Every MMO community I've RPed in recently has had a gender imbalance skewed in favor of female characters. When I first noticed this in Wildstar I assumed there were more women OOC at first, but after awhile I started to notice a pattern and took some surveys. The end conclusion I came to is somewhat obvious: there are tons of men playing as lesbians (and bisexual women) as a kind of fantasy fulfillment.
Is this a problem? That discussion brings up a broad set of issues and there is no one answer to that question. It depends on your priorities. Where I'm coming from however, I have a pretty simple answer: yes. Putting it simply, and in the broadest terms possible, it's a kind of virtual 'blackface' problem but with a set of lesbian-queer identities.
Men fundamentally lack the real world experience to know what it's like to be a woman in a culture of restrictive gender norms AND heteronormativity. We live in a society where lesbians in pornography exist almost solely for non-demographic consumers (straight men). It results in a product which incorrectly characterizes those relationships on so many levels (sexual and otherwise). Scissoring, long nails, out-of-the-mouth tongue fondling; most men's exposure to lesbians is deeply inaccurate to the average picture. And of course the problems go far beyond sex.
Even when women are straight, the way men RP them is often ham-fisted and insulting. Popular depictions often have subtle sexist roots. For example, I've seen men RPing women have their characters act horrendously socially incompetent only to fall back on the horribly misogynistic "I was on my period" excuse.
None of this means female characters played by men HAVE to be badly done. Many aren't. But many are too, and I think that's something people need to hear and think about.
I know people will disagree with me. I know many will get defensive. I hope it was food for thought none the less.
Is this a problem? That discussion brings up a broad set of issues and there is no one answer to that question. It depends on your priorities. Where I'm coming from however, I have a pretty simple answer: yes. Putting it simply, and in the broadest terms possible, it's a kind of virtual 'blackface' problem but with a set of lesbian-queer identities.
Men fundamentally lack the real world experience to know what it's like to be a woman in a culture of restrictive gender norms AND heteronormativity. We live in a society where lesbians in pornography exist almost solely for non-demographic consumers (straight men). It results in a product which incorrectly characterizes those relationships on so many levels (sexual and otherwise). Scissoring, long nails, out-of-the-mouth tongue fondling; most men's exposure to lesbians is deeply inaccurate to the average picture. And of course the problems go far beyond sex.
Even when women are straight, the way men RP them is often ham-fisted and insulting. Popular depictions often have subtle sexist roots. For example, I've seen men RPing women have their characters act horrendously socially incompetent only to fall back on the horribly misogynistic "I was on my period" excuse.
None of this means female characters played by men HAVE to be badly done. Many aren't. But many are too, and I think that's something people need to hear and think about.
I know people will disagree with me. I know many will get defensive. I hope it was food for thought none the less.
