How do participants feel about cross-sex role playing?

[drforever]

And just what does he mean by that, you ask.

It means playing the opposite sex in a RP post. For myself, I'm totally cool with it.

I've noticed many posts that I'd like to see played out that go wanting for a requested role of the "right" sex. I'd be willing to play those roles even though they're not of my sex (male, so you know), but how do the original posters feel about that?

I know some people (men) get really freaked out by the idea of playing a RP with another male even if the male is playing a female role.

For myself, I'm really into the fantasies more than any particular hang-up about what role I'm playing in those fantasies. And yes, I am not gay. I also view it as an opportunity to really get into believably writing a role for the opposite sex. I've played both mothers and daughters in some incest role-plays on another site, and I really enjoyed the challenge and the success of doing it well.

So, discuss...

 

[caela]

Personally I don't see why it matters. I don't do it but that's because I just don't write men well. I've written with men playing as women and women playing as men however and just don't find much difference between that and writing with someone playing their own sex. For me good writing is good writing.

Just my 0.02$.

 

[Red_Power_borg]

Well i dont care whose the sex on the other side of the net when it come to threads. Tho personally I cant play a female role. So if you interested in doinga thread im on yim as jemnai or aim as iclabgod.

 

[BLACK BART]

Not as simple a question as it looks, is it?

To me writing from the female aspect is difficult, but not impossible, though I have been "freaked" by a male writing with me in female character.

Not by the fact the writing lacked anything, but by the "discovery" the writer misrepresented themselves

It's all relative, this is a fantasy zone, after all...the characters aren't real

But the writers behind them and thier emotions, now that is another story

It's all up to individual taste and what the cowriters are comfortable with, in my opinion... *shrugs*

Take it for what's worth...

 

[OrcishBarbarian]

I've never known a writer whose work only features characters of his or her own gender. Part of being a writer is being able to create characters different from oneself.

 

[Sexy_Trinity69]

I'm not one to mind either. I've played guys many times before. I think I do an ok job, but I agree with everyone else. I like the challenge of it. So it'd be very hypocritical of me if I did mind a guy playing a girl or vice versa.

 

[sunandshadow]

I regularly RP a gay male role, and some of my best RPing experiences have been when my RP partner was also a woman RPing a male role. I would be dubious about having an RP partner who was not attracted to the type of character I was playing though, I know that I easily get bored and want to quit if I don't find my partner's character attractive. And that's not just a matter of gender but of personality too, for example I find intelligent logical people attractive so I have trouble getting into the RP if my partner's character is unintelligent or mystical.

 

[Maid of Marvels]

I think many of us have "been there, done that" with this topic. While I normally don't mind someone gender-bending a character, I do mind when they carry that erm... personna... out of the story and off the boards. In story is one thing - out of character is something completely different, yes?

I also dislike when someone is asked their gender and they get angry. Well, maybe I don't dislike it so much as the need for deception amuses.

And all this begs the (probably unpopular) question of "why" a guy needs to play a woman who is raped, beaten, misused, gangbanged, etc.?

 

[Twist_of_Fate]

I'm sure there are plenty of psychology classes which could explain that, Maid.

As for me, I (as a man) would rather not roleplay with another man posing as a woman. Part of the allure of roleplaying for me is that, despite the fact that neither of us is necessarily playing as ourself, we're still interacting sexually with a member of the opposite sex. To have that same interaction with a man posing as a woman, is (as I see it) on some level homosexual.

It's not that I have a problem with people being homosexual, it's that I have no interest in being homosexual myself, and find it to be quite a turn-off.

 

[sunandshadow]

I'm sure there are plenty of psychology classes which could explain that, Maid.

As for me, I (as a man) would rather not roleplay with another man posing as a woman. Part of the allure of roleplaying for me is that, despite the fact that neither of us is necessarily playing as ourself, we're still interacting sexually with a member of the opposite sex. To have that same interaction with a man posing as a woman, is (as I see it) on some level homosexual.

It's not that I have a problem with people being homosexual, it's that I have no interest in being homosexual myself, and find it to be quite a turn-off.

That kind of applies in the opposite direction too though. I as a mostly straight woman feel safer rping as a male character with a female or gay male rp partner because I know they are never going to mix me up with my character and start stalking me. Also this doesn't apply to me, but I've heard other women say that since they are in a long-term relationship RPing a female character with a het male partner would feel like cheating.

 

[DJ_Wordplay]

Like OrcishBarbarian said, this is an exercise in writing. I have no problem with a male trying to write a female character or vice-versa.

And, and this may be very tangential, but I think a lot of the people who have problems with it are the kind of people who tend to allow too much of themselves into their characters. Nothing weirds me out more than that.

 

[Katamari Roller]

Personally, I think asking for true gender is almost suicide.



This is the Internet. Being anonymous is the norm here. Nobody goes around asking for someone's true name, so why ask for their gender? It takes very little to trust someone over the Internet, so why bother going paranoid about gender? Cross-gendering is pretty normal and accepted, asking for true gender is silly.

After all, if a female roleplays a male character well, or a male roleplays a female well, that's good enough. It is the characters getting it on, not the writers.

If it bothers people so much finding out about the writer's gender, then the easiest solution is not asking. Take them for whatever you want them to be. That's easier to accept and less disturbing than going "OMFGWTF".

 

[DrStein]

Personally, I've never tried it and I don't have any plans to in the immediate future. I have nothing against it at all, but if I could go a little armchair philosopher for a second, there's a certain fraternal (for lack of a better word) aspect toward roleplaying between two people within one's respective genders.

To elaborate, I just write male characters best. Maybe it has to do with the fact that I was born with a penis so it comes naturally, maybe it's because I grew up in closer contact with my brother than my sister, or maybe it's because most of my friends through my life were guys. Maybe it's all of the above. But I feel my male characters are the most authentic. And I think the reverse holds true for a lot of women.

That said, I think it's really helped me improve as a writer to have these one-on-one stories with women because what the two of us are essentially doing is giving one another windows into one another's respective perspectives on masculinity and feminity.

To sum it all up, that was all an extremely flowery way of saying that I think I've improved in writing female characters in my own personal works because RPing with women has helped me significantly in figuring out what goes on in women's heads.

 

[qerasija]

Borges and I

It's Borges, the other one, that things happen to. I walk through Buenos Aires and I pause -- mechanically now -- to gaze at the arch of an entryway and its inner door; news of Borges reaches me by mail, or I see his name on a list of academics or in some biographical dictionary. My taste runs to hourglasses, maps, seventeenth-century type faces, etymologies, the taste of coffee, and the prose of Robert Louis Stevenson; Borges shares those preferences, but in a vain sort of way that turns them into the accoutrements of an actor. It would be an exaggeration to say that our relationship is hostile -- I live, I allow myself to live, so that Borges can spin out his literature, and that literature is my justification. I willingly admit that he has written a number of sound pages, but those pages will not save me, perhaps because the good in them no longer belongs to any individual, not even to that other man, but rather to language itself, or to tradition. Beyond that, I am doomed -- utterly and inevitably -- to oblivion, and fleeting moments will be all of me that survives in that other man. Little by little, I have been turning everything over to him, though I know the perverse way he has of distorting and magnifying everything. Spinoza believed that all things wish to go on being what they are -- stone wishes eternally to be stone, and tiger, to be tiger. I shall endure in Borges, not in myself (if, indeed, I am anybody at all), but I recognize myself less in his books than in many others', or in the tedious strumming of a guitar. Years ago I tried to free myself from him, and I moved on from the mythologies of the slums and outskirts of the city to games with time and infinity, but those games belong to Borges now, and I shall have to think up other things. So my life is a point-counterpoint, a kind of fugue, and a falling away -- and everything winds up being lost to me, and everything falls into oblivion, or into the hands of the other man.

I am not sure which of us it is that's writing this page.

Jorge Luis Borges
(tr. Andrew Hurley)

 

[Steiner]

Well, I suppose the question is whether you're writing adhoc literature together or indulging in spinning a fantasy, doesn't it?

Personally, I have no problems with a guy writing as a girl or vice versa - provided they are good enough to do so believably. I'm one of those writers that 'doesn't exist' according to Mr. Barbarian, in that I've never written a female character.

That doesn't mean I never would, it just means that I haven't. As I see it, there are plenty of female writers out there who have a leg up on me in this regard already. Why not try and be the best male writer that I can be first?

 

[OrcishBarbarian]

Makes sense. Steiner, when you say you've never written a female character, is this only for role-playing ventures where you play a single character, or are we talking about a full-fledged story where you write for all the characters?

The way I see it, that's one of the demarcations between cybersex (which belongs in the Personals section) and storywriting and role-playing (which is what the SRP forum is for).

If you're cybersexing, then yes, I can see where you'd have a problem with your partner masquerading as the opposite gender. Of course, as long as that situation is declared at the gate, if the other partner's cool with it that's fine.

If on the other hand you're writing a collaborative story, I don't believe the writer's gender should be an issue. When reading Carrie or Firestarter few people are bothered by the fact that Stephen King is male, nor should they be. The only factor should be the competence of the writer, and the verisimilitude of the character(s) he or she creates and plays.

 

[chronicle_tenko]

If you're cybersexing, then yes, I can see where you'd have a problem with your partner masquerading as the opposite gender. Of course, as long as that situation is declared at the gate, if the other partner's cool with it that's fine.

If on the other hand you're writing a collaborative story, I don't believe the writer's gender should be an issue. When reading Carrie or Firestarter few people are bothered by the fact that Stephen King is male, nor should they be. The only factor should be the competence of the writer, and the verisimilitude of the character(s) he or she creates and plays.

I completely agree. I played D&D (And still do) before I came here and I'd done a female character once or twice before. While I'm a straight male in RL, I'm writing a story, and not just here for the boning, and when you are writing a story it really shouldn't matter. However since this is a personal opinion being asked I guess it does.

While kind of terrible to say I'm not emotionally involved with any of my characters, sure I can feel emotional about them betrayed when they are and care about them and who they care about but at the end of the day no matter who I'm playing they aren't me and I don't take slights against them to be against me, just as I don't care what gender or sexuality they are.

So me personally I don't care one whit.

 

[MelancholyBaby]

I have no problem with it; both writing as a different sex or writing with others doing the same.

I would like to, in a future thread, write a male character. It will be a bit difficult for me to step out of my female comfort zone and be a male but at the heart of it it is just another character.

As for writing with others it matters little. I do like to know if my writing partner is a male or female because many times we end up becoming friends and I think that knowing their sex is important in having a friendship with them. Some are opposed to playing another gender, some find it very interesting. It doesn't matter to me as long as we are all happy and mutually enjoying the others writing.

I can see where this could be be a problem for some writers in sexual situations. I would just advise that you get to know a little bit about who you write with before you begin writing.

 

[RandomRandy]

I've often wanted to "trade bodies" (and souls) with a female writer, just to try to experience what it's like from the other side, even though I have no homosexual impulses. I think that's perfectly acceptable for closed threads, or even open ones as long as other participating males know, up front, what's going on (non-participating ones, who cares!). Males, understandably, get riled up when they discover they've just had cybersex with another male. For some reason, females are less sensitive to this.

 

[RandomRandy]

I've often wanted to "trade bodies" (and souls) with a female writer ...

Speaking of which, MB, you still interested? I think I know a girl who would love to meet you on the other side.

 

[OrcishBarbarian]

I've often wanted to "trade bodies" (and souls) with a female writer, just to try to experience what it's like from the other side, even though I have no homosexual impulses. I think that's perfectly acceptable for closed threads, or even open ones as long as other participating males know, up front, what's going on (non-participating ones, who cares!). Males, understandably, get riled up when they discover they've just had cybersex with another male. For some reason, females are less sensitive to this.

Now there's an interesting concept.

I remember one time in a D&D game way back when, I was playing a male character who got hit by a gender-changing magical effect. It kind of cheesed me at first, but at the end of the day everyone agreed I'd carried out the role to a "T." I took a straw poll at the end of the next gaming session, and the consensus was my character was actually a better female than a male.

It's all acting and writing anyway. If everyone has fun, who cares?

 

[Steiner]

Well sure. I do some tabletop RP'ing and I've played female characters before in that. But then in the group I RP with sexual situations hardly ever come up, and I find it easier to pull a gun and shoot someone like a woman would than I would to do more sexual things...

Given that my group's never reacted badly to a female character of mine, that means I must be able to speak/act in a feminine manner reasonably well. Maybe I would be okay at it, but I've never tried.

 

[MasterYosh]

Well, I have played a few female characters before, just never done any SRP playing the opposite gender. I'd probably be horrible at it anyway.

 

[sunandshadow]

Given that straight men know what they wish women would act like, and vice versa, I can't imagine that it would be that challenging to roleplay. It's not like there's some rule that says you have to be convincing as the other gender.

 

[rvplymates]

I've often wanted to "trade bodies" (and souls) with a female writer, just to try to experience what it's like from the other side, even though I have no homosexual impulses. I think that's perfectly acceptable for closed threads, or even open ones as long as other participating males know, up front, what's going on (non-participating ones, who cares!). Males, understandably, get riled up when they discover they've just had cybersex with another male. For some reason, females are less sensitive to this.

No Random, you are wrong, I am a RPer and when I go into a thread, I assume I am with a man. As someone said prior this is all fantasy afterall. So in that world of fantasy you are exchanging emotions and thoughts and feeling for your character, when out of the blue the co writer tells you she is female, it kind of removes the fantasy and you think, why tell me? We went through 3 or 4 pages with the illusion why ruin it with reality?

I for one enjoy good writing from good writers but I do not need to know they are of the same gender, I get quite a feeling of embrassment when it happens. No lets not go call Freud ok, that is me, the personal should not enter into these threads, maybe I am a bit of a prude but I don't think anyone here is writing to attract each other on a personal level. If I am being naive let me know, but be kind please, I don't usually post in a opinion poll like this. I am the rp Junkie who normally stays close to their relm.