In my opinion the trouble with SL sex is because there are two types of people. Group A says it doesn’t matter what a person’s RL gender is, they accept the avatar at face value. Group B says that it’s essential that SL gender matches with RL gender. Problems arise when two people in a relationship belong to different groups.

As for myself I don’t particularly care. I’m bisexual anyway, but I can understand how someone who’s straight would be weirded out by finding that the hot babe he just shagged is really Dave the Trucker from Walsall. I’m also one of those weird transgendered people that Cronoclaw mentioned (although in my case I’m the other way round – female to male). I’m pretty open about it but that makes me fairly unusual. But it does give me a fairly unique perspective, in that I realise gender isn’t always the two-sided coin we assume it to be. I put myself pretty firmly in the group which takes another’s avatar at face value. I neither ask nor care whether they are what they claim to be or not.

What I don’t think is okay, is anyone deliberately lying or being misleading about themselves for their own benefit, in order to get involved with someone who would not normally be interested. It doesn’t have to be about gender – telling people you’re single when you’re really married is another major one.

Anyways, despite all the discussion, I really like this post and I have to admit that I DO have female skins and shapes in my inv, but I use them for fun only (besides that, my name gives me away anyways

1) Tackle a topic that will be interesting to our readership (target audience = male)
2) Provide a strong position on the topic
3) Engage the readership into taking action and voicing their opinion via comments
4) Sit back, eat popcorn, scratch myself, and watch how it plays out

I am not a homophobe (by way of the classic argument that I have some great gay guy friends), but I have been conditioned to be very weirded out by the concept of somebody duping me into thinking they were the opposite gender, and then doing something sexual, even just a kiss in a virtual environment.

I am all for the discussion forum going in whatever way the readers are impacted by my write-up.

I’m not sure it was Hawks’ intention to start an avalanche of discussion on the world of gender issues, but then, given the blog’s title and focus on “guys not girls” stuff, it’s unavoidable to an extent, and I, for one, welcome it. Thanks for your views (and Xax!), they’ve raised the level of discourse considerably.

But I can’t let guys off the hook because, putting it bluntly, most guys are subconscious homophobes. That’s not saying they’re all the kind of people who’d beat up a gay couple for holding hands, but that their homophobia is rather more internal and actually somewhat derived from misogyny. It goes something like this:

1. guys are told they shouldn’t be like women. that being like a woman is bad, and one of the worst things they can be. A la the gym teachers telling their boys: “You play like girls/sissies.”

2. Gays, because they are “takers” are like women. Notwithstanding the stereotype’s of “swishy” gay men.

3. Therefore being gay is like being a woman, and bad.

I think we all should cross gender in SL, at least sometimes – it’s a good thing to do. But we shouldn’t fuck with each other, whether we’re crossing gender or not.

Yeah I’m sorry guys, I can’t shut up. I’m in a zone here…