How many get insulted when playing an alt of a different gender?

Just looking to see if others get attacked and villified the same way a few closed minded have done to me.

If its a furry or robot or nonhuman av I like to call them on their ypocrisy, but how do YOU handle it?

Well, it was nothing to do with my gender at all, but one of the only two people, ever, to be rude to me in-game because of my lifestyle choice was, in fact, a furry. He seemed either to be unaware of or disinterested in the hypocrisy his behavior betrayed.

This isn't meant as a slam against furries, though; the overwhelming majority of them are perfectly fine. It's just a fact (and a curious one at that) that one of the only two people who ever openly discriminated against me for being a D/s slave was, of all things, a furry.

Hmmm are you that female escort I have seen around who is called Ian?

This is a good chance; I was already about to post a message to the moderators yesterday, but didn't want to spam.

Dear ResMods: before you do something overhasty again, please read this. Yes, there was a thread once upon a time that was closed by Torley himself. But: it wasn't closed because of its topic. Torley wrote: "...while there's some good conversation here, there's an amount of trolling in it which isn't earnest and appropriate." It was only closed because of trolling and flaming, something that can happen in virtually any thread. All follow-ups to this topic remained on a most civil level, so there was no reason to close them, imho. They just had the "good conversation" part without the trolling. I don't see why the question "can I play an alt of a different gender, where are the potential problems, what does the community think about it" would be less justified than "what's your opinion on camping chairs" or "how do I get my prim shoes to fit". Thanks for reading, and please, pretty please don't close this thread unless there are flames that need putting out.


OnTopic: I have a shemale main avatar, a female alt and a male one. My male alt is a centaur though. I'm more or less male and human in RL already and feel no need to play the same role in two realities.
I've never really felt attacked or vilified (learned a new english word here ) because of my gender- and/or species-bending. There were some comments about my possible sexual orientation, but so what? I openly admit that I'm not the average heterosexual Joe and need more diversity. I don't take that any more serious than "Geez, how can you germans eat french fries with mayonnaise?" I happen to like french fries with mayonnaise, tastes are different and my sexual orientation isn't of any greater importance than my culinary tastes.

One thing I learned during years of online roleplay though: whenever the RL gender question is brought up, the only fatal mistake one can make is to lie and pretend. Either openly tell the truth or make it clear that you dislike mixing RL and roleplay, and therefore won't answer the question. Everything else leads to roleplay on two levels and sooner or later to a lot of complications or even broken hearts. The best online relationship I ever had was with another bisexual male who roleplayed a female; we both knew about each others gender right from the start.

How many women playing a male alt were ever even asked, whether they are male in rl too?

This is getting stupid, Jonas.

You've posted what, 4 threads today about this? This is NOT resident help material. This is "general chat" at best, and doesn't belong on a support forum.

We don't have a general chat forum. Intensionally, we are given "ask Linden" and "Ask residents" and really no place for a discussion of any topic.

hmm, sounds like resident help to me?!?

The one time my early opposite gender avatar got 'found out' we had a polite, short conversation where we agreed to differ and parted our separate ways. It's a can of worms Jonas. Ishtara puts some very good points. Steven too. Is it a male thing that they're so macho they think they need to put us down?
If Ishtara's comments on content and appropriateness are unnacceptable, could the one or two posts with the links to where we are free to speak be posted as a sticky?

Very sensible point, Bilbo. There's a constituency here who are not frightened by these discussions, and there's nothing stopping someone running up a Yahoo group and leaving the relevant details here for interested parties.

Unfortunately there's ANOTHER constituency for whom every run round the block on this topic is just another chance to show scars/pick up prospective victims/play "me good you bad"/fight a battle they lost somewhere else with someone else/etc etc. For me, the issue being asked here is a general one, dressed up as a gender-specific troll, and many people have got the right idea by drawing a comparison between gender-flipping, and furries/vampires/robot mannequin strippers from hell/whatever... it doesn't matter HOW you have changed yourself away from RL, it matters that you HAVE done so.

I don't think there's anything wrong with either changing, or staying the same, but there's plenty wrong with wagging a finger at other people. Making a fuss over this or that av choice is completely missing the point - if you come across someone walking around as a Bratz doll (my personal total-spook-out moment) then that's a far clearer and more honest portrayal of what's happening in their heads, than you would ever get from them in real life. I'm always reminded of an ad campaign Volkswagen ran in the UK, with people standing around holding little signs revealing their true selves - a guy in a bowler hat & suit at a train station holding a sign saying "at the weekends, my name is Brenda". SL is a hugely magnified version of this idea.

I'm more worried by a couple of subsequent issues: one is, how scary is it to come across people who love to run the lynch-mob game on any subculture-type avs & locations they find (they too are "being what they want to be". When those people turn up they are invariably a kind of Simpsons cartoon of a person - primary colours, basic clothes, mouse-spray hair. Do they think that little of themselves?

And two: those who play cross-gender and who seem like a stuck record on this topic. They never move forward, beyond being appalled that they have been gender-bashed (or furry-bashed, or vamp-bashed or whatever). In the UK we have a compedy programme with one fat character who persistently and loudly refers to himself as "the only gay in the village" - I can't escape thinking that there's quite a lot of that, in these threads.

(lastly, and narcissitically, I set my av up within 20 minutes of logging in. Looked at the sliders, wobbled them about, closed the appearance dialog and got into it. A couple of weeks later I came across an av-measuring tool at Flesh, Inc: turns out I'm within 1% of my RL height with my SL av's proportions. That's really very spooky indeed - the sliders have no measurement scale on them when one first sets it all up)

Pretty much yes, i think. We get this 'real man'-thing early as boys, and sometimes people have to assure themselves about their masculinity by putting the fags down with the appropriate rationalisation.

'Shrug* The girls usually get the 'cuter than you'-meme instead. Nobody is spared. Goth's sometimes get that one too, but they aren't real men anyway

Hm... I view this rather as someone wondering and asking "AM I the only one in the village?" (gender-bending in this case, not gay), in order to hear a "you're not alone" from a few dozen persons. I can't see anything wrong with that, we all need to be assured that there's others who feel with us now and then. Since humans are herd animals, we tend to compare ourselves with others all the time, to see if there are enough similarities. If we don't fit into the norm, we search for a scene or subculture where we do fit in. Everyone wants to be unique, but no one really wants to be one of a kind, in order to avoid being singled out.

Ishtara, thank you for the support.

For the record, you're a good lay and rp your character well.

I hoped this would spark the 'good conversation' part of what Torley spoke of. I'm glad it has. I have a coworker who wants to be a man, just for one day, and recommended she try sl for a taste even if she can't get the full sensation she wants.

Now the Bratz dolls.. those irritate me rl, but hey its their choice of avatar.

What about us ppls that get insulted when we don't want to play an alt or a different gender but don't care if you want to?

Well, I find the comments and discussion helpful. So it is helping one resident.

how many times can one start this same thread just worded another way?

Even I think this has gone too far now. This is the 4th time we've had the same discussion. I think we've already flogged it to death anyway. Jonas, the answers to your questions are all in the previous threads.

Don't make me get all Dr Tardis on you.

My alt is in love with a tentacle monster who doesn't give a whoop about whether my alt's gender matches my main's gender.

Pfft.

OMG... I've been verbed!!

It's an old issue with me. I constantly play a female alt. There are a lot of males that get really, really bent out of shape when the alt does not match the person on the other side completely. It's totally wacko bizzaro, and it doesn't happen very ofen with females playing male alts, from what I can tell.

I just add it up to male machismo, and just move on. I have better things to do with my VR then worry about someone's lack of ability to deal with imagination.

I would guess a lot of men have a deep fear of getting chummy with a "woman" then finding out that the woman is a man. I don't think the fearful ones need actually have acted upon their impulses. In my opinion just having felt desire is enough to make them feel at risk, deceived, stupid, etc.

I'm not a homophobic, but I do find it deceptive that people portray themselves as something they are not. Whether it be age or gender or whatever. SL is not a role playing game. I am here to be myself and meet people in their real selves
While I have no interest in cybering or otherwise engaging in a relationship with anyone here, I do find it frustrating that people are so private. What the hell is everyone afraid of. If you're not comfortable about what you are in your first life to the point that you may share it, then change your first life instead of getting a second one

Personally, I don't care whether you're male, female, or an extremely talented singing-and-dancing, talking-and-typing horse on your end of the screen. I'll take the people I come across with at face value, because in my mind, the AV they picked/created is how they chose to represent themselves and their ideals. R/L appearance, orientation, sex, and/or special kink matters not one single little bit.

I see no sense in making any distinction at all. This isn't "First Life", and I don't care if you're Bob the Overweight and Balding at your day job, or Gertrude the Bucktoothed, or even, for the sake of arguement, the most attractive person on the face of the planet... here, you're whatever aspect of yourself and your imagination you choose to put forth.

If I want to be accepted for who *I* am here, then it behooves me to accept other people for who THEY are here. The only thing that WILL curdle my coffee is if you're a twit about your personal version of sexuality (not that it even has to DEAL with sexuality) to other people.

Need more coffee. In summary: Keep your phobias out of other people's cornflakes.

((But as long as I'm here, a question: when did some of you people get nominated to Topic Police? I didn't vote for you.))

I have a guy friend who plays a female avatar and goes to the strip clubs and pole dances for money. He gets some decent bucks... I would feel so guilty if I ever did that, but I guess i`m of the few.

For many it IS definitely a role playing game.

But i`m with you, i`m here just as an extension of my RL self to meet with people and do things that can not be done in RL.

C'mon, get out of that wheelchair dude, you can do it if you only want to. Change your first life and try to grow legs. Get lifted, granny, you can look like 18 again if you try hard enough and you never really needed the walking frame. Keep up the hormonal treatment man, even if your doctor says it will ruin your liver; one day you're going to be a pretty girl.

Or just be honest and wear a matching avatar. There has to be a designer who can create a legless avi or the wrinkled skin of a 70 year old. We don't want your imagination here, just honesty.