To quote Dr. Gregory House:  "everyone lies." ;)

On Mon, Oct 25, 2010 at 2:18 PM, David Henn <[email protected]> wrote:

> 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
>
>
>
>
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