Noah Brand
At the Good Men Project: why men play female characters in video games.
Ozy Frantz
At the Good Men Project: rerun of The Knight/Beast Dichotomy.
At AlterNet: The Absurd Myths Porn Teaches Us About Sex. Technically cowritten, but it goes under my section Because I Said So.
I read the article on Alternet. Am I the only one getting the feeling that the part about the male penis was bolted on as an afterthought? A lot about female issues, not very much about male issues.
@Hugh Tipping:
Yes I saw plenty of that that too. I also saw some male-on-male action, with character descriptions that were clearly not written by male players. I’ve heard it said that MUDs were primarily populated by adolescent boys and their mothers, certainly matches my experience..
That said, it’s far from being the only reason why someone would play opposite-gender characters, but those may be less likely to advertise the fact.
@daelyte: I saw a lot of men playing women in text-based online games in the pre-MMO era and many of them did sexualise their characters, usually with lovingly detailed descriptions about their breasts and skimpy clothes. Lesbianism was common, too.
As a male who sometimes played female characters in text-based online games for over a decade before WoW even existed, I can safely say it wasn’t for the view. I’d agree with with the curiosity aspect some mentioned, people do treat you differently based on gender, with female characters getting gifts and questions like “r u hot?”, but overall I didn’t notice so much difference back then. Maybe graphics make a difference in how people react to gender? Sometimes also it’s about roleplaying different personalities, and people react differently to some character stereotypes in one gender than the other. I… Read more »