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

I'm not protective of my real-life identity but some people are, for reasons we shall never know (I reckon). I don't think it matters much - at least to me it doesn't. I enjoy the people I know as their SL selves and I don't actually think of their real-life selves at all.

Funny thing is, when I first saw SL, "a role playing game" was the very first thing to cross my mind.

Obligatory on-topic comment: Once you start getting into any kind of real romantic/loving relationship with someone, I think full disclosure is called for.

One of my first thoughts when I signed up for SL and picked my initial character info was: There must be a LOT of potential actors in this world.

I have found out so many curvy women were actually fellas, that I'm convinced that acting ability when you are "wearing a mask" must increase by at least 50% for most folks, lol

Not sure how long I could pass if I did that, unlike in the forums (where I use correct, well "American English", I use a lot of slang in-world...and I type a lot closer to how I talk in my 1st Life...I wouldn't be able to "hide" for long

A short video

Not about gender, but just illustrates why someone might want to be different in SL than in RL.

Do what you want. If you cant spread your wings in here and let your creativity fly, then why the hell are we here? Do I give a shit that Suzy Creamcheese is really some guy from Vancouver with an avie with big boobs and a leather mini? Not at all. Its his secondlife. Would I be taken aback and blown away by the concept if me and Suzy intended to hook up at the real Motel 6 down the road and I was given a huge surprise? Good god yes. So for folks hanging out, doing Sl stuff in game, doesnt matter at all. But if your a guy wearing a dress in SL looking for RL relationships, being upfront with your first life situation is important. Getting cozy with somebody and finding out things are not what they seem in the crotch department often leads to disastrous results, and friendships previously forged can be destroyed. Whats interesting is that I have never encountered someone personally whos been fooled by a guy in a skirt into a relationship, but know SEVERAL WOMEN who have been fooled into relationships by other women wearing beards. Perhaps thats to be saved for a further discussion. Should 'resident answers' be used to discuss social issues? Considering I have no clue where everybody posts their social issues nowadays, it works for me.

Virtual gender-bending is a phenomenon as old as the internet. Any online environment, be it a mere chat client, that can be used for virtual sex is
a) mostly (by mostly I mean a percentage like 98%) populated by (RL) males and
b) no one, simply no one in this environment is really and completely themselves.

Have a look at lonely heart ads. How many are totally and absolutely sincere? I never read "50 year old janitor (slightly obese, balding, severe dandruff problem) looks for a young and firm female body (scratch the mind part, shouldn't be too bright) for all sorts of kinky games involving lots of peanut butter and my parrot." No one will ever be this straight out. Simply because a bait like this won't catch any fish. Now remove the necessity to ever meet the interested party face to face, add an online environment suitable for cyber sex and the imagination really starts to run wild.

This is not only true for every MMO and MMORPG, but also every communication technology like IRC, AOL chat or IM clients like yahoo or ICQ. There are many who did their homework and act very convincing, including a perfect knowledge of female biology, complete RL background stories, a selection of amateurish looking photos, faked short webcam streams and even "voice mask" software. No matter how convincingly female your cyber partner is, she will most certainly be a male. Females rarely engage in online sex. Live with it. If you can't, don't have online relationships; it's as easy as that.

Now consider another aspect in addition: excuses, apologies and monogamy. Same thing: if you can't simply shrug it off that "My internet connection was gone for hours" possibly translates to "Another lover suddenly came online", then by all means stay out of cyber affairs. I've had long and happy relationships without knowing that my partner spent 12 hours each day online and played 8 different virtual personalities engaged with 10 different partners. They deeply miss something in their life, badly need to be loved and have a lot of love to give - so what? Of course, it may not be healthy on this level, but who am I to judge that. The fact remains: if you don't like to be "cheated" on, simply don't... you get the drift.

You can't control or verify anything online. A story that plays on your heart strings, like "my mother died yesterday", often simply means "Give me something emotional now, I need it. I want a hug. Commiserate with me." If a single date turns out to be boring, the connection may fail or the doorbell might ring all of a sudden. If every date starts to bore your partner, you might hear that "she" has to take a vacation for several weeks or needs to spend some time in a hospital. And the final email from her relative telling you that your sweetheart died in a car accident usually translates to "I have enough of you and several others, so I'll just create a new avatar and start all over." Better take everything you hear or read online with a whole pound of salt. It's all just... virtual.

All this may sound as if I'm deeply disappointed with online relationships. I'm not. I'm just aware what I can get and what I better not hope for. Just try to be realistic and view it like a movie: most entertaining but not real. Don't play lotto, the chance is way too small. Your virtual partner will be glad that you don't ask too many questions.

That's another phenomenon as ancient as the modem. Males want to look attractive and attract the opposite gender. In an environment where most women are male but nonetheless heterosexual, you need to be a woman in order to attract women. Logic, isn't it? Hence the many online lesbians. Of course, since those guys are heteros, it's always an amusing drama when the impostor finds out he fell for another actor tell those SEVERAL WOMEN to get real and don't be hypocrites.

Tardis, just curious, when did you take over for Strife as resmod?

Why can't some people just realize that playing as another gender online is NOT sexual? Or at least in many cases it isn't.

Also other people have said this but SL isn't real life, so everyone has a right to fuck around.

I don't think that's true about SL at this time.

Hey, wake up everyone...your a CARTOON!

Hear, hear!

Well, I personally think those 98% could be true for the sexually active part of the female SL population simple test to see if you're dealing with a real woman: if she's looking for sex, she's a he. But who cares?

It's a couple of years old now, but if you've never seen the short film The Parlour, it's related and a very humorous take on the subject .

I'd post the link, but while the video doesn't contain any adult elements whatsoever, some of the dialogue is explicit so I won't tempt Strife .

Aleister your comments may be true for all I know but SL is not a chat room in the traditonal sense. Second Life is one of the few female friendly games on the internet and I suspect that more of us are female in our first lives than you imply. It really isn't hard to tell who is female and who is male on SL if you look at them and chat with them for minute.

You might want to post the results of your study and how you arrived at the 98% figure.

Hmm, I think the discussion has been drifting somewhere, still it's an interesting one.

Provided that I don't play alts, so it's only my one and basic account here, I was really surprised to see that on SL you could find loads of women.

I did expect to find loads of males teaming up on me all the time (well, maybe that was a dream of mine ). SL has proven me quite the opposite. I don't know which gender has the upper hand, but I do see loads of women around.

If the question is "Are they real?" I do agree with Susie Boffin. IF she wants something sexual just after saying "hi", chances are good that I'm dealing with a man.

However, I don't care. As long as I'm not harassed or disturbed, as long as the person I'm dealing with is nice and has respect for me, everything is fine with me. I don't give out my real life details because it's my choice and I don't want to know about other people, unless they want me to know. But I do not ask.

If I find someone playing a different gender, I have no problems with it, as long as the above conditions are met.

I can confirm that SL is woman friendly and I would say that it's even friendlier if you're not hetero or strictly hetero, so I believe that a lot of women "out there" are real.

Just my 2 cents!

and an excellent 2 cents too Samantha, nicely put. ..um .. what are you doing around midnight GMT?

With a much repeated headline of "Be what you want to be", just how can you suggest SL is not a role playing game?

You want to be yourself, fine. That's being what you want to be. I'm not criticising that at all.

What other people want to be, does not neccessarily match what you want to be, ok?

I'm sorry if that sounds simplistic but it's precisely that single point that is the basis of so much death and misery in the RL world. Wars are fought over it. Boundaries were built because of it and the death toll just rises every bloody day.

Sorry if that sounds a bit OTT but it's that kind of assumed authority IRL that has driven me deeply into SL. Gender, age, religion, race, sexuality can all be left at the keyboard and we can meet at minds without the encumbrance of what physical limitations we've been dealt with.

I am honest with whom I meet. My female alt does not lie if I feel my correspondent is looking any deeper than role play.

Thankyou Osprey for the film link.

So that's where I've been going wrong!

Usually I'm online at that time. Yesterday I was dancing at the Phat Cat jazz club, at that time. Anyway, being to the East of GMT, that's somewhat late for me, so I could be sleeping at that time or I could have little fuel to stay up for more than half an hour

That said, your quote of Eggy Lippman stimulated me to give another 2 cents I'm not saying anything new here, but I can understand people wanting to play the real themselves on SL, still I do understand people wanting to play anything and everything else.

"Be what you want to be", it's a good line and I stand by it. As I said earlier, I do not give out any real life details about me. Do I have something to hide? It doesn't matter. As long as I'm not some sort of secret agent or terrorist with a secret agenda, I believe it's my right to... be what I want to be.

When someone asks about "me", besides age, sex and location (where I reply "well over my 30, female, Europe", I say that Samantha Goldflake is made in part with the "real me", in part with the person I would like to be (I daydream, like most people ). in part with the person I could be, but I don't know yet.

Some are just pissed off by that answer, they want to know the "real me" or nothing at all. You can easily guess that they get nothing at all.

So, to the "Be what you want to be" line, I would add the good, old "Live and let live"

Oh, I wanted to add something for Eggy Lippman: I'm happy with my "real" or "first" life, but still I want to be what I want to be, in SL.

I think you did say something new Samantha .. and a very earth shatteringly new at that!

I disagree, I also don't care if you think I'm wrong. SL is one huge open ended roleplaying game, my 2 characters are that - characters. Sl is what it is to you and it is what it is to me. You cannot define SL for anyone but yourself, just as I cannot make up your mind for you.

You'll just have to get over it.

Only 2% of avies on SL are real women? I don't think so, in fact I know that's nonsense. Earlier this year one of the lindens said that among the verified accounts the RL gender balance (I assume judging from credit card names) was close to 50/50. In fact SL is noteworthy for being a world that is much more attractive to women than many others (its the shopping!). Maybe 15 years ago when it was mainly male computer geeks who could access the internet it might have been 90% plus male, but things have changed a bit since then.



You've got a real Madonna complex going there if you don't think women participate in and enjoy online sex. Sure, if a female avie comes up to you and asks for sex in the first five minutes it may well be a guy, but what on earth makes you think women have some sort of aversion to cybering with the right person?

I'm inclined to agree with Caranda. One of the dangers here is that one falls into the trap of applying stereotypes to genders, and making misjudgements when someone fails to live up to your stereotype. I have a strong suspicion that most Gorean roleplayers who go around in slave silks are really male, but I concede I may be making a misjudgement.

It's all very fascinating. It's a bit like a Turing test. Instead of having to distinguish between "talking" to a human and a machine, you have to distinguish between male and female. In the real Turing test, it's said that if you can't distinguish the machine from the human, the machine is effectively intelligent. Correspondingly, if you can't tell if someone is in RL male or female, then effectively, in SL, they are whichever gender they purport to be.

ahahaha

LOL!!!!!!!!!! *cough cough*

Smoooth Bilbo,



If I hand't almost hurt my spine laughing so hard just now, I'd do it again


Most of the folks I have met are all-about thier businesses, regardless of the vast amount of RP sims out there (which I also like).

Of COURSE, I'm not saying the majority of users come to "work", they come to play. IMHO