Sex and skin -- get close to your choices

[Venus Petrov]

SL allows any resident to choose a gender and skin color.  If one makes more than one avatar, one can craft all sorts of combinations.  For the purposes of this OP, I am interested in your original choices.  You can, of course, diverge from that if you like.

When you first rezzed, how did you decided upon the gender of your avatar?  How did you decide the skin tone/color?

As time has passed, I see more content creators making clothing for males and there is much, much more variety in skin colors and ethnicities (I know these are not always the same thing but you get my drift).

How did you make your choices?  Did you switch somewhere along the line by choosing either the other gender or a radically different skin tone/color (and why)?

Do you wonder what it would be like to operate an avatar of another gender?  Take on an ethnicity that is different from what you started with?  What would stop you from trying something different?

Discuss.

[Void Singer]

My skin tone, my gender.... those were the starting choices... since then I have stuck to the same neighborhood of choices, but not so strictly....

for instance, my species variety has definitely expanded (human, vampire, faun, furry, tiny, fae, ghost, robot, zombie, etc), and I've used 3 to 4 genders (maybe more depending on how you count) although to date none of them have been male on my main (the exception is a bot alt in case I needed a male av for reference) female, none (robotic), neuter(critter), and "other"(for my spiritual "shade"). I probably have a dozen or so different regular avs for my main, but only 1 or two max on my alts

[Mayalily]

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Venus Petrov wrote:

SL allows any resident to choose a gender and skin color.  If one makes more than one avatar, one can craft all sorts of combinations.  For the purposes of this OP, I am interested in your original choices.  You can, of course, diverge from that if you like.

When you first rezzed, how did you decided upon the gender of your avatar?  How did you decide the skin tone/color?

As time has passed, I see more content creators making clothing for males and there is much, much more variety in skin colors and ethnicities (I know these are not always the same thing but you get my drift).

How did you make your choices?  Did you switch somewhere along the line by choosing either the other gender or a radically different skin tone/color (and why)?

Do you wonder what it would be like to operate an avatar of another gender?  Take on an ethnicity that is different from what you started with?  What would stop you from trying something different?

Discuss.

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I like being a women in rl and I love fashion, women's fashion, especially Fae and Goth in rl.  My skin tone is a little darker and warmer than my rl skin, which is kind of pasty white in rl, but I am not an albino or anything like that.  Just extremely light skinned, the kind that burns and needs at least a 50 sunblock.  I do not tan in rl, but have a very light tan in sl.  I have to use fake tanning products in rl if I want to try to get any kind of a "tan" without looking like a lobster. 

As far as being a man in sl, I feel that would limit what I truly love to have in my wardrobe.  If I ever create any type of alt, it might be for a Vampire or some other kind of a character simply because my wardrobe inventory is getting very large, and if I wanted to be a Vampire creating an alt would help me keep things more easily sorted. 

But mostly my choices were based on a love of fashion and jewelry and are pretty banal.  I'm sure to most people this sounds boring. 

I have seen people so extremely creative with their avatars in SL, so I may get some other ideas as my SL progresses in the months to come. 

[Sy Beck]

Well when I first rezzed I chose male without any thought going into it as I'm male and it was an automatic choice, not knowing what was beyond.  I had a system skin for months till I fell in with a regular group of people and noticed that they looked far better than me.  Not being a shopper I honestly thought that some people had taken their skin off, Photoshopped around with it and reimported it.  Not a million miles from the truth, but a reason why I was so slow on the uptake.

Since that time I have been indebted to a group of women I know who once a year will give me a complete makeover.  I have the final say whether I wear it or not, but it is them that present the options.  I am a complete numbnuts at clothes/body shopping.  I have though in my near 5 years changed body shape considerably.  I started off as the usual HeMan replica and have gradually reduced my size and proportions to what is now almost a 1:1 look.  The skins I decide on are more realistic too, maybe stubble, with some freckles thrown in rather than airbrushed beauty ones.

I was once involved with an RP sim and made a female alt to help with some RP for a friend.  It was a disaster, I couldn't do it, for all intents and purposes I was a male who happened to have a female skin and body on at the time.  But, she was a fine looking female alt because I let another woman (again) choose the skin, shape the body and choose the clothes.  I considered holding on to her as a building alt, but after having 2-3 passes made at me and having to explain it was an alt and that I was male I gave up on it and deleted her.

As regards choosing another ethnicity I think I'd have to have some compelling reason to do it, which as yet I've never had.  It's far from being the same flight of fantasy or escapism that turning yourself into a vampire, a furry, a dragon or robot is for people.  I don't think I'm going to find out what it's really like to be a different ethnic race by changing the colour of my skin.  I may find some, but it will be far from the whole story that exists in RL and in all aspects bar a few it's not a fantasy option to go that route.

[Storm Clarence]

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Void Singer wrote:

...for instance, my species variety has definitely expanded (human, vampire, faun, furry, tiny, fae, ghost, robot, zombie, etc), and I've used 3 to 4 genders (maybe more depending on how you count) although to date none of them have been male on my main (the exception is a bot alt in case I needed a male av for reference) female, none (robotic), neuter(critter), and "other"(for my spiritual "shade"). I probably have a dozen or so different regular avs for my main, but only 1 or two max on my alts

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I, personally, would need therapy after RP'ing this^^.

[Storm Clarence]

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Mayalily wrote: ...

As far as being a man in sl, I feel that would limit what I truly love to have in my wardrobe

. 

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I respect the honesty in this statement.  

PS I want to add to this OP as I think it is fantastic.  It is a 'topic' that has been brushed against several times in the past few weeks.  I guess because of the structure of the OP I can not answer as Venus, the OP, created my look.  Yes, exactly the same as what Sy wrote (but perhaps different women?)   

[Venus Petrov]

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Sy Beck wrote:

 

I was once involved with an RP sim and made a female alt to help with some RP for a friend.  It was a disaster, I couldn't do it, for all intents and purposes I was a male who happened to have a female skin and body on at the time.  But, she was a fine looking female alt because I let another woman (again) choose the skin, shape the body and choose the clothes.  I considered holding on to her as a building alt, but after having 2-3 passes made at me and having to explain it was an alt and that I was male I gave up on it and deleted her.

 

---

 

This story made me chuckle.  A few years ago, a good friend decided to make a male alt for the lolz.  She knew where to buy stuff because she had helped her RL bf at the time kit out his avatar.  Well, I *thought* that she knew where to buy stuff.  Once she rezzed the dude, she IM'ed me in a panic not knowing what to do.  Fortunately, she had a vision of how he should look and so we went shopping for everything (even the dick).  We had great fun running about trying on demos and making him look just ...right.  After a few hours, he was set.

Then she asked 'What now?'   For her, it was all over once the dude was crafted.  We went dancing and she tried so hard to sound like a guy in local...in IM we were laughing our arses off.  It was such hard work to sound like a guy, that was the first and last time she used him.  Used him...that sounds so...bad. 

 

[Venus Petrov]

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Storm Clarence wrote:

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Mayalily wrote: ...

As far as being a man in sl, I feel that would limit what I truly love to have in my wardrobe

. 

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I respect the honesty in this statement.  

PS I want to add to this OP as I think it is fantastic.  It is a 'topic' that has been brushed against several times in the past few weeks.  I guess because of the structure of the OP I can not answer as Venus, the OP, created my look.  Yes, exactly the same as what Sy wrote (but perhaps different women?)   

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Do not let the structure of the OP stop you from participating, Storm.

By the way, you have lindens.  It is time to go shopping (again)! 

P.S. My memories of that adventure always make me smile.

ETA:  Sy has a fine looking avatar.  I can claim no influence.

[Nimue Mistwalker]

I came to SL about 3 yrs ago as female, (since that is what I am in RL).. bad skin, stiff hair and walked like a zombie duck .. a real looker. I had no idea about role playing or even considered the possibility of being a different gender or species. All of my alts look exactly the same.. same skin, hair, eyes and shape.. same style of clothing (boho retro hippie chick with the occasional native american/celtic warrior woman thrown in for good measure) After a while, I started to notice that my avatars were taking on my RL appearance. They all have reddish hair and freckles.. but, they are much better .. ummmm.. proportioned than the rl me. I eventually created a male avatar (sans snap on tool). He's really quite handsome.. well propotioned - not a gorilla juicebox with short stumpy arms! One day, I logged him in too show a friend of mine what he looked like and she said that he looked a male version of my female alts! Said he looked like Nim's big brother LOL!!!

I've tried to have alts with different looks and hairstyles etc, but, I guess I'm just a creature of habit and feel much more comfortable looking like Nimue ..  

"What's in a name? That which we call a 'Nimue' by any other name would smell as sweet." :matte-motes-nerdy:

[Void Singer]

I don't so much RP it as it's just what happens to make sense for those avs... for instance robots don't have a gender.

I do have a vague idea of an origin for some of my avs, but I've only RP'd on two. I have more fun putting them together than I do playing as them.... every few months I get an itch to create another.

[Storm Clarence]

Yeah, I understand, but I was going more for the humor than the reality.   I would still need therapy.  

[Ceera Murakami]

My first account here (this one, Ceera Murakami) was a roleplaying character that was already well established from over 6 years in a text-based RP forum. So her Human form, female gender, sexual orientation, skin color, eye color, hair color and even her height and weight were already solidly determined, and it was merely a matter of making SL match that existing description. Her primary non-Human form as an anthro vixen was also pretty solidly defined, as the same as her Human form, but with red, white and black fur, and a vixen's fox head (with Human-style hair) and tail. So in both cases, there wasn't really any choice to be made. She was the first one here because she was following a friend's character who had already migrated to SL from that same RP venue.

My second account was a male alt, but again was taken from that text-based RP forum. Again, his form was already solidly defined, as a very tall anthro fox, with wings. I had to custom-make the wings for him, and went through several changes of avatar until I found one that looked good enough and had the right fur colors. He never had a Human form, even back in the other forums.

Both in those text-based forums and in SL, I've played both genders well enough that people who played with those characters for years not only believed that the Player's gender matched the character, but had no clue that any of the several males and females were being run by the same person, until I explicitly told people that was the case. 

I've played characters of both my own gender and the opposite gender for decades. Back when "roleplaying" meant tabletop games played with pencils, paper, polyhedron dice and lead miniatures, I was just as likely to create a character that was of the other gender as I was to make one that matched my own, and I rarely tried to make any of my characters into a carbon copy of the real me.

I've also played just about every concievable combination of genders and orientations, including straight males, straight females, bisexual for either gender, Gay/Lesbian, and hermaphrodites, as well as characters that could, and did, shift between any of these as their whims dictated. (In real life, I'm functionally straight and monogamous, but that is by choice. By inclination I'm Bi, and just keep a tight lid on that in RL. In SL, I can indulge aspects of my personality that I don't allow myself to indulge in reality.)

In terms of ethnicity, I tend to favor the races and nationalities from my own ethnic heritage. My characters tend to be Caucasians who are German, French, Scottish, Irish, English, Norwegian, or American in nationality, when they appear to be Human at all.

The one exception to that is Japanese-influenced characters. I like Anime, Manga and Japanese folk tales, so playing a Kitsune, a mythical creature out of Japanese legends, and having a partially Japanese appearance in my avatar's Human appearance and my mode of dress follows that interest. I like the stories of the Kitsune and the philosophies of the Shinto faith, and so, though I do not have any Japanese heritage, I do 'identify' with many aspects of their culture and beliefs.

Most of the time, I don't represent myself as Human here. I play various species of furries, mostly Kitsune, foxes, dogs and wolves. Their nationalities, if brought into play at all, tend to match what I do for Humans, regardless of their fur colors. (One canine alt whose fur is predominantly black is played like a Caucasian raised in a primarily Japanese society, for example. He definitely isn't played like a negro Human.)

I have lived among and worked side by side with many people of negro and hispanic ethnicities, but just don't find that I 'identify' with anything in their cultures or experiences that I find in any way preferable to what I know and understand from my own heritage. So it is unlikely that I would ever create an avatar that was dark skinned, or hispanic. Not that I dislike either group, but it just doesn't do anything for me to pose as a member of their communities. For the same reason, I probably wouldn't try to represent an Alaskan Eskimo or Inuit tribe member, or an American Indian character, because although I do know something of their culture and beliefs, that culture just doesn't 'click' with me.

[Void Singer]

nah, just develop MPD then it becomes effortless >=D

[Randall Ahren]

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Ceera Murakami wrote:

For the same reason, I probably wouldn't try to represent an Alaskan Eskimo or Inuit tribe member, or an American Indian character, because although I do know something of their culture and beliefs, that culture just doesn't 'click' with me.

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However, their ancestors walked across the land bridge from northern Japan 20,000 years ago during the last ice age. So they actually are of Japanese descent and heirs to the legend of Kitsune.

[wiked Anton]

This is a very intesting post. I myself came here as male for same reasons as Sy, I am a male, i have always been a male, and i would have no idea as to how to be anything else. Any conception i have of being female would only come from my male brain and possibly be a misconception. Having said that, i also have another stopper to being female. While SL is a "fantasy" world where you can live out your wildest fantasies and such, my idea of fantasy is  a dream that has a possibility of becoming reality. Therefore being a dog is just not for me ( i do not judge others for their choices though) in the same vane, so is being female, or a vampire, or a gorean. as vampire ( in the sense that we use the term undead fanged demons) or Gor are things that just don't exist and therefore can NEVER be part of a fantasy for me. I believe in being me, not anyone or anything else. I remain true to myself and am not afraid to give out information about my RL ( its not like i am giving out my cc number or address and phone number or my RL name). After all that, i have attempted to make my own skin which i slowly and more so become disenchanted with. I have done this to put perm tattos on, but dont have the ps skills to make my skin more real looking. (anyone that does do not hesitate to contact me) but i prefer to have at least full perm so i can make changes whenever i want ( bugger buying a skin to look like someone else and not being able to make changes)

[Pamela Galli]

/me looks at Storms avatar. :matte-motes-frown:

[Venus Petrov]

Venus is my first and main avatar.  There was no question when I selected gender that I would rez a female because it is who I am.  I do not think the standard (intro) avatar choices at the time included much variation in ethnicity.  I think there was one that was slightly Asian looking but only slightly and none that were dark-skinned.  Even if there had been more variation, I likely would have still picked a light skin.

Once inworld, it took me several weeks to makeover Venus and she has gone through many tweaks since.  Nearly two years ago I made a few shapes including my versions of an African-American female and an Asian female.  I also made one male form.  It is always fun to mess with sliders and making shapes allows me to do so without radically changing Venus (these shapes were all made using Venus; not alts).

So for me it was pretty simple.  I went with the gender and skin tone that reflects my RL.  Now, hair is another matter.....

[Caitlin Tobias]

When I rezzed in 2007, I choose the female character. Just because I am a rl female as well I suppose it made sense. (I was that lovely girl-next-door, in purple shirt, jeans and flipflops. Oh and system hair! argh!).

The first days/weeks I spent on Orientation Island (that's another story) and created my own clothes and fiddles with said system hair, thinking I looked fabulous! Well, soon after I left Orientation Island I found out I looked awful. Hahah!

Anyway, in the 4 years I have always been a female and always wear light/pale skins. Lighter than my rl-skin, and as for the hair...well, that varies from black to blond to pink or blue or whatever colour I feel like wearing. Why the light/pale/white skin? Um, I guess because I like how it looks on my screen.

I also like to run around as an Android or Robot, but always the female version.

I have had an alt once, a male one, specially created to experience SL as a guy - together with a friend. I have to admit: I am a terrible man. I felt weird and it was awkward even, just...not me! I don't know how to describe it, but I had the feeling everybody just knew I was a girl in a male-avatar...lol.

 

[Venus Petrov]

Caity, i, too, was that girl next door starter avatar!  Ohmy!  /me laughs

[Marcus Hancroft]

When I first joined Second Life, I chose male because I'm a dude in real life.  It never even entered my mind to choose female.  I had a buddy already inworld and he gave me some landmarks to freebie places and I picked out the white guy freebie skin from Empire that you see so much around cause again, I'm a white guy in real life.  I also got a lot of freebie clothes and a shape that I was okay with.

Later, I decided I wanted a better skin, so I added payment info so I could buy some lindens and then went shoppin!  I found a skin I was pretty satisfied with and wore that skin for a long time.  Then one day I discovered Redgrave!  And the rest is history.  I won't wear any other skin!

A friend I made here told me once that he would make a custom shape for me and he and I spent several hours on his sim as he made the shape and we tweaked it until I thought it was perfect!   So my shape is one now that nobody else in Second Life has!  

It has also never occurred to me to be anything but a tanned white male.  I hear stories all the time of guys who make female alts, and I just shake my head in bewilderment.  I will never understand what the fascination is with doin that.  On the other hand, I've heard of women making male alts too and I don't understand why.  The only reason I could is if the person is a clothing designer and needs an alt of the opposite gender to fit their clothes to.

Anyway, I will never change from being a human white male because that's what I am in real life.  I don't have any desire or need to be something I'm not.

[Sy Beck]

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Marcus Hancroft wrote:

A friend I made here told me once that he would make a custom shape for me and he and I spent several hours on his sim as he made the shape and we tweaked it until I thought it was perfect!   So my shape is one now that nobody else in Second Life has!  

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I still don't understand why people buy body shapes.  It's one of the most simplest things you can do for yourself, if a bit time consuming, but you can soon build up a whole library of shapes for your avatar.

[RudolphUkka]

When I started I tried to make my avatar look like Michael Jackson - but without me changing any of the sliders my nose started to get more pointed, my hair less curly and my skin-tone lightened considerably whatever I did with my monitor's settings. For some reason my AO made me walk backwards and forwards at the same time, and I kept losing just one of all the pairs of gloves I owned. The final straw, which convinced me I should start rethinking my look, came when male avatars started hitting on me, thinking I was Diana Ross.Sometimes I miss the line dancing in Vampire clubs though . . .

***

Rudi

***

[Jo Yardley]

I've always wanted to make my avatar as much as I am in RL, a process that is ongoing.

Same height, size, look, hair, age, etc.

If we could (why can't we!) I would have put my rl measurements into the SL avatar creator, put my picture in it and pushed the rez button.

[Ceka Cianci]

when i started i joined with a few other people..

i was as newbie as it gets..i didn't know what a furry was or a neko or really thought about anything much other than the place being filled with other humans..

i didn't know what there was here..and really i don't even remember if there were choices other than just a man and a woman of one type..they both looked like clay to me lol

all my guy friends made guys which there was 5 of them.. and there were 3 of us..so we all chose girls..

it wasn't but like two maybe three weeks later they all changed into nekos and furries..

my tone was whatever that basic tone was for about 3 days i think..then i discovered shopping..

my friends found me the malibu tanned skin which at the time looked darker than any other skins i could see anywhere..then i found some nice hair styles..i just chose the darker browns and brunettes like mine..

i really didn't know anything about sl other than..wow everything is free for a couple of days ..then you get into the good stuff..and i can even use my RL money and spend..i think it was like 2.50 for 1,000L$ maybe 3 something..

i wore out the stores buying everything up that i saw that i liked..which was a lot of stuff..

then my friends tried to just stay happy with basic accounts and not get any money coming in..i was like..omg you guys..we have to look the part..ok lets go shopping!!

so i got us a house and took them all shopping and got them some nice clothes and skins and things they needed..

it was pretty neat until people started to go their own way or RL making some of them have to leave SL..

it sucked growing up from that time period..but it was neat at the same time as well..hehehe

 

Wow did i wander on this post or what? LOL

[Venus Petrov]

Wander away, Ceka.  It is fun to remember how we all started out.