Afrodyte
Explorer
what an interesting topic!
God I love ENWorld sometimes. Two pages of a "sensitive" topic, and nobody's done anything stupid yet. Kudos!
In any case, I'd like to concur with the posters who mention that all things being equal, RPing a male character and a female character would be almost exactly the same, save for the general size and shape of particular body parts.
However, all things are not equal because you have that pesky thing called culture that often has different expectations for people based upon things other than who a person truly is and what s/he is truly capable of. The issues that are swept under the rug in mainstream society become starkly realized when an individual or group of people start having ideas and desires that differ from what they are "supposed" to have. In D&D terms, a man who prefers embroidery to hunting and warfare would get the same quizzical (and even contemptuous) looks as a woman who prefers swinging a sword to baking pies.
I once had an idea for a culture that distinguished gender but not sex. Therefore, you could have male women and female men. Never did much with it, though. It could be interesting in the right context.
God I love ENWorld sometimes. Two pages of a "sensitive" topic, and nobody's done anything stupid yet. Kudos!
In any case, I'd like to concur with the posters who mention that all things being equal, RPing a male character and a female character would be almost exactly the same, save for the general size and shape of particular body parts.
However, all things are not equal because you have that pesky thing called culture that often has different expectations for people based upon things other than who a person truly is and what s/he is truly capable of. The issues that are swept under the rug in mainstream society become starkly realized when an individual or group of people start having ideas and desires that differ from what they are "supposed" to have. In D&D terms, a man who prefers embroidery to hunting and warfare would get the same quizzical (and even contemptuous) looks as a woman who prefers swinging a sword to baking pies.
I once had an idea for a culture that distinguished gender but not sex. Therefore, you could have male women and female men. Never did much with it, though. It could be interesting in the right context.
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