This point may have been made already, since I've not read the entire thread, so please forgive any redundancy. It may be useful to remember that gender/age/identity certainty has been an issue since before remote correspondence of any kind was invented, let alone once couriers and mail were "invented." There are plenty of RL individuals who cross-dress or otherwise disguise their true gender/age/identity with significant success in face-to-face interactions. In this respect, nothing new is introduced as far as gender/age/identity certainty in e-mail, chat rooms, or virtual worlds except for the degree of separation between the physical presences in RL and/or the speed of communication, possibly believability in the case of someone creating a photorealistic representation of his/her assumed identity/av.
That said, I "know" plenty of people who play cross-gender 'toons on WoW with varying reasons and degrees of role play from telling you he/she is not really that gender the first time you meet them to concealing it until it's discovered during a raid when the player comes onto voice chat and the player makes no effort to disguise his/her voice. Most of the time, no harm done. Just sayin', David On Mon, 2010-10-25 at 13:58 -0400, Sal Armoniac wrote: > If the girl is doing this to damage other girls, perhaps take vengence > on a friend who likes older men, or if she IMPERSONATES a real 37 year > old male, then she is acting unethically. Chat rooms, however, are > different from virtual worlds in subtle ways and VERY different from > real worlds. In chat rooms you often don't know the gender of your > comrades at all unless they reveal it to you. This has been true even > of email. Gender and age matter in relationships in the real world. > In the virtual world, it isn't an issue unless it's extended beyond > the playground. > > Sarah > > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "R-SPEC: The Rochester Speculative Literature Association" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/r-spec?hl=en.
