Alternate Lifestyles: What They Had to Do With MSN Chat

Some follow them as if it were a religion, others are into them just for the fun of it, while the others are left scratching their heads as to exactly what it is that makes people follow them. Love them, hate them, censor them, follow them, but they will always be somewhere hidden from the mainstream view – Alternate Lifestyles.

Alternate lifestyles have always been a controversial topic, and now, with Internet swiftly and surely conquering more countries than even Genghis Khan, more and more people are getting informed about the various alternate lifestyles prevalent in the world.

To be very frank, there are not many alternate lifestyles to start with, but as with religion, there are lot many cults and sects and subclasses in any alternate lifestyles. Here is a list of some of the more prevalent alternate lifestyles in the world. And yes, the title is not just a eyeball arrester, MSN did have to do something with alternate lifestyles, more of that later.

Homosexuality: The big one, the most controversial, and a while ago, one of the most shocking. Homosexuality is one of the most prevalent of the remaining alternate lifestyles. While a few years ago, it was a taboo to even speak about the subject, the increase in global interaction has made it possible for celebrities and even common people to come out in the open. Homosexuality was the lifestyle which was responsible for the coining of the term ' coming out of the closet'.

Lesbianism: The female version of homosexuality, it still has a much more social impact for an individual than being a homosexual. Along with homosexuality, it has been more or less accepted as a 'natural' lifestyle to live.

Vampire/Goth/Punk: Though many people may consider people of the vampire/goth and punk lifestyle to be kids high on testosterone, these lifestyles are well followed by many people in the age group of twenty five to forty.

BDSM: The big daddy of them all, and without question the most controversial of all alternate lifestyles, BDSM. While the term itself was only uttered in hushed tones in inner circles a few years, the Internet has caused BDSM to come to the fore. BDSM, stands for Bondage, Dominance, and Sado Masochism. Of course, with the peppered kind of lifestyle this is, there are various definitions to the acronym itself. BDSM is quite simply the lifestyle when one individual prefers to be subservient to another individual. However, there are many other concepts involved in this lifestyle.

BDSM has a number of rules and regulations, which are set by the people into the lifestyle itself. Like any study or following, there are people who do not follow the hard and fast rules of BDSM, and are generally looked down upon by the people who follow BDSM more deeply. People on the fringes of this lifestyle are known as 'vanilla'.

Gor: Gor and BDSM have much too much in common not to be put together in such a list, and they are much too different not to be described individually. Gor, is basically termed as a 'marriage of Dungeons and Dragons and BDSM'. However, the theory and concept of Gor is much more deeper than BDSM. If BDSM is a person to person interaction, Gor is much wider and of course, much more complex and intricate than BDSM.

Interestingly, the entire concept of Gor was created by one man, John Norman, (now Sir John Norman), in a series of pulp fiction novels during the '60s and the '70s. While the novels were first disregarded as adolescent adult material, it gained a huge popularity with the increase of the internet. John Norman has written around twenty seven novels based in the fictional world of Gor, and has released the twenty eighth novel recently.

The lifestyle of Gor, is based on the fictional world, titled Gor, which has a very specific criteria of men being the ruling gender in the world, and the women being the subservient gender. Maybe, the greatest difference between Gor and BDSM is that though BDSMers do not particularly care about males being subservient, Goreans, as they are so deemed, are very strict and harsh in their criticism about male subserviency.

Needless to say, the followers of these lifestyles seldom find acceptance in mainstream society, and therefore, they create inner groups and other ways to know and interact with each other. The internet fast became a home for such lifestylers, and many of the chat programs became a hotspot for them to integrate.

One of the most popular chat sites for BDSM and Goreans was MSN Chat. In fact, almost eighty percent of the population for MSN chat was either BDSM and Gor chat. The other population was homosexuals, lesbians and other lifestyles not listed here.

So deep was the following of these lifestyles, and so famous was MSN chat, that MSN chat became a second home for the followers of such lifestyles. People started spending more than eighteen hours on bdsm and gor themed chat rooms. It was their world, where they could get what they want and live how they liked.

And then, one fine day, MSN chat closed down.

The reason given to people following these lifestyles was ridiculous: privacy security. For a while, there was a lull in the internet activity of these lifestylers, with most of them having less than the needed knowledge to access a full fledged chat program.

No lifestyler will ever forget MSN chat, and what it did to them for reasons still incomprehensible to lifestylers. Their lifestyle has now got a second life, with high ended, heavy duty, 3D chat programs like Second Life and Moove. No doubt, these chat programs give a person more freedom and satisfaction, but because of the sheer bandwidth speed needed for these programs, it is a question as ton when these programs, and therefore this avenue, will be available to lifestylers not of the US or UK.