Abstract
Much of Western society remains predicated upon a self/other binary through which humans situate 'self' in contradistinction to 'other'. Global socio-cultural debates have reinforced binary definitions and expressions, but the Internet - including Second Life, a Multi-User Virtual Environment - affords opportunities for individuals to express non-binary identities in contexts which are often perceived as safer than their everyday lives. Pseudonymity may provide a buffer between expressions of online and offline identities. Second Life provides a fertile context within which scholars can debate the epistemological, ontological, and phenomenological foundations of the self/other binary. The relationship between avatar and user deconstructs this binary because the dyad exists in a context where diff & eacute;rance - to borrow Derrida's concept - operates in a slippery both/and space between the offline self and the avatar. This both/and space evokes elements of third space thinking and challenges the politics of recognition to pay more attention to self-recognition. The Furry avatar is monstrous, in the Derridean sense, because the avatar/user interaction enables self-recognition that is achieved independently of others' judgements. Second Life provides opportunities to challenge the binaries that implicate gender, the human and non-human, and the broader concept of the unitary self.