Sexuality: IC and OOC

Ganymede

@surreality said in Sexuality: IC and OOC:

I don't care, but then... I'm also fussy as fuck-all and FTB-prone more and more. There are... four people I've written anything like that with in the past four years.

That's about the same rate with me.

As an old fucking person, I am very much in the same boat as you, Mietze, and others that have replied; I'm not interested in the creation of sexual writing, and would rather get to the before and the after. And if that's the case for me, I find it matters very, very little what the RL gender is of whomever I'm RPing with. That said, I have also found that the male PCs I've RPed -- and many female ones too -- lack the sort of depth of feeling and emotion that I try to invest into (most of) my own.

I had a recent scene where my (female) PC was naked in a hot tub in an attempt to tempt another,(female) PC into some fun, sexytimes. The thing is that my PC is so damn oblivious to propriety that her "technique" of "here's my pussy u wanna fuk?" in context was horridly awkward and laughable. And that was the point of the scene. I had the lulz at my PC's expense, and while I'm not sure what the other player thought I hope they were laughing along with me.

Cupcake

So my notion is, if you are self-assessing your capacity to portray another gender or sexual orientation, if you decide that you don't think you can do so because you genuinely don't feel you can grasp the nature of that gender/orientation and you would come off as a caricature (which for obvious reasons you wouldn't want to do), does that make you mindful of your own limitations, or limiting yourself in an unnecessary fashion?

Should people who feel like they can only meander down one of these particular paths have to feel like they should be embarrassed or ashamed about it?

(FTR, I'm not accusing anyone of shaming or embarrassing anyone else, but I do feel like there's a tone here from people who pursue certain singular characteristics like they could somehow do better, myself included.)

mietze

@Cupcake my question would be why, and to what end. If you enjoy and feel comfortable with things now, what would be the purpose of changing that? Is there some reason why anyone should step outside of their enjoyable/comfort zone to portray a certain orientation or gender?

What does "do better" in this context mean?

I think if someone wants to do better in regards to orientation or gender maybe the answer is to be more accepting of other players' choices where possible rather than personally make choices others have made just to be different. Though I can see being inspired to take more personal risk, I do not believe people with the widest variety of RPed genders and attractions and sexual RP are "better" than someone who has a narrower range in that particular way.

Maybe I am misunderstanding the thinking here though.

Quinn

I'm a cisgender, straight woman and I find playing a guy pretty tricky unless I'm just going all out frat-boy stereotype as a one off NPC. I just can't get that into it and feel more comfortable playing women. I'm not sitting there constantly like "is this how guys scratch their balls? How much ball scratching should one pose have?" when I'm playing a woman. I know how many times I scratch my balls a day, people.

Like some others have said, while I like romantic roleplay usually the sexytimes isn't what I'm after, I like the lead-up and then what happens next and in all cases that's been my lady PC with a guy PC. I'm just not interested in chasing the ladies. Sorry, ladies.

The only people that have ever made me feel uncomfortable about any of that in the hobby have been male players playing lesbian/bisexual lady PCs that come after mine. I've only ever felt like someone was being really pushy about things like that a handful of times in the entire hobby, but in all those times that was the scenario and I noped right out of there quickly. Everything from "The PC is close minded if they don't go for this" to "You as a player are close minded if you don't go for this" and it's like you do you, but I am just not interested and neither is my PC. Sorry! Then they never RP with me again and that's fine by me.

The biggest squicky thing I ran into on a game about this was a great male PC that was playing being mostly in the closet (like a well-kept secret from NPCs although PCs knew), who fell into roleplaying with a female PC (and player) who was extremely clingy both IC and OOC. They set up this storyline that HE OOCly thought was very tragic, which was kind of his jam (she was in love with him, he was not in love with her but felt obligated to care for her and she was manipulating him into sex he didn't care for, woe etc.) but that SHE OOCly thought was the height of romance because her magical vagina was going to make him straight and it was a love story for the ages!

Obviously neither of them or us at home knew this huge disconnect existed at first, but it came out dramatically one day when someone made an offhand comment about what a sad story it was for the male PC. Huge drama. Huge revelations that the female player thought OOCly all a gay man needed was the right vagina. Epic drama/ragequit when everyone else smacked her down hard.

Ghost

@Cupcake said in Sexuality: IC and OOC:

So my notion is, if you are self-assessing your capacity to portray another gender or sexual orientation, if you decide that you don't think you can do so because you genuinely don't feel you can grasp the nature of that gender/orientation and you would come off as a caricature (which for obvious reasons you wouldn't want to do), does that make you mindful of your own limitations, or limiting yourself in an unnecessary fashion?

Should people who feel like they can only meander down one of these particular paths have to feel like they should be embarrassed or ashamed about it?

(FTR, I'm not accusing anyone of shaming or embarrassing anyone else, but I do feel like there's a tone here from people who pursue certain singular characteristics like they could somehow do better, myself included.)

I dig this philosophical approach. I dig the questions.

My own 2 cents on this is that anytime you are writing a character whose perspective is different from your own real-life perspective you're going to get a few things wrong. In good faith is a useful term, here. Is it an attempt in good faith or meant to be a caricature? The only way to know for sure is to ask the player, because assumptions can be (and often are) assumed to be negative until proven otherwise. Plenty of stories in this thread show that.

My OOC preferences are my own, and I prefer to RP characters with different perspectives than my own. I've RPed a decent amount of the spectrum. However, I tend(ed) to shy from a lot of acted out sexual RP (near the end) because I'm honestly not in it for that particular aspect of RPing. I found that that when it comes to sex/relationships on these games the place where IC/OOC separation is at its thinnest is on this very topic, and that's danger zone for me personally.

So here's my take on roleplaying genders/orientations:

The point of writing fiction is to create a character and to not make yourself.
With this in mind, if the assumption is that it's fiction, then the perspective of the player should be less important than that of the character.
Who you are may or may not share some similarities with who your character is, but altogether people shouldn't be judged Oocly by their choice in characters. The point is to write something that isn't entirely you.
HOWEVER, it's important to understand that if someone is roleplaying some gender/orientation trope that you identify with in a way that you don't agree with, but it's being done in good faith, you never know...they might just be feeling through their own gender/orientation situation through IC role play.

It's a tricky balance. How does one approach being supportive of IC/OOC sexuality and attempt to identify whether or not someone is doing it in good faith without slipping into the realm of gatekeeping?

IMO the only answer is to focus on the characters and make side commentary about the stuff the writer did that you really liked. What you know/assume about the player only makes it easier to judge, and less judgment is better.

Cupcake

@mietze I'm gonna try to break it down, and I admit maybe I'm reading too much into things, but I feel like this has been an undercurrent issue for a long time.

Take for example, the earlier comment someone made to the tune of "I only create straight male characters; I feel so boring." (paraphrasing) - I'm sure it was a joke, except I think some people genuinely do have this issue. The ability to roleplay a spectrum in gender and sexuality well is most definitely an ingredient for being considered a good RPer, and I think sometimes people who opt to stay in their lane might feel like maybe they're somehow less talented/more restricted in their capacity to play, regardless of why they choose to stay in their lane - for purposeful reasons like "I don't think I can play this because I don't identify and don't think I can do anything but produce a sterotype." As @Quinn was saying.

And then there are the women who play gay men and guys who play lesbians explicitly for the kink, and not because they're exploring any kind of meaningful RP. Which I think can also lend to that notion of wanting to explore one lane while RL being in another; the concern that you will be perceived as one of these types of RP seekers. (I'm not saying it's a logical conclusion, but brains be irrational brains.)

I could also be off my rocker and communicating poorly.

mietze

Also, while we do like to argue and philosophize over accuracy sometimes I do not believe it is necessarily relevant to storytelling or enjoyable reading for many people.

No I am not talking about penetrating the cervix levels of inaccuracy here, but pick up most erotica or romance novels and see how well they truly reflect how things work emotionally or situationally in RL. Even when the writers are writing about the gender and sexual attraction they hold in RL.

I think a lot of people's portrayals of pregnancy are boring or unintentionally humourous or needlessly restrictive. I ran 5k every other day until a few weeks into my 2nd trimester and worked as a massage therapist almost every day until the week before my c-section with my last pregnancy--when I was 39. I am pretty sure when and if I portray that I will be accused of Doing It Wrong, even though in my mind not portraying your PC as being functionally cognitively impaired after having twins in their first year, and the fact that nobody kills off their PC in childbirth in a low-fantasy setting or portrays prolapsed uterii or major complications after pushing out a ton of kids or multiple multiples in a handful of years is much more inaccurate. Does that stuff happen to everyone no (I had 3 kids in 18 months and still dont pee when I sneeze or laugh, despite #4 being a monster sized baby). Is every woman glowing or delicate or for that matter super athletic during their pregnancy no. It is okay to want to play the movie/handwavy book version (or do something that reflects your personal experience or the opposite of your personal experience). Do what you like, as long as you are not doing a harmful stereotype.

As long as you are not harming anyone in your play, what you choose to do or not do is your call, and players should learn to just roll their eyes in private if necessary and move on if they arent part of it. About a lot of things.

Coin

Cisgender white-hispanic dude, here. Mostly play cisgender dudes (race is the thing that varies the most). When I do play a minority group I am not a part of, I try to do so as respectfully as possible and usually tend to have at least one or two people I can ping for reality checks, etc. I try to keep the stereotypes to a minimum or at least balance them out with non-stereotypical characteristics. My character, I like to think, tend to have depth, even if sometimes it just doesn't come out overtly very often.

I am... heteroflexible, honestly, especially in RP, but like @Caryatid I tend to end up in IC heterosexual/heteroromantic relationships, though there have been some prevalent homoromantic relationships that very seldon traversed into homosexuality.

In RL it's a whole other kettle of fish for reasons.

mietze

@Cupcake that sounds like the run of the mill imposter syndrome/if I do or dont do this specific character type people will think I am a shit rper and nobody will like me stuff that many of us have.

I am not really sure it is a get-overable thing since even if there was no sexytimes at all I bet that sense of worry would transfer over to something else. Race, culture, type of PC (fighter vs scholar vs mundane vs magical), ect. I do think because sex and relationships are such a vulnerable thing to many folks and also because many of us grew up in the OMFG U TS SLUT era, it adds another layer of anxiety though.

I am still of the opinion that if someone were to look at you and say "omfg you dont RP the breadth of sexual expression I think you should" that the fault lies in them being an asshole, not in your disinterest or discomfort.

Thenomain

@Cupcake said in Sexuality: IC and OOC:

Take for example, the earlier comment someone made to the tune of "I only create straight male characters; I feel so boring." (paraphrasing)

I honestly have troubles coming up with male characters. On the whole I consider my fellow gender uninteresting at best. This may be saying more about me than anything, but since I work with 99.95% men and they are about 80% pillocks, and that the antagonistic RPers I've had to deal with online are almost always portraying men. (Note: the antagonistic staffers I've had to deal with online are almost always self-confessed women, there's something for everyone to take offense.) So I've had problems coming up with a male character I'm interested in telling stories with.

surreality

@Quinn said in Sexuality: IC and OOC:

The only people that have ever made me feel uncomfortable about any of that in the hobby have been male players playing lesbian/bisexual lady PCs that come after mine. I've only ever felt like someone was being really pushy about things like that a handful of times in the entire hobby, but in all those times that was the scenario and I noped right out of there quickly. Everything from "The PC is close minded if they don't go for this" to "You as a player are close minded if you don't go for this" and it's like you do you, but I am just not interested and neither is my PC. Sorry! Then they never RP with me again and that's fine by me.

This is a real issue and it's one I run into more than I have any patience for.

For one thing, if someone -- no matter who they are -- is trying to push me into bedding down with them with some kind of negging or guilt-trippy nonsense like this, it's going to be a no. I don't care if they're the second coming (pun not intended), it is simply not going to happen, because this behavior is horrible.

Where I get annoyed with myself is that, in person, if someone said this to the real me, I would have zero issue telling them to go fuck themselves in as creatively florid a manner as possible.

On a game? For some reason, it's harder. I have no idea why, and it goes beyond the simple territory of 'my characters do plenty of things I never would'. My brain tells me this should be way easier, but it's not. On a game, I just feel incredibly uncomfortable and awkward and bother trying to be polite about the 'no, no, no, and fuck you for being gross' and get highly avoidant instead.

Part of the issue is that the kind of pressure tactics you're describing are rarely IC. When they are, it's a bit easier to disentangle in some IC fashion. They're usually OOC guilt trips and negging, and wow is that shitty behavior that sucks.

Tempest

My biggest problem playing a male PC is pronouns. When you're playing Wolverine and are referring to your character as she/her/etc in your poses, it kind of stands out. But aside from that I'm not sure I've ever had any issues. In normal day-to-day RP or TS.

Over the years, I've found that I don't particularly enjoy TSing with male PCs because I find they usually suck at it. I enjoy my 3-6+ paragraph TS and I haven't encountered many male PCs that write that much in general poses (and do it in an interesting way).

Which isn't to say I don't TS male players, because I most assuredly have.

I've never really encountered any of the weird/gross/lame/shitty 'guy trying to RP lesbian sex' stuff, and I suspect it's because I'm not shy about ignoring people who suck at writing and/or are weird to deal with OOCly.

Normal, plain lesbian TS is surprisingly dull to me these days (which always feels weird to recognize), and I suppose it's in part due to writing it for 15 years. I don't do hetero IRL, but I am usually down for it in TS with people I've already built a rapport with (and usually a female player on an npc/temp-char).

TLDR : Magic cocks ftw.

Pyrephox

TS is hard for me, and I'm not very good at it, so I usually fade to black. I enjoy flirtation and foreplay, whether playing a male or female character, but the actual /sex/ part...I've never quite gotten something that I've been happy with, as a descriptor of that. I periodically hit the sex MU*s to try and brush up on my ability to write sex/get over my hangups about writing sex, but I never feel very good at it.

I often fear, in romantic relationships IC, that I'm the worst sort of tease, because of how much I /do/ enjoy flirtation and all the things building up to sex, but then pull a, "Do you mind if we fade to black?" I feel bad about it - although I will say that no player I've played beside has ever MADE me feel bad about it, or tried to pressure me into playing something I didn't want. (At least, once we got that far into an actual RP relationship. Weirdo creepers certainly have - "writhing loincloth" remains a phrase that lives in infamy in my memory - but people I actually enjoy playing with enough to WANT an IC relationship with their characters have been cool.)

Please Delete

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Apos

@Pyrephox said in Sexuality: IC and OOC:

"writhing loincloth" remains a phrase that lives in infamy in my memory

There should be a game of guessing whether a phrase comes from TS, or lovecraftian horror, or both.

Pyrephox

@Apos In that case? It was kind of both, oh yes.

Cobalt

@Apos said in Sexuality: IC and OOC:

@Pyrephox said in Sexuality: IC and OOC:

"writhing loincloth" remains a phrase that lives in infamy in my memory

There should be a game of guessing whether a phrase comes from TS, or lovecraftian horror, or both.

"wrestling like two greased up midgets"

surreality

@Cobaltasaurus "hot vampiric seed" and "mangoo" also live in mental infamy for me.

Seraphim73

@Cupcake said in Sexuality: IC and OOC:

So my notion is, if you are self-assessing your capacity to portray another gender or sexual orientation, if you decide that you don't think you can do so because you genuinely don't feel you can grasp the nature of that gender/orientation and you would come off as a caricature (which for obvious reasons you wouldn't want to do), does that make you mindful of your own limitations, or limiting yourself in an unnecessary fashion?

@Ghost said in Sexuality: IC and OOC:

I dig this philosophical approach. I dig the questions.

My own 2 cents on this is that anytime you are writing a character whose perspective is different from your own real-life perspective you're going to get a few things wrong. In good faith is a useful term, here. Is it an attempt in good faith or meant to be a caricature? The only way to know for sure is to ask the player, because assumptions can be (and often are) assumed to be negative until proven otherwise. Plenty of stories in this thread show that.

I agree with @Ghost. I think these are very interesting questions. I also agree that in good faith is incredibly important here. Do I get things wrong when I play a female character or a person of color or a homosexual male character or a veteran or any of the other things that I am not? Probably. Hell, I'll even say certainly.

But I can assure you that it's a good faith effort on my part, and I think that there's no reason that someone shouldn't be able to make a good faith effort to play a character type that they aren't. On the other side of that, if you want to play what you know, I don't think there's anything wrong with that (unless you're playing a self-insert -- I might have a little shade to throw on those who play direct self-inserts).

I don't think that those who play characters whose gender/sexuality/political beliefs/etc are the same as their own are lesser roleplayers -- in my own case I might even suggest that I probably play a cis het white male character better than another type of character simply because I understand how society views them and have a baseline to connect with. I think this latter point is an incredibly important one, and why I always try to have something in common with my characters. Maybe they like a different gender than I do, have different color skin than I do, and have wildly different life experience than I do, but maybe they like Star Wars and hate coffee, like me. It's those little touches that connect me to the characters I play and allow me to explore differences I might have with them (be they gender, sexuality, politics, etc).

For the record, most of my characters are cis/het men, although I've played homosexual men, demi-sexual women, asexual men, heterosexual women, bisexual women, and a variety of other combinations, and I tend to play a lot of POC.

Wretched

@Quinn Re: Scratching balls - A PSA

A lot of it depends on how recently you have showered (and was your soap drying your skin?) and how long you've been active and sweating.

But the main complication is that ball itches travel. See, when you have an itch on your arm, you scratch, with usual pinpoint accuracy. However, when it comes to that scrotal landscape, where you think the itch is, isn't always there, and you gotta go searching for it, usually while surreptitiously trying to stretch the skin out to get a proper scratch while avoiding the sensitive testes themselves, so sometimes the ball itch might seem vigorous, when the poor gent is really just trying to pinpoint that spot, where your brain thinks it is but it really isnt.

I hope this helps all of you testicular free people in the Rp, thanks.