I'm male, and I've played female characters on several occassions. Our gaming group is small -- only four -- so I often have to play two characters just so we get all of the basic classes covered. I'm the one who plays two characters because I'm the one most comfortable doing that.
In order to help me distinguish between my two characters, I usually play one male and one female. My current female character is a half-elf bard/sorceress.
Our group has two male players and two female players. None of the other players has ever played a cross-gender character. Neither of the female players in our group have any problems with the way I play female characters. My current female character is sluttish, but that's who she is. As an attractive, charismatic female, she gets a lot of attention from the opposite sex, and she flirts alot. Since as a bard, she travels around alot, she has the opportunity for lots of brief relationships and one-night-stands. But she is not the biggest slut in the party -- the character of one of the female players takes that honor.
The first time I played a female character, it was when we had five people in our gaming group -- three women and two men. Our other male player was going to DM, so when we were creating our characters, we thought it would be interesting to have an all-female adventuring group. So I agreed to play a female character. Since none of the other players wanted to play spell-casters, I was going to be a wizard/cleric. So in looking at the rules, I decided the most powerful female wizard would be a drow, so that's what I was going to play. The other characters were all multi-classed, with one of the classes being fighter. So then I decided to play two female drow characters -- twin sisters, one a fighter/wizard, the other a fighter/cleric. Both were worshippers of Eilliestrae (spl). It worked out pretty well.
After reading the first few "Wheel of Time" novels, I liked the idea of a female magic user with a male fighter as her bonded protector. So in our next campaign, I again played two characters -- one a female wizard, the other a male fighter. Both were pretty asexual -- the female would flirt with guys sometimes, but most of the time she was too wrapped up in her spell books. The male belonged to this strict warrior caste that placed several restrictions on its members, one of which was they could only have sex once a month, on the night of the new moon.
As a PC, I haven't. It's so rare that I actually play, I've never gotten around to it. As for it being 'gay'....well, my gay players would probably disagree. In my current game, I have a player who is gay, playing a gay character. I do have a male playing a female...but he isn't gay. It's really no big deal.
