Does It Matter what sex you are?

good day, i have a question. i've been in sl for what seems like a short time. but one thing i keep hearing in the forums and in secondlife "are you a real woman, a real man?". does it matter? to me, it shouldn't matter unless the two people are going to take the relationship to real life. this is a fantasy world where you can live out your fantasy. if you want to be a woman, man, dog, cow, chicken....it shouldn't matter what sex you are in real life to anybody.
I take the avatar for what they are. if the avatar is a woman, then they are a woman, if a man and so on. i don't care what they are in real life as long as they treat me with respect in secondlife. lol, even then it doesn't matter, i just leave them alone if they are nasty.
i guess that's the real question, does it matter what sex you are in RL, unless the two are going to take it to real life?

You can have a relationship online without taking it "real life". People do it thousands of times a day on the internet.

The problem is that indeed, you can be anyone online. What's the old saw? "In cyberspace, no one knows you're a dog."

My beef with it is one of trust. If someone is pretending to be a woman, and flirts with guys, and has relationships with them... if they're not upfront about their whole masquerading thing, then it's a major ding against them for trust in the relationship. Lying about gender is about as low-down as you can get to your partner.

For me, it's a matter of trust. If I fall for a girl, I want a girl to be on the other keyboard, not a gigantic bear of a man. Sorry, my door doesn't swing that way.

Just my opinion.

LF

I agree LF... SL is an extension of RL for most of us IMHO and as such, if you later find out that your SL partner has been lying bout something like that it hurts every bit as much as if someone you completely trust IRL lies to you.

I have no probbs whatsoever with someone playing a cross-gender AV, a bear, dog, sheep... whatever... What I have a problem with however is abusing the trust someone has put in you to be honest. IMHO, if you are going to take a SL relationship to a romantic level you have the responsibility to be honest to your partner about who you are.

I played TSO before coming here and had a friend who was dating this guy... one day she found out that he was in fact was a she... and my friend was totally devastated. I suppose I have a sore spot for this bc someone I cared for got hurt really bad unnecessarily.

IMHO, it isn't necessary to post your gender in your profile but before having a romantic relationship with someone be honest about who you are. The relationship will be much more rewarding not having that secret hanging over your head and if your partner in fact does have a problem with your RL gender then you should find someone who doesn't anyway.

My $0.02

I think nope...

Doesn't make a lick of difference... Well not to me because I'm not about to jump any pixels... but all the same SL is a Second Life - I'm not a midget djinn on a flying toilet in real life... Maybe someone's fantastic dream life is that of the opposite sex.. hell I'm not about to judge them.

It's not the avatars sex that has anything to do with it, its the players motivations. I'm sure you can find just as many disingenuous non-genderbending players as you can 'crossdressers'..

So long as it doesn't hurt anyone, do as you will is the whole of the law...
To each their own..

Siggy.

I respect your opinion siggy but your last sentence conflicts with your second one. Either it doesn't make a lick of difference or it matters if you hurt someone... which is what LF and I were saying anyway.

If RL geneder matters to one partner in a relationship, It matters in the relationship.

Once knowing it matters if someone continues to not divulge the truth , then they are lying to their partner.

If someone wants to never tell anyone their RL gender - they should only date people to whom it does not matter.

I think it's interesting that gender seems to be the single greatest issue of online trust and deception.

If you discovered that someone you were very close to had lied about their race or perhaps some physical handicap, how angry would you be? Victims of this kind of deceit have some valid reasons to be hurt, but could you ever imagine the following discussions here in the forum:

"The last few months were wonderful and I was really falling for her but then I found out she was black. I am so hurt she lied to me."

"I think he had a moral duty to tell me he was in a wheelchair before we got so serious online"

While different lies generate different feelings of betrayal, gender is without a doubt THE BIG ONE that hits us the hardest. I wonder why that is, and do you all think that it will always be this way in the future?

I don't think it does... its the person doing the hurting, not the sex of a character they play.

And I don't think I was disagreeing with your or lordfly - I was replying to the intial thread posters question... In which case I think 'nope the sex of the character doesn't make a lick of difference' -- the persons motivation and what they do may.

Siggy.

Trust, openness and honesty are the basis of any positive, healthy relationship between two or more people. With that in mind, the issue of RL gender versus SL gender (or race, religion, physical ability/disability, whatever!) is up to the individuals involved.

A good rule of thumb is, if you're going to get seriously involved with somebody online and this issue is important to you, it's best you work it out before you get in too deep. It avoids painful revelations later. I'd rather be honest friends than dishonest lovers.

This is true Aimee, although this may be becuase gender is one of the things most often lied about.

After that perhaps Marital Status and Age?

I think as long as people define their sexuality in terms of what gender they prefer in their Real Lives, that it will be a Big Issue about online relationships.

RL gender doesn't make any difference at all to me. That's most likely because I'm not looking for any RL attachments or emotional investments.

If I were looking for something like that, then yes, finding out they were really a woman would make a lot more difference to me than finding out they were a different race or had a handicap. I'm not attracted to women, so that would be a huge stumbling block. The fact that they lied at all, about any of the three, would also be a huge stumbling block in and of itself. Liars aren't attractive.

I have one comment on lying about gender and what Ive seen in Second Life -

There are men who pretend to be lesbians, its fairly common to whatever extent -

Many of these are Straight men who want to be with actual women online -

This occurance is often discussed, and alternatively mocked or derided, or otherwise commented on.

One thing that Ocurs to me is these guys arent very good at math. At least in a practical sense. There are far more straight women and bi women who prefer men, than lesbians in Second Life. Their chances of meeting a real woman for their cyber fun are much higher if they simply played as men.

You go to a club and its full of 15 straight women, a few bis, a couple lesbians and like 5 men. Id say the odds for the 5 men are farily good, if they can prove to the women they arent jerks.

I am a woman and if I were to have sex in SL I would want it to to be with a man. Maybe this is an old fashioned attitude but that's my choice.

Alexa

Which also leads to the amusing conclusion that many online lesbian relationships are actually 2 straight men pretending to be lesbians.

Really good point. Any guys-pretending-to-be-lesbians willing to put on an alt and weigh in on this?

I am curious what kind of thrill they get out of trying to score with another woman AS a woman when their chances are actually much better if they did it as MEN (plus with guy AVs they never have to worry about that moment of truth where they need to fess up!)

If one asks a potential partner what's their gender, and the potential partner lies, that potential partner is hurting the one asking the question. Thus, they are breaking the only law.

It's the same as meeting in a bar and lying about one's gender to get a mate.

When a straight man is with a woman in SL he opens up to her in a way he would in RL. I would consider it evil to fool a man into connecting with a shemale on a romantic level. I understand it may be a fantasy of the shemale to date a straight man, but it's morally wrong by my standards.

Lying about ones physical appearance or race might be as bad to some, but the issue of gender is serious. It wouldn't upset me to find out the girl I was romantically involved with was black, disabled, large etc... because in the end she is a female.

I think it's important enough to verify the gender on yahoo. I'm sure it's still possible to be fooled, but at least she appears to be female and she sounds like a female. Webcams can show a lot

Kevin you confirmed pretty much everything I said. But I am curious WHY. Deception when it comes to race and physical state are not good, but gender deception is what really gets to you. Why do you think that is?

To me it FEELS self evident! As I type this I can hear my inner Aimee saying "well DUH! of COURSE gender lies are more serious!" But I don't know that I can articulate why, and I am not 100% sure that 30-40 years from now our kids are going to have the same passionate emotional aversion to gender issues that we do.

hahah!

What a great way to put the problem.
Of course the conversation about the black girlfriend/boyfriend would never happen in a million years and isn't it informative in regards the gender issue, that it wouldn't?

IMO the difference is we have (for the most part) "gotten over" the race thing but the gay thing is still a big icky for a lot of folks. I detect a kind of hetero panic in some of the posts here in regards how they would feel if they discovered their lover was of the "wrong" gender.

I know most people in SL like to think that they are okay with the whole gay thing, but I dont find this to be always the case at all. There is still too much predjudice, or at least bias, in the air in regards anything other than straight sex and this, to me, is the source of the "really big deal" that some people make over gender issues.

That being said, if I found out I slept with a man I would kill him, and then myself! !!

But that is a whole other post about hypocrisy...



On a more positive note, I think the SL experience can go a long way towards "curing" people of these sorts of attitudes. It's nice to be reminded on a daily basis, that the "person" is in the grey matter between the ears, and that the body is secondary to that.

It might be because being attracted to someone of another race, or with a handicap, is not inconceivable to most of us, or even far fetched, while being attracted to someone of the same gender (or opposite, if you're gay) messes with our whole sense of sexual identity.

I of course have been in the situation where my partner lied to me about his RL gender. His confession really was the begining of the end of the relationsip (we tried for about a month past that) there of turned out to be many more lies involved also.

The simple truth is -- it would be in someone's best interest not to care what gender their partner was IRL. -- becuase then you take all this potential contention away.

Just people (myself included) in general do care what gender the person is on the other side of the screen.

The reason I feel it's the most serious... I like all kinds of girls, big, little, light, dark... etc

But she better be a she

I have nothing against people who prefer their own gender. I just think they should find someone who has similar sexual interests to share their experience. That's my own opinion though

Where does one draw the line at 'this is getting serious'? IMHO, I can never have a true intimate relationship with another person just by typing at a keyboard with them. I flirt quite a bit online, 'cause it's fun and very much in the persona of the "Vivacious Angel of Love" that my avatar represents. I notice that a lot of people online who get romantically burned make a lot of assumptions, and rush in where angels fear to tread.

The moment you start to feel it getting serious in your heart with an online friend....Talk To Them. It'll save a ton of heartache and strengthen friendships. If you have the courage to talk, you'll both gain the courage to trust.

And, just to get it out in the open....I'm not planning on having RL sex with anyone who plays Second Life.

all i have to say is gender bending can be fun as long as you are not dilliberatly trying to hurt and deceive people.

The above stated my feelings better than my own post did. Thanks.

Personally in RL I am straight

Secondlife that bends a little. I play with herms, women, and anything that is not a full blown male. Some are male's playing females, some are females or males playing herms, etc. My philosphy is tell me...I don't care...if you can act like a woman and not make it obvious you are a guy great.

last game I played we had tons of men playing women. I myself did so. Most hate the men playing women BECAUSE IT WAS OBVIOUS OR THEY LIED. I never lied and rarly could someone tell it was me unless they knew my RP style. Even then if they asked if I was an alt of my main then I would admit to it.

it comes down to three things HONESTY, TRUST, AND COMFORT!