A vocal portion of the gaming population seems to believe that if a male plays as a female character, he is a homosexual. This was made abundantly clear when I posted to the EverQuestVault message board with a request for males who wished to participate in the current research. One poster wrote the following nugget of wisdom: "I can’t believe this, nobody better respond to this post. This is a roundabout method for obtaining information about homosexual everquest gamers because this person wishes to meet with them. An interesting way to find a date."
As a way to explore this issue in the survey, I asked the following question: "Some people seem to believe that there's a link between playing as a female and being homosexual, or being confused about your sexual identity. Do you agree with this?"
Understandably, most of the subjects personalized this question, and their answer. They responded as if I was specifically asking about their own sexual orientation, and the vast majority assured me that they are not homosexual. For example, L. Patrick Smallwood aka iamsure wrote, "Not at ALL. I am *very* heterosexual, decidedly so. I am extremely masculine….It’s not me hiding a predilection to homosexuality, it is me taking advantage of a weakness in other men!" Anonymous stated, "Not in my case, certainly. I am a pretty normal heterosexual male, i.e. capable of being rendered insanely horny by attractive women (and only women)."
Not surprisingly, the majority of respondents to this survey reported that they do not believe there’s a link between homosexuality or gender confusion and playing female characters in games. The majority of males who do believe in this link would be unlikely to play female characters, and would therefore be unlikely to respond to my survey.
- 60%, or 20 subjects, reported that they DO NOT believe there’s any correlation between playing as female and homosexuality/gender confusion. Bier Hunter states, "I agree that some people think this way [believe in the correlation], but I do not agree with the concept. I have met several people online that feel this way. Most of them that I have talked to are still in High School going through a hormone overload and have not yet come to terms with their own sexuality. I think people need to relax and understand that real life and in-game life are completely separate."
Abattoir argues, "playing a female character does not mean you’re homosexual, despite what some people might think."
- 15% (5 subjects) believe that for some people (not including themselves) there is a correlation between playing female characters and homosexuality/gender confusion, but not for everyone.
- 12% (4 subjects) reported that in their case, there is a correlation, but not for everyone. IceSheild explains: "in my case I have struggled with the issue of wanting to be a female since I was a teenager. So maybe in my case they have a point. I am a [crossdresser] and heterosexual."
DavPilky writes, "I would agree that playing female characters might indicate confusion over sexual identity. For me this was the case for a while. It is only natural to feel some dissonance because you are acting as the gender you are not. We’re taught early on to adhere to our gender roles, so there is an internal struggle when we try to break free of societies expectations."
- 12% (4 subjects) did not answer the question
- 0%, no subjects, reported that anyone who plays female characters is homosexual by default.
| In retrospect, I would have had separate surveys, one for each of the following game genres: RPG, fighting games, and action games. This would have streamlined the data, as many answers were genre-dependent. One good thing came out of lumping all genres together as I did, however: I saw that some male gamers are capable of very different motivations and behaviors at once when it comes to playing female characters. Several of the respondents reported that they play female models in Quake in order to gain an advantage, AND they roleplay female characters in RPG’s for gender exploration reasons. Special Thanks go to Strider for his help with the mass-mailings and general webmail maintenance during this project; and last but certainly not least, to all the male gamers who generously shared their time and experiences with me. |
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