some games have gender locked classes; the warriors and tanks are male, rangers and magic users are female. so if i want to play a healer type (cause that's the class i play best as); i'm forced to play as a female. does that make me some kind of deviant? Also i personally know some women who choose to play male characters just so they can avoid all the creeps, letchers, and horn dogs in games. who's in the wrong there? the women who wish to avoid harrassment or the creeps who think it's ok to say disgusting things to someone they've never talked to before? for those games that have a "lovers" system, is it ok to send out proposals to everyone of the opposite sex who happen to be walking past you without so much as a "hi, how ya doin?"

yes i do usually have female toons, i also have male toons. here's the thing: it's a game. it's not real life. it is a simple escape from reality. what's the furthest thing from my personal everyday reality? a female warrior who can take a ton of damage, and hold a monster's attention while the others in my party kill it. i'll admit it, i like to see a girl kick butt and take names. something wrong with that? ya wanna know what frequently interrupts my escape? when some knuckle dragging caveman, with a mental age of 13 says: "hey baby lets *bleep*, *bleep*, and *censored*".   =.=

finally as to those who view those female toons dressed like street walkers (to put it politely) as disgusting: it's like that because the developer made it possible. if you are repelled by that then, instead of taking out your frustration (justified i might add) about the objectification of women on the individual player; and re-direct it to the developer/publisher. only when the developer/publisher understands that it is unacceptabe to the players will that stop.

Originally posted by Lady_Vixen

As a woman gamer, I just find guys that play female characters to be offensive. 

 

It's because so many guys feel the need to flaunt their hidden feminine side (a.k.a. virtual crossdressing) that our very existence is often questioned.  If a male character says he's a guy, it's accepted.  If a female character says she's a girl, we immediately hear "there are no girls on the interwebz," and other ignorant crap like that.  Beyond that, many of the guys who play female characters choose to dress as slutty as possible, which indirectly leads to the false assumption that if there are women gamers, we're all sluts who love to run around half naked.  In the morning the guys go back to their regular lives, but the women have to deal with the the erroneous belief that we're all sluts.  It's sickening.  To top it off, guys who choose to play female characters also tend to influence game developers costume designs.  Instead of decent looking clothes, the clothing options offered are:  swimsuits. 

 

Part of the problem with virtual crossdressers is that it's become widely accepted as "normal" in modern MMOs.  If the general player base treated these woman wannabes like they do transvestites in real life, many of the problems would go away. 

 I agree, MMOs are pretty sexist. They need to start making male gear more like speedos instead of the full armor gear they all have now. It's like only women can only have the skimpy armor or something. Maybe its time they made it so that armor has two options, full armor or swimsuit, regardless if your a male toon or a female toon - I'm looking at you Rift. Internet porn pretty much made obsessing over cartoon or gaming semi-nude females toons obsolete anyways.

This way males that want to wear swimsuits can without being forced to play female characters.

Originally posted by shava

I play more female than male characters, but it really isn't dramatically skewed by gender.

 

Then again, I write professionally; I'm a professional storyteller; I do community theater, and when I was a kid, my contralto voice got me a lot of "boy" parts (I could sing tenor if it didn't go all the way down to C or people weren't fussy about tone) in youth musical theater and choir/glee/whatever.

 

I'm not un-feminine, but I am a good actress, and I enjoy the stretch of "playing" a male as much as I enjoy imagining playing an elf or an alien.  Frankly, it is sometimes more easy for me to imagine an elvish female of a certain age (I'm 53 -- I have a son who's 19 and sometimes seems more alien than...aliens...)  than a human teenage male -- but lets not go there... oh wait, I did...:)

 

I am proud that my males "pass."  And I sometimes have fun passing as different cultures.  I play SWTOR on the EU RP server, and people are invariably shocked I'm American, usually qualifying that as a compliment) -- and if they are playing with my dark-side main, a decidedly male Sith lord tank, they are often boggled that it's a 53 year old woman behind the keyboard if I bother to reveal that.

 

My most common reason for revealing my age and gender is, actually, to express my requirement for people to be respectful regarding women, gays, minorities, etc. in chat when I am playing with them.  I will not play with jerks who can't be civil about other people, and I'm not talking about strict PC crap (although I will do some consciousness raising) but I'm talking about the really foul stuff -- what I think of as XBox Live culture, if you're familiar.  It just spoils my time online.  I don't need to hear parts of my anatomy being used as terms of disparagement for other people's bad habits.  It grosses me out and makes me feel like trash.  

 

You can spin it out from there.  I have totally lost groups from them freaking because the tanky evil sith turns out to be their gramma.  *sigh*

 

Proto grrl gamer geeks just wanna have fun?  But not with the overly sincere dickwolf contingent, sorry...

 

yrs

Shava

Great post! I like you plenty already :)

Originally posted by Lady_Vixen

As a woman gamer, I just find guys that play female characters to be offensive. 

 

It's because so many guys feel the need to flaunt their hidden feminine side (a.k.a. virtual crossdressing) that our very existence is often questioned.  If a male character says he's a guy, it's accepted.  If a female character says she's a girl, we immediately hear "there are no girls on the interwebz," and other ignorant crap like that.  Beyond that, many of the guys who play female characters choose to dress as slutty as possible, which indirectly leads to the false assumption that if there are women gamers, we're all sluts who love to run around half naked.  In the morning the guys go back to their regular lives, but the women have to deal with the the erroneous belief that we're all sluts.  It's sickening.  To top it off, guys who choose to play female characters also tend to influence game developers costume designs.  Instead of decent looking clothes, the clothing options offered are:  swimsuits. 

 

Part of the problem with virtual crossdressers is that it's become widely accepted as "normal" in modern MMOs.  If the general player base treated these woman wannabes like they do transvestites in real life, many of the problems would go away. 

Lol.. This is the funniest thing I've read in a very long time!  So I'm a crossdresser because some of my toons are female?  Lady_Vixen you are the one with the issues.. Not me.

Originally posted by Jemcrystal
I'm a gay male playing gay male characters.  Zonk!

Only downside to that is not having those sweet GW2 breast physics to look at.. bounce, bounce, bounce ;)

My silvary will never bloom and my Norn just looks like a woman, asuran stereoids are still not save for use :)

Originally posted by Elikal

Originally posted by Banquetto
Approximately 35 of the 80-odd characters I play across a dozen different games are female; most of the rest are male. A few are indeterminate.

I'm male.

In other news, what a fresh and interesting topic this is, I can't believe nobody has ever thought to discuss it before...

Hm data hm data hm data hm data I got you babe... I got you babe

haha, good one!

Originally posted by GwapoJosh

Originally posted by Jemcrystal
I'm a gay male playing gay male characters.  Zonk!

Only downside to that is not having those sweet GW2 breast physics to look at.. bounce, bounce, bounce ;)

Like this?  http://youtu.be/hqx3QOW1LK8 (Link to DarkBlood review by MMOHUT - note female character creation ).  

Both of course.

I like playing women because I like women.

I never lied about my real gender, though.

---

Originally posted by Lady_Vixen
As a woman gamer, I just find guys that play female characters to be offensive. 

 

It's because so many guys feel the need to flaunt their hidden feminine side (a.k.a. virtual crossdressing) that our very existence is often questioned.  If a male character says he's a guy, it's accepted.  If a female character says she's a girl, we immediately hear "there are no girls on the interwebz," and other ignorant crap like that.  Beyond that, many of the guys who play female characters choose to dress as slutty as possible, which indirectly leads to the false assumption that if there are women gamers, we're all sluts who love to run around half naked.  In the morning the guys go back to their regular lives, but the women have to deal with the the erroneous belief that we're all sluts.  It's sickening.  To top it off, guys who choose to play female characters also tend to influence game developers costume designs.  Instead of decent looking clothes, the clothing options offered are:  swimsuits. 

 

Part of the problem with virtual crossdressers is that it's become widely accepted as "normal" in modern MMOs.  If the general player base treated these woman wannabes like they do transvestites in real life, many of the problems would go away. 

---

Originally posted by Jemcrystal

Originally posted by GwapoJosh

Originally posted by Jemcrystal
I'm a gay male playing gay male characters.  Zonk!

Only downside to that is not having those sweet GW2 breast physics to look at.. bounce, bounce, bounce ;)

Like this?  http://youtu.be/hqx3QOW1LK8 (Link to DarkBlood review by MMOHUT - note female character creation ).  

Funny stuff lol..  Boobs bouncing and swaying just from breathing.

Originally posted by Mawnee

Originally posted by bcbully

funny for years I played all males, until I made my first chick toon. At that point I understood. It's much more ummm pleasing watching the backside of a chick toon for X levels. Especially in GW2 ;) 

 

 

 

Do you also wear silk womens panties in RL because they are more comfy?

Are they more comfy?

I'm female and I play mostly female characters, BUT....I do usually make one or two male characters as well.  I look at my characters as "people" separate from me.  They have their own made up little personalities and whatnot, so....yeah. :)

Typically now? I do feel like I roll female characters more often, though it depends on the game. I usually like to play the gender to me that matches with the class the most or I feel is visually more appealing (no not in a sexual way). On rift for example, my characters are all female since male characters just all look so... bleh to me. Torchlight 2 I have a female Outlander and Embermage preference, though I sport a male Engineer and Berserker, purely for the awesome beard of Berserker and the gentleman look of Engineer that just speaks to me.

Its just appearances/matching in the game and just what I feel. At least with more people rolling female characters, I tend to feel less inclined to play female do to playing a 'minority' like I use to with RO (minus if a particle sprite looked to bad ass for a gender to pass up).

Originally posted by Lady_Vixen

As a woman gamer, I just find guys that play female characters to be offensive. 

 

It's because so many guys feel the need to flaunt their hidden feminine side (a.k.a. virtual crossdressing) that our very existence is often questioned.  If a male character says he's a guy, it's accepted.  If a female character says she's a girl, we immediately hear "there are no girls on the interwebz," and other ignorant crap like that.  Beyond that, many of the guys who play female characters choose to dress as slutty as possible, which indirectly leads to the false assumption that if there are women gamers, we're all sluts who love to run around half naked.  In the morning the guys go back to their regular lives, but the women have to deal with the the erroneous belief that we're all sluts.  It's sickening.  To top it off, guys who choose to play female characters also tend to influence game developers costume designs.  Instead of decent looking clothes, the clothing options offered are:  swimsuits. 

 

Part of the problem with virtual crossdressers is that it's become widely accepted as "normal" in modern MMOs.  If the general player base treated these woman wannabes like they do transvestites in real life, many of the problems would go away. 

For the record I am a male and always play male characters.  That said is I find myself jealous of the female armor types as women always come across as more bad ass or sexier or just have an overall look that is appealing and I don't mean in a sexual sort of way I just mean in general how they look in their armor.  Women in my view loook far more badass than males do in their gear.  For many of the games I've been in women also have a better variety of gear than males do.   Now whatever beef you have with males playing females and wearing sexier armor umm not sure why that matters any more than I'd care if females played male characters running around in speedos...more power to you.  But the idea that male characters playing females somehow has an affect on the development of female costumes is silly.  At best you could say that male devolopers are designing sexier outfits but even that would be a generalization though probably somewhat close to the truth. 

As a male however my armor choices go from full leather to full plate pretty much covering me head to toe.  So hell yeah I'd not mind at all some armor outfits that better show off my physique or appeal to what we as males especially those who are physically fit or care about fitness feel are outfits that accentuate our style or sense of pride in our appearances.  Now if on the other end you want to dress up in head to toe body armor looking like a steel tank then more power to you, and yes you should have that choice, but why in the hell would you want to???

For me, it depends on the game.

E.g. in WoW, I play undead male rogue. In Lineage II, I played elf female spellsinger.

I'm a guy and rarely make female characters. I just prefer making characters that are either:

1. similar to me - my human characters now have much less hair on their head that my first characters; or
2. look so ridiculous that I can't take them seriously - goblins, pandas, walruses, the less humanoid, the better.