Sexuality: IC and OOC

[Wretched]

@mietze said in Sexuality: IC and OOC:

I would be curious as to how many women feel that way. I do too (less so now that i'm old) but always chalked it up to being raised fundamentalist with impossible and rather gross standards. I liked to read. I didn't like makeup. I questioned things. I was told I had a rebellious spirit and unless I curbed it no real man would want me.

So, in my sophomore year of highschool, I met my Highschool BFF, and she was GOTH AF, and really put a name to a lot of my vibe and i too became GOTH AF (Because I am an individual!)

One of the things my mother would say to me growing up, during and after high school was 'No girl is gonna want a guy like that. No one will be attracted to you. Etc' Lucky for me, she was dead wrong and there were apparently many women who liked skinny guys in eyeliner with piercings and a mohawk, so fuck her 'just a phase' nonsense. Just one example, but my family was a very judgy one towards people outside of 'norms' (except for my Oma who has always been the best and most supportive), and as I get older (and as my wife points it out to me) i realize how much that environment fucked up my self esteem over the years.

[AeriaNyx]

I play both men and women, and they all tend to be on the straight or straighter side of the spectrum. OOCly I've been attracted to both men and women my whole life (My first crush was on the Sorceress from He-Man... and don't even get me started on Cheetara.)

I've learned that I am really bad at sensing flirtation, unless it is painfully obvious. To the point where I can only think of one person who ever hit on Reigna. Like at all. And that person was someone who flirted with anyone with boobs.

I had a co-woker once tell me I wouldn't understand something because it was a girl-thing. She was trying to tease me, but that dig destroyed me. For like.. years. I've never really felt pretty in my life, I don't really get make up, I've got tattoos and I used to have a ton of piercings.

That one comment though, triggered all these feelings about my inadequacy as a woman. I've always felt alienated by my shape and never really felt confidence about myself or my attractiveness (Gogo chubby teen goth in SoCal!) and all that angst came to this head and I just... I felt inhuman for a really long time.

My female characters tend to not ever really be hit on. Granted most of them come into the game with an SO or with a potential one earmarked so they don't tend to really come across as available. But MAN. My male characters get hit on like whoa, usually from both men and women. I've noticed that people tend to act more entitled toward my female characters, like they'll wheedle and try to get me to do things for them, write their descs, build things, run things for them, whereas my male characters are often not pestered in those ways. Until I inevitably open the door by being who I am. But it definitely takes longer on my male characters before I start feeling the pressure.

[Ganymede]

@Alamias said in Sexuality: IC and OOC:

Now I know that isn't true. Maybe not try very hard, but I know at least one that tried nonchalantly.

Ripley didn't respond to Kaleb because she saw him hitting on everything, including the sofa.

But in retrospect, my male PCs found it a lot easier to get action. Then again, I've been told I have a way with playing male PCs, I don't know.

[Alamias]

@Ganymede said in Sexuality: IC and OOC:

@Alamias said in Sexuality: IC and OOC:

Now I know that isn't true. Maybe not try very hard, but I know at least one that tried nonchalantly.

Ripley didn't respond to Kaleb because she saw him hitting on everything, including the sofa.

Hey, it was one sexy sofa. All soft Corinthian leather with overstuffed cushions.

[Ganymede]

@Alamias said in Sexuality: IC and OOC:

Hey, it was one sexy sofa. All soft Corinthian leather with overstuffed cushions.

[Bad at Lurking]

I'm a gay dude who plays dudes who are gay. Mainly because I don't want to be the kind of player who puts up bad stereotypes as characterization. I have tried playing straight characters, like 99 percent of FCs I like on comic book games, but within a few hours of making those characters, they get hit on hard, OOCly and ICly, by folks with female characters, usually with enough persistence and a creepy enough vibe that I just slide right out of there and find excuses not to log back in.

On the topic, yeah bi-erasure is kind of a thing, in this hobby. But I feel like we're a long, long way further down the road than we were when people were writing public screeds about how gay werewolves ruined their games. (That's right, there was butt stuff on your MU*, lady. I hope it still keeps you up at night.)

[Goldfish]

I identify as queer because I don't like the word pansexual for whatever reason. And saying "I really don't care who or what you are/identify as." is a lotta words. I'm also a cis woman of color. I'm a "tomboy" of sorts, raised by a mother with two brothers and a father with...more brothers! Big dick energy everywhere. I feel feminine in that down to your bones kinda way but I don't have traditional girly/feminine ways.

And what do I play? White dudes, mostly. Usually straight-ish. I can't even think like a Kinsey 0. Even my straight guys will kiss a boy if the situation calls for it. But if I'm honest, I don't assign a sexuality to any character until it comes up in play. I like romantic RP and I'm not going to turn it down because I firmly decided that this character is straight as an arrow when conceived. And I am not here for the "Character X turned him gay" story. Nope. Pass.

My last few attempts at playing a female have failed miserably. Like I can't even connect anymore Like women are some sort of mystery creature I can't fake. It's so weird. I try not to think too hard. I did first begin to play males as a refuge from skeevy male players after one too many bad experiences. And hey! This is why I've never played a lesbian. I assume that there is a dude behind the keyboard and he's just wants to fap. Logically, I know this is untrue. The guy who brought me into MUing was a dear friend who loved played females and sometimes they were lesbians and he was mostly normal.

Still. Still.

[Pacha]

So just to set a scene I am a gay male and I nowadays nearly exclusively play gay male characters. I very occasionally play female characters but when I do I will generally go for someone 35+.

I am not a big TS hound, but I am happy to go there if there is some element of story involved. However, TS involving female anatomy (either as or with) is a squick to me, hence playing older women as this generally (sadly, wrongly) eliminates most of the attention I don't want to deal with.

Before I came to MUSH I played a lot of MUD games, especially RPI MUDs (particularly Harshlands and Shadows of Isildur) which happened to be set in medieval fantasy settings (Harn and Middle Earth).

On both of those games (much more so on SoI) there was a policy of strongly discouraging nonheterosexual characters, on the basis that they did not 'fit' within the settings. This basically took the form of a staff member pulling you aside before approving you and making it clear that if you were discovered to be gay IC, it was basically open season for you to be subjected to any level of discrimination (up to and including your character being outright murdered) and that no complaints about it would be entertained.

As you might imagine, this had a chilling effect on anyone rolling up anyone that was nonheterosexual and of the few attempts that I did see (including the only gender non-conforming character I ever saw rolled up there) most ended up getting brutally tortured and murdered almost as soon as they were discovered. I will say that I generally played on 'team evil' there, so I am not sure if this was less pronounced in the more heroic areas of the game, but it was made clear that it was discouraged and opened you up to any level of IC discrimination wherever you played.

So, I will say that following that experience, coming to MUSH it was a breath of fresh air even for it to simply be non-controversial to app in as a character that reflected my OOC gender and sexuality. I realise that this is an incredibly low bar to set but it is genuinely where I started out.

I have still had some pretty shitty experiences, my most recent one was being accused (since I was at the time playing a female character) that as I was a gay male this was 'obviously' part of some fetish I had about luring unwitting straight boys into having TS with my character. This despite the fact that my character was single, not engaged in any romantic RP and not seeking any romantic RP.

I will say that generally (generally!!) I find most MUSH people to be really cool, welcoming and friendly people and it is very seldom I feel uncomfortable about being open and honest both IC and OOC about who and what I am. Reaching out to other LGBT characters (where you can find them) tends to find you a group of pretty cool people wherever you go, honestly, and I have been lucky to meet a few people who have actually become close RL friends of mine through MUSH.

I will still sometimes feel like I am getting a strange vibe off of a channel, or an individual or a clique, but rarely anything I can put a finger on and honestly as a gay person there is an element of that which is just sort of the background noise of life. This tends to be much more pervasive in spheres where there is more of an alpha male, or very very heteronormative theme (looking at you, werewolf) going on, honestly.

[RnMissionRun]

Bisexual male here.

When I first started MU*ing, I played female characters exclusively. This
was after I discovered (quite by accident, after creating a character with a
gender-neutral name) that female characters get a hell of a lot more
attention than male ones. This was in late 1996/early 1997 and being openly
gay/bi wasn't cool back then, so I became OOCly female as well. This had
the side-effect of allowing me to talk a little bit about RL stuff without
weirding people out. For example, I remember telling the story of how I had
sucked my date's room-mate's dick while I was waiting for him (the date) to
get out of the shower (he was in there for a good 40 minutes), and became an
instant hero to every guy on the game. To an attention starved, lonely,
confused scrawny bi kid stuck in a hellhole college where he didn't know
anyone, this was like mana from heaven, and I had a blast with it.

At least for a while.

Then I got tired of the BS.

You get tired of people assuming that just because you were willing to RP
with someone that you must be willing to fuck them, too.

You get tired of nearly every situation in which you find yourself alone
with a male on a game, turning sexual, no matter how hard you try to steer
it in other directions and no matter how inappropriate/unlikely the
relationship might be from an IC perspective.

You get tired of being stalked, watched and monitored because apparently
women cannot be trusted to not turn into whores the moment their man is not
around to keep an eye on them. It's amazing how quickly you can go from
being the big damn hero, to being a dirty whore. All it takes is RPing with
someone that your partner doesn't like or feels like he is competing with.

You get tired of dealing with supposed adults who don't seem to know
anything about women. I'm talking zip. Squat. Nada. Rien. Nothing.
It's not like I have any special insight into it being a man and all, but
some of the things I have had people tell me during TS made me want to shake my head in bewilderment and shout "WTF, dude, are you even from this
planet!? A woman's body doesn't work like that! I suck dicks and I know
that!!"

These days I find that I prefer to play hetero male characters. I usually
try to avoid relationships, but there have been a few situations in which a
relationship grew organically from RP so in those cases, I discussed it with
my partner so we could mutually decide, in advance, where things were headed and how we were going to handle it.

I have never explored gay male relationships online and I probably never
will, and that's because I am in a RL relationship with a wonderful guy and
I don't feel the need to vicariously explore that side of my personality.

P.S. Sorry if this rambles, but I am a bit drunk.

[Three-Eyed Crow]

@Pacha said in Sexuality: IC and OOC:

On both of those games (much more so on SoI) there was a policy of strongly discouraging nonheterosexual characters, on the basis that they did not 'fit' within the settings. This basically took the form of a staff member pulling you aside before approving you and making it clear that if you were discovered to be gay IC, it was basically open season for you to be subjected to any level of discrimination (up to and including your character being outright murdered) and that no complaints about it would be entertained.

As you might imagine, this had a chilling effect on anyone rolling up anyone that was nonheterosexual and of the few attempts that I did see (including the only gender non-conforming character I ever saw rolled up there) most ended up getting brutally tortured and murdered almost as soon as they were discovered. I will say that I generally played on 'team evil' there, so I am not sure if this was less pronounced in the more heroic areas of the game, but it was made clear that it was discouraged and opened you up to any level of IC discrimination wherever you played.

Holy fuck this shit. These are umm not people I'd want to spend my free time with, is all I can say. I'm glad MUSHing's been a comparatively better experience, insofar as most experiences sound better. comparatively.

[insomniac7809]

Hm.

So I'm a mostly straight dude, and most of my MU* characters have been mostly straight dudes. My PBP characters are a lot more balanced, with maybe a slight incline toward women. (Might have something to do with most of my MU*ing for the last few years being at the request of my IRL significant other...)

The character I still kinda think of as 'my character' was kinda bisexual but that mostly wound up an informed trait. My most blatantly omnisexual dude was pretty much a 'predatory bisexual' stereotype; dunno if being a vampire makes that better? Worse?

I've never played a gay woman, possibly to keep from inadvertently falling into the whole... thing... with men playing their teenage wank fantasies in front of everyone. A few bisexual women. I don't think I've been obviously pegged as a dude-player?

[Crysta]

OOCly, heterosexual female. ICly, I usually play low-key bi-sexual guys. I'm not really attracted to the female anatomy in RL but through a text medium I can dig romance with female characters. I will admit, my sexytimes with male characters is probably better, though.

While I have heard quite a few from my friends, I can't say I have very many of my own horror stories. I will say I never get 'fangirls' for my heterosexual relationships ... that happens exclusively with my same-sex relationships.

[Testament]

Mostly play straight male characters. Occasionally(very occasionally, infact I can only think of one)will I play a bi female.

Nowadays, I play asexual, mildly sociopathic male characters. Because I just can't give two shits about romance RP or TS anymore. There's very little interesting in it for me anymore. There used to be a time when I loved all the romance stuff.

And now? Zero interest.

[eye8urcake]

I'm a pretty 50/50 bisexual female and a vast majority of my PCs have been bisexual females. I just can't call it pansexual, I'm sorry, maybe I'm just too old but I accept an all-inclusive meaning and like how @Pandora explained it - attraction is about the person, not their genitalia, for me.

The one time I ever made a serious attempt to play a male PC, it came from the idea that maybe by doing so I could buy myself a break, some space, something. At the time, playing my female PC was claustrophobic and suffocating because of the way people were acting around her, to her, and about her, but seemingly never with her, if that makes any sense at all.

Within five minutes of stepping onto the grid, a pair of female PCs tried to waylay my middle-aged, wedding-ringed man into the forest with a really overdone sexy scantily clad damsels in distress scene that just... ugh. Within a week, multiple female PCs mine had interacted with in the same fashion as male PCs had staked 'claims' to my guy and were doing the same awful stuff to each other I watched them do to each other from my female PC. It was horrible. I'd thought it was bad to observe as a female, but it was a hundred times worse when it was AT me.

The apparently straight male PCs were actually really pleasant to him, as I saw no overt or possibly passive-aggressive signs of jealousy or the weird alpha posturing stuff some guys do in these games, and they'd always emote back at me, have conversations with me, buy rounds, roleplay poker, billiards, whatever... the whole building blocks to deeper IC trust and involvement.

I never met any gay or openly bisexual males that I'm aware of, i.e. no males ever made obvious passes or showed any iota of interest in him other than friendly dude joe bro type stuff. This was awesome. I got to see better writing and roleplay from quite a few of these guys than I ever got to see on any female PC I'd interacted with them on, which... actually, kind of sucked, in hindsight, but was really fun at the time.

Another time I rolled in an openly bisexual guy to help another player I respected try to get an organization off the ground and... well, that very same person more or less ignored me andmy once he'd figured it out, and I ended up shelving the PC over it. Never hit on him. Never came up ICly or OOCly in any conversations, but the mere act of making and playing a man who wasn't particularly traditionally masculine and with variable sexuality pretty much killed a friendship for me. That was pretty wrenching.

I never really figured out how to parse or process this. I still haven't. I guess this post is stupid long, but the intersectionality/mu*sectionality threads and debates really got me thinking about my experiences in this regard and since I'm following the threads I figured I'd share.

[surreality]

@eye8urcake said in Sexuality: IC and OOC:

I just can't call it pansexual, I'm sorry, maybe I'm just too old but I accept an all-inclusive meaning and like how @Pandora explained it - attraction is about the person, not their genitalia, for me.

^ This this this this this.

You're not alone in this, and I've spoken to other folks who have the same eyetic. This... did not just mean what you're describing as I was growing up. (What you describe applies to me, too.)

What that word used to describe? No. (It's meaning was a lot more, uh... expansive -- men, women, anything in between, other species, fruits and vegetables, farm implements... -- to put it delicately. If someone is happy with that, no shame! It's just not me.)

So I have a massive fucking twitch about people trying to shove the term down my throat now. I get that 'language evolves and changes', but damn, that word had connotations that were anything but OK. If people want to reclaim it as a label these days? Go for it; I assume the modern meaning when someone mentions it, but goddamn. Not a team shirt I'm gonna wear, no matter how in fashion the label may or may not be.

[mietze]

Usually when I have heard pansexual being used by people actually think of themselves as that, it means that they are open attracted to all forms of gender identity (not just male/female) and genitalia.

I think a significant number of people who prefer the term bi for themselves would fall into that category, but not all. (Not everyone is attracted to nonbinary or trans people, who is attracted to cis men and women).

[eye8urcake]

@mietze said in Sexuality: IC and OOC:

Usually when I have heard pansexual being used by people actually think of themselves as that, it means that they are open attracted to all forms of gender identity (not just male/female) and genitalia.

I think a significant number of people who prefer the term bi for themselves would fall into that category, but not all. (Not everyone is attracted to nonbinary or trans people, who is attracted to cis men and women).

This is absolutely fair. I haven't had any kind of panic button engage when I've met and been attracted to trans people or people who might present one way one day or another another. My daughter said this is what gender fluidity is, I think, when I hit her up after Reno Pride last year.

That said, I apparently got super stupid hammered when three of my four were in high school and when I got to the 'I love you, man' phase of said drunken evening, had a heart-to-heart talk with the kids wherein I told them I didn't care if it was a rock they fell in love with, as long as they loved and were loved their families would be part of our overall larger family.

It seems like people sussing out a more liberal take in a PC's sexuality (bisexual, pansexual, anything other than ramrod straight or asexual, I suppose) assume that correlates with a more promiscuous take on relationships. This is absolutely not always the case, and I'm kind of mystified by that assumption, which I've seen enough (not always aimed my way, mind you) in games (and out, to be honest) to know it really is a 'thing'.

[surreality]

@mietze That's how I hear it used now. In the 80s and 90s? No.

[Pandora]

@Goldfish said in Sexuality: IC and OOC:

I identify as queer because I don't like the word pansexual for whatever reason. And saying "I really don't care who or what you are/identify as." is a lotta words. I'm also a cis woman of color. I'm a "tomboy" of sorts, raised by a mother with two brothers and a father with...more brothers! Big dick energy everywhere. I feel feminine in that down to your bones kinda way but I don't have traditional girly/feminine ways.

And what do I play? White dudes, mostly. Usually straight-ish. I can't even think like a Kinsey 0. Even my straight guys will kiss a boy if the situation calls for it. But if I'm honest, I don't assign a sexuality to any character until it comes up in play. I like romantic RP and I'm not going to turn it down because I firmly decided that this character is straight as an arrow when conceived. And I am not here for the "Character X turned him gay" story. Nope. Pass.

My last few attempts at playing a female have failed miserably. Like I can't even connect anymore Like women are some sort of mystery creature I can't fake. It's so weird. I try not to think too hard. I did first begin to play males as a refuge from skeevy male players after one too many bad experiences. And hey! This is why I've never played a lesbian. I assume that there is a dude behind the keyboard and he's just wants to fap. Logically, I know this is untrue. The guy who brought me into MUing was a dear friend who loved played females and sometimes they were lesbians and he was mostly normal.

Still. Still.

I feel all this, hard.

[Thenomain]

I am constantly surprised at the antagonism that bisexuals get. Here is someone who is more open to physical encounters than most people. What the tribalism fuck is going on that this is a bad thing.

—

Gany: Would have hit on your female character if you were on more than once a week for twenty minutes.

Just sayin’.