Playing as the opposite gender?

[Nobelia]

I personally find that I am more at ease when playing the opposite gender--male characters. The feeling is a bit of a task to properly convey in words. Don't get me wrong, I have about 6 non-RP OCs that are female, and about 9 non-RP OCs that are male. Playing, or even writing in general for both genders is enjoyable, but I gain something when using the opposite gender.


Like many users already mentioned, it has a lot to do, for me, with easily associating a part of myself with same-gender characters. When creating opposite gender characters, it is more refreshing, challenging, and exciting to me to not only divulge in the way they would live, but also reflect on how they would react to some of the very real trials thrown at them by society simply because of the gender they were born with. These trials can either have positive or negative affects on them. In the end, I think its a matter of "putting myself into another's shoes".

 

[shyguy the RP addict]

i can certainly understand mixing the genders in roleplay, perfectly normal. now if you rarely use your own gender?... i don't agree with it nor do i understand it, but to each their own. live and let live. all that jazz.

 

[Sleipnir]

I have something like a 75:25 male:female ratio as a female myself. I don't know why, maybe just because I'm not particularly feminine so I don't play typical girls as well.

 

[DespairBear]

I play mostly male characters and I'm a girl so I don't think you are insane for it. I do have a few female characters that I play sometimes but I'm more prone to using a male. It's just habit, plus the first character I ever made was a male xD followed by another male... and another and then a lady! xD

 

[Joan the Rebel]

I have a fairly even ratio of males and females. However, my MC is generally a female, although she is by no means feminine. This is simply because of the way I was brought up. My parents taught me that the only real differences between male and female are small(in some cases) biological things that are easy to look past. This, however, gives me problems writing trans/non-binary people or people that do fit any stereotypes because of the fact that my basic thought processes that form my views on gender and sex are wildly different from most people's.


TLR-- I see no real difficulty writing someone of the opposite sex, since we're essentially the same.

 

[AkuTheWolfOkami]

I wrote up a longer post, but I think it goes too much into detail. I'll just offer this. With no intent of offense, though I recognize some may be taken (-shrug-) I think it's very foolhardy to dismiss the biological differences that make up a male and female as minute. In that same breath, that is in no means saying that a woman can't be masculine and a male can't be feminine sans their physical make up as personalities (for the most part) tend to exist out of the gender dichotomy. That being said, biologically speaking a male is more likely to have a high level testosterone and a low level of estrogen. This is not a small biological difference and there are plenty of papers that reflect those findings.


In general, in absence of the fight or flight mechanism, the average man and woman differ on the biological level significantly. That is not to say your characters must follow this, as alluded to earlier, personalities tend to exist outside of the biological dichotomy of gender. It is to say, that dismissing these biological differences as minute is....not doing justice to multiple possibilities that exist..... blah blah i'm not gonna go on about this.

 

[Autumn McJavabean]

Role playing is simply a form of acting. Whether it's normal or not entirely depends on how common it is, not if it's OK. I would say it likely isn't normal, as most do as you just said; play as their gender.


I think I've done the other gender at least 3-5 times on another site.

 

[Strawberry Ink]

I normally try to fill in whatever role I think is lacking in a thread. For example, if I see a lot of brooding characters then I might make mine a happy-go-lucky sort of person to break the monotony. I do the same thing with gender, but I notice that females overpower males in almost every thread! Which means that I typically roleplay as males more often than females. I have been trying recently to play more females these days. >D>

 

[ridermiyo]

I think a big part of being a good roleplayer, is being able to play a convincing character no matter how different from yourself they are.


If you only played charaters the same gender, or the same personality as yourself, you would be incredibly limited in what you could actually do.


Uh that probably makes little sense, sorry.

 

[sakigamis]

Girl who writes mostly boys here!


I play canon characters more than OCs (lame, I know) and with canon characters, I lean more towards male characters. I currently have about 30 characters that I write somewhat regularly, 20 of which are male. Though, there's reasons for that; male characters tend to be written better than female characters in most media and thus more appealing to me, and I tend towards action-based series which generally have male-dominated casts. When I make my own characters I try to even genders out but usually end up with more girls than boys or other genders, mostly because a large part of my character creation process involves drawing them and I prefer drawing female body types.

 

[Negative Zone]

My approach to my own personal gender can basically be summed up as ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ and I find this extends to the characters I play too. I honestly couldn't imagine only playing one gender. I think I can sort of begin to understand why people do it, though, even if the mindset I might be grasping at is so different than mine. I pretty much agree with what castigat said here in the thread. Do I have preferences? Sure, sometimes I will be drawn more towards playing one specific gender.


Maybe it makes me overly fussy but these days I only really do 1x1s with people that play more than one gender. When it comes to group RPs though I think I'm more lax about it since there's going to be more people bringing their own perspective, but with 1x1s it's like 'hey the two of us we gotta write every character in this RP' and even if I was doing something where one gender would be more present I'd rather 1x1 with someone who feels like they're comfortable with portraying others.

 

[Joan the Rebel]

[QUOTE="Negative Zone]My approach to my own personal gender can basically be summed up as ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ and I find this extends to the characters I play too. I honestly couldn't imagine only playing one gender. I think I can sort of begin to understand why people do it, though, even if the mindset I might be grasping at is so different than mine. I pretty much agree with what castigat said here in the thread. Do I have preferences? Sure, sometimes I will be drawn more towards playing one specific gender.
Maybe it makes me overly fussy but these days I only really do 1x1s with people that play more than one gender. When it comes to group RPs though I think I'm more lax about it since there's going to be more people bringing their own perspective, but with 1x1s it's like 'hey the two of us we gotta write every character in this RP' and even if I was doing something where one gender would be more present I'd rather 1x1 with someone who feels like they're comfortable with portraying others.

[/QUOTE]
-claps- Well said.

 

[Phantom Thief of Hearts]

I favor to rp as the opposite sex.

 

[RedneckLurves]

This has been interesting to read. Actually, I have previously held the impression that I don't trust RPers who write as the opposite sex. It just seemed weird to me and I didn't understand it. I recently had this same discussion on another forum, though, and all the info here is great too.


In short, I've changed my mind. It's perfectly normal to RP the opposite sex.


Any writer has to write as males and females, since there's almost no story ever that only has female characters or only has male characters. I guess in my head, I had writing and RPing as different from each other, which they really aren't at the fundamental level. We're just writing collaboratively instead of individually.


As a woman who has never even thought about creating a male character, I'm now looking forward to the interesting experience of writing as a male in future RPs.

 

[Phantom Thief of Hearts]

This has been interesting to read. Actually, I have previously held the impression that I don't trust RPers who write as the opposite sex. It just seemed weird to me and I didn't understand it. I recently had this same discussion on another forum, though, and all the info here is great too.
In short, I've changed my mind. It's perfectly normal to RP the opposite sex.


Any writer has to write as males and females, since there's almost no story ever that only has female characters or only has male characters. I guess in my head, I had writing and RPing as different from each other, which they really aren't at the fundamental level. We're just writing collaboratively instead of individually.


As a woman who has never even thought about creating a male character, I'm now looking forward to the interesting experience of writing as a male in future RPs.

I tend to pick female characters as they are more fun to write for imo

 

[Captifate]

Honestly, the way you write a man, woman, or nonbinary individual depends on the character you want to create. If they're the guarded shuts everyone out type, they'd lean towards what's traditionally considered masculine. But they can be any gender.


If you want someone softer and gentle, who's more intuitive, they could still be of any gender.


The research you want to focus on is the context of gender in your setting. Does it matter? Do men and women have distinct roles? Is it a matriarchal society? Does none of this apply? That's how to go about portraying male or female characters.

 

[pavelius]

i don't really understand. maybe it's because i'm trans? but i don't understand why you'd limit yourself to one gender. there's not really much difference between males and females (or other genders for that matter) in terms of personalities, interests, capabilities, etc.


the only thing that could make it different is how societal gender norms impose expectations on us. i feel like a lot of people expect girls to act girly when in actuality, you have girls that are just as varied as any group of guys you meet. and this works vice-versa.


so yeah, nope, don't really understand.

 

[AkuTheWolfOkami]

The research you want to focus on is the context of gender in your setting. Does it matter? Do men and women have distinct roles? Is it a matriarchal society? Does none of this apply? That's how to go about portraying male or female characters.

I think this is brilliant.

i don't really understand. maybe it's because i'm trans? but i don't understand why you'd limit yourself to one gender. there's not really much difference between males and females (or other genders for that matter) in terms of personalities, interests, capabilities, etc.
the only thing that could make it different is how societal gender norms impose expectations on us. i feel like a lot of people expect girls to act girly when in actuality, you have girls that are just as varied as any group of guys you meet. and this works vice-versa.


so yeah, nope, don't really understand.

I would expect as a trans you'd understand the nuances and differences the most. But, rather not get into that.

 

[Captifate]

...biologically speaking a male is more likely to have a high level testosterone and a low level of estrogen. This is not a small biological difference and there are plenty of papers that reflect those findings.

Both trans and nonbinary folk who decide that hormone therapy is right for them have been recorded with much higher levels of testosterone than the average cis male. In some cases, transmen who want to preserve the viability of their eggs will take estrogen. I would caution you about drawing a line based on hormone levels; yes, they do influence personality and behaviors, but they are not unique to one gender or another.

 

[pavelius]

I would expect as a trans you'd understand the nuances and differences the most. But, rather not get into that.

people expect a lot of things from transfolk.

Difficulties with a certain gender, particularly cisgender roles, tends to be a bit overwrought; I've found that many people who complain of being "unable" to play a certain sex place too many expectations on the characters based on what they expect them to act like due to what genitalia they have, as if the sexual characteristics of a person determine who they are.
Moral of the story: people, fictional or not, are never just their genitalia.

i was going to write something long-winded myself but i think this basically says what i wanted to say.

 

[AkuTheWolfOkami]

@pavelius Excuse me for generalizing, sincerely so. I, coming from a group that is oft generalized in such a way, should know better.

 

[pavelius]

@pavelius Excuse me for generalizing, sincerely so. I, coming from a group that is oft generalized in such a way, should know better.

no worries, things happen!