What's your view on androgynous SLers? ;)

Well I love to play an androgynous character on SL because I don't get hit on by guys and I actually get a compliment or two on my attempts to make clothes. ^__^ But what do you all say about androgynous SLers?

-- Bridget

If it makes them happy..I'm all for it!!

Me too!

It's your SL - imagine it forward!

Well, I dont 'defend' other guys, only myself. I dont 'hit on' anyone (disclaimer: well maybe in some very suttle ways). Im cool, laid back and do compliment people (m or f) on their creations. Im not sure 'going' androgynous or even lesbian is going to address the issue only attempt to evade it, which I guess is fine. Dunno, seems just another attempt to isolate the already vastly outnumbered guys. But then again I dont mind the ratio as the opposite would be much worse.

Well I'm transgendered so I prefer reflecting it with my Avie. ^___^

-- Bridget

If I say my view is "upskirt" I'm going to get flack arent I?

Maybe.

-- Bridget

Hmm. Androgynous... ''Being neither distinguishably masculine nor feminine, as in dress, appearance, or behavior.''

Guess that squares me away.

YAY!!! ^___^

-- Bridget

I find it more challenging to carry on a conversation with an adrogynous player, I have no frame of reference.

Phoenixes don't ever mate, since only one can exist at a time. So how can anyone tell if they are male or female? One thing about birds is that they all got a breast, no matter what gender. The phoenix' egg is produced in the fire that consumes the parent, so who can really say it HAS to be a female?

Besides that, I'm an embodiment of elemental fire, not flesh and blood. Ever seen a decisively male or female house fire?

Which is part of the point, actually. If you know (or assume) the gender of the person you're talking to, you also make a host of other assumptions. For those near the center of the gender identity continuum, those assumptions may be waaaay off the mark.

Taking away that frame of reference forces you to relate to that player simply as a fellow human. That may be uncomfortable, but it can also be enlightening.

Dunno, if I saw someone I wasnt sure of their gender, I'd probably make FEWER assumptions. But alot of times I get the feeling when I show up at an event wearing jeans and a tshirt (you know, the clothes that get designed for men 90% of the time), I feel I have to 'prove' myself first to everyone. Meaning, I show them Im not obnoxious and full of myself nor expect women to jump in my arms. Once I break that barrier down and show them at my primary brain is above my shoulders, the conversation and such is much better. What Im saying is I feel I have a mountain of assumptions I have to deal with as well. Everyone has those to deal with, it all depends on the group and situation, which is why usually we prefer being around others similar to ourselves because it 'seems' more comfortable.

Blurring the ordinary gender lines frees us from certain restrictions on creativity. You can have robots, droids, tachikomas, swamp monsters or aliens. If you like SF character creation, for example creating game NPCs, you can design a taxon to support exotic motivations for the character type, and these may not resemble ordinary reproductive strategies at all.

You don't need to go the SF route, though. You can blur the gender lines a bit to break free from peoples' assumptions and stereotypical patterns of social interaction. It also feels most comfortable in a world where friends are in many different lifestyles.

I suppose Khamon is androgynous. People often mistake him for a girl.

Well, you don't have to be androgynous to avoid being hit on! My little cutie alternate AV below.

coco

Yeah I agree. Although I end up saying less to them, not because it makes me uncomfortable but more because it's not as easy. I start typing something and think "oh no wait, that's going to sound like i think this person is male, or female... hold on... maybe I should say something else... oh screw it, I'll just be quiet."

Exactly!

Heh for me, if someone uses the wrong pronoun or assumes I'm male, I'll usually just either not even correct them, especially if it's just in passing (excuse me, sir, that kind of thing)or if we're talking, correct them in a really light, no-worries way. I don't see it as a big deal at all- as animals we depend on signifiers just to help our brains translate the new into the familiar- 9 times out of 10, if you see a person walking down the street with short hair, a baseball cap, and figure-covering clothes, if you thought it was a guy you'd be right. I'm not going to get upset for that one time it happens to be me and you don't realize right away. Though I can understand the want to avoid... awkwardness, too.

I have several asexual avatars, and my name doesn't give many clues

New people sometimes don't know my gender, or sometimes they think they do, and it's moderately entertaining when they're wrong. In any case, I'm not looking to hook up, so gender is mostly irrelevant.

I sympathize with the pronoun issue--keep in mind that if someone isn't giving you clear cues to their gender, they probably won't mind if you get it wrong. In RL or SL, most people who hang a big chunk of their identity on gender will go out of their way to advertise (have you noticed the glut of pink shirts lately?).

That's why I always hang so much mystery around my gender. I want people to have to get to know me as a human, not as a male or female. If you keep people guessing, they tend to think more consciously about the signals you send out, which, I think, can teach them a lot about traditional gender roles.

I'm a huge advocate of getting people to think outside their comfort zone because I think a lot of people take in "known" facts, make assumptions based on those facts, and just don't think anything more about it. It makes me sad. People never question their assumptions unless there's something completely mutually exclusive staring them in the face.

Which is why I "mix it up"! Sometimes I use female pronouns, and sometimes male. Sometimes I refer to myself as, say, a "poor little girl" and other times, "an artistic kinda guy". It makes people go, "....Wait, what? o_O" Keeps people thinking! ^^

Occassionally, people just ask me my gender, and I gladly give them the "truth", though that's a strange term for me in this context. Honestly, I tend to think of myself as both and neither in RL. Of course, I was -born- with definite one gender, but I don't think I particularly relate to it as well as I probably should!



My rule of thumb is: Gender-neutral topics of conversation and pronouns until someone calls them one or the other. Then I just go with that. I figure if I call someone the wrong pronoun, or, you know, one they don't want to be called by, they will correct me, so I don't worry too much. In the case of meeting people in-world, even if I don't know their gender, (and, sometimes, even if I do), I just use the gender of their avatar. Assuming, of course, that it's apparent. I figure, if someone wants to portray themselves -physically- as one gender, then they probably have no problem with being called called by it.

Personally, I don't really care what people call me! People I meet in-world always think I'm a girl and people I meet on the forums or in IRC always think I'm a guy. I actually sort of like it that way.

more power to them

What's so sad about recognizing when someone is male or female? I don't get it. Yeah people make assumptions but those assumptions are not "evil" or sexist. Unless the person making the assumptions is sexist.

LambdaMOO, a text-based online world, introduced a fourth set of gender-neutral pronouns for description of your actions if you want to make a "neither" gender character that's still not an inanimate object. It uses "e" for second person, "er" for second person objective, and "ers" for second person possessive. It made for some intresting discussions with some residents of LambdaMOO.

I always thought it was a clever way to work around the problem of having avatars that aren't one gender or the other. I learned early on how to carry on a comfortable discussion with someone of indeterminate gender. Now that I'm in SL, it isn't a problem at all for me.