Played a a different gender?

Okay, a really interesting thread on RL and SL gender just got closed, which is a shame because a lot people had a lot of things to say. So to continue the discussion, I want to know have any of you got an avatar (your main one or an alt) that is no your RL gender?

I have.

I'm a straight, red-blooded male in RL, engaged to a beautiful woman whom I enjoy a passionate and fulfulling sexlife with (I'm not showing off, just trying to forestall the "Are you gay?" type questions....okay, I'm showing off a little too). But, just for shits and giggles, I have a female avatar too.

This female avie got a job as an escort. I cyber sometimes, although that's not why I'm here, and thought maybe it might be good to see the world from a female perspective - sex included. Anyway, somehow the owner of the club I worked at found out and fired me - not because the quality of my work was insufficient, I should add, but because he cybers a lot (and I mean a lot - he neglects his RL kids and wife to devote his time to cybering in SL). I should add I never cybered him. I'm mentionning no names here because the point of this post is to explain a bit of background. Anywho - this guy obviously didn't like being reminded that there's a strong chance that he had cybered with a large number of RL males, that's how sexually insecure he is.

My point is, I reckon a significant number of SL escorts are male in RL, and want to hear from people who cyber and want to know does it bother you? Would you be freaked out if you found out that someone you cybered with was a member of the same sex? Or do you acknowledge that we are actors playing roles, and an RL male with a female avatar is, in every way that matters, female? Do you play a different gender? Are you transgendered in RL or just felt like "walking a mile in the other guys shoes" so to speak?

Drop me some feedback people, I'd love to get some healthy debate going and have some views aired.

lol

I don't think many people will admit to having an av of the opposite gender - I imagine most would want that to be kept quiet precisely because of the type of response you got from your employer.

I've toyed with the idea but have only gone so far as to make a new shape and skin using demo skins and hair - mostly to see if I could make myself a hawt man It's especially handy for when you're trying to help a male newbie fix their shape! I'm beginning to think I'm on a mission to decrease the number of terrible looking male avs on SL...

Uh, but back to the topic - yes - my significant other does play a gender opposite his, but purely for roleplay. Unfortunately it's hard to ever explain it so that nobody thinks you're weird for doing it I know I tease him about it something bad

Tha seems a rational healthy response to me. What is SL about if not having a bit of fun with he laws of physics and biology?

Hey Conan, I tried messaging you about your 'woeful' tale just a few minutes back. Please check out my very earliest posts. I too am in a very hetero relationship but my early experimentation has opened up quite a few questions.
End of shift here so signing off for a while.

I have a female alt, but don't engage in pixel sex with any of my avatars, regardless of gender so the problems you describe don't arise in my gameplay.

It's not just the 'real life gender' issue that prevents me, however - cybering is just not something that appeals to me. I don't quite understand why a guy discovering the 'hot chick' is another guy is considered 'sexual insecurity' or some kind of 'problem'.

Lewis

My primary avatar is female, but also has a male form that she wears on occasion. I also have a male alt, which I use rather infrequently. Yes, it's fun to 'see things from both sides of the fence', and I do cyber with most of the concievable gender combinations. However, I also don't cyber with all that many people. For one thing, I don't have much private time to spare, so I tend to be pretty picky about who I'll spend my private time with.

It makes no difference at all to me what the RL gender of my partners are. I know some of my partners RL gender matches my RL gender, and some don't. They know that too. We agree in advance that it's just mutual entertainment and shared storytelling between two fictional characters, and they all know I NEVER allow it to cross the line into RL. No matter how passionate a relationship I may have with someone's character, if I met them in RL, they'd get no more than a hug from me, and maybe a sisterly kiss.

In RL I am married to a wonderful person of the opposite sex, and quite monogamous. I openly hug and snuggle with my RL friends of either gender, and occasionally kiss them, if we are very close and I know they won't mind. But I go absolutely no farther with anyone other than my lifemate and companion of many happy years. If I was not happily married, I suppose it's fair to say that I would be open to either gender, if I was attracted to the individual, though in the past I have far more often dated the opposite sex, rather than my own. But I have had a single mate for so long for so long that my inclinations hardly mater. My on-line play is the only expression of my bi nature. For me, it's a bit of a 'safety valve'. It allows me to express my feelings for people of the same gender (Ceera is primarily attracted to other females), or to do things that my RL circumstances forbid. Having a few special friends of both genders in the virtual world of SL makes it far easier for me to not seek any 'variety' in RL.

Those who are bothered by the RL gender of a virtual partner seem to fall into two groups. Those who are insecure in their own sexuality, and those who hope to use a VR encounter as the icebreaker for a RL encounter. I certainly can understand why someone who hopes to eventually meet up in RL with the cute chick that he's been dating in VR would be upset to find that the "cute chick" was actually a balding, 50 year old man. Frankly, if that prospect bothers someone, they would be better off to assume that all VR companions are incompatible, unless proven otherwise to their satisfaction.

And yes, in all that "true confession", I still haven't clearly verified if my RL body is male or female. Mostly because it shouldn't matter to anyone, and I like being able to believably play either gender. Talk to me in one of my male form, and you'll be convinced I'm male. Talk to me in female form, and you'll be certain I am a girl. I think I play the opposite role quite well, and I don't wish to destroy that illusion.

I don't have a female alt, but I routinely put on a female av when working on stuff. Although my avatar is normally male, I don't really pay a whole lot of attention to gender. Certainly I don't look like a normal human, what with my blue skin and alien green hair.

Why was the last thread closed? It was at the height of a great discussion

I used to study in First Life under a fireball of a lady who delighted in causing gender confusion on a regular basis. She'd dress her young son in green or some other color that wasn't pink or baby blue, and watch in barely concealed delight as people who normally made gross assumptions on gender started floundering as they realised they couldn't tell at a glance exactly how they were supposed to treat her kid.

(I hasten to add that he is now a strappling 6 year old and has had no lasting ill effects from the experiment... except that maybe he's a bit more emotionally matured than most boys his age. To confirm the results of this experiment, she's pulling it again with her younger daughter... and they're just as flummoxed. The lecturer theorises that the end result may be an enhancement of her ability to handle the rough and tumble of the real world.)

The point is, gender in any reality is a construct of upbringing more than what sort of tackle we were born with. As long as that gender confusion isn't used to deliberately inflict damage on other people in either world, I fail to see why it would be a problem for someone to adopt the opposite gender (or even a neutral stance) within Second Life.

This dimorphism occurs considerably more often in any community where one's original identity can be subsumed and replaced with a new one with relative ease. You can't change the details of who you are on your driver's license in the real world.

This ease encourages people to slip into different means of identifying themselves and is better not considered as wierd, because to do so would condemn you to a life of fear - fear that others are not whom they claim to be.

However, Joe Bloggs can easily become Shahira Sheggins the capoeira dancer in Second Life with just a bit of work and expense on textures, dancing poseballs and accessories. Martha the Virginian housewife can become Rambo Mambo the heavy weapons specialist with a penchant for fine looking women and cigars.

This argument can be applied to many other things. In my past week of travels in the grid I have seen people such as (names withheld for privacy, but if you recognise yourself in there, give me a wave):

- A young toddler girl who loves flouncy sugarpuff dresses and fishing for small fish.
- A bevy of anthromorphic animals of various persuasions and species, as well as sizes.
- A Japanese virtual real estate agent
- A mayor with a cybernetic left arm
- A high-class, shimmery-dressed... goldfish
- The Autobots and The Predacons
- Men who make David Beckham look like a fat couch slob
- Women who make Naomi Campbell look like a trailer park porker
- Combat Cyborgs of various makes including the T-1000
- The Rocketeer
- a bevy of naked hunters wielding shotguns and looking to hunt wildcats in the snow of the Lindens' snow lodge. (Unfortunately, my avvie was a wildcat. Fortunately the Lindens were very keen on keeping them out of hypothermia - by mass kicking the whole lot of them)

Do any of these people really exist in real life? Some of them, maybe. For the most part, there is this significant disconnect between FL and SL identities. I feel that where it occurs, it should be tolerated or even celebrated as an individual expression of what each person is, rather than condemned outright.

Just a thousand thoughts.

Also: one more thing to note. I realise this is probably more a technical issue, but occasionally, when people rez and it takes too long, they turn into women. This is called 'being Ruthed'. It's supposedly a non-critical technical glitch only, but there's a gender subtext buried in it, methinks.

It may be due to the tendency of most more conservative people to the supposed deviancy of a man RPing as a woman, or a woman being a tomboy in more ways than one. There will always be a conservative faction that considers non-standard behaviours threatening, and this group is often sadly very vocal.

Which is very odd behaviour in a game that allows you to talk to giant goldfish, primatars, and Megatron in the same day, and has a thriving underbelly(?) in terms of casino and escort work.

Nothing to add except good for Conan revisiting this theme. Great shame the other thread was closed .. hell! even the jokes were appropriate!
Even more interesting and educational .. I think the Lindens should be proud of this.

We need more education for Second Life users on the finer nuances of avatar choice.

People see "fully customisable avatar" and fail to consider the possible ramifications in full all too often.

Would you really want to bounce around in a lag-inducing hoochie hairstyle or armor with every single doohicky primmed out, if you realise that it causes distress to your fellow clubbers' computers?

Would you be prepared for any possible fallout in choosing a different gender or a extremely non-standard (as in not customisable from the default LL-provided Appearance menu) avatar?

While "you are what you wear" is a poor gauge of people in real life, the lack of having to worry much about the cost of your clothing choices in SecondLife means that decisions to dress improperly (or not at all O_O) are taken deliberately past a certain age, with all that entails.

I got together a simple standard look for L$3000 and it suits virtually all activities in SL that don't involve immersion in water or formal dress codes. It's relaxed, but it looks professional enough that I could sit in a bank office here and not get singled out. (Except for the cardigan. I realised suddenly how much it makes me look older ^^

While I realise that some people require constant appearance changes and regular expenditure on new clothes to keep at their job, it's important to realise that to look proper in SL (whatever culture one is hanging out with) needn't cost the earth. In the case of talented clothing designers, it could even be as little as L$1020 (I'm thinking texture upload costs here... plus L$900 for letting someone else worry reasonably well about your skin)

I have two female alts, Velocity and Scene (my alts are also totally open). They're lots of fun (compared to me ). Velocity mostly likes to shop, while Scene like to explore.

One day when I find the time I plan for them to create their own stuff, but apart from using them to take a break from things, they're totally handy for setting up poseballs on furniture and taking product shots.

They get more IMs from strangers than Fade - girls wanting to know where their shoes came from, and woeful pick-up attempts by guys (ignored while laughing). Interesting to see what girls have to deal with though. People that encounter them get told there's a guy behind them, and if they know me, then they find out it's me, so there's not quite the same disconnect between my alts and myself. And none of us are cybering anyone.

Damn guys can be sad though. One day Scene was standing in our house, half naked because I was experimenting with making body armour, when I heard a sound on the glass roof. I looked up and some guy was standing there perving on Scene. I right-click ejected him, and carried on messing with prims, and then I heard the sound again. He was back - this time with a friend, both checking Scene out. Right-click/eject + ban, whilst laughing my ass off at two dudes going out of their way to check out some pixels that were actually a guy. Scene don't take no shit.

Oh, and unlike the sometimes-stated stereotype, their sliders are only somewhere around 35

"Those who are bothered by the RL gender of a virtual partner seem to fall into two groups. Those who are insecure in their own sexuality, and those who hope to use a VR encounter as the icebreaker for a RL encounter. I certainly can understand why someone who hopes to eventually meet up in RL with the cute chick that he's been dating in VR would be upset to find that the "cute chick" was actually a balding, 50 year old man. "

That is a pretty big assumption. One which I don't agree with.

Fair enough. I was merely stating what I had observed thus far.

People who are insecure in their own sexuality seem, in my experience, to be more easily 'wierded out' by people who don't match their expectations. They seem to consider having interacted affectionately with someone of the same gender to somehow affect their own sexual status. The "OMG, now everyone will think I am queer!" sort of panic.

People who consider pixel sex to be more than 'entertainment for it's own sake', who are looking for a more personal RL relationship, would more likely be upset if the gender of a Player was not what they expected.

People who only see it as two fictional characters interacting would have little reason to care what the gender of the other author is.

Certainly there are other cases as well - people who are homophobic merely because that is how their family raised them, or for religious objections, etc..

I never said those groupings applied to everyone. Merely that they seemed common reasons for being upset by such matters.

I've been around in a lot of online worlds, starting with Ultima Online. I never viewed those worlds as pure games, at least not the "sandbox" type of MMORPGS like UO or SWG. I either roleplay female characters or non-human males (dwarfs, aliens etc.) - I'm a human male in RL, so why should I limit myself to that in an online world where I can become almost everything? What would an actor prefer: to play the role of Shakespeare's King Lear, or just to be himself on the stage?

Ok, I have to admit, a different gender gives an additional twist to a role. I believe (almost) everyone has a male and a female side, and as a bisexual person I've learned to accept my female facettes. But in RL I'm expected to act male. Males have to behave in a certain way; they aren't supposed to show altoo much emotions, for example. A male who acts just a little too female is instantly stamped as a faggot (surprisingly by both genders), whereas a woman who acts "male" (i.e. strong, rather emotionless - the tough-minded business woman stereotype) is accepted by everyone. Therefore it's an easy choice for someone who is somewhere between both genders because he doesn't clearly fit into the socially imposed male role model. In a female role, I can't do anything wrong. I can be as "soft" or as tough as I want, I can't possibly behave in a way that would be socially unacceptable for a female.

This gives a lot of self assurance. If I want to hug a close friend, I can do so, regardless of that friend's gender. I'd be unable to do that as a male, it might be considered to be an advance. I'm also allowed a wider range of emotions and moods. I can sulk when I feel like it, without behaving absurd. I can even cry when I feel like that. I don't have to fake interest in sports or other boring male hobbies. And whatever I say will be understood the same way by both genders; females won't feel like they're talked down to or patronized when I disagree on a subject, males will listen closer than usual because everything a female says somehow has more "weight" (unless it's their wife speaking).

There's something about a female game character though that attracts players of every sexual orientation. Even a 100% heterosexual male can feel tempted to play a female role. The explanation is easy: one wants his avatar to be attractive, and pleasing to one's own eye. Females often find an idealized version of themselves attractive. Males find females attractive. It's as easy as that. Men don't admit that their own gender is attractive to them. Garriot's UO series could have been even more successful if his Avatar (the main character, imho the first time this synonym was used in a computer game environment) had been a female chatacter. The game Tomb Raider showed years later that a female alter ego is widely accepted by a purely male player base. One could reduce the whole phenomenon to "not wanting to stare at a male's ass while crouching through a dungeon". Of course, in an online environment where sex might play an important role, many males resort to a male character again for obvious reasons. Only the imaginative and open-minded heterosexual male might try a female role here too.

That's true. Most of the early MMORPG residents did fall into the second category. Everyone understood him- or herself (the statistically few cases where "her" did really apply) as a roleplayer and didn't want to hear anything about the dreaded RL while being part of a virtual world.
I understand that SL isn't viewed as a roleplay environment by most residents, rather as a real life extension. Well, that makes me an online drag queen I suppose. I was also astonished how quick and fortright the roleplay- and privacy-incompatible A/S/L question comes up in Second Life. Why not asking for weight and cup size as well, while we're at it? Somehow I completely fail to understand anyone who views SL as some sort of contact market. I recently added the oh so important gender information to my profile, just to avoid such questions; although a 1st life profile is a horrible thing to have for a roleplayer.

This question arises in every online world, the "gamey" ones and the less "gamey" ones. There is simply a certain % of the population who plays these games who can't possibly imagine why someone would want to play as an avatar of the opposite sex unless they are somehow wierd or actively trying to deceive others. The reality is that the wonder of an online world is that you are not who are in your "first life". That's the whole point of it for some people: that is, an opportunity to do things and be someone whom you are not in your "real" "first" life.

It's not typically an effort to deceive, provided that others who are interacting also accept that there is a distinction between what is happening in the virtual world, and what is happening IRL. In other words, what happens in the virtual world happens in the framework of the virtual world. So if you meet a nice, friendly, cute avatar and your avatar strikes up something with that avatar, that's fine ... it's when people start to begin to look behind the avatars that the entire enterprise gets messed up. I do think that when one person is "roleplaying" and the other person is more or less playing as an alter ego of themselves, and things are getting to a more ... compromising ... place, that it is a *good* idea for the person who is roleplaying to clarify the situation, simply because they begin to understand that the other person is not roleplaying, and things are not on a level playing field. I don't think this is necessary in most situations, but if two avatars start to get particularly close, and you are aware that the other person is not roleplaying, I don't think it's the best course of action to continue to string them along.

To me, this is just part of the wider issue of the divide between "roleplayers" and "non-roleplayers" in online worlds. That divide in and of itself is fine, but when the two mindsets intersect, and particularly in a way where personal feelings and attractions are involved, things can get messy, and it's generally a good idea, in my mind, to not let things go there if the roleplayer is aware that the other party is not roleplaying and is proceeding with certain assumptions that are contrary to reality.

I couldn't agree more with what Lewis said, and also have alts of both "genders" (and even change genders for the same avatar sometimes).

Cybering hold absolutely no attraction for me whatsoever, but I have to imagine that if it did then the fantasy ("that's a girl on the other side" would be far more important than the reality.

I really cannot understand why people find this question at all interesting. I could not care less, and fail to see why it's at all important.

I play opposite gender and enjoy it. I've tried cybering but it doesnt' do much for me -- I've done it with my SL partner, but my partner is someone I've met in RL so we know each other pretty well. I've played across gender in other games such as Everquest, City of Heroes, World of Warcraft, and my friends always knew who I really was -- and I didn't cyber in those games ever.

I can understand that, especially with SL which is a very social game, some people are hoping to meet a potential RL mate. But I don't take this game that seriously. I've met peole via this game that have become very good friends, and if they were the kind of people that were bothered by what my avatar looked like versus what I looked like in real life, then we wouldn't have become good friends in the first place.

Of course, I still like the answer one guy, a former co-worker of mine, gave for why he picked female characters in VR games that have an on-screen avatar that moves in a 3D world:

"99% of the time when I play, I see my own character from behind. If I'm going to stare at that butt all the time, it may as well be a cute butt!"

*laughs* The guy was mostly playing Unreal Tournament on his breaks, with a female character. No sex at all, just a first person shooter game. And I know the fellow was completely straight.

I've played as a man.

Yes, I've even cybered as one.

*shrug*

This is a fun topic to read. However, what is more fun is to read RL books with stories filled with tons characters of all genders and completely written by one, yes one, author.

Also, they call those bestsellers.

It was closed because this is a peer-support forum, not a discussion forum. Topics about SL gender identity belong on user forums, not on the SL technical board. That's been made pretty clear at the sticky at the top of this forum; if you guys keep posting off-topic stuff, the Lindens will happily shut this forum back down, too, and there will be no official channel for user to user conversation. I, quite frankly, don't want to have to resort to the unofficial boards.

Hm. It looks like the sticky says that this forum is for answering questions and providing tips about Second Life, but not restricted to purely technical topics.