Honest: Have you ever pretended to be the opposite sex online?

Yeah, when I played Runescape back in middle school. It wasn't intentional at first, I merely only played male characters when I was a kid. I married a couple random girls in game a couple times, amusing to look back on. I even still have a friend that I told my name was Kalab instead of Kala, eventually she met my cousin who also played RS and he told her the truth. We are still friends to this day, heck she's friends with with a good chunk of my family.

In real life I never did on purpose. There has been times I've been mistaken for a boy and I didn't realize it till after the fact. Like my name is listed as Kalab (I know the same name I used intentional before) instead of Kala at a hair place. They said "Is it with a K or C?" and I didn't think nothing of it till later. Most of the time I realize it and will correct them. Well usually my mother or sister does, they actually get upset about it.

I could do it intentional in real life, but I haven't.

 

No.

But I suppose it's possible I might. In a college writing class, I did do one exercise (writing a personal ad) as if I were a woman. I got laughed at. :icon_redf :tears:In retrospect, perhaps I wrote it that way because at that time&place, you needed to be a woman to be ISO of a man...

 

I didn't pretend. They just assumed I was a girl! I got tired of explaining myself so I never bothered with that again. Which led to the situation where half of the people there believed I was a girl, and the other half thought I was a boy. Then they set out to debate my correct gender. I was having such a blast. :roflmao:
That kind of stunt is not going to work here

 

Sorta, yeah, but by accident. It's actually a really dumb story because I was 10 years old & some girl on Club Penguin assumed I was a guy (my penguin looked masculine to her, I guess--maybe it's because my name was Tennessee Tuxedo) & tried to "date" me. When I told her I was a girl she got really pissed & left my igloo.

 

Wait a second...

You didn't name your penguin after the cartoon character, did you? He hung out with a walrus in a zoo. They were part of the Underdog show.


As for the topic...

Technically, I kind of already am. Legally, according to paperwork at the moment, I'm male. But if you mean in the context of not telling anybody the specifics, sometimes. Most of the time, it just wasn't brought up and folks were free to assume.

Amusingly, if asked, the vast majority believed I was a female, because of how I typed and the focus on aesthetics. So, hell yeah, go stereotypes~! Woo!

 

Yes, I did, actually. :lol:

 

I read an article about a program someone had written that was supposed to be able to tell a person's gender by analyzing their writing. But the sample had to be X number of words long (I can't remember exactly) and it wasn't always accurate. Also IIRC the sample had to be someone writing from their perspective...you couldn't take a magazine story, for example, and use it as the sample. I still think it's an interesting idea. I wonder if some kind of hybrid neuroscience/linguistics study could link testosterone or estrogen levels to word patterns and tone, or if the language centers of the brain are wired differently by gender.

 

No. I wouldn't want to lead someone on as it would only hurt the other person.

 

When I used to play this MMO called MapleStory, I once made a female character. I was quite popular with the boys and got many gifts lol. But I never had a relationship with anyone and after 3 weeks or so I quit that character.

 

I don't really specify my sex when making a profile, or talking to other people in chats. (although I would like to do that to see what it's like to be treated as a female individual) If someone asks which sex I am, then I'll say, "Why do you need to know?" If they ask for my gender, all I will say is you'll never find out. I like being treated as an equal human being, so the reason I don't disclose these bits of information when asked is because I don't want people treating me any differently than if they didn't know that I was a biological male or female. The only reason I have these things public on my ec profile is because I know I won't be treated any differently based on my sex, gender, sexual orientation, or romantic orientation.

 

Never, but I've been mistaken for my mother years ago, but she's a deep voice like Lauren Bacall.

 

I know that I'm probably being a little confrontational here, but I'd point out that I don't think it is as cut and dry like this. The motive is at least as important as the act itself. Trolling folks is one thing, but being able to don a persona is valuable. You can't walk a mile in someone else's shoes without actually putting them on. Understanding yourself sometimes requires you to do things others would declare as dishonest. And in the end, saying it would be dishonest seems to imply there is a truth about someone's identity that they don't own. That makes me uncomfortable, if I'm being honest.

That said, you may just be saying that you believe it would be dishonest of you if you did it, and that is fair. The statement is just not worded that way.

 

I was gonna say I'd sooner throw myself on a sword, than pretend to be female online, but that's overly dramatic. It makes more sense if you know that I'm a trans guy. In most cases, I've left gender selections blank or said I'm a guy.

Before I accepted being a trans guy, I claimed to be female on a gaming forum. The attention was annoying, and it increased my dysphoria. Bad time with pictures.

I knew a guy that claimed to be able to determine the gender of people online; without pictures. It was obvious that he was using a program to screen their text. Especially because he said he could see souls! Plus his readings got terribly similar results when I fed them to the "gender guesser" program. We had some fun.

If it's even an option, I have no real problem playing as a female character in video games. It ultimately depends on what works best. Sometimes I gel better with a female character in a fighting game.

 

Pretty much ever since I started going online I told people I was female, which is of course the opposite sex of my body. But I don't think "pretended" is the right word to use. That implies I was trying to fool people, which I wasn't. More like wishful thinking. But I never really questioned why I did it for six/seven years! And when I finally did, I ended up hashing out my issues with people here. I'm really thankful that I had the chance to experiment online with how I wanted to present my identity. It made me a lot more conscious of how I see myself.

 

Now that I think of it, no I haven't.


Then again I didn't really ever tell anyone I was male either.

 

Yeah...
Sorry Dave, 23 from Birmingham. You looked cute, though :lol:

 

I typically don't tell one way or the other.

My name is unisex, so people don't feel like they want to "insult" me either way.

If someone asks specifically, and they don't seem like they're going to be rude or pushy I tell them.

 

Never, but I kind of wish I did when I met an ex-online male friend. He found out I was female and acted differently; he didn't understand women, didn't know what to talk about, and assumed I was going to be interested in dresses and makeup (nope, I'm masculine).

 

Not online, but in real life. Not to flirt or anything, but I pass for a guy quote easily, and it's fun to hear people call me sir.

 

I've pretended to be a different species, but never a different gender.

Lex