to be sexy, you have to wear sandals with 30cm stiletto heels and 15cm platform soles. Always and everywhere. And I've actually seen even higher footwear in stores. Not long until those 15cm platforms will be the norm, and the even higher ones will be the minimum for sexiness.
It wasn't that long ago that skirts were a kind of touchy issue. Super-short micro-mini skirts and dresses were preferred, not only because they caused little to no clipping due to less-than-optimal rigging, but also for sexiness. Still, many worried that their undies could peek out. Or their private parts because their skirt or dress was so clingy that it was impossible to wear mesh underwear underneath it. Rigging these garments required a few tricks.
In the meantime, the first skirts and dresses appeared that always bare your buttocks.
Nowadays, if you want to be sexy, you have to wear skirts and dresses which are so short that they reveal your underwear while you're standing up. In fact, they must even reveal your underwear to you when you switch your camera to front view, and then the camera is hovering a great deal higher than your own head. These skirts and dresses usually come with their own underwear, but it's often as tiny as one can get away with. Technically speaking, you could get banned from the OSgrid Plazas for wearing such clothes because the Plaza rules cite "exposed underwear" as a bannable offence.
Some things haven't changed, however. You're still expected to bare as much skin as possible because only the maximum amount of bare skin is sexy. A two-part outfit must bare your midriff. Ideally, so should a dress, at least partially; alternatively, it must reveal as much cleavage as is tolerable on a General-rated sim.
This, of course, goes together with the wide-spread idea that it's always not only summer everywhere in OpenSim, but actually sweltering heat. Yes, even on a Christmas-themed, snow-covered winter sim at night. Oh, and yes, you can walk and even dance on 15cm platforms with 30cm stiletto heels both on snow and ice and on sand. People will most likely keep this attitude up even when winter sims have started using PBR materials for snow and ice to be even more realistic. Being as sexy as possible is such a hard requirement that adapting your outfit to your surroundings has become a complete no-no.
Hosiery is only allowed in the shape of nylon stockings with the garters in plain sight, worn more like lingerie than to keep your legs warm in colder weather. Still, completely naked legs are sexier. One reason why nobody has ever stolen nylon tights from Second Life.
And lastly, and this hasn't changed either: You must never make full use of the capabilites of BoM. It's only for skins, make-up and, more recently, skin details. You must never use it to wear layer clothes. In this light, I wonder why two new shops with layer clothes have opened in the last few months if actually wearing them is frowned upon. The other reason why nobody has ever stolen nylon tights from Second Life.
If you're like me, and you refuse to both wear illegal content all over and participate in that maximum sexiness game all the time, you'd better have friends whom you can hang around with, who support you and your style and who may even back you up and defend you.
#
OpenSim #
OpenSimulator #
SecondLife #
Metaverse #
VirtualWorlds #
VirtualClothing #
VirtualFashion
