Female to Male Ratio

[sforze]

I think the "people first" approach to writing women is good in theory, but rarely bears out very well in practice. It's somewhat the same approach as saying that you 'don't see color' -- gender and race matter very much and the society in which they're placed will yield different experiences, expected roles, and so forth. I think it's a very bad idea to cast those things aside and smooth it out as all people having equal experiences.

 

If you want to write convincingly for a different gender (or someone who is agender, genderqueer, etc.), it's important to REALLY pay attention to the societal context you're given. The XIV world in particular is rife with female leaders and politicians, but still has troupes of half-naked cat-girls dancing in the streets for cheering men. There are formidable female warriors and wizards, but women stuck in pirate caves swearing on "what little virtue they have left". It's a weird world where some vestiges of conservative values are maintained where in other situations, there are more progressive ideas that get teased out.

 

If wish fulfillment is what you're going for, I mean...feel free, play how you want, it's your free time and you can assume the risk, however slight, of insulting other people with an unintentionally offensive depiction (I've had guys playing women who tell me at length IC about how much they looOOOoove when men sexually harass them...) but if your aim is to write convincingly as a member of another gender, it's really important to consider it from a three-dimensional angle and consider staying far away from common stereotypes/tropes. Personally? When I get a whiff that someone's playing close to common (and often sexist) tropes, I lose a lot of respect and run very, very far away.

[Caspar]

I was just responding in general, not specifically to your post. I usually do try to take into account the context of the setting when playing a character of a specific sex. For instance, it would not make sense for a character to assume they ought to be treated with equal rights if literally everything they were taught since birth devalued them, trying to teach them to consider themselves lower than the privileged group. Were they ever to come to the conclusion that was something they deserved, I'd have to rp events leading them to believe it first.

 

That being said, I tend to focus on conflicts that don't involve the questions you mentioned. Nor do I play a character as a form of wish fulfillment, if that's what you're insinuating. Not to put words in your mouth, of course, I just I can't remember the last time I've ever envied or wanted to be one of my characters; in fact, I usually can think of a dozen reasons why I'd avoid or actively dislike them if I knew them in reality. They're nothing more than a device through which I write a story; characters resemble people but are not.

[Kuzhuk]

I don't think Sforze was responding to your post at all Caspar (I'm not even sure if she read it first before replying). Your approach of thinking up traits then considering what's appropriate after is different than a "people are people" approach IMO.

[Caspar]

I don't think Sforze was responding to your post at all Caspar (I'm not even sure if she read it first before replying). Your approach of thinking up traits then considering what's appropriate after is different than a "people are people" approach IMO.

Oh, is that so? I considered it might be since I thought me saying the character's sex was a coin flip might give the misconception that I don't feel it has any significance in storytelling, or mine specifically anyway. It's just that I play male and female characters at a pretty random rate and don't strictly favor playing one sex over the other. I didn't want anyone to misunderstand me.

 

I'll admit I've sort of eavesdropped on some of the wish-fulfillment erp types that have been mentioned lately, and had a few laughs at their expense, but if one approached me with the level of rp sfvorze mentioned, rather than being amused, I would be very uncomfortable. I'd rather not interact with those sorts of players.

[Zyrusticae]

[...]

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. [...]

Well, looks like this particular cat's out of the bag, so I guess I'll discuss it now anyways.

 

So, yeah, this is something I notice quite a bit as I grow older. Where I take the perspective of "what would my character logically and rationally conclude at this particularly moment in time, given the sum total of their experiences, knowledge, and emotional state?", a number of people transparently use their characters as vehicles for sexual wish-fulfillment. That on its own is not necessarily bad, but it does tend to get irritating when those same people defend some really sexist depictions (being vague here because, well, it's a lot of crap) purely because they happen to find those things appealing to their libido, while completely disregarding how the characters in question would actually do things. It's bad writing and it's bad RP, and it's really annoying running into it for the hundred thousandth time.

 

I should note here that I have absolutely no problem with depictions of sex and sexuality per se. It's when they completely break character (or even the laws of physics, in the case of boob and bikini armor) that I start to get irritated. It is, in fact, possible to depict sex-positive women in a fashion that is neither offensive nor tasteless. The problem is that it requires perspective and empathy, two things that are in very short supply these days, indeed. Most men, unfortunately, cannot even fathom how many social pressures women (and gay men, and transexuals, and the non-binary gendered like myself) suffer on a daily basis, just because it's so invisible to them. It makes trying to talk about these things an exercise in frustration more often than not.

 

(I should also note that it is possible to go too far in the other direction. One of the weirder ones I run into is people who go "ugh!" at the sight of a boob slider. It's weird. Like, being able to shrink or enlarge those puppies is somehow a bad thing? Does body diversity not exist in your universe? Do you not even want to acknowledge that variable breast size is a thing? I once read someone say they didn't like seeing them in trailers because it (paraphrased) 'shows how hard they're gunning for a particular target audience', but that doesn't even make any sense because, seriously, every single person who makes a female character is going to want a boob slider. (ESPECIALLY me, because I need to go as close to flat as I possibly can, dammit!))

 

*ahem*

 

I will note that there is one thing that really does make this a sort of bridge too far: men, in general, simply have stronger libidos than women. There are exceptions (and a lot of them) on both sides of the isle, but the supply-demand imbalance should be completely obvious to anyone who is a living adult on planet Earth. Thanks to some rather backwards societal pressures and concerns about STDs (and pregnancy to a lesser extent, but birth control availability is pretty good nowadays), those sex-positive women who are okay with this situation can never truly make up for the large number of women who, well, are not. Because of this rather unfortunate fact of life, it is to be assumed that there will always be at least a bit of a skew towards appealing to male libidos at the expense of women.

 

But that doesn't mean I have to accept bad writing, or bad character design, or any of that. It just means I say 'oh, okay' and move on with my life when I run into it, and maybe complain about it later when I'm feeling ornery. Which, admittedly, is a lot of the time. Sorry. Runs in the family.

 

tl;dr: Yeah, it happens, and it sucks when it does (which is really, REALLY often), because it shows those guys just can't put themselves in the shoes of their own characters and instead just want to get off. Which is fine, just, you know, it's just bad writing. And we get to call 'em out for it.

 

I think the "people first" approach to writing women is good in theory, but rarely bears out very well in practice. It's somewhat the same approach as saying that you 'don't see color' -- gender and race matter very much and the society in which they're placed will yield different experiences, expected roles, and so forth. I think it's a very bad idea to cast those things aside and smooth it out as all people having equal experiences.

 

If you want to write convincingly for a different gender (or someone who is agender, genderqueer, etc.), it's important to REALLY pay attention to the societal context you're given. The XIV world in particular is rife with female leaders and politicians, but still has troupes of half-naked cat-girls dancing in the streets for cheering men. There are formidable female warriors and wizards, but women stuck in pirate caves swearing on "what little virtue they have left". It's a weird world where some vestiges of conservative values are maintained where in other situations, there are more progressive ideas that get teased out.

 

If wish fulfillment is what you're going for, I mean...feel free, play how you want, it's your free time and you can assume the risk, however slight, of insulting other people with an unintentionally offensive depiction (I've had guys playing women who tell me at length IC about how much they looOOOoove when men sexually harass them...) but if your aim is to write convincingly as a member of another gender, it's really important to consider it from a three-dimensional angle and consider staying far away from common stereotypes/tropes. Personally? When I get a whiff that someone's playing close to common (and often sexist) tropes, I lose a lot of respect and run very, very far away.

 

I should note that by saying 'people first' I don't mean throwing gender out entirely - I mean, naturally, treating gender as something that informs how a character behaves and sees the world, rather than basing their entire character based off of sex-based stereotypes. That's all.

 

(I should also note that most of these people probably don't even realize that gender exists on a spectrum, rather than a binary, which complicates the argument somewhat.)

[111]

So.

 

Sure are a lot of catgirls out there.

 

Amirite peoples?!

[111]

Like a damn animal shelter.

[Dravus]

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.

 

That's not an issue exclusive to female characters though. Some women are very guilty of making their male characters bisexual or gay and then pulling it off in as cringe-worthy a fashion as the men portraying wish-fulfillment lesbians. Or they'll consider a male character to only be masculine if they're super muscular, violent and stupid.

[Gegenji]

I've... actually never played a female character. I've written for some in various stories (including a younger sister mechanical genius and a stressed, overworked apartment owner/college student), but never actually tried to play one in an tabletop RPG or in an MMO. I'm... not entire sure why.

 

I guess it just never occurred to me. I'm a guy, so I play a guy. Simple, straightforward. But this thread actually has me looking back on it and going "well, why not?" Can't come up with a good reason, either.

 

Maybe I'm just worried I'd screw up somewhere. That can stop me dead easily enough. Worry that I'll make a mistake and/or upset people by playing the character... wrong, somehow. Or perhaps it's the stigma that's been attached to the idea of a guy playing a girl character for so long that detracts me. I dunno.

[Kuzhuk]

That's not an issue exclusive to female characters though. Some women are very guilty of making their male characters bisexual or gay and then pulling it off in as cringe-worthy a fashion as the men portraying wish-fulfillment lesbians. Or they'll consider a male character to only be masculine if they're super muscular, violent and stupid.

I agree that it's also very important for women playing male characters to attempt to understand the social context of masculine gender roles in writing their character as well.

[Verad]

[...]

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. [...]

Well, looks like this particular cat's out of the bag, so I guess I'll discuss it now anyways.

 

So, yeah, this is something I notice quite a bit as I grow older. Where I take the perspective of "what would my character logically and rationally conclude at this particularly moment in time, given the sum total of their experiences, knowledge, and emotional state?", a number of people transparently use their characters as vehicles for sexual wish-fulfillment. That on its own is not necessarily bad, but it does tend to get irritating when those same people defend some really sexist depictions (being vague here because, well, it's a lot of crap) purely because they happen to find those things appealing to their libido, while completely disregarding how the characters in question would actually do things. It's bad writing and it's bad RP, and it's really annoying running into it for the hundred thousandth time.

 

 

The fact that you state the number of times you've run into it is telling. How much of an onus is there on any one player to depict anything in a particular way?

[111]

How about no one has a responsibility to accurately portray anything, and if you don't like it you can go RP with someone else.

 

I don't give a damn about the normative heterocrapfart butt poop.

 

I just play the char I want to play.

 

I really don't like the tone in this thread that unless you are a thing, or have a doctorate in it, you can't RP that thing.

[Kuzhuk]

If individual RPers don't want to have the onus for socially conscious RP placed on them, then it will ultimately result in a negative climate. If you don't ask individuals to be responsible for how they depict tricky things like gender and sexuality then the average depiction of those things will often be slapdash and upsetting.

[111]

If individual RPers don't want to have the onus for socially conscious RP placed on them, then it will ultimately result in a negative climate. If you don't ask individuals to be responsible for how they depict tricky things like gender and sexuality then the average depiction of those things will often be slapdash and upsetting.

 

Welp, that's on you. If it is upsetting for someone they can remove themselves from it.

 

For example, I'm transgender. I don't give half a fuck about how people RP trans characters, it's fictional characters in a fantasy world.

 

 

It's just make believe yo.

[Caspar]

If individual RPers don't want to have the onus for socially conscious RP placed on them, then it will ultimately result in a negative climate. If you don't ask individuals to be responsible for how they depict tricky things like gender and sexuality then the average depiction of those things will often be slapdash and upsetting.

That's a fair expectation to have, I think, on a personal level, and I would suggest you voice those concerns to people you play with. It's not unreasonable to expect other players to behave in a way that would make you feel comfortable if they want to play with you; this about having fun, after all is said and done, and I wouldn't want someone to feel discomforted by the way I play, ever.

 

I just think that should be something you voice directly, rather than engage everyone in it even if they don't want to be involved.

[Verad]

If individual RPers don't want to have the onus for socially conscious RP placed on them, then it will ultimately result in a negative climate. If you don't ask individuals to be responsible for how they depict tricky things like gender and sexuality then the average depiction of those things will often be slapdash and upsetting.

 

Often these things can be slapdash and upsetting because individuals have examined their reasons for portraying a character in such a way, and created plausible reasons for doing so. Somebody can do this even while fully aware of and in opposition to heteronormative culture.

[111]

If individual RPers don't want to have the onus for socially conscious RP placed on them, then it will ultimately result in a negative climate. If you don't ask individuals to be responsible for how they depict tricky things like gender and sexuality then the average depiction of those things will often be slapdash and upsetting.

 

Often these things can be slapdash and upsetting because individuals have examined their reasons for portraying a character in such a way, and created plausible reasons for doing so. Somebody can do this even while fully aware of and in opposition to heteronormative culture.

 

For example, someone could play a trans character who only wanted to fool straight men, and wanted to just sneak into women's potties, and blah blah blah.

 

Is that a healthy portrayal? No, but those people /do/ exist. If you want to RP one, that's kind of weird, but whatever, more power to you.

 

No one has to RP the embodiment of what is best and most progressive about a given group of people.

 

bolded for emphasis.

[Gegenji]

And what about couch potatoes? How do they figure into the numbers?

 

And on a more serious note, we talk about male and female ratios, but there's other skewed ratios as well. What about young and old? How many legitimately old characters are in game? I know there's Tellah in the Red Wings and, of course, there's JUDGE... but I haven't seen many others that go beyond... like.... 30.

 

I'm 30, does that mean I'm too old to be a hero? :<

 

And what about thin and fat? In fact, there's absolutely no way to play a fat Roegadyn. What if you want to be a fat, jolly old merchant? Not to mention that being overweight was actually a sign of high social standing in the past.

[Kuzhuk]

By slapdash I meant not thought out. If you make a character that's intentionally upsetting that's a different thing altogether. I fully support making characters that behave in crappy ways. I guess the kind of RPers I want to be involved with and the kind of RPers I don't can be summed up like this: is the regressive attitude coming from an OOC place or an IC place? If it's the former, I probably don't want to play with you.

 

And that's okay; I don't expect the world to be shaped according to my wants and desires. Thus my original cavaet of "whether or not this is a problem is up to your personal priorities."

[Zyrusticae]

That's not an issue exclusive to female characters though. Some women are very guilty of making their male characters bisexual or gay and then pulling it off in as cringe-worthy a fashion as the men portraying wish-fulfillment lesbians. Or they'll consider a male character to only be masculine if they're super muscular, violent and stupid.

Hah, yes. Sexism does work both ways, after all.

 

It's one of those reasons why I could never really understand the pushback against feminism. Fixing this stuff helps everybody, after all. As soon as femininity (or being "effeminate") is no longer considered negative, everyone is free to be whatever they want to be.

 

Welp, that's on you. If it is upsetting for someone they can remove themselves from it.

 

For example, I'm transgender. I don't give half a fuck about how people RP trans characters, it's fictional characters in a fantasy world.

 

 

It's just make believe yo.

Seriously, this is dumb. Please stop using this argument.

 

All you're trying to do is shut down any form of criticism, and that's not cool. No one in this thread, at least to my knowledge, has even been toxic in any way. We're allowed to point out instances of bad RP/writing we've seen and talk about the things that make them bad without you trying to shut down ALL DISCUSSION on the subject because you don't care for it.

[sforze]

How about no one has a responsibility to accurately portray anything, and if you don't like it you can go RP with someone else.

 

I don't give a damn about the normative heterocrapfart butt poop.

 

I just play the char I want to play.

 

I really don't like the tone in this thread that unless you are a thing, or have a doctorate in it, you can't RP that thing.

 

You're not referring to the tone, you're very poorly paraphrasing the points being made. Nobody has said "if you aren't a woman, don't RP as one", or, "If you don't have a PhD from a women's college in the studies of the alternative sexualities of tubers, don't RP as a demiromantic Jerusalem Artichoke". You're being extremely uncharitable to what's actually being said and it's not constructive to discussion.

 

Please try to actually engage with what we're saying and not just look for an attempt at wit.

[Caspar]

By slapdash I meant not thought out. If you make a character that's intentionally upsetting that's a different thing altogether. I fully support making characters that behave in crappy ways. I guess the kind of RPers I want to be involved with and the kind of RPers I don't can be summed up like this: is the regressive attitude coming from an OOC place or an IC place? If it's the former, I probably don't want to play with you.

 

And that's okay; I don't expect the world to be shaped according to my wants and desires. Thus my original cavaet of "whether or not this is a problem is up to your personal priorities."

That's a pretty good attitude to have, in my opinion.

But I wonder how easy it is to determine whether it comes from IC or OOC. I mean, it isn't the style of some people to fall over themselves apologizing when their character is gross and mean. (I would.)

[Domri Blackblade]

By slapdash I meant not thought out. If you make a character that's intentionally upsetting that's a different thing altogether. I fully support making characters that behave in crappy ways. I guess the kind of RPers I want to be involved with and the kind of RPers I don't can be summed up like this: is the regressive attitude coming from an OOC place or an IC place? If it's the former, I probably don't want to play with you.

 

And that's okay; I don't expect the world to be shaped according to my wants and desires. Thus my original cavaet of "whether or not this is a problem is up to your personal priorities."

 

So, how do you distinguish who has thought it out and who has not?

[Verad]

By slapdash I meant not thought out. If you make a character that's intentionally upsetting that's a different thing altogether. I fully support making characters that behave in crappy ways. I guess the kind of RPers I want to be involved with and the kind of RPers I don't can be summed up like this: is the regressive attitude coming from an OOC place or an IC place? If it's the former, I probably don't want to play with you.

 

And that's okay; I don't expect the world to be shaped according to my wants and desires. Thus my original cavaet of "whether or not this is a problem is up to your personal priorities."

 

All well and good, but it's very easy to mask OOC regression with feigned OOC progressiveness. The internet has provided a convenient playbook in this regard. And that presumes you value OOC communication, and aren't one of the types to demand full immersion and speak to the other partner OOC as little as possible.

 

It's a concern that's based heavily on intentionality, and intention can be a difficult thing to prove.

[111]

How about no one has a responsibility to accurately portray anything, and if you don't like it you can go RP with someone else.

 

I don't give a damn about the normative heterocrapfart butt poop.

 

I just play the char I want to play.

 

I really don't like the tone in this thread that unless you are a thing, or have a doctorate in it, you can't RP that thing.

 

You're not referring to the tone, you're very poorly paraphrasing the points being made. Nobody has said "if you aren't a woman, don't RP as one", or, "If you don't have a PhD from a women's college in the studies of the alternative sexualities of tubers, don't RP as a demiromantic Jerusalem Artichoke". You're being extremely uncharitable to what's actually being said and it's not constructive to discussion.

 

What are you saying then?