In the previous article about Portofino there was a comment by “A Staffer” which brought into focus more issues facing residents of that RP community.
In that comment the individual mentioned the LGBTQ community, and how some residents who are LGBTQ are now feeling unwelcome coming straight off the heels of another member of the LGBTQ community being harassed and threatened by one of the big “families” of Portofino. A light was shone on an individual who had run into problems with one of the families of Portofino. The word had then spread to the LGBTQ group that was set up by this individual for other people in the LGBTQ community in Portofino, and it may end up culminating in all of them leaving at some point. For reference, this means around 12 renters leaving en-masse. Like Magnolia, Woodland Grove, Caledon, Second Norway and other large communities, the LGBTQ community are there, and they are in large numbers, they just choose to live quietly.
For some background. The individual’s first name in real life is Amanda, she lives in Michigan with her partner Danielle. Amanda is originally from Surrey, England, and moved to Michigan 15 years ago, They have two cats, an English Setter (Dog) and 2 goldfish. Her partner Danielle is a member, and volunteer staff of CenterLink https://www.lgbtqcenters.org an organisation which, for 30 years, has matched LGBTQ people in need of help or support with local LGBTQ community centers. Danielle has seen the original messages as they live together. Both of them were comfortable giving away a little peek into their real life as no one in Second Life knows anything about their real-world location, names or info, so this article cannot be tied directly to them inworld.
The screenshots have been blurred by Danielle, as Amanda has no experience with this sort of thing. All names mentioned in the messages, including the names of the sender and receiver of the messages, have also been blurred in accordance with the Linden Lab Terms of Service. I requested that the screenshots be taken in a “current” place in Second Life, in this case, SmokeFest, this way people can see the screenshots are current and the window is showing a previous conversation.
It wasn’t just a case of protecting Amanda from falling foul of the Linden Lab TOS, as Amanda put it herself in an email…
There is a member of Cara’s family who openly boasted several times in group and local chats that he was in security and is a private investigator. I don’t want my SL name to be tied to this because of my and Danielle’s fear of what this male member of Cara’s family would do if he found out what our address was. Both of us have been very carefull inworld not to say where we live, or even say on our accounts what state or country we live in. We are not even partnered in-world and Danielle lives in a different community.
It is honestly like Communist China or North Korea. Openly boasting that he can find out who you are. I abuse reported him several times for these open boasts, but he has so many alt accounts its hard to tell if he got suspended.
Included is a rough screen recording I requested, made by Danielle incase there are cries of “photoshopped”. Names are covered.
Danielle and Amanda’s computers are in the same room, next to each other. Danielle said that Amanda burst into tears a minute or so after the last message you see above was sent. Danielle then came over, asked what was wrong and upon finding out, blocked the individual and sent an abuse report.
The same day Danielle sent a message to Cara about the incident. There was no reply. Two days after these messages were sent, Amanda noticed that a lot of people in Portofino who used to talk to her were no longer talking to her. She is in effect “blackballed” from Portofino society.
At the time of writing this article, two other people in Portofino have come forward with incidents which are remarkably similar to Amanda’s. Both of these individuals also presented Cara with evidence of it happening, and both times, Cara did not reply.
Some of you may notice this article is a lot “colder” and “neutral” than the previous one. I decided to put my journalist hat on for this and simply present the evidence with no opinion. I also got help from another journalist from my place of work to give the article a once-over to check if it steers in the direction of neutral journalism and not the fire and brimstone articles we usually do.
Just before this article was published, I received another email from Amanda saying that she plans to move to Magnolia City and a second house at Second Norway which she is already setting up. The rent in her house in Portofino will be left to lapse. I will not be stating how much time she said he has left in the rent box so no direct tie can be made to her. I’ll be the first to pre-emptively welcome Amanda to Magnolia, even though I won’t know who she is when she does move in.
I will end this article with an email from Amanda, which, like the previous quote, she agreed to share.
“I was abused as a child. From the age of 9 to 11 I was put through mental and physical hell. The person responsible for it spent a lot of time in Jail. Second Life, and communities like Portofino are supposed to be safe places for people of all sexual orientations to enjoy. The last few messages from this individual gave me flashbacks of my real life abuser trying to mentally corner me into doing something they wanted, or another bad thing would happen.
This individual, and the family they are a part of, are sick, sick people, and Cara is as sick as they are for not doing anything to stop it.”
Written by Liandra
Edited by Tommy “Mc Mac”
Secondary check by Fenella
Doughnuts eaten by Liza
8 Responses
Thomas
As a member of that same LGBTQ+ group mentioned in this article, I can say that most of us are now on the verge of deciding to leave Portofino. On the surface Portofino is welcoming, but if you scratch that surface you see an underlying current of people who don’t want us and don’t like us being in that community.
The treatment of “Amanda” is abhorrent and utterly disgraceful. No doubt members of this family and the management of Portofino have gone to ground thinking of a way they can spin this so they don’t get the blame, or they will pass the blame to someone else, or even make up the whole article as “fake news” which is what a lot of them done with the previous article here about Porto.
The problem is, now they will gloss over certain members of their family’s hatred and loathing of anyone LGBTQ+, and this will publically erupt eventually. Discrimination or outright harassment of someone because of their sexuality has brought down bigger places than Portofino.
The mother
Zoe welcomed us with open arms when we first got to Portofino. We stayed for 2 weeks in total due to her conversations about/with a member of the LGBTQ+ community, particularly saying that she was proud to call a non-binary person that I’m close to a ”she” in order to trigger them. Cara was told about this and did nothing, not even as much as a slap on the wrist. Then had the audacity to post on her facebook during pride month that she was a safe person to be around for LGBTQ+ people. It’s a joke, truly. We let our rent ran out and never looked back.
Eleanor
from copying magnolia and sitting back while her SL husband runs around attacking anyone who points it out, now this? cara is like the female version of kim jung un portos little rocket women dictator. I have made known to several people in “the management” that I will be leaving porto-scam-copybot-shithole and I’ll be clicking “wont renew” on my mail box this weekend. i know that’s probably gonna end up outing me as the person commenting, but from the sounds of it, it will stop the gay and lesbian haters in cara’s family from annoying the folks in the lgbtq community in portoscam-holio
an lgbtq freind
the privat investigter that was spoken about in the post is robert lowrey, cara partner. he has been messaging severel gays in portofino threatening them with lawsuit if they don’t tell him who amanda is in second life
Angels
Hello “an lgbtq freind”.
Can you please let the people who have been threatened by Robert know that if they blur out the names in the screenshots and send them to the email address for this blog (angels@3girlsinsl.co.uk) that we will post a follow up article on continued harrasement of the LGBTQ populace in Portofino.
Thanks!
Liandra
A Former Resident
As a former resident of Portofino, I can state from experience how completely shitty that this town has become. It started as a community of people who could come together and be friendly, to a town solely focused on who is who and if you’re not in the who, no one gives to flying shits about you.
Here are a few examples of said things:
1.) Cara has become so far detached from anything and everything going on in her town that she refuses to see fact and rely on lies told to her by her “inner circle”.
2.) Her “inner circle” is comprised of lazy, two-faced, manipulative and violent people who degrade and lash out at anyone who doesn’t fit into their preconceived notions of how people should be.
3.) Most residents in the community don’t leave their houses, let alone roleplay in the departments, and the department heads lie about it so that they can be ‘paid’ the 200Ls that are given, along with that ‘AWESOME’ 10% rental discount. Including the chief of their police, Alex.
4.) Her ‘assistant’ is the worst of all of them! Playing two sides of a fence, and playing victim when she’s called out by someone to Cara. She will whine and complain that she doesn’t understand where it’s coming from, when she herself said the exact thing 5 minutes earlier.
So needless to say; Portofino is more like Compton. It should be turned into the slums that it is.
SLdude
Having been in SL for 15 years. I have seen it all. Portofino is New Haven mk2. Most of the people that were in NH were former Woodcrest people. So the way they are is no shock to me. It also seems, if discord is true. They are thinking of adding some ADULT regions. Which means Portofino will be just another sex sim.
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