"I'm a real boy now!" Av Gender + Body Mod Item Discussion

I identify as...

a boy!	13.9%	[ 39 ]
a girl!	48.0%	[ 135 ]
neither!	13.2%	[ 37 ]
obligatory potato option	24.9%	[ 70 ]
Total Votes:			[ 281 ]

[Yukitsu]

Back in my day, male avs couldn't wear certain items that were female only and vice versa! /shakes cane

Thankfully now that everything is unisex, we are free to wear whatever the hell we want. Sometimes I feel like I'm playing a guessing game with people's avs though. There's so many body mods out now that no matter what your base is, your av ends up looking a million times different. Without body mods, there's always tell-tale signs if a base is male or female...

Nowadays though, it's almost impossible to guess genders. Does this bother you at all? We used to be able to tell if users were male or female based off of their avatars (if they were using their actual gender, that is.) But now it's just a free-for-all. I don't personally care, but I'm interested to see how other people feel.

For hilarity purposes, this is what my av base looks like:


How important is your av base's gender to you?
How often do you use body mod items?
Cross-dressing? 8D
Is it important to you that your av be the gender that YOU actually are?
Does it make you uncomfortable when you find out a user is not the gender you thought they were?

[sometimesalways]

People is people no matter what the gender. I just treat those around me like I want to be treated, with a little bit of respect and politeness. I don't really care what gender your avatar is or it portraying. Doesn't bother me in the slightest when the feminine avatar I am talking to is really male or vise versa. But I have seen people get bent out of shape when they realize the person they are talking to is using a male base but looks female. Hell, I've had few get upset when I tell them that I am woman in real life. I thought the point of the avatar is to be anything you want.

That said my avatar uses the male base because he is male. I used to cross-dress him. I was really good at it too. But as his character developed I realized that wasn't him any more. In fact over the last couple of months I have slowly gotten rid of most of my feminine items and body mods. It gives me a smaller pool of items to work with but I think I do all right.

[Flavien Z]

I cross-dress my avatar as well; that's why I love body mods. I can tell if an avatar is male or female by looking at the shape of the face. 3nodding Here's one of my favorite cross-dress outfits:

Quote:

Is it important to you that your av be the gender that YOU actually are?
Does it make you uncomfortable when you find out a user is not the gender you thought they were?

No and LOL NO. My avi is male and I'm female IRL. I enjoy using male characters/avatars, even outside Gaia. I don't really care much about a person's gender in general.

[Lazarus Larkin]

I'm a woman. I've had a male avatar for close to 10 years. It doesn't bother me if I can't tell the gender of the avatar base at all -- that alone says pretty much nothing about the user behind it.

[chai fae]

My avi is an extension of myself, so yes, it being female is important to me because I don't identify as a male or masculine in any way. But everyone has their reasons for choosing the avi base they did, ranging from just liking one base over the other or having a character of that gender. *shrugs* The point of the avatar is to do whatever you want with it, after all.

I don't treat males or females any different, so the gender of the avi doesn't mean anything to me when interacting with other users. There have been times I was unsure of whether to use he or she, but most people are understanding about the mix-up or don't mind being referred to as the "wrong" gender.

I've tried cross-dressing before but it still looks obviously female. sweatdrop I don't know if I could even pull off a convincing androgynous avi. I'm always in awe of the people who can do that really well.

[Amber_Alice]

It doesn't bother me if people cross dress that's their own business. And some avi's can look pretty darn cool regardless.

Personally I don't like to cross dress, but every so often I'll stumble across a male item I love and will put it on my avi. I usually don't cross dress because I don't like the way it looks on my avi, male jackets make my head look funky, but its just a look choice.

[Ridley Starsmore]

Man, it's so much nicer these days. Genderbending even a few years ago was a pain in the arse.



This was in 2010, and even then, was difficult because we just didn't have a lot of really good items for hiding the tell tale signs.

These days, it's way easy. Sorry for the name drop, but Winter Hue is a great example of an avvie that the hides gender incredibly well from male to female. And I give my current avvie as an example of female to male.

[Anja Sedai]

My avatar is female, as am I. But it's not too important to me. I used a male base for a long time, and still do on my alt account. I don't really cross-dress my male account, and trying to cross-dress this account usually just turns out more androgynous than anything else. As for others, I don't really care what gender avatar a person chooses. I don't really understand people who get all bent out of shape because the avatar doesn't match the user. Part of the reason why I enjoy Gaia is because you can dress your avatar up as whatever crazy s**t you want.

[Yukitsu]

Ridley Starsmore

Man, it's so much nicer these days. Genderbending even a few years ago was a pain in the arse.



This was in 2010, and even then, was difficult because we just didn't have a lot of really good items for hiding the tell tale signs.

These days, it's way easy. Sorry for the name drop, but Winter Hue is a great example of an avvie that the hides gender incredibly well from male to female. And I give my current avvie as an example of female to male.

yeah, I think in more recent years it's gotten a lot easier with all the body-mod items. I've had a male base since I started in 2003 and when I do want to go for a girly-themed av it used to be super difficult and challenging to work with the bulky male base and hiding it as much as possible... but now I just throw on like 1-2 items and I can just hide the terrible male arm/hands haha.

[Catena Carswell]

I will always remain completely baffled by the thought that there are actually people out there who give a ******** about what gender your avatar 'really' is.

I like wearing pretty dresses but I don't really care about disguising the fact that my base is male. Partly because I don't care, and partly because I can only just barely stand to look at the vast majority of dainty hand mods.

[Obsequious Minion]

I love making androgynous avatars. Or, rather, I love making avatars where it's impossible or nearly impossible to tell which base is being used. Honestly, it's my favorite way to make avatars and It's come to the point were I rarely let any of the base show but the face, and even then it's often modified.

I actually use the female base, but only because I like its shape more.

When it comes to the gender of each "character" that I make with my avatars... They mostly end up being male. But I also make female characters sometimes, as well as characters that could easily go both ways.

Honestly, I've never really connected my irl gender with my avatar's gender... I see my avatar as more of a little friend than a little me. That sounds really pathetic OTL

[Ridley Starsmore]

Yukitsu

Ridley Starsmore

Man, it's so much nicer these days. Genderbending even a few years ago was a pain in the arse.



This was in 2010, and even then, was difficult because we just didn't have a lot of really good items for hiding the tell tale signs.

These days, it's way easy. Sorry for the name drop, but Winter Hue is a great example of an avvie that the hides gender incredibly well from male to female. And I give my current avvie as an example of female to male.

yeah, I think in more recent years it's gotten a lot easier with all the body-mod items. I've had a male base since I started in 2003 and when I do want to go for a girly-themed av it used to be super difficult and challenging to work with the bulky male base and hiding it as much as possible... but now I just throw on like 1-2 items and I can just hide the terrible male arm/hands haha.

Here's my beef, and I know nothing could be done about it any time soon.

Not every guy is a hefty body builder, and not every girl is a thin supermodel.

Some like the skinny boys, and some like a girl with meat on her. Which is why I am glad there has been a lot of variety of mods allowing for such.

[Zef]

How important is your av base's gender to you?
Not that much important. Anyone can have any base and with body mods, we can'tknow which base the user has.

How often do you use body mod items?
Not that often. Probably leg area sometimes, but that's it.

Cross-dressing? 8D
It's fun to do it every once in a while. blaugh

Is it important to you that your av be the gender that YOU actually are?
It's not important, but i prefer being the same gender base.

Does it make you uncomfortable when you find out a user is not the gender you thought they were?
No. It's the internet. emotion_awesome
And it still doesn't bother me in real life either. rofl

[Gullible doll]

I'm a full-fledged crossdresser.
My base is male but I think I own a negative amount of pure male clothing items.
Most of my items are girlish or gender neutral.

[Yukitsu]

Gullible doll

I'm a full-fledged crossdresser.
My base is male but I think I own a negative amount of pure male clothing items.
Most of my items are girlish or gender neutral.

aww yiss. I request the highest of fives.

Even though I've always had a male base, I don't think I've ever made a specifically male av. oops. usually I'm in the grey area somewhere. my av now is gross and cutesy because I was in the mood for it LOL