How do you tell Man from Woman?

He waltzes in like he owns the place .. makes two posts, (one a single word!) and expects a PRIZE?!?!?
You gotta work hard for your brownie points here lad!


/me winks; Hiya Sandy

There is no way I would give out that type of personal information to people in SL. I'm fine with telling people roughly where I live, where I go to school, or some bits about my RL life, beyond that though I've already run into too many creepy guys.

Men impersonate the Three Stooges. Women never do. Nyuk nyuk nyuk.

I look at their av... if it's male I assume they are, if it's female, I assume they are. If I discover somehow that they are not that gender in RL, I tie them to a pol and roast them slowly over a bonfire.

That being said, I don't care what gender they are in RL... ever. I'm almost certainly not going to meet them, and wouldn't care even if I was going to, so what's it matter?

Oh, I beg to differ...

Although it's cute listening to a woman say, "Sointenly!!"

You don't care, but you roast them anyway? Eek.

/me backs slowly away from Oki, keeping an eye out for any bottles of barbecue sauce within reach.

Oh come now, you don't think I was serious!?

The fire is just for warmth, dear..come...feel the warmth of the fire. *smiles sweetly*

Perhaps LL's next step after IDV is a new sort of flag, in which you can restrict your interactions only to avatars who have live cams in their 1st life profile tab...

As others have said, one of the beauties of SL is that we can present ourselves on our own terms. Our avatars are shimmering reflections of our minds. In some ways, our avatars are MORE accurate in representing our "real" selves than our actual physical bodies are.

While some people "deceive" with avatar gender (my feeling is that this happens much less often than people think), nearly all SL residents "deceive" with regard to avatar age. I have only met a handful of middle-aged or older looking avatars (all male avatars... have yet to meet a wrinkly female avatar), though the informal census of last spring seems to show that most of you are middle-aged, not 20-somethings.

The need for some people to peel back that wrapping and peek inside is a little tragedy, especially those who insist on doing this the very moment they meet someone. I would estimate that nearly half the men I have met in SL have asked for my RL picture within the first hour of meeting me. But it is a tragedy, for it indicates to me their utter inability to live comfortably in the imagination, an inability to "suspend disbelief" long enough to enjoy something for what it is. Their anxiety is so palpable and so impossible to satisfy. If the picture is granted, then they want another...and another, and another. If those are granted, then they want to speak with voice. If that is granted, they ask for cam. To what end? To prop their tiny view of reality, that all is either this or that? To protect themselves from anything which might challenge that reality? They will miss out on so much...

Yet the yearning for a different experience is also so obvious is so much of the post-structural world. The most popular stories we tell are fantasies. 7-9million people spend vast amounts of time as night elves and trolls and dwarves, battling creatures in other worlds for the sake of new clothes to dress-up their dolls in.

The desire to believe is there, yet this nagging insistence on stripping away the illusions pops up like a sickness. To what end all that stripping away? That guy asking for my picture, what does it mean to you? It is as though we refuse to believe anything can be beautiful, and the imagination, a naked mind, is too frightening to behold, so we must reduce it to sweat and wrinkles and cellulose and empty bankbooks and broken marriages and slovenly habits and smokers breath and pimples. If the picture I show is attractive, it does not satisfy his need to reduce me to something ugly.... so I must show him more... and more.... and if my voice is adequately girlish..... and, aha! You don't have a cam. Now he shuts down. Now he smugly walks away, quite safe from whatever fears have driven this, quite certain that my unwillingness to use a cam must mean that, after all, I am as ugly and fake as he has hoped all along.

Is that not the most tragic thing? To yearn so dearly to believe in the illusion, but to hack away at it with a crude axe until it is so disfigured that we can no longer see the mind that created it. He cannot believe regardless what evidence, and will not enjoy the infinitely more precious gift of meeting someone's mind, as represented in their avatar.

Oh that is one of the best posts I have ever read. Anywhere.

Thank you

Sweet Primrose,

I think that it's because we're really the first generation(s) to have such an environment. What do you suppose the "norm" will be in 20 years?

NEXT: Do you have a sense of humour?

Good for you darling, I just happen to have had several women 'volunteer' their personal info (which I do not pursue anyway, I like my personal privacy too) nor am I suggesting anyone offer their personal information either. I had a few SL women go creepy and 'fatal attraction' on me, so yeah, it would not be a good thing in some cases. I am content with keeping in touch with them in the confines of SL (if you could call it confining).
I am only suggesting that even in the light of any personal info, it can still be difficult at times to be sure she is really the woman she says she is. So being a heterosexual male in RL as well as SL I would be somewhat offended if I were the victim of deception with a man posing as a woman (which happens to a lot of folks in SL)

From my point of view, that quote sums up my feelings of how I enjoy my Second Life.
Gender (RL or SL) be damned.

/me stands and applaudes Sweet Primrose

My God, Sweet, this whole post was beautiful and so true. I think the men who have encountered you are very lucky!

To be a bit fair, men in SL have seemed to me to be all about disclosure on both sides. Tho I never ask for RL info, it is often difficult to fend off the sharing of RL names, phone numbers, pictures -- sometimes even in the most banal, unromantic relationships.

Sign me up for the Sweet Primrose Fan Club. This post should be stickied, included in all newbie information, and made mandatory reading for all Second Life residents. Especially the beautiful and tragic final paragraph.

Blah..

Met one literate mind, you've met them all.


It's amazing how newer residents project so much onto the avatar, and yet the person behind the avatar that they befriend could quite easily be a different person every day and they would never know.

To see boobies!!

Boobies rock!!

It is true that men have a difficult time enjoying the company of a wonderfully fantastic, to-good-to-be true goddess’s they meet in SL, when in the back of their darkened mind they have suspicions that she may really be a guy. Most guys are PHOBIC when it comes to intimacy with another guy. I for one do not ASK for much more information than; 'are you a woman in RL?' Is it too much to ask of the one who want's to be intimate with you? Play the fantasy to the hilt, RP your every whim and desire. Explore the places you were always afraid to explore, but please, please, be honest to at least that one question...Are you a woman in RL?' What is so hard about being honest with that one question, especially if it is the only question being asked? Personally I NEVER ask for RL personal specific info, I don’t want to know (I may ask general questions like what country do you live in, what are some things you like? ect)...I do want to know the fantasy you, but I would LIKE to know you are a woman, and not a man...that is all. I for one am not hiding my gender, I am being as honest as I know how to be while maintaining a sense of fantasy, and I can RP romance and intimacy with the best of them. Is it considered too prudish to wish not to be deceived in this one thing? Why are people afraid to be honest about their REAL gender, that is the question that we should be asked...what are they hiding? What are they afraid of? I can only hope this is a good place to discuss this, after all we are in the forum about resident answers.

QFT

Forgive me for not understanding, (before joining, I didn't even know people came here for this, LOL) but isn't the whole point in 'cybering' the acting out of a fantasy? So, if you change your boob size, your shape, your species it's okay - but not your gender? Again, I'm not here to cyber so I could be way off, but if what you see on the screen and what you 'hear' in chat is making you happy, what difference would it make to know if the person behind the avatar was born a man or a woman? I respect the fact that some are curious, but if Reality is what your looking for, you could always meet someone in RL - there are plenty of ways... I know that there are some for who (whom?) this is difficult or impossible (physical disabilities, etc) - hence the fantasy avatar. If knowing the gender (and everything and anything else) behind the avatar is really important to you, you should only be using live chat. No?

So say the masses!!
(and yeah...they really do rock)


heh...not just other men, but also real intimacy with women...
Seen so many guys that are an "island" in an archipelago...such a shame.

I don't think it's unreasonable for someone to want to know the rl gender behind the avatar with which they are being intimate. It's also not unreasonable for someone to not want to reveal their rl gender. Neither of these wishes should be shunned, both should be respected, equally, and if two people hit an impasse from each holding opposite uncompromising views, then maybe it is time for each to find what they want elsewhere.

There is no one size fits all.

I have no problems answering that one question ... but Sweet is right. Most men in SL are not like you, Gustav.

After the gender issue is resolved there's another question more invasive, and another ... and you have to spend mental energy deciding how to answer, so that you don't give away your entire identity to this could-be-sicko stranger. I don't know that I will ever again permit an SL relationship to become more-than-friend ... as Sweet says, to suffer the ripping apart of one's avatar's identity by someone you care about ... to know that one's real identity no longer holds their interest (because all that will content them really is the fantasy woman, the one without a RL job and RL smarts and RL problems) ... it is heartbreaking.

Hear, hear! ...I'm always happy to share with these gents my favorite candid snapshot (taken during a post-exams party, in which I definitely look my age... not to mention a bit tipsy and wearing fuzzy pink bunny ears on my head for reasons I no longer recall). It generally blows the fantasy for them, but it's a good way to make a friend.

I, otoh, have never asked for a photo, and never will. ^^

Female avatar:
Very sexually aggressive - guy
Asking for RL details very fast - guy
Lesbian with porn star picture in her RL profile - guy
Pushes on when a girl rejects sex with them - guy

Is insulted when a guy refuses to have sex with them - girl
Uses men to buy mostly haircuts or shoes for them - girl
Gets off talking about combining clothes - girl
Girl escort with voice but no cam - middle aged housewife

Male avatar:
No sense of fashion - male
Wears oversized blings - male
Newbie looking avatar from 2006 - male for certain, probably scripter
Wears guns and is a member of the maffia - underage male