male playing female PC

[Zad]

Ok new question:

How many people have played elves in game who are not actaully elves in real life?


How many people have played a wizard in game when they are not a wizard in real life?

I completely fail to see the issue here.

 

[Arnwyn]

I'm wondering now if there's something in Canadian culture that makes it less acceptable - or badly done when it is done, leading to it being seen as less acceptable.

My completely wild guess, based on the Canadians I've known (evil bisexual dominatrices et al...) is that Canadians may often have some sort of gender insecurity issues not normally shared by eg British RPers, and not shared, or shared to a lesser extent, by US Americans.

You have *got* to be kidding me. Is there another Canada on this planet that no one has told me about?

Troll. (And apparently a successful one, since I responded!)

 

[Al]

To continue to respond to those disagreeing with me on the original subject of this thread, as in Al's latest post, seasong said it best: I am offering useful generalizations not true generalizations. I think I've repeatedly indicated that I believe female behaviour and motivation to be more diverse than male behaviour and motivations.

Fair enough. In which case your beliefs are not in any way implied in your arguments. Since female behaviour and motivations are so diverse, then it is not unfeasible that a female character may have a very similar personality to a man- ergo, there is no dichotomy in the roleplay.

And yes, I acknowledge that there exist amongst women all types of people. I just find it distasteful and unpleasant to have men playing extremely masculine women or comic book charicatures of women even though such women exist. Thus, I think the "everyone's different" doctrine is insufficient justification for prohibiting GMs from making decisions to prevent people harming suspension of disbelief.

This strikes me as strange. One of the fundamental underpinning of your argument is that men tend to be nympho-lesbo-dominatrices and you oppose this as vicious stereotyping of the worst order. Yet you impose your own (admittedly broader) selection of stereotypes on your players. Since you freely admit that females of masculine mindset exist (and vice versa) why must all female PCs have a feminine mindset? Finally, your contention that you are merely defending suspension of disbelief is an interesting one, and dependent on your players. Whilst I cannot speak for you, nor your group, suspension of disbelief is clearly determined by one's own perceptions- if you find a masculine-minded female incredulous then I would argue that it is quite possible that most people brought up on traditional swords n sorcery type roleplay find that fantasy female characters do go for the whole chainmail bikini thing. On the one hand, you defend your rights to individual imagination (which I would uphold) yet you denounce another person's as 'masturbatory fantasies'.

I simply haven't found anything that raises a red flag anywhere near as reliably as men playing female characters

Cross-racial roleplay aside, I would support those arguing that they can empathise far more with a female characters of similar mindset than a male character of radically different mindset. Moreover (and I seem to be saying this constantly) this 'red flag' seems to be raised as a result of your notion that females must always be psychologically different to males, and so significantly psychologically different to any and all males as to raise a red flag. In effect, you are arguing that the most feminine male is less close to the most masculine female than the most feminine male is to the most masculine male. If that's your belief, fine- but repeated psychological studies have proven you wrong.

Finally, on a slightly lighter note, what do you do with male characters who have been polymorphed into or reincarnated as females?

 

[Henry]

Well, there's a whole lot of post for not much insight. Sorry 'bout that.

If insight were a prerequisite for posting, I would have been banned long ago.

 

[Gez]

If insight were a prerequisite for posting, I would have been banned long ago.

And it's a moderator who says that...

 

[barsoomcore]

Is there another Canada on this planet that no one has told me about?

Yeah, over here on the right.

*waves*

Canada II -- The Revenge -- We've been too nice for too long and we're not going to take it any more!

Once more: Here's a Vancouverite who's totally fine with guys playing girls. Also with monks. Also with lesbian dominatrices.

 

[Tokiwong]

I don't mind it myself, if that is what they want to play then all good, though problems can arise, it is up to the individual group, sicne it is a group effort to play, and what everyone is comfortable with, oh well your mileage may vary

 

[S'mon]

You have *got* to be kidding me. Is there another Canada on this planet that no one has told me about?

Troll. (And apparently a successful one, since I responded!)

I didn't mean that Canadians are male chauvinist pigs - quite the opposite. As demonstrated by what Fusangite said about Vancouver's many drag queens etcetera, most Canadians pride themselves on their liberalism, perhaps to the point of political correctness. it's more my perception that there's an insecurity about what constitutes acceptable heterosexual-male behaviour, and the limits of that behaviour seem more narrowly defined than in other, perhaps in some ways less liberal or 'gender aware' countries. Traditionally, minorities such as gay men have tended to be stereotyped into pigeonholes of expected (and thus acceptable) behaviour - British television from the 1970s exemplifies this (oh shut that door!).
I'm starting to form a thesis that perhaps in Vancouver (and no doubt elsewhere) the effect of a highly liberal consciousness has been, not to break down these pigeonholes, but rather to extend them so that straight men are similarly restricted? I don't think this can be entirely the right explanation - I think traditional conservative American small town culture also strongly tends to compartmentalise people into specific groups, much more so than in British culture with our love of the eccentric. Perhaps it's where this traditional attitude meets 'political correctness' (exaggerated sensitivities to gender/race) that the phenomenon starts.
I noticed on Buffy the Vampire Slayer recently that although it was ok for an apparent heterosexual to come out as homosexual (eg Willow), it was NOT ok for that stated-homosexual to show heterosexual inclinations ("You can't fancy HIM! You're gay!") - because bisexuality crosses the neat compartmentalisations. If anything bisexuality seems to have become _less_ acceptable (or even discussed) in recent years, as homosexuality has done the opposite.

OK, enough trolling (if you think I'm trolling - I think this is kinda interesting...)

I've known a lot

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

Although to take the Buffy point and shift it around a bit...in the muscial episode I remember Tara being looked at by two guys, and Willow points it out to her and she goes "Oh! The boys! The boys! I'm cured now!" and they both laugh...so it's not that simple.

Interesting ideas though.

 

[S'mon]

Yeah, over here on the right.

*waves*

Canada II -- The Revenge -- We've been too nice for too long and we're not going to take it any more!

Once more: Here's a Vancouverite who's totally fine with guys playing girls. Also with monks. Also with lesbian dominatrices.

Spoken like a true liberal.

People like playing characters who are different from them - like the Vancouverite professional evil dominatrix I knew who likes playing noble lawful-good knights. Why shouldn't someone else play the evil dominatrix if they want to?
I'll admit it's _possible_ for a player to play a PC so badly you just want to boot them, but in the case of playing a cross-gender PC I've seen this phenomenon precisely once, and we were all about 14 at the time.