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

Ephraim Kappler roars laughing: a ferret and a fop!

I don't often get to use them two words in the same sentence.

Incidentally, I had a visit from a muscolid recently: it was about 30cm long, stretched up on its hind legs as it leaned on a terrace step inspecting me. It was a bitter chocolate colour with a white treasure trail down its little belly and no tail to speak of. It hared off up a large palm almost as soon as I met its eye. The garden is right on the Aegean coastline. Any ideas what particular variety that was?

Agreed.. I'm the same way, and also feel the same about the compulsive RLers.

As for getting insulted using a different gender? Actually yeah.. Just the other day I got bored and decided to take the male alt I use for modeling guy clothes on to a popular club. Apparently, more than 3 meters away from another guy on a crowded dance floor is still too close, thus warranting a fag comment.. sup with that noise? I know some guys need a bigger personal space bubble to hold themselves and their ego's, but seriously, how insecure with one's masculinity does one have to be to need that kind of space? wow..

Probably a weasel (insert weasel/stoat joke here). Martens are larger.

Short-tailed weasel, AKA stoat:



Least weasel, the animal usually referred to when someone just says "weasel":



The main visual difference is that stoats are slightly larger and turn white in the winter (when they're referred to as ermine).

Hahahahaha!

A guy when labelled a fag
Said no, it's because of the lag
But they said that his bling
Was not the done thing
And certainly not on a bag.

Thanks for that.

You're description of the stoat sounds about right although its coat was much sleeker than the example in the pic. Perhaps my visitor had just been in the water? The colouring is pretty close although the one in that pic has much more white on its breast. The photo looks like it was taken not long after winter when the fur was still turning dark.

I never saw one up close before that and I probably won't see this one again. I had the impression he was way out of bounds.

You found a club with at least one live human? Impressive.

I have a friend like that. I meet him my first day as Lexxi. Then he disappeared for about a year, then came back. There are some pictures floating around with him dancing at the forum hangout in a dress (not one of the regulars who decided to put on a dress; thre is also probably a picture of him at The Pond). I've never seen him in anything but a big bear like male avatar and in women's clothing.

Ah well, tis the times. Go back to Shakespeare's time and the men wore stockings and dress like costumes. Well, more pants like than dress like.

And the Romans conquored an Empire wearing a short mini-skirt (hehe, a tunic). And Alexander the Great and his army didn't exactly march around wearing 20th/21th century male garb.

Of course that would be male clothing. And you said women's clothing.

I disagree, I think that is totally social conditioning.
BT

Ooo, you are SO right about that. Men in (men's) Ren Faire finery are SO hawt.

Ephraim, and you others who so smugly think you can tell a person's RL gender from their av: I have met so many people here...straight, gay, lesbian, TG...and I have to say, I think you are way off base.

It varies so much from person to person. Here's a gorgeous female av...by looks, speech, behavior she is 100% woman...and it turns out that in RL she's really a heterosexual male. Here's another av, profile says she's transsexual...but her speech patterns say "guy". There is just no way you can lump people into a class and say, "oh yeah, you can tell with these people because x, y, z." Voice can sometimes give a clue, but you can't even trust that. I've met some gravelly-voiced women who really ARE women, and some guys with very feminine-sounding natural voices. On the phone, people say "Yes, ma'am" to them, which annoys the heck out of them.

And you know what? It doesn't matter. I could care less what sort of meat sack is behind the monitor. What matters is, what sort of person is this? Is she kind? Is he honest? SL is a wonderful place to get to know the REAL person, without all those pesky appearances to color judgement and get in the way.

I know some transvestites who would take issue with that statement.

Then again, you did qualify it with "tend to look". It's true that men who look like men (heavy shoulders, thick waist, hairy skin) rarely look as good en femme as the slim, smooth-skinned ones.

If so, it's awfully deep, Bhakta. Or maybe it's just a matter of proper tailoring? I mean, a guy can look pretty hot in a thong...if it's tailored for his shape. And a ruffled shirt on a guy can be really sexy too, as Argent pointed out. And Scotsmen look fine in their kilts.

So I'm willing to be persuaded. It's just that...most guys in dresses just look so...hm. Out of place? Struggling to find the right way to say it.

How much of that is tailoring?
You took the words right out of my brain.

(ow, that stings)

I've posted on this thread a couple of times, but I haven't yet answered the OP (because this is such an outrageous necro-thread).

When my profile used to say that I was male and later transgendered in RL, I used to be treated differently. Often people would ask me why. There was a fair amount of interest, often friendly, sometimes aggressive, sometimes prurient. Occasionally it was downright abusive. Sometimes it would be another TG asking for support.

I'm usually open & frank about the subject, but in the end I took it out of my profile because of the abuse, or the times when even the politest inquiry wasn't what I wanted to deal with.

Begging your pardon but kilts worn by Scots and Irishmen are not female apparel. Take a look at the present day example of the kilt and the female version is noticeably different to the kilt worn by males - there is absolutely no confusion of gender in the styles.

Indeed the distinction between 'style' and 'fashion' comes into play here: certainly Ancient Romans wore togas and their troops wore armoured skirts of some description, hose was worn by men in the middle ages and of course there is the present day example of the kilt but these are not examples of cross dressing.

Our conditioning might *suggest* that they are because, outside of particular situations, the fashion these days is not for men to wear skirts or tights. Nevertheless, at the times when men did so, the style of the items was quintessentially male in comparison with what women were wearing.

However, going back to the point that women don't get much negative attention at all for cross dressing whereas men do get harangued and lampooned for wearing women's clothes, classical literature and theatre is full of examples where women dress as men to dramatic and often 'saucy' effect whereas men dressing as women tend to be objects of farce.

If the disjunction of attitudes toward the two rests on conditioning then I would argue that conditioning goes back a hell of a long way - to the point where it is virtually indistinguishable from our nature.

Has Camille Paglia got an account in SL? Maybe we could get her in on this?

See, some of the above is what I said. But less wordy. And less coherent. If mine was coherent, that is. Which my response here probably isn't.


Except where males played the part of women back when women didn't act. Like say Romeo and Juliet. Performed in Shakespeare's time by a male. I have some vague idea, probably wrong, that some styles of Japanese theater still have men playing female roles. Again, I could be wrong about that Japanese one.

heh, and Shakespeare had a comedy where a woman dressed up like a man (which is directly linked to the "women dress as men to dramatic . . ". (which was a part played by a man, pretending to be a woman, pretending to be a man; wonder if he got any reviews or responses like "you make a very convincing man; or "you make a very convincing woman pretending to be a man')

I believe that boys were cast in women's roles at the time as an expedient because it was considered immoral for women to perform in public. Special circumstances again - and as far as I understand it, adult men didn't play female roles at all. The prejudice lasted right into the Victorian era when women on the stage were commonly regarded to be not much better than prostitutes.

Note: Lexxi, did you mean 'wordy' in a nice way or did you mean it in a 'Gawd no, that bore Kappler again' kind of way?

Correct. And I think this is getting a handle on what I meant by my earlier comment, thank you.

One further point occurs to me. Men (most of them, thanks, Kelli) look rather outlandish in female clothing...but take a look at any fashion runway, and if you're honest, you'll have to admit that a lot of female clothing looks outlandish, period. Somehow, though, those stick-thin supermodels pull it off.

/me looks at her sensible business attire and sighs.

Wish I could.

It has to be conditioning and style. Otherwise, how would you explain the 70s at all.
bt

I meant it in a wordy way. Wordy. Lots of words used. What I wrote had less words. Said same thing, but in a way that was apparently incoherent, and there for to few words. Your post seemed to have enough words to be understandable.

Adult males played adult females in Japan. And not for farce.

And yes, it was a morality issue. I only noted what I noted only because you noted "classical literature and theater" or something like that. Which meant to me "examples from history."

And on an unrelated topic, when will the dreams of zombies rampaging the countryside stop? Stop already. I get it. Zombies are rampaging the countryside. Stop filling my sleeping hours with your images!

I think those hilarious costumes on the runway on the walking skeletons are . . . not good.

I will be one of the first to flat say Paul looks outlandish in his female attire. At the same time I will also say having known him more than 30 years to me at this point it simply suits him. He has one of those outlandish, flamboyant personalities where everything is exaggerated and its simply natural.

CHannel dress today, Hot pink short shorts and BBQ Apron that says BBQ Queen the next, Armani suit the next, and Wranglers and stetson the next. It's just Paul.

And frankly I find people with courage to be what they are without reservation a refreshing and wonderful thing.

still going after I posted this what.. 3 years ago? LOL

good to see its still a topic in a way though, open some peoples eyes up. BTW, for those not in the know, I'm the threads founder.