After years and years of RP of various types, I feel like there's a few different ways to look at everything discussed here.
For me the first thing would be why people aren't or are up front. Many people aren't "up front" because of the stigma against ERP. They're not being sneaky, or secret, they just don't want to get called out and shamed. And it's not necessarily that they're afraid to express these things in their real life, or go unfulfilled. Sex is a part of life. So why not a part of their character to? And if it's fun, it's fun! I mean, sure, it's a bummer to meet someone who only wants to tussle, but there's plenty of serious RPers out there who do it too.
Secondly, the method writers. Yeah, I said Method Writers. I'm making that a thing. Deal. There's a lot of people, myself included, who approach writing from a character out perspective, rather than story-first. Probably a lot of these writers started with RP too. We want to understand the character, live in the character, and really embrace that. Make the character feel like a full, fleshed out person. People have many sides to them, aspects of their personality, drives, desires, moods... and again. Sex. People have sex. That's a thing that they do. Sometimes, I hear, with the intent of making more people. But not always.
I think treating ERPers as some separate part of the community is and always has been weird, and I say always has after 12 years of World of Warcraft and 5 different RP servers all having the same amount of RP and ERP. Y'know, except for that one... which really isn't any worse than the others, it just has that one glaring sore on the face of a certain forest. But ignoring that one little building, that server is no different than all those others.
People ERP because it's fun. People RP because it's fun. And people do both of those things for so many other reasons, too. The only odd thing I find after more than a decade?
We keep making a big deal out of it.
For me the first thing would be why people aren't or are up front. Many people aren't "up front" because of the stigma against ERP. They're not being sneaky, or secret, they just don't want to get called out and shamed. And it's not necessarily that they're afraid to express these things in their real life, or go unfulfilled. Sex is a part of life. So why not a part of their character to? And if it's fun, it's fun! I mean, sure, it's a bummer to meet someone who only wants to tussle, but there's plenty of serious RPers out there who do it too.
Secondly, the method writers. Yeah, I said Method Writers. I'm making that a thing. Deal. There's a lot of people, myself included, who approach writing from a character out perspective, rather than story-first. Probably a lot of these writers started with RP too. We want to understand the character, live in the character, and really embrace that. Make the character feel like a full, fleshed out person. People have many sides to them, aspects of their personality, drives, desires, moods... and again. Sex. People have sex. That's a thing that they do. Sometimes, I hear, with the intent of making more people. But not always.
I think treating ERPers as some separate part of the community is and always has been weird, and I say always has after 12 years of World of Warcraft and 5 different RP servers all having the same amount of RP and ERP. Y'know, except for that one... which really isn't any worse than the others, it just has that one glaring sore on the face of a certain forest. But ignoring that one little building, that server is no different than all those others.
People ERP because it's fun. People RP because it's fun. And people do both of those things for so many other reasons, too. The only odd thing I find after more than a decade?
We keep making a big deal out of it.
