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[t'Sade]

http://www.boingboing.net/2007/09/26/chinese-mmo-bans-ing.html
http://www.pacificepoch.com/newsstories/106627_0_5_0_M/

There are MMORPGs out there that mandate your in-game gender matches your physical gender. The idea of this completely floored me, mainly because I practice nearly constant gender-bending in almost every game I play. My Endless Gears is male just as most of my stories are female. Limiting someone to one gender, or not allowing them to experience TG, or playing something else is kind of terrifying.

As is verifying your sex via web cam. I don't have a web cam and won't ever get one. I've gotten hurt when people know me too easily in real life. But, it makes you wonder how they are going to prove it.

Now, one of the interesting things is a comment on the Boing Boing site about it.

You know, having played some of the other MMOs where they restrict character gender to player gender (like Ragnarok Online and Maple Story), (1) people fake it anyway, and (2) the end result is that female characters get harassed that much more because people are reasonably sure there's a girl at the other end.

That is actually a very good point, in my opinion. Knowing someone is female makes it easier for the abuse and singling out that happens during those. Trust me, when I choose to play a female on MUD's, I got hit up so often for netsex it wasn't even funny. I also don't care. I mean, I really don't care if the "sexy hot woman with flaming red hair" on the other end is male, female, a computer, or a horse. They, like everyone else I communicate with on the Internet, is just an alias and a personality. And that is the way it should be. I full admit, I wear a mask on the Internet. I have personas and I have roles. None of them are truly me anymore than the person who walks into work is really me. We all wear masks in life. Sometimes, I'd like the masks to be male, sometimes I want them female, sometimes I want them to be a cabbit.

Obviously, I encourage people to put themselves in other shoes, so I'm HIGHLY biased on this one.

[KK]

I suppose this story fits well with the Chinese concept that bureaucracy is more important than common sense (not to mention civil rights). Apparently Chinese bureaucrats dont care whether some of their ideas work in practice, as long as they can get something to regulate.

(As a sidenote: I'm happy to hand the 1st place award for senseless bureaucracy over to China, so a "well done" from Germany to China, you've earned this, guys). 

Ok, back into serious mode:

So far, the people in chats/MMORPGS/etc. who complain about "fakes" are mostly male. I would say 99% of them are. The reason is actually pretty simple if you think about it a little. 1. there are fewer females than males roaming MMORPGs and especially anything coming close to "sex chats". 2. most of these guys are looking for female to CS/RP/whatever with, if not try to date them eventually. (And obviously don't realize that such things rarely work out in the first place).

3. I suppose what makes things worse in China is the demographics the 1-child-policy created: Most couples wanted boys so by now China has much more males than females in each age category. That obviously means there are a LOT of unhappy single guys out there.
 
So, the idea that they're wasting their time on "girl" who is in truth a guy isn't very appealing to them and if they find out they're... well... pissed.

I fully agree that proof of biological sex will eventually lead to more females being harassed by guys in chats/games. From some friends I hear that certain chatrooms are totally intolerable, because once a girl (read: obviously female nickname) hops in, she gets bombarded by private messages and most of them would even make a tapeworm embarrassed for the lack of politeness and intellect. On top of that, I can't imagine any "real" girl willing to face that, so guess what? Yeah, they leave.

So in short:
That happens if guys think to build RL relationships from the net. I guess it proves once more how stupid guys are. On the other hand, while I have little sympathy for them, from a rational viewpoint I can understand their cause-and-effect-chain leading to the reaction of not liking "fakes".

[t'Sade]

I think it is that hope it becomes something more than just electrons passing between two people. I can't count the number of times I've been propositioned to go visit someone or do it in "real life." I used to do that when I was younger... let's say it worked out very poorly.

I do think relationships online are viable, but I probably will never let them pass into physical relationships without a lot of bribery, begging, and trust. I'm bad enough that I give hints to my real identity online (and I shouldn't).

Frankly, in the situations when I found out a gal was playing by a guy, I did one of two things. If I was feeling annoying (in one case, he was "coming clean" in hopes that I'd accept him as a male), I told him I was also a male. For some reason, that conversation never continued. In the other, I just go "cool" and keep doing whatever I was doing with them.

[KK]

I dont quite understand the former, but I think the latter is what tolerant people should do, but.... *shrugs*
most people don't see it that way, I guess.

[LT]