Are you a gender bender?

You seem to have PMs turned off here - I'd love to know where your blog is! You definitely sound like somebody I'd be interested in reading. I've been blogging since July 2001 myself.

Out of curiosity Julian, when you said you were going to respond to the e-mails you got, did that include posts here? Or should I e-mail you my comments? I'm eager to talk more about this, like I said gender is a favorite subject of mine.

Hi as a relative newcomer to the forums hanging around waiting for SL to come back up here is my penny's worth

Have you done it yourself or is it out of question for you? Do you maybe even regard it as a deception if someone lies when it comes to his sex?

I haven't used a male avatar when playing SL not through any disgust at the idea but because it simply never occured to me. Deception? Of course not it's a game. In RL I'm a 38 year old housewife with four kids you don't imagine I look like This in real life do you?

Did it ever happen to you that somebody you met and socialised with online turned out to be a totally different person in real life?

The only people I socialise with offline who I know online are people I knew offline first so this question dosn't apply to me.

I furthermore would like to know more about yourself, like your age, where you come from, your job and roughly how many hours you spend in 2nd Life per week.

Like I said 38 years old, married with 4 kids, I'm English and I spend more time than I should in SL but not as much as I'd like

Personally tho if I'm chatting to someone in SL then I take them at face value and don't bother my little head about who they are in RL because it's in SL that I 'know' them.

Feel free to IM me in game if you have any questions

Hey Kathmandu I love your AV's

Hey there is no spellcheck on this forum how do you guys cope?

XD
drop me a message! i'm comfortable in just about every form of avatar.

list of current incarnations i use in equal portions: asexual cherub (male pronoun because of male bone structure), asexual cherub (female pronoun because of female bone structure), male chocobo.

when i use the word "asexual" i mean no reproductive organs. sorry skinners and "attachment" makers... =P

i'm a 19year old female student. i'm just terrible at being a girl in real life. the only reason i have a female version of the cherub is to win contests and go shopping.

i have noticed a marked difference in others' reactions to my two avatars (including completly unprovoked, by actions or clothing, propositions) and i'm willing to share anecdotes in a structured interview in world when the grid is back up. Cheers!

And then there are some of us who love Zoe no matter what they are

--Have you done it yourself or is it out of question for you?
Yes. Online, I've roleplayed several female characters in chatrooms despite being born a male.

--Do you maybe even regard it as a deception if someone lies when it comes to his sex?
No, not really.. In some cases it might be a big surprise, but it's not anything really hurtful(to me, anyway).

--Did it ever happen to you that somebody you met and socialised with online turned out to be a totally different person in real life?
I've only met one person in RL that I first met online(she turned out just as she seemed online), so I can't say on that. But of what I've learned of some people of their RL selves, it's sometimes happened.. But surprisingly not too often.

--For those who like to get into the the other sex: why do you do it and what are your personal experiences?
When I first started playing characters of the opposite sex during online roleplay, it was at first mostly an issue of practicality. Said character was necessary for whatever reason, and thusly I'd play them. Later on, I just got into the habit of it, and found the experience fun in a number of instances.

--I furthermore would like to know more about yourself, like your age, where you come from, your job and roughly how many hours you spend in 2nd Life per week.
I'm a 19 year-old male, from the Midwestern U.S. Currently, I'm finishing up my senior year in high school, and as of yet do not have a job, leading to the next response... How many hours per week? Can't rightly say, but on a given day I could be on, say, 10-11 hours. o.o; Lack of an active social life and a natural disposition for nocturnal sleep-schedules gave rise to that.. As well as a surprisingly quick addiction to SL.

*squeeze!*
/me stops hijacking thread.

I bend spoons, does that count?

Julian,

If you would like, feel free to contact me by PM here and/or inworld when I get the chance (best to PM me here, to be honest) to talk about your study. I was the subject of a three-part story done by Hamlet Linden about this topic (well somewhat... read his story "Online Tootsie" in New World Notes and you'll understand). I will be willing to answer any questions you may have.

Bye bye for now,
Alexis

well I have a furry male pink bunny, but...

I didnt mean to get male, I just got all excited and wiggly when I saw the pink bunny I clicked buy so fast I forgot to check the gender button.

I still wear it.

Am I bending?

fen-

I suppose I gender-bend online, since I almost invariably play female characters online, and I'm most certainly not female IRL, though I strongly wish otherwise at times. I would guess I'm somewhat gender-dysphoric... I definitely feel most comfortable in a female role. Strangely enough, I don't in any way portray myself as female, IRL... though I seem to have an odd mind for a guy.

I don't consider it lying simply to play a different gender online, or heck, a different species. People have a whole spectrum of different reasons for being online, and playing the roles that they do. It really comes down to intent: I imagine there are those who will conceal their RL gender for malicious purposes, but I hope it's rare.

I generally make a point of not assuming that someone is going to physically resemble their online presence IRL. Most times, I've found that the person is the same VR and IRL, only the packaging changes.

As for me-tails (like details, only about me), I'm like, 32, from Toronto, Canada, and I fix silly peoples' data devices and cellphones. Lately I haven't been in-world much, but when I'm feeling social, I tend to spend two to three hours a night on SL.

On the internet, nobody knows you're a dog. Just don't tell whether you've been neutered or spayed.

this is a good discussion. I have thought of making a female avatar, just to see how 'pretty/sexy' I could tweak it, or to look up it's dress and other purely voyeuristic things a flying girl can provide or simply to make nice snapshots by posing in my gardens etc (most of art is pretty girls and animals etc, real basic stuff) but to want to be a female, to experience it in some kind of vicarious way, nah, I don't even want to believe they poop haha!!!

we do. where do ya think those pretty shaped soaps in peoples guest bathrooms come from?

Hahaha! ^^

hehe!!!! I can tell that's something I will remember the rest of my life, probably long after I've forgotten SL, thanks!!!

I'm a 39 year old woman living in a small town in Massachusetts and work as the information technology director for the local town government.

I'm also transexual, have been living IRL as a woman for a while now, and made the decision to transition from male to female largely based on my experiences while crossplaying in online games.

For me the attraction to playing a female character was obviously my own gender issues, which I was very aware of, but at the time unwilling to deal with in the real world. To be really specific, it was being able to interact with people, for the most part, as a woman. To be able to be myself. And that worked out all too well I found it easier to make friends. People seemed to like me better. And I had these wonderful best girlfriend friendships with other women in games that I desperately missed in real life. I realized exactly how much of myself I'd shut off and eventually after a "girls night out" in Sims Online realized I had to transition.

When I first began playing female characters, I was in a part of my life when I'd made a conscious decision that I wasn't going to transition. Since if asked I would always admit my birth gender, I didn't consider it deceptive. On the other hand, I wouldn't exactly go out of my way to make it known unless a guy was obviously getting attracted to me and there was no other way to get rid of him.

Once I decided to transition, I stopped identifying my real life gender. I didn't consider this a deception because it was who I was going to be. Even if I wasn't there yet. (Nor for that matter do I feel that my current real life status is deceptive.) I'm pretty comfortable at this point with being known as transgendered, so if someone really gets to know me they probably got filled in on that. That's more or less how I life my real life at this point as well.

Thank you for sharing that, Karey.

wow, thanks for sharing your story

Hi Karey, I didn't know you still came around here!



This is a profound thing that I think a lot of people miss when talking about online gender. I've also made some truly wonderful female friends and connected in a way that I just couldn't if I were a man. Sometimes I think gender and sex get in the way of true understanding of one another.

Very, very true.

Hmmm... what do any of you think about gender-neutral names? Obviously on the Internet we can name ourselves anything we want - Chosen Few, Pathfinder Linden, and Shadow Weaver are three non-gendered names I just picked at random from the forum message listing.

We can also have gendered names - David Valentino, Derek Jones, and Rebeccah Baysklef are also names picked from the board just now.

But what about those with gender-neutral names? Alexis Fairchild is right here in this thread, and I've seen Jamie Bergman around too. What do we assume about an individual based on their name? If Alexis Fairchild has a female avatar, do we assume the typist is a female Alexis? If Jamie Bergman's avatar is male, do we assume the typist is male?

I'm curious to hear what all of you (especially Alexis!) think.

this is just an aside, but I seem to have deeper conversations with female avatars than I do with the males, maybe I don't initate as many with male avatars but I've found they generally are not as concerned with the WHY as they are with the NOW, the females however seem to enjoy exploring the twisted paths in their minds.....

I never really -assume- anyone is a specific gender, especially the one they portray. I -do- hypothesize occassionally, though, because I always "feel" genders from people's text. But that has nothing to do with how they portray themselves or their name.

I have close internet friends who have told me in and out that they are female, and they act it, too, but I still think they're male. For no specific reason.. I just think so. Their text feels male.

'Course, that means I'm frequently surprised on forums like this, when I find out that people I thought were one gender when I read their post turn out to be something completely different. XD Never ceases to amuse me.

My SL name is a male Russian name with an extra 'i' on the end to make it cuter. o_O Take that how you will. XD

Nikolai + kawaii?