Gender Bender, and other real life twistings into SL

Recently i've been hearing a bunch about accusations of women really being men, and vice versa.

Well, this is a stupid concept. What's the general IDEA of Second Life? To get away from your first life, to be what you want to be, to do what you want to do. The majority of the population isnt what they are in Real Life, people dont often make their avatars look exactly like what they are in RL, and do exact what they do in RL, it'd be boring.

So why not persecute every person who isnt what they are in RL in SL, persecute every person who is an Elf, or a beautiful woman or Handsome man.

It's the same thing as anything else, it's your second life, and you can make whatever you want out of it, you can be an elf, you can be an animal, you can be a man, you can be a woman, you can be white, black, red, blue, pink, purple, whatever. That's your choice, and that's why you're here, to be what you're not in real life, and if that means a gender change, that's fine.

So the next time you want to throw a stone and acuse a person of not being who they are in real life, you'd better make your av look EXACTLY like you, live in a place that looks EXACTLY like yours, and work in a place that looks EXACTLY like your place.

But if this place is your first life, why are you paying 15 bucks a month to relive it?

Yea, why would I pay to be a 25 year old, slightly balding, slightly overweight midwestern white guy when I could be a 40 year old chain-smoking Japanese Yakuza BadAzzMofo with a really, really bitchin haircuit and deadly twin pistols?

I play with both male and female AV, depending on my mood. I play with a dont ask dont tell attitude. Neither of my male and female act any differently, I am still controlling them. I frequently forget the importance of gender with AV too, I am aware that I might be using a female AV, but I forget that she has a gender (does that make sense?).

If someone asks my real sex, I will tell them. If a male acts inappropriately (very rare) towards one of my female AV, I will let them know they are dealing with a male in RL. I think this is only an issue when someone intentionally tries to mislead another. And, that is a gender-free issue really.

Some times my AV (me)i s male and sometimes It's (me)
female its my mood at the time. Deal with it or move on.

Good post, Artemis. Here's to everyone who has fun being something they can't otherwise be. That being said, it's not good to intentionally mislead people or lie about what you really are. That being said, why are those people asking about real life details in a game? Private lives are private; real life details are priveleged information, for everyone's protection. Respect that.

I started out as a girl for a couple of days, but nowadays I think being a different gender than IRL is confusing. What if someone falls in love with you? It would be a really awful and awkward situation. As I previously mentioned somewhere else, around here its pretty normal to wear drag for mardi gras, and when i was a beardless, chubby kid, some guy actually thought I was a girl and invited me to dance! Jeez! I can tell you that being hit on by a guy is not a very pleasant experience. Unless you're gay of course.

I had a female pirate av for a while.. why? Because it's nicer to watch a female flit around the screen than a guy ..especially when staring at their bum all day.

Pirate

I recently tried to make my av look more like myself in RL except the tattoo (well i did make my self thinner). I like to think SL as an extension of my RL rather than a full on escape. I don't care what other's do with their AV though.

When I first arrived in SL, I had a male avatar. Why? Because I was afraid of being hit on and harassed. After awhile (only a few days) of watching other people, I realized this wasn't the case. So I switched to a female av. Anyone who knows me knows I change my appearance almost constantly. The majority of my avs are female, but if an outfit I designed looks better on a male, or I create a costume that is male, then I will wear it. Most anyone who knows me knows I am actually female. Case in point is my new Neo jacket made with the skirt. If you have hips at all, it looks...well, like a skirt. So on most women, it looks awful.
I love designing avatars and clothing. I don't worry too much anymore about how I'm percieved. Sometimes I just get really tired of watching the ridiculous butt-swing that the female avs have so I wear a male one for awhile. I haven't seen any woman who walk like that in RL unless they're wearing really high heels.
Funny thing is? With my name, even if I'm wearing an av I think is pretty male, people I don't know will still refer to me as female.

On another hand, I'm not sure how I feel about people deliberately making people believe they're female. For the most part, it's no big deal. Some people do want to escape real life, and there are transgendered folks out there or people who just want to wear another person's shoes.
But if they do it and say, play prostitute, I have more of a problem with that. Then it's a man playing an objectified woman.
Then again, I have a problem with people dressing up as pimps at Halloween. Considering in real life a lot of prostitutes are hooked on drugs by their pimps, and sometimes physically and sexually abused. It's not something, in my opinion, that should be made light of.

So I think doing it to escape or to be in another's shoes is fine. Heck, even for the attention isn't such a bad thing. (Though I don't think I get more attention as a girl av) But if it's doing it for more unsavory reasons, then I have more of an issue with it. Fortunately however, I've only seen a handful of SL prostitutes. And none of them have stayed in business very long.

I have to second the impression I'm getting here..... it's the lying that hurts. In several communities I've known men that posed as women to mess with guys' heads. Personally I don't care what gender your av is.... it's more or less immaterial. It's lying about it that's hurtful.

Aside from that.... knock yourself out.

As opposed to demons, serial killers, and corpses which are wholesome and perfectly fine to make light of? Oh, and hippos.

Just playing Devil's advocate; don't mind me.

I don't think any of my AV's look anything like me except maybe my fairy troll princess.

But I do admit my AV's wear clothes and hairstyles that I wish I could wear in RL. Especially the one I have that has a mohawk type cut and the hair is blue. (not old lady blue!)

I haven't tried a male avatar yet. partly because I haven't finished creating w/the female one, but also because with the name Camille, I think it would look funny.

The amusing thing is that I'm slowly turning into my AV. All I really need now is the "I Love Lag" shirt, and I'll be completely immersed. I've already got blue hair :^D

Camille can be a male name in France. now you have no excuse.

Funny thing is when I first started SL, I didn't have a mustache & goatee in RL. But now I do. Funny how SL influences RL.

I really don't see how the gender of an AV has any real basis for anything, unless of course they are trying to fill voids in their real world. My AV is female, he wears a dress. What I am in RL has no baring on anything. I could be a male, I could be a female. I could be a pygme albino hermaphidite from Russia. It has no matter on SL, Pretty much besides the fact my AV's bodyform is female, and he wears a dress, I don't think she act either gender.