Should I put my real-life gender in my woman avatars' profiles?

[Luna Bliss]

4 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

8 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

For some it does seem phobic, but not all.

I can argue against myself and say that all hatred is likely based on fear.

Differing reactions is all. Fear triggers a fight, flight or freeze response in people with a myriad of differing ways that those reactions can manifest. Hard for arm chair warriors to properly judge what is behind every circumstance,

Like I mentioned earlier, when men have murdered transgender women this fear is taken into consideration, and sometimes sentences are mitigated.

But we can't let any behavior go unchecked just because fear is involved. I can cite numerous examples of egregious behavior due to the fearfulness of the abuser, and while some leniency might be given the fear does not erase all responsibility for abusive acts.

[Kalegthepsionicist]

On 8/15/2023 at 7:34 AM, Gopi Passiflora said:

Hello all,

I am a mostly straight man in real life who has avatars/accounts of different kinds (male and female, human and non-human, etc.) I do have woman avatars but I do not put my real life gender on them because I actually want other residents to think they are really women - even if I do not intend on pursuing relationships in virtual worlds. But after reading this forum, I'm beginning to think this may not be ethical. I'm curious if you think I should put my real-life gender on my woman avatars' profiles in order to deal with other residents in an ethical manner, or if it's okay to keep it hidden.  

dont think much about it. and do what you want.

beside if there are dude mad at you that is their own mistake. but most dude are pretty smart  from my observation , to find out first before try aiueo.

[Arielle Popstar]

15 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

Like I mentioned earlier, when men have murdered transgender women this fear is taken into consideration, and sometimes sentences are mitigated.

But we can't let any behavior go unchecked just because fear is involved. I can cite numerous examples of egregious behavior due to the fearfulness of the abuser, and while some leniency might be given the fear does not erase all responsibility for abusive acts.

Noone here is talking about allowing unchecked abuse, rather the topic of the thread is whether identifying oneself appropriately in the profile in spite of portraying oneself differently. Deception is also abusive. Two wrongs don't make something right but it does give a better ability to judge what the best remedial action is.

Edited August 21, 2023 by Arielle Popstar
grammer

[Kathlen Onyx]

5 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

Noone here is talking about allowing unchecked abuse, rather the topic of the thread is whether identifying oneself appropriately in the profile in spite of portraying oneself differently. Deception is also abusive. Two wrongs don't make something right but it does give a better ability to judge what the best remedial action is.

Thank you for bringing the thread back on topic.

[Luna Bliss]

6 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

19 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

Like I mentioned earlier, when men have murdered transgender women this fear is taken into consideration, and sometimes sentences are mitigated.

But we can't let any behavior go unchecked just because fear is involved. I can cite numerous examples of egregious behavior due to the fearfulness of the abuser, and while some leniency might be given the fear does not erase all responsibility for abusive acts.

Noone here is talking about allowing unchecked abuse, rather the topic of the thread is whether identifying oneself appropriately in the profile in spite of portraying oneself differently. Deception is also abusive. Two wrongs don't make something right but it does give a better ability to judge what the best remedial action is.

Gopi has said he does not intend to relate romantically, and subsequently Katherine said she reveals her real 1st life gender in her profile and so there is no deception (and I don't give validity to the argument that many don't read profiles...to them I say...perhaps you should do so).

So...not sure what we're debating here...

[Arielle Popstar]

9 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

Gopi has said he does not intend to relate romantically, and subsequently Katherine said she reveals her real 1st life gender in her profile and so there is no deception (and I don't give validity to the argument that many don't read profiles...to them I say...perhaps you should do so).

So...not sure what we're debating here...

Then I guess we are sharing viewpoints and challenging each others thinking on best practices.

[Persephone Emerald]

11 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

Noone here is talking about allowing unchecked abuse, rather the topic of the thread is whether identifying oneself appropriately in the profile in spite of portraying oneself differently. Deception is also abusive. Two wrongs don't make something right but it does give a better ability to judge what the best remedial action is.

I might argue that for deception to be abusive there has to be other factors involved.

However, not putting all your RL information in your SL profile is not even really deception. It's just omitance. Not telling every Tom, Dick, and Harry all your RL information is not deception either. People we encounter in SL are no more entitled to know our RL gender than they are entitled to know where we live, our RL age, our marital statis, our yearly income, or our bank account number.

[Arielle Popstar]

1 minute ago, Persephone Emerald said:

I might argue that for deception to be abusive there has to be other factors involved.

However, not putting all your RL information in your SL profile is not even really deception. It's just omitance. Not telling every Tom, Dick, and Harry all your RL information is not deception either. People we encounter in SL are no more entitled to know our RL gender than they are entitled to know where we live, our RL age, our marital statis, our yearly income, or our bank account number.

Would it be deception if one is crossdressed to represent a female and halfway through a slex session pull out a male appendage and attempt to use it in the session or conversely a female crossdressed to appear male and then halfway through a session, not have the expected appendage?

[Persephone Emerald]

3 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

Would it be deception if one is crossdressed to represent a female and halfway through a slex session pull out a male appendage and attempt to use it in the session or conversely a female crossdressed to appear male and then halfway through a session, not have the expected appendage?

Yes, but that would be a RL situation and would have nothing to do with Second Life.

Or are you referring to SL only?

I don't think it would be very nice to flip the script in the middle of SL sex, whether that would be changing one's avatar form or changing the activities one's partner expected.

Edited August 21, 2023 by Persephone Emerald

[Luna Bliss]

I did not think this thread could get any stranger.

[Arielle Popstar]

Just now, Persephone Emerald said:

Yes, but that would be a RL situation and would have nothing to do with Second Life.

But we are talking (at least I am) of a situation within SL. 

[Persephone Emerald]

7 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

But we are talking (at least I am) of a situation within SL. 

Thank you. I was confused at first, but then amended my response.

Yes, that would be deception.

Unless the guy was a newbie who didn't know he was supposed to get an appendage.  🤣

Edited August 21, 2023 by Persephone Emerald

[Scylla Rhiadra]

7 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

Would it be deception if one is crossdressed to represent a female and halfway through a slex session pull out a male appendage and attempt to use it in the session or conversely a female crossdressed to appear male and then halfway through a session, not have the expected appendage?

Or, what if they were actually aliens, and it turned out that they had tentacles. And they wrapped you in them and abducted you to their spaceship, which was piloted by intelligent talking rhododendron bushes, and they performed weird and far-out experiments on your ears, because in their strange culture, those were actually the sex organs?

Or what if we chose not to produce ridiculously hypothetical scenarios intended to provoke a reaction?

[Persephone Emerald]

3 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

Or, what if they were actually aliens, and it turned out that they had tentacles. And they wrapped you in them and abducted you to their spaceship, which was piloted by intelligent talking rhododendron bushes, and they performed weird and far-out experiments on your ears, because in their strange culture, those were actually the sex organs?

Or what if we chose not to produce ridiculously hypothetical scenarios intended to provoke a reaction?

What happens between consenting adult avatars is nobody's business, as long as it's consenting between their adult users.

🤣

[Scylla Rhiadra]

Just now, Persephone Emerald said:

What happens between consenting adult avatars is nobody's business, as long as it's consenting between their adult users.

🤣

Hey, I'm not kink shaming!

Whom you choose to share your ears with is your business!

[Ayashe Ninetails]

3 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

Or, what if they were actually aliens, and it turned out that they had tentacles. And they wrapped you in them and abducted you to their spaceship, which was piloted by intelligent talking rhododendron bushes, and they performed weird and far-out experiments on your ears, because in their strange culture, those were actually the sex organs?

Nobody asked you to describe my dating life, Scylla. 🤣🤣🤣

Okay okay, more seriously lol, speaking of aliens, I still think Gopi is better off making his female avatars non-human. Fewer headaches. Cuter wardrobes.

[Arielle Popstar]

16 minutes ago, Persephone Emerald said:

I don't think it would be very nice to flip the script in the middle of SL sex, whether that would be changing one's avatar form or changing the activities one's partner expected.

Used to happen quite a lot in past especially from those claiming to be lesbian. 

[Arielle Popstar]

11 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

Or what if we chose not to produce ridiculously hypothetical scenarios intended to provoke a reaction?

Well worked on you didn't it? I do commend your restraint though in waiting 20 pages to do so!

[diamond Marchant]

1 hour ago, diamond Marchant said:

All human fetuses start out female

1 hour ago, Persephone Emerald said:

Btw, mammalian fetuses don't all start out female.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK222286/ says

Quote

During early development the gonads of the fetus remain undifferentiated; that is, all fetal genitalia are the same and are phenotypically female.

1 hour ago, diamond Marchant said:

Everybody should mind their own business.

1 hour ago, Persephone Emerald said:

What would minding one's own business on a public forum look like?

This is a bit ambiguous, sorry. In Second Life, I think residents should mind their own business with respect to the sex lives of others. In the forum, the discussion has entered US culture war territory which means it is political. So I think "mind your own business" should be "talk about it somewhere else".

1 hour ago, Persephone Emerald said:

Or maybe not calling for a thread to be locked just because you don't like some of the opinions being expressed in it?

Also, implying a person's motives is ad hominem and not appreciated.

[Persephone Emerald]

@diamond Marchant

Phenotypically female is not the same as being female. In fetal development there is an early stage were the fetus looks like a tadpole, but this doesn't mean it's a frog. 

[diamond Marchant]

4 minutes ago, Persephone Emerald said:

Phenotypically female is not the same as being female. In fetal development there is an early stage were the fetus looks like a tadpole, but this doesn't mean it's a frog. 

The fetus at 6 weeks is simply undifferentiated with respect to genitalia. The male fetus and female fetus are anatomically the same at that point. One can certainly call a 6 week fetus male or female based on chromosomal analysis  but they still are anatomically identical.

Another fun fact, mitochondria has its own DNA and that always passes to the fetus from the mother. So males carry female mitochondrial DNA.

[Love Zhaoying]

Love the "whataboutism" that crept in, as usual.

My contribution to the dumpster fire:

Personally, I don't care as much about a person's gender in Second Life as whether they are tolerant, are not "stupid", and have compatible politics. I don't expect people to put "I am intolerant and dumb" in their profile; I'll have to find out the hard way.

Second Life is by default inviting everyone to "deceive". If your avatar represents only who you are in "real life", that's fairly dull. 

[CandyCole]

Just as I would not declare my age or gender, or anything else personal, here within this or any other open forum, the same goes for all my 8 avatars within SL. Six female and two male.

Whether here or in-game I am who I am. What other people think of me when I'm portraying any of my 8 avatars is their business, not mine, and one of my favourite things about SL is that I am the character my avatar represents. It is not my problem if someone doubts or even cares about the first-life human driver behind the avatar. I certainly don't care about theirs so long as they present well, it is not all about avatar appearance.

I find it enjoyable and quite easy to adopt different personas, although undoubtedly there must be at least a little overlap when playing either of the males or any of the females. But they do have their own characteristics, personalities and styles.

This all forms part of the joy of Second Life to me. Some of us have not just one second life, but also a third, fourth and fifth life etc.. It all depends on my mood and how I feel that day.

I'm not spelling my first life out for anybody. As with most things in life your opinion is yours and it's up to you to make your own assessments and decisions based upon the avatar and the personality you see before you. And, again, in any life if something is not to your liking, vote with your feet. Stop over-analysing and simply move on.

Edited August 21, 2023 by CandyCole
spellign

[cirleen]

54 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Love the "whataboutism" that crept in, as usual.

My contribution to the dumpster fire:

Personally, I don't care as much about a person's gender in Second Life as whether they are tolerant, are not "stupid", and have compatible politics. I don't expect people to put "I am intolerant and dumb" in their profile; I'll have to find out the hard way.

Second Life is by default inviting everyone to "deceive". If your avatar represents only who you are in "real life", that's fairly dull. 

Comparable politics? What are the political beliefs of this forum? I want to make sure I fit in.

See? Your dumpster fire is raging. 😂

[cirleen]

3 hours ago, Luna Bliss said:

Oh you mean like some have been known to 'play the race card' to gain an advantage you have seen some 'play the gay card' to their advantage?  Yes I believe that does happen, but that it's not frequent.

Maybe I was going off topic a bit but I was making a general comparison showing how sometimes we might readily adapt a feeling of being higher on society's stratus layers than others, everyone knows they have value, even the ones in the worse shape who think they don't matter know that things could be better.