Avatar Genders & You ๏‿๏ (img heavy)

[sdfsadf1233]

Slick Southpaw

Satzle

Slick Southpaw

Satzle

people pretending usually
but i still don't really deal with people who use opposite bases.

it's like people who play chick avas in MMOs i don't get it

Totally understand the pretending part being distasteful. 3nodding

...er...I'm a chick irl. I like the male base and how it looks and enjoy dressing up as my OC. Can't speak for anyone else, I just like the aesthetics of a manly man.

which is fine, but as with just about everyone one the site your ava is my first impression of you

for ********, like 3 months now every time i've seen you i thought you were a dude, so all your opinions i took as a man's point of view

now I know that you're a chick and it messes with the dichotomy of my impression of you, so now i need to completely evaluate what i know and think.

it's basically a giant waste of time to do that since this is an online doll site. I know people can be whoever they want to be on the internet, but i just think it's too much work to assess people before commenting

but now i know not to make unwarranted v****a jokes in your general direction i suppose

I'm super ******** gay who also enjoys p***y jokes, does that also help or mess you up more?
xp

I don't really care what people address me as, nor do I ask for proper pronouns. I just am now intensely curious why this sudden revelation means you need to re-evaluate?

Because equality doesn't exist nor will it ever exist. men treat women differently and women treat men differently based entirely on their gender and that's just a real world fact.

tbh it might just be because i'm from germany and it's so ingrained but you literally talk to women differently in germany because words change based on the gender it is assigned.

I don't really care if you're a gay female or a straight female, i'm still going to treat you differently than i would a guy. not like "omger i have to be polite" or "omger i need to be offensive and suppress you ala PATRIARCHY RAAAA"

just different. people treat other genders differently. it's hard to explain. I don't respect you less, I just see you differently.

sorry if this makes zero sense. i literally just got back from the ale works and i am drunk as ******** right now lol

[Clueit]

I... I really have no important input. Sure, I'll assume a gender if need be but most of the time I just stick to a name or nick name.
If conversing about a third party I'll go by what I "know".
Honestly gender has always been an "i don't give a ********" area to me. Outside of the need for procreation it has no meaning to me.

I'm Clue, genetically I have the Y chromosome and my avatar has the anatomy of a ken doll..

[Dlin]

Slick Southpaw

Dlin

I know having a male avatar got me more respectful responses when I was moderating. It was fascinating to see the levels of disrespect aimed at the mods with female avatars versus my own experience. This isn't to say I never got flamed, but generally I got more courtesy. I suspect a lot of what we see in responses to Gaia avatars reflects the responses in real life and on the internet to images of people. When we see those images, there are some immediate automatic assumptions made because that's how human brains work. Whether or not those assumptions are fair is another subject entirely.

....that is quite....woah. I never thought about it in terms like that, especially in regards to moderation

When I was more of a reg in the ED forum waaaaayyyyyyy back when (probably 2006ish) there were interesting debates about whether or not female avatars were taken seriously when it came to certain topics like abortion or discussing aspects of feminism or gender inequality

Well, if you look at the comments on other sites, like YouTube, Facebook or various other discussion board type sites- or blog site like Tumblr- to the issues of reproductive rights and gender inequality, the responses to obviously female authors are very different from the responses to male authors. This is also true for anyone depicted as a person of color as opposed to an obviously white author. Responses vary just like in real life. I find it interesting since it's well known that what you see isn't necessarily what you get online, so the instant respect or lack of it for certain depictions of post authors are based entirely on the commenter's perceptions and not on the actual real life persona of original post creator.

[NocturnFox]

Female with male base here, I also crossdress my avi a lot.
I don't usually care for people's gender except on certain circumstance when you need it.
the way the avatar dressed sometimes is affecting my opinion on them though...
You can see people's taste through how they dress their avi generally.

[Slick Southpaw]

Satzle

tbh it might just be because i'm from germany and it's so ingrained but you literally talk to women differently in germany because words change based on the gender it is assigned.

I don't really care if you're a gay female or a straight female, i'm still going to treat you differently than i would a guy. not like "omger i have to be polite" or "omger i need to be offensive and suppress you ala PATRIARCHY RAAAA"

just different. people treat other genders differently. it's hard to explain. I don't respect you less, I just see you differently.

sorry if this makes zero sense. i literally just got back from the ale works and i am drunk as ******** right now lol

Ah, Spanish has conversions as well when it comes to gender, but English doesn't possess that unless you count particular connotations with words, and that's a ******** in its own right depending on the dialect.

talk2hand I would say something about being drunk as ******** and ability to type being impeccable but then again you're German ////shot

But it is interesting, thanks for sharing!

[buncy]

With the animal bases now and the long on going body mods that you can use to hide your bases gender people can pretty much hide to what gender they are or self identify with.. and I dunno? Gaia is a visual space I mean we all joined up to play with our virtual doll, I don't think I've ever seen someone say I joined gaia to talk to people on a forum. and so with avatar genders if you're using a male avatar I assume you're a male and vice versa for a female unless otherwise state you're not.

man it's just should I just assume everyone is an amorphous faceless blob so i don't go offending anyone if i don't get their gender right?

excuse my rambley waffling.

[EitaLiraz]

~A ripple on the water...

I honestly cannot say that an avatar's gender doesn't affect the way I interact with them. At the same time, I can't really explain how it does affect me. That being said, they way how I view the person behind the avatar has always and probably will always depend on their content more than their avatar's appearance; male or female dressed in shinies or commons.
In regards to people who get upset when they're addressed incorrectly; unless they're doing some RP the anger is irrational and useless, as is writing a gender disclaimer in their sig. It's not my fault your avatar is gender bending or is an androgynous masterpiece.
In my case, my avatar does match my IRL gender. It always has. I've never thought 'hmm, perhaps I should try switching bases'. That's not to say I haven't made masculine avatars. With the array of items and mods that we have now, it really doesn't matter what your avatar base is.
All in all, an avatar's gender isn't really something that poses an issue for me unless I know the user's avatar base doesn't match their IRL selves. I mean, I could have sworn that Razumi's avatar was female, then he became a shop assistant, and now I'm still confused stare I can still remember triple checking Winter Hue's avatar when I found out the base is male. At that time it was as if I had stumbled upon a seasoned magician. Then again, even some simple avatars leave me with question marks when I compare them with their content. Y so androgynous???

...A tinkling on the wind~

[Slick Southpaw]

buncy

man it's just should I just assume everyone is an amorphous faceless blob so i don't go offending anyone if i don't get their gender right?.

rofl so are you going to call everyone an amoeba or "it"?

[Slick Southpaw]

EitaLiraz

All in all, an avatar's gender isn't really something that poses an issue for me unless I know the user's avatar base doesn't match their IRL selves. I mean, I could have sworn that Razumi's avatar was female, then he became a shop assistant, and now I'm still confused stare I can still remember triple checking Winter Hue's avatar when I found out the base is male. At that time it was as if I had stumbled upon a seasoned magician. Then again, even some simple avatars leave me with question marks when I compare them with their content. Y so androgynous???

xd

I get so lost with animes and anime art style/character style because every time I think someone is a chick, they're actually a dude. dem bishie boys baffle me

[Krissim Klaw]

Slick Southpaw

buncy

man it's just should I just assume everyone is an amorphous faceless blob so i don't go offending anyone if i don't get their gender right?.

rofl so are you going to call everyone an amoeba or "it"?

Sometimes I will use awful english and refer to someone of an unknown gender as them, they, and so on to get around it. It makes me think of my mantises when they are nymphs. You can't sex them until they reach a certain age and I feel bad referring to them as its. rofl

[buncy]

Slick Southpaw

buncy

man it's just should I just assume everyone is an amorphous faceless blob so i don't go offending anyone if i don't get their gender right?.

rofl so are you going to call everyone an amoeba or "it"?

I prefer the jerky catch phrase of "hey you" or wait, everyone just gets called dorkwad from now on.

[Eserel]

Krissim Klaw

Slick Southpaw

buncy

man it's just should I just assume everyone is an amorphous faceless blob so i don't go offending anyone if i don't get their gender right?.

rofl so are you going to call everyone an amoeba or "it"?

Sometimes I will use awful english and refer to someone of an unknown gender as them, they, and so on to get around it. It makes me think of my mantises when they are nymphs. You can't sex them until they reach a certain age and I feel bad referring to them as its. rofl

this is great and now i cannot unsee everyone as mantises pounding at each key on the keyboard individually and going yessssss

[Slick Southpaw]

Krissim Klaw

Slick Southpaw

buncy

man it's just should I just assume everyone is an amorphous faceless blob so i don't go offending anyone if i don't get their gender right?.

rofl so are you going to call everyone an amoeba or "it"?

Sometimes I will use awful english and refer to someone of an unknown gender as them, they, and so on to get around it. It makes me think of my mantises when they are nymphs. You can't sex them until they reach a certain age and I feel bad referring to them as its. rofl

That's just awful ;P

I usually go for the wordier "this person" because I had that grammar beaten out of me in high school and I fear my old english teacher will come back to mercilessly berate me over the phrase (and it didn't help her name was Moriarty emotion_donotwant )

Snakes do not come with the convenience of easy sexing; and I'm grateful the lady who initially rescued Nagini before I adopted her had her sexed by a vet. @___@

[Slick Southpaw]

Eserel

Krissim Klaw

Slick Southpaw

buncy

man it's just should I just assume everyone is an amorphous faceless blob so i don't go offending anyone if i don't get their gender right?.

rofl so are you going to call everyone an amoeba or "it"?

Sometimes I will use awful english and refer to someone of an unknown gender as them, they, and so on to get around it. It makes me think of my mantises when they are nymphs. You can't sex them until they reach a certain age and I feel bad referring to them as its. rofl

this is great and now i cannot unsee everyone as mantises pounding at each key on the keyboard individually and going yessssss

[Eserel]

Slick Southpaw

Eserel

Krissim Klaw

Slick Southpaw

buncy

man it's just should I just assume everyone is an amorphous faceless blob so i don't go offending anyone if i don't get their gender right?.

rofl so are you going to call everyone an amoeba or "it"?

Sometimes I will use awful english and refer to someone of an unknown gender as them, they, and so on to get around it. It makes me think of my mantises when they are nymphs. You can't sex them until they reach a certain age and I feel bad referring to them as its. rofl

this is great and now i cannot unsee everyone as mantises pounding at each key on the keyboard individually and going yessssss

IVE SEEN THIS BEFORE
I REMEMBER NOW
I KNEW THERE WAS A THING
THIS IS PERFECT
YESSSSS