male Lesbians

ok I have a female avi and I am a hetero-guy, pretty common, no big deal for most of us to accept I think.

I was wondering why people asked me if I am gay, not that I'm being defensive or taking offence, it's a legit question when asked politely.

I think I understand why now (and am asking for your input), unlike many in SL I have asked, I do not see myself as my avi. I see 'her' as my model, she works for me on a telepathic level.

Do you live vicariously through your avi? (play as if you are actually the avi) or are you acting a role for whatever reason (no 'wrong' reasons)?

Both.

Hey why not, it's SL.

hehe you are of course our most famous example!

I think most people in SL (at least the majority of the ones I know) play themselves so it is hard for them to separate the AV from the person at the keyboard when it comes to those who are doing serious roleplay as you are. One way to avoid this is to not reveal your sex, but that's up to you. I try to avoid stepping on other people's dreams and take them at face value. If your AV is female then you're female.

-Kiamat Dusk

I kinda do both. I crack a lot of dog jokes when its appropriate, but at the end of the day - I'm a Thirtysomething guy from Michigan.

I use both male and female avatars. I am always Loki, I never try at act the part or anything. I behave the same regardless of what avatar I may be wearing. I am aware of the AV I am wearing at the time, but I dont really give it much thought. I think my friends get a kick out of seeing me both ways.

haha I'm a 30 something guy in Michigan too!

Woot, and we got a love connection!
lmao JK!

Another call heard from the Shapeshifter contingent here.

My situation is a little odd...
I have the me that is me behind the keyboard...
I have my primary av, which I think of as me inworld.
I have alternate avatars that the me inworld wears for various reasons...

In my mind, my primary avatar is my representation of ME inworld; I have taken a great deal of time to make it look like me... I have been on searches for the right gestures and anims to be able to have it posess some of my behaviors. In essence, it embodies the real me in world.

When I switch avatars inworld, that is an extension of how, In world, I am a shapeshifter. I have a whole slew of alternate forms, some of which I am more comfortable with than others. At the end of the day though, THOSE are the masks and the Primary is my Avatar, and I am ME acting through my avatar whether it is wearing a mask or not.

Make sense?

No?

Can't help ya further than that.

good info, thank you for your honesty, I understand your point and do not think it is 'wrong' to not reveal your RL gender, after all we're adults and this is all a shared fantasy. Some people do not participate the metaverse (ie outside of the platform, places like here or Yahoo etc) and there would be no reason to feel ethically compelled to be 'honest' as SL is not RL.

It is curious to me that someone can actually 'feel' like they are their avi. I tried making my first avi (daz Groshomme R.I.P, rest in punk) like me, spikey hair, punk t-shirt etc and while I like myself it wasn't as much fun as acting out my female avi. Luckily there is room for all of us here!

It does make sence my friend, thank you, our minds are complex and naturally multi-task (as Robert A. Heinlein said "Specialisation is for insects" and SL is a wonderfull way to visualise the many variations of ourselves....

It's an interesting situation:

the true user base in SL is probably 35% female to 65% male, yet the avatar balance is slightly higher than 50/50 in the girls' favor.

Yet a lot of residents will say, "I'm a gay woman."

From what I've seen, a "gay woman" actually has a better chance of getting "laid" than a straight man in most on-line venues.

Look at it this way: nearly every male in SL (that's looking for a date) is looking for a girl. Nearly every real girl is probably looking for a guy.

So out of a 100 person sample, 35 real girls can get dates with 35 guys. That leaves 30 guys out in the cold.

So 20 of those guys dress as girls and say they're bi-sexual. That leads about 10 guys left over... they date 10 of the "synth-girls", and the last 5 synth-girls date each other.

It makes sense to me, anyway.

lol! you may be over analysing things but entertaining statistics nonetheless

I think of my avatar as separated, as in a character, that I control. I speak through Lora. Like a puppet. But when I speak, I do so honestly, rather than as a roleplaying character.

So it gets tricky when I say "me." Me, Lora, or me, the puppeteer typing now?

I never thought of this like this. Im a real woman in my 1st Life, and a woman in my SL. I am Bi on rl, however married to my lovely husband, I do date woman freely on the side as we dont consider this cheating. I follow this in SL...I am Bi, however Im only looking to hookup in SL with a woman. Now after reading this thread, I have to wonder how many times Ive been flirting with a female avi, and its really been a RL man? It doesnt really matter that much, but My SL could...And I mean could with a slight percent, carry over into my RL, and this makes a lil worried, as I could never really carry over SL feelings to RL feelings if it were for a RL man in disguise so to speak.

With that said, I dont mind , or even encourage the indulgence of Gender Roleplaying, however if your involved a lil deeper than just friends, you should consider letting the RL person in the other Avi know your RL Gender! It could save a lil heartache maybe in the long run, or even make it better, depends on the RL of the avi your involved with!

good answer, my question didn't leave a lot of grey-area, I must admit when chatting I do talk through my avi as myself. We are so complex it makes sence that we are all, all of those things, at different times.

I live vicariously through my RL "av".

I second this motion....can I do it behind Torley though.

To me the avatar is simply a tool with which I interact with the world. It is not me in any way. Its appearance is dictated by what I like to look at, not by what I want other people to think I look like. The avatar is the only thing that's always displayed, and if I'm gonna spend hours every day staring at a screen, I'm damned well gonna make sure that screen shows something I like to see.

That's true for me in all video games in addition to SL. Whenever possible, I play female characters. They're easier on the eyes.

As for people wondering about who might be gay, well I'm more inclined to wonder about the guys who'd rather have strapping, muscular barbarians on their screens than the ones who prefer to have beautiful women. Take a game like World of Warcraft, for example. You spend 90% of your time in that game just running from place to place, which means what you spend 90% of your time looking at is a jiggling ass. I don't know about anyone else, but me, I'll always make sure that jiggling ass is curvy and female, not hairy and male.

To those who'd rather look at the male form, more power to you, and god bless. For my part, I'll stick with my scantily clad hot chick.

This is kind of a dual answer to some of the points raised in this and the concurrent transgendered avatar thread. I'll spare you the pain of my crossposting my ramblings, though. And I promise I'll shut up soon


I think it all comes down to expectations, assumptions and a lack of communications thereof

My avie is very often a squirrel. Or a mech. Or a cyborg. Or a female. Or a male. Or... whatever avatar I'm playing with at the time. It's an avatar. A shell. How can you make any assumption or have any expectations of me? Why on earth would you assume that I'm anything remotely like my avatar?

Is physically representing yourself as something other than what you are behind the keyboard wrong? Isn't part of the point of SL to live a Second Life - as something else if you want. No! I don't remember it saying it had to be a carbon copy of your first life... but that's one opinion. Mine.

What is a fact - as is evident from these forums - and at the root of the problem is that what you believe is morally or ethically right or wrong isn't where other people draw those lines. You have to communicate to know where those lines fall in a friendship.

Evidently representing yourself as something other than what you really are IS wrong to some. I've read elsewhere here just now an opinion that people should ethically disclose in their profile if their avatar gender is not the same as their real life genders. I've heard people say before that this disclosure should be mandatory. I've read previously people say here that it shouldnt even be ALLOWED. That you shouldn't even have the choice of gender and that it should be dictated by your real life gender. And these kind of views stagger me, and because they are nowhere near where I draw the line I wouldn't even *think* when talking to someone that I might be offending them, or that they could possibly consider me dishonest for not immediately disclosing any differences between my inworld and rl selves.

To me, it's only dishonest to lie. To lie you have to be asked. You might well disagree with this statement! It's one opinion. Mine. But in giving it, and if you disagree, I'm proving my point... we all have different standards. Don't assume everyone you meet is adhering to yours!

So if in doubt, if it matters...ask! Of course, once again, depending on where their opinion lies depends on whether thats any of your business at all

But then if you're the kind of person that this matters to, then you probably aren't destined to be friends anyway!

You can't help other people's assumptions, whether that be that you are what you look like or that you hold even remotely similar views.

In other words, if you think that people should disclose everything about themselves before they can become your friend, then you better interrogate them beforehand, because you simply can't expect them to know that they're suddenly going to become disgusting, shocking and abhorrent to you later on through some seemingly innocent disclosure! If you're going to have mad sexxorz with that hawt girl, as someone said elsewhere, and find out that it's a guy, and you're the kind of person that is going to think you were just turned gay by an act of cybersex, then by god you better ask that hawt girl first because she might equally be of the opinion that if you didn't ask then you didn't damn well care!

Don't even assume that the person you are talking to knows WHO you are talking to... they might be a roleplayer who does not even associate their real life self with this entity you're talking to. You may only be able to talk to their avatars character in SL! I've seen this myself.

We are not all the same! Don't assume anything! Communication is key, people!


I'll shut the fuck up now.

MY avatar is split between two personas.. Richie and Richina.. Richina hits on men! but doesnt cyber Im nearly 50/50 each of em...
god the fun I have

makes perfect sense, really; it doesn't sound dissimilar to me as what 'the sims/2' ultimately strives for in terms of 'gameplay' - or 'lifeplay', in this sense. amazing, isn't it, that computer 'games' have reached this level, where we're not even sure whether or not to call 'em 'games'? (i know, i know, sorry lol - not wanting to start that all up again!!

and y'all sound like a sane enough bunch to me, lol!! i've always just naturally chose to play female characters in games (when available - sad there was no 'duchess nukem' though with boardgames, lol, my wm goes for the car in 'monopoly' just like everybody else. much of his artwork and comics end up revolving around female protagonists... not sure why. doesn't seem to mind it... doesn't mean my wm hasn't dated enough, lol!!

- ny wm: nyoko is too kind to me, haha wanted to break in, since this is a discussion of 'whys' (another thread's got the effects/emotional impact of such play...

like she said, i usually play female in computer games, but it took sl to start understanding why. for one, she brings me out of my shell, as all good girlfriends do. she turned out to be slow to anger, quick to understand, moreso than myself, and it's rubbed off a small amount, really.

my own creative energy in the past relied heavily on a great, almost-separate 'inner voice', one that with age and the overtaking of 'real-life' has faded to some extent. playing nyoko has reawakened that critical centerpiece to my artistic life a bit. (awwwwwwwwwww!! - ny)

and yes, yes... stepping even farther away from character, i have - uh, used her for cyber. (oooooh boy, -has- he... - ny) but if sex were the only thing i was here for, well, i wouldn't spend so much time gabbing in the forums! it's only a part, not the whole... though lil' bits of it might be infused all around the pie. using the mind, whether you're trying to script an attachment, or - uh, just trying to figure out how to -use- your attachments... well, baby, keep that brain turned -on-!

i'd like to state that though ny -is- an anarchist, unlike tyler durden, she's more of the positive, 'happy hippie' anarchist type. (that's right, folks - hack -for- the people, not -against- the people!! - ny)

Richie. I really don't want to start another discussion in this thread too. But let me ask you a simple question. Do you see how other people could think that this is wrong? Check out another thread in this forum right now for the proof. See how different people have different values, as I said above? Well, what I said above was also in part addressing what we've been discussing today. I hope you see my point.

no I dont.

Hey "Richina",

I am gonna tell you what I tell any pricktease...
It is not ladylike nor will it get you any good friends to lead a man down the garden path only to slam the gate in his face.

If you don't plan to "Go all the way", don't pretend like your gonna.
Maybe you get off on the "feeling of power", but you'll get a worse reputation that way than you will by being a 'ho' or a prude.

Best, I think, to be Platonic... Light flirting is fine (And by most accounts, light flirting is not the same as "Hitting on", but as soon as things get to the hitting-on stage you should come clean and say "I don't cyber." Frustrating for your would be suitor, and I am sure that you don't get nearly the rush that you do by getting to the brink and then dropping him cold, but it is kinder and more honorable.