public sex

the idea woudl be to have somthing like six options , perhaps comthing like:

1. undisclosed
   
2. male
   
3. female
   
4. hermafrodite
   
5. asexual
   
6. custom (this one with a text box for the personto write their personal efinition)
   

both in the edit shape window and on the profile,
the one in the profile would have an extra option to let the user decide if they want it to reflect the current avatar or if they want to have a seprated definition there
the one in the edit hsape screen would be separated fromt he one that slects which is the gender of the mesh for the avatar to allow freedom for the user to be what they want to be whiel looking liek they want to look

the one int he edit shape window would also be accesible to scripts (perhaps requiring permision formt he user), that would be quite usefull for poseballs and other stuff

I don't have any votes left, I would be thankfull if someone would make a feature proposal for this, and in case you do , please put a link there back to this thread

I don't know if I'd go that far, but I do agree that it would be helpful if the profiles did list what "gender" people were, because sometimes I wonder and don't get any kind of idea from their av (non-human avs typically aren't divided into male and female shapes without the need for "bits" attachments.

You left out the most important one

"Yes, but not with you."

LoL

Pretty much all the text-based virtual worlds let users assign a more or less unlimited number of attributes to their avatar, that can be seen in the profile (or details, or whatever it's called in that game) or from a script.

I think it's about time we quit asking for individual extensions to what LL provides in the profile, and just asked for attributes.

(and calling it 'gender' rather than 'sex' woudl reduce the schoolyard humopr)

So you could have, on the attributes tab:
Gender: male
Species: elf
Tribe: umblewood

Or:
Gender: female
Race: posthuman
Enhancements: borg

Or:
Gender: unresolved post-male
Species: sirian
Race: outer-belt
Clan: freebelter

Or:
Gender: male
Species: human
Race: gorean
Rank: ...

Or whatever makes sense for the people you associate with.

From LSL you'd have something like string llGetAgentAttribute(key avatar, string key);, PERMISSION_SET_ATTRIBUTE, and llSetAgentAttribute(string key, string value);.

Eight different genders have been used at various times in MUDs/MUSHes...

http://www.smartmonsters.com/TriadCity/FAQ/genders.jsp

In text-based applications, you can't see the other person, so I can see how that is helpful. But SL effectively allows you to see the other person-- or a character of their choosing, at the very least. Putting a little checkbox will not change anything. This will not help "out" people playing the opposite gender (they will click the box that conforms to their avatar, in most cases) and neither will it aid those who are uncomfortable with the gender (or species?) ambiguity of other players.

Also, if you feel that is important information, you can write it in your profile.

what is worng with schollyard humour?
</off topic crack>

but in th end I'll have to agree with you, having somthing be less prone to mockery is usually the best choice for things liek this

Scripts do not have image recognition abilities, nor do search systems

insetad of having others be the purpose of this extra bit of info, it is intended to save people the trouble of figuring out which poseball to take, or reduce the need of people to explain complex situations liek when an efeminated anime style av is really a male, etc..

also I believe there is rpobably lots of people out there that woudl like to label themselves before others label them

edit: also, besides the reasons already pointed, some people are already having issues with the amount of characters they are allowed to use to describe themselfs, this would svae chars, allowing people to best define themselves as they want to be defined, reducing the limits on their abilities to define themselves

I've frequently wondered the gender of people I see who have NON HUMAN FULL PRIM AVATARS that are not visually defined to be either gender (they lack bits in a PG like fassion) and I check their profile description for clues and FREQUENTLY don't find any and I'm forced to ask--if I care to, ussually I don't.
If there was a profile option that was auto-configured to male/female upon account creation (with the question that sets your initial avatar male/female shape) that we can change later if we need to, that would work wonders. Profile pics are NOT automatic, so finding out what someone looks like when they are offline isn't always a guarentee, profile descriptions are also NOT automatic, and thus also NOT a guarentee to say their gender.
But a prominent field in the profile which is set upon account creation to either male or female which CAN BE CHANGED LATER (even by script would be wonderful, so that if you drop on a new av that's a different gender you can have a script that changes it for you) would perform wonders.

I didn't see this as something to help "out" people, I guess I'm a bit slow or not paranoid enough. Anyway, my alternative was really something to help *communicate* with people, and with people's scripts.

Think of something as simple as having a scripted bartender welcome a visitor as "Hello Sir" or "Hello Maam".

Yeah, a simple llGetAgentGender() or whatever function would be neat. I'd say just stick with the two male/female since that's the types of avatar we have available. As it'd be an INTEGER value returned it would just use constants to define, e.g AVATAR_MALE, so could be scaled in future if we ever get more avatar types (a female av with a 'package' slider, heh) with more constants or as a bit-field combination of MALE/FEMALE or something.

But eh, yeah, if you're a herm avatar then it doesn't matter what poseball you take, and if you have no gender at all then it's likely a non-issue. I think overall going by avatar gender is easiest since some people are females one moment and male the next depending on avatar.

Good heavens, why would you care? If I want to cyber, I'll wear an av that tells you what you need to know. Failing that, I don't see how this information matters.

*very disappointed this thread isn't about having sex in public*

We don't have signs in RL that say what sex we are, why should SL be any different?

I don't see the issue with listing it in the about text.

----

Sex detection function: No thank you. There was a thread on this a long time ago, don't need to revisit. I think gender detection would limits fair use and opens up new possibilities for discrimination & segregation.

We don't have signs on us iRL because it's obvious to us what people are (except in a few cases). In SL we don't have the visual clues that tell us whether or not someone is male or female. Sure, there's av shape, but again, I bring up full-prim avatars. Is Daryth Kennedy male or female? How about Dafydd Perun? Crawler Woyseck? Nargus Asturias?

That's what I was expecting too.

me too


isn't it supposed to be like: love people and not genders? so who really cares if you're male or female, tgirl or a tboy? as long as you're nice and lovely on the inside, is all what matters

the social aspect is just part of wha t this targts, and like the new privacy options on the friedns list, it would be usefull for those that want it and could be set to be liek the option didn't exist for those notseeign the need for it (the "undisclosed" optionfor yourself and simply no t looking there for others)



ps: btw, I'm sorry the title mislead you guys, it was intended to a a joke about disclosing genders
edit:btw, what kind of feature you guys thought I would be talking about here?

Doesn't sound like such a big thing to me.

First of all, determining others' genders: if they are offended that I can't tell from their av, and that I feel the need to ask, that's their problem, not mine. I'm not going to maliciously call someone a she if he's not, or vice-versa. If they think that I'm deliberately insulting them by mistaking their sex then they need a lot more than to change their av.

Secondly, if you want some kind of labling system just take a look at some of the role-playing systems in SL. Cuz that's really what sex is in SL -- role-playing. No need to weigh an already bloated UI with such specific options. There is a way to add an arbitrary number of attributes to an AV. It's called the Linden Scripting Language ... however stunted you may think it is.

Thirdly, there is a general solution to discovering things about other people. It's called "chat." Society is already so disjointed that we're texting and ircing and second living. Do we really need to impersonalize more by implementing a sex abreviation system.

Gee, last time i looked, i was a cartoon.

There are a number of third party profile sites where you can list profiles. You can use that Web Tab for that (some of those sites allow you to specify kinks etc).

Do elaborate, because as it stands I do not know how to make hidden public information with a script.
By hidden public info, I mean information which is freely accessible to anyone, but not out in the open like a piece of floating text.

like i said before,t he social side is just part of what this targets, having the gender viewable by script and other systems is alsoa n important part of this proposition

Well put. If my mecha avatar doesn't tell you, and my alt name doesn't tell you, guess what? I don't want you to know.

Forcing people to declare their gender when they're playing a robot, or any other ambigous avatar, is a waste of server space. If they don't say it in the profile, they don't want you to know.. so it's none of your business.

Wearing a female avatar means getting contant annoying comeons, some of them very crude. This problem has become much worse with the influx of newbies. I'd like to get away from that once in a while without having to lie and tell you I'm male. (Not that it would matter if I did.)

that is what the "undisclosed" or custom fields are for, no forcing, and it will still leave the option for those who want to use it (also, once again, the social aspect isn't the only target of this idea)

was my explanation so unclear?! 0.o

I like the idea of at least having the option to list it. I thought my name was pretty female, but I have still been called a guy... at least if someone looks in my profile, they can see I'm a girl avoiding some of that awkwardness.

Now bring on the public sex!