If you use an avatar of a gender you are not, are you good at portraying that gender?

[Charalyne Blackwood]

26 minutes ago, Sammy Huntsman said:

https://gyazo.com/48f6134508ec2e7d6c2ff61e89e1e8c6

 

This is the head I am talking about. 

I got the demo for that one. It comes with male and female fitted heads. I couldn't get it to a shape I really liked 

[Sammy Huntsman]

13 minutes ago, Charalyne Blackwood said:

I got the demo for that one. It comes with male and female fitted heads. I couldn't get it to a shape I really liked 

And it comes with facial hair for both as well. That is what I mean by androgynous and then their is the Erika Kalhene body. Which is pretty diverse and versatile. You can go flat chest it has a bento peen and mesh. I mean if people want that. I wouldn't need it. Lol. But I mean there is a very gender diverse body out there already. 

 

[Solar Legion]

1 hour ago, Rowan Amore said:

So then they don't buy a beard or male genitalia?

Isn't all this already possible in SL?  Being who you want to be?  Is adding another gender option really going to make that much of a difference?

Yes, it would. I've already lodged my own personal thoughts.

[Sammy Huntsman]

Just now, Solar Legion said:

Yes, it would. I've already lodged my own personal thoughts.

What are your personal thoughts on that? I didn't see them. 

[Solar Legion]

1 minute ago, Sammy Huntsman said:

What are your personal thoughts on that? I didn't see them. 

 

[Sammy Huntsman]

Just now, Solar Legion said:

 

Thank you!!!    ♥

[Solar Legion]

1 minute ago, Sammy Huntsman said:

Thank you!!!    ♥

Not a problem!

[Sammy Huntsman]

Just now, Solar Legion said:

Not a problem!

So you want an Andro or Anthro option? I mean Anthro seems more possible as it is an anthropomorphic animal. I feel like they could do that and actually have a totally different looking avatar appearance menu. Like add tail size and other things like that. 

[Solar Legion]

Just now, Sammy Huntsman said:

So you want an Andro or Anthro option? I mean Anthro seems more possible as it is an anthropomorphic animal. I feel like they could do that and actually have a totally different looking avatar appearance menu. Like add tail size and other things like that. 

Andro of varied types/expressions. I'd be more able to use Human/Humanoid form expressions then. I do have a fair few Anthro forms I use that - thanks to how they're set up - can easily express that they're an in-between.

[Sammy Huntsman]

8 minutes ago, Solar Legion said:

Andro of varied types/expressions. I'd be more able to use Human/Humanoid form expressions then. I do have a fair few Anthro forms I use that - thanks to how they're set up - can easily express that they're an in-between.

But it would be much easier if you could do all that in the edit appearance menu. Being able to tweak everything about your anthro avatar, from say antlers to tail to ears. Would be amazing. Wouldn't you agree? 

[Solar Legion]

2 hours ago, Sammy Huntsman said:

But it would be much easier if you could do all that in the edit appearance menu. Being able to tweak everything about your anthro avatar, from say antlers to tail to ears. Would be amazing. Wouldn't you agree? 

It would, but that would be quite the ask.

[cunomar]

Human life begins by being an ***** 😁

"blastopore"

[Blaise Glendevon]

7 hours ago, Sammy Huntsman said:

https://gyazo.com/48f6134508ec2e7d6c2ff61e89e1e8c6

 

This is the head I am talking about. 

Akeruka's pride month/anniversary month free head was also androgynous in nature, with head hook-ups for necks on male and female bodies. I don't have any male mesh bodies in my wardrobe, but I've seen people shape it for them and it looks very sharp.

 

[Maitimo]

19 hours ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

But you can change the gender of the shape that you use can you not?

If I create "Bobbie123.resident" using a male starter avatar, but decide later to change over to a woman avatar, does this mean that I'd have no access to the shape sliders for a woman because the account was hard-coded as "male"? If this is not the case, then the gender encoding is effectively meaningless, except insofar as it determines the initial shape editor with which one is provided.

If I were in-world, I'd try this.

There are three sets of sliders that are gender-specific in shape creation.

Breast size, buoyancy and cleavage - female only. 

Pectoral size - male only

Package size - male only.

The breast options are not present in a male shape and pectorals & package are not present in a female shape. The sliders are absent altogether from the editor (not just "they are there but don't do anything").

Male and female shapes are also rigged differently. Male shapes are thicker front-to-back, the shoulders slope more. There are no sliders to adjust these (the body thickness slider and shoulder slider only affect sideways size).

[Maitimo]

16 hours ago, Coffee Pancake said:

We all uses aftermarket painted skins, so that would really be on us.

This is 100% the reason I ended up making my own skins. I needed something that was masculine but which fit on a female body, with nipples and bellybutton in the right place, etc. You can't just slap a male skin on a Maitreya body, you'll have stretched and distorted nipples set about 4 inches below where they are meant to be.  I started with an Eloh Eliot template, and a lot of anatomy references and photos, and ended up with what I have now - which is really not one skin but a collection with varying chest configurations, different amounts of muscle tone and different tints/colours. Complete with some awkward seams around the chest, fingers and underarms, which I haven't yet managed to eliminate, and which is why I'm not selling them.

My avatar is still somewhat gender-diverse; you're still more likely to see me with stubble on my face rather than makeup, I have male "adult bits" and I'm still muscular. My alt Nel is still much more more towards the masculine end of the spectrum than I am, but we're using the same skins and bodies.

As for the River head - I tried it and I couldn't get a look I liked with it. I've had success with certain stronger-looking Catwa heads (Freya, Margeaux and Queen) and Nel used Genus Strong for ages. I've tried all the Lelutka demos and found Inez which is female but strong, like Queen, and I like that a lot, so I'm waiting to see it they will have a Black Friday sale.

[Lewis Luminos]

16 hours ago, Sammy Huntsman said:

But even then, what is the exact look of a person who is non binary? 

Some combination - ANY combination - of both male and female physical characteristics together. 

Or the absence of any gendered physical characteristics at all (but then you're likely to run into accusations of being a child avatar).

Non-binaryness has a huge variety of such combinations.

[cunomar]

The River head is miss sold in my view because its actually 2 heads , one for a female body and one for a male body .

You can't put the male shape head on a flat chest maitreya or the female head on a male body so essentially its just a thick neck thin neck option .

Edited October 14, 2022 by cunomar

[Blaise Glendevon]

46 minutes ago, cunomar said:

The River head is miss sold in my view because its actually 2 heads , one for a female body and one for a male body .

You can't put the male shape head on a flat chest maitreya or the female head on a male body so essentially its just a thick neck thin neck option .

That's the point. You can't use the same necks on female and male bodies. Both necks are included in the box. It's the same head, either way.

[cunomar]

I've spent 5 years trying to make an Androgynous  avatar and i would say in a virtual world it simply means a smooth body male without muscles .

I'm a guy with no wish to be a girl and I don't know how to be anything else . I crossdress a male av in SL because its my escape , when i get bored of it i dress my avatar in exactly the same way as i have all my adult life without much variation .

Go to the doctors tell them i think im dying and they ask do you workout in a gym . Makes me want to scream NO THIS IS JUST ME ! Thats essentially a good thing i suppose but it gives some insight into what i try to escape with fantasy .

Every flat chest combination i have tried and spent many hours experimenting with fails for me , in my eyes its still female , butt is too big even on minimum slider and shoulder blades are deformed - for a guy .

Bom helped tremendously so i've ended up using a male body with a female flat chest skin which smoothes out the worst of the (in my view) ugly muscles even if there is nothing i can do about the lumps and bumps you only get in a gym .

If i could build an androgynous avatar in blender i would start with a male body because that as far as i can tell has not yet been done by anyone .

[Maitimo]

7 hours ago, cunomar said:

The River head is miss sold in my view because its actually 2 heads , one for a female body and one for a male body .

You can't put the male shape head on a flat chest maitreya or the female head on a male body so essentially its just a thick neck thin neck option .

The "male shape had" and the "female shape head" are identical to one another except for the neck thickness. It's exactly the same as Catwa did with Freya.

[Maitimo]

5 hours ago, cunomar said:

I've spent 5 years trying to make an Androgynous  avatar and i would say in a virtual world it simply means a smooth body male without muscles .

I'm a guy with no wish to be a girl and I don't know how to be anything else . I crossdress a male av in SL because its my escape , when i get bored of it i dress my avatar in exactly the same way as i have all my adult life without much variation .

Go to the doctors tell them i think im dying and they ask do you workout in a gym . Makes me want to scream NO THIS IS JUST ME ! Thats essentially a good thing i suppose but it gives some insight into what i try to escape with fantasy .

Every flat chest combination i have tried and spent many hours experimenting with fails for me , in my eyes its still female , butt is too big even on minimum slider and shoulder blades are deformed - for a guy .

Bom helped tremendously so i've ended up using a male body with a female flat chest skin which smoothes out the worst of the (in my view) ugly muscles even if there is nothing i can do about the lumps and bumps you only get in a gym .

If i could build an androgynous avatar in blender i would start with a male body because that as far as i can tell has not yet been done by anyone .

I experienced much of the same pain, having had an avatar thats non-binary since around 2018. 

I couldnt get by with a male body because I specifically wanted to be able to wear womens clothing. There's a little more of that coming out for the Jake body now, and also a little for Legacy, but 4 years ago there was hardly anything.

Maitreya was, at the time, the best option for me, but I didn't like the hips or the shoulders. I compensated as best I could by lowering hip width and saddlebags to zero, raising love handles. Also body thickness and torso muscles to 100, and bodyfat around 50. A skin with some slight muscle tone helps too; you don't have to look like a gym rat but just a little helps add to the androgynous look. 

I found it much easier to get a more masculine body shape with Belleza Isis, even with Freya (there is a third party flat chest mod for both but its inworld only, not on the MP, and I'm currently at work so I can't log in to find it). The problem with this route is that there is hardly any clothing for this combination; Two Sided has a little but it's feminine and only a small handful of older pieces.  It's often simpler to use the flat chest mod only when topless or wearing a bikini, and when clothed, just go without and dial the breast sliders down as low as the clothing rigging will allow (Isis is better than Freya on that feature). 

In the end I gave up on trying to be flat chested. I've retained all the other androgynous features but hey, I figure the hormones are working. 😆

 

[cunomar]

Took me 9 months and lots of linden to make a reasonably presentable classic male av crossdresser 4 or 5 years ago and tired of the arrogant "its easy" comments I chose to make a better female av for free in 9 minutes just to prove a point .

I don't own any feminine clothes actually made for a male avatar and nobody would accept that male and female clothes attach differently (in classic) .

A builder took it upon herself to make a skirt specifically for me and was very confused that it fit her 4 times bigger than mine butt yet my skinny backside showed through it .

Doesn't seem to be a problem now we have BOM though . I use bom exactly the same way classic works no layers and slots and all that confusing annoying mesh stuff . My clothes hide little flesh as well .

Self inflicted made life difficult for myself but in a way thats what kept it interesting for me .

My River head has been banished to the bottom of my inventory likely never to be seen again .

[Nick0678]

On 10/1/2022 at 1:24 AM, Gopi Passiflora said:

I'm a straight male in real life but I often use female avatars. I don't act that different as my female avis or even try to do so. However, if people want to know my real gender I do not reveal it, I just say my avi's gender - female.

People usually don't suspect I'm male in real life (or they don't comment), so I guess I'm good at it?

From my experience it doesn't matter if you are good or bad at it, most are too bored to even care, even AFK dolls have fun in this game.

[Ingrid Ingersoll]

The minute you "giggle" I know youre a guy. Theres a ton of other tells too that most men with female avatars aren't even aware of. To be fair a lot men probably arent trying that hard and most of them are just keen on lesbian pixel sex. 

I have to admit that its pretty disturbing as a woman to see what some men do with their female avatars and has made me aware of a deeply misogynistic streak that i see in men online. Not referring to anyone here btw. 

I have a male avatar on an account that i never use. I dont even know why I have it. I,dont even pose ball!

Edited December 14, 2022 by Ingrid Ingersoll

[Ingrid Ingersoll]

On 10/14/2022 at 2:54 AM, cunomar said:

 

If i could build an androgynous avatar in blender i would start with a male body because that as far as i can tell has not yet been done by anyone .

One of the body makers recently made a slim male body. (Someone help me out with which) I wouldnt call it androgynous but might be something to look at.