Cristiano

This is a pretty interesting article on how real life gender roles affect interactions in SL.

The Power of Real-World Gender Roles in Second Life - Pixels and Policy

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Purple Hyena

The end there reminds me of a conversation I just had with a friend. "I made my avatar skinny because no one talked to me when she was overweight." she told me.

WTF? That's weird.

Then again, I actually find that avatars that are more 'normal' looking are more attractive. Maybe I'm the weird one.

Phant Nabob

Well your a furry(At least I think you are?) so of COURSE your the wierd one.

On a more serious note, I kinda believe this is simply a function of the kind of places and people you interact with. Lots of people here know Rosie, and regardless of her very much non-western-ideal AV its hard not to adore her and its certainly not hard to find her attractive. I have another friend whose AV has ranged from a extremely small busted Asian-appearing woman to her current excellent AV which is a black woman, none of which have been anywhere near the buxom, slender caricature we are all familiar with yet she seems to have no problems socializing.

Being myself a Tiger who is certainly nowhere near being a beef-cake type, and who doesn't really frequent places where many other anthro-type AVs tend to be I have found no issues myself. The personality is what makes the person interesting honestly, though a uncommon/unique AV can certainly catch my interest.

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Purple Hyena

CRAP I KNEW IT >_<

I always wished there were a few more Rosies around. Women willing to not worry so much about what's 'accepted' or whatever. I personally think that putting yourself outside the SL 'attractive' box, while it may supposedly draw less people , it will certainly draw more intelligent people. And really, I'd take a couple intelligent people over a million dumb ones.

I have the same thing as you, too, where I'm not often around furry places... So more often than not, if someone wants to talk to me, it's with good reason, and not "ur avs hot". (Even though she is!)

Merv Q

As the comments say on the link, seems like a very flawed survey. Avatars are all well and good but for me i go for someones profile then their conversation.They can be a cardboard box for all i care as long as they hold my attention with what they say. It is right however that you see more large breasted Avatars than small breasted ones, and as for the massive shoulder/tiny waist guys, some ladies may like that look as there seems to be an awful lot of em around, or are those Avatars destined to wander SL never to get a gal unless they pay? . Anyway, SL is like the Army i guess "Be all you wanna be" or words to that effect.

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"Of all the things i've lost, i miss my mind the most"

Morrigu

And this reminds me of something that happened couple of years back. I was working at a club as a dancer, so we got all kinds of customers into the club, and I was never really suprised about what stepped inside the door.
Anywho, that day a very short, chubby, cute girl came in along with her short, fat bald husband. I started talking to her and the hubby, and turns out they were doing it for an experiment, and from what I heard, I was one of very few who actually talked to them, and not just cussed cause they were "ugly" and didnt fit the norm of SL. Thats kinda disturbing how people just look to the surface.

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Ann Otoole

People disdain fat people in real life too. Fat people have a hard time getting a job because the perfect aryan ken doll ceo in dockers and polo shirt says fat people are lazy and all that crap about diabetes is bullshit and will make the health insurance go up anyway so don't hire them.

Ned Easterwood

Is this perhaps a reflection of where folks hang out? My chats tend to be based on what I see in someone's profile, not their appearance.

Or are there other variables that are not controlled for? Age of the resident - not SL age, but RL?

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Ned

Morrigu

Oh they do, glad I come from a country were health insurance isnt a problem, so the most we get here is that "fat people are lazy and disgusting".
I just think its very rude to ignore someone that is talking to you just because they are overweight, or dont look so good or whatever bs.

And geez, this is SL, let people look the way they want.

I dunno, it just bugs the hell out of me. Maybe cause I had some problem with my weight before, or because I know some people irl who weigh too much to live to be over 60, but they are still damned nice people...or its because Ive got piercings and tattoos and tired of people judging me.

Persephone Milk

I didn't really find the article very illuminating with regard to real life gender roles and how they impact virtual interactions. It seemed to be more about gender stereotypes, and how they might be somewhat different depending on real life gender. That much is certainly true.

If I can be permitted a moment of shallowness, I freely admit that when I meet a female avatar that is disproportionally shaped, scantily clad, and behaving in a sexually aggressive manner, I immediately think real life male, under the age of twenty-five. Females do not usually behave in this manner in Second Life - though I have been surprised more than once.

And finally, I think that for an article about gender stereotypes to be so focused on breasts is at least somewhat ironic. Isn't there more to being female that just the size of one's breasts?

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Spaceman Opus

/me presses the Agree button many times

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Roxanne Blue

Well, I certainly don't fall in the "normal" profile in RL... and why would I in SL?

You bet I tried to make my av into an idealized version of my own self image. I'm regularly complemented on my av's attractiveness. So?

I'm also the same (former) guy whose best friends were always women - many "fat" by our culture's standards - who were ostracized and demeaned regularly by women as well as men. I've always had a large measure of sympathy for anyone who does not get a "fair shake" - whether it's due to size, attractiveness, race, religion, or the myriad foolish ways we find to pretend superiority over each other.

So, I tend to talk to the women (men also perhaps) who prefer more curvaceous avs, and ones they find more "realistic". The very LAST thing I intended when I came to SL was that my av would be realistic... Because one of these smart women has become a pretty good friend, I have learned to respect her reasoning for how she represents herself in SL... as she has mine. It's one reason that we've become friends.

But, more importantly, this study seems to fall far short of being large enough to be representative... 1,381,000 residents have supposedly logged in over the last 60 days... (no telling how many are alts of course) If you use a confidence interval of 10 and a 95% confidence level, the sample size should be 96. If you drop the interval to 5, the samples need to be over 380 to be representative... and that's presuming those residents even find the questions relevant.

It's more anecdotal bullshit masquerading as research...

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Persephone Milk

Thank you for agreeing, but since I said I was being shallow you don't have to agree that many times!

Kyllie Wylie

My SL partner and I were just talking about this the other night.

When we are both in game we hang out together all the time so obviously are in the same sims, we dont hang out in Adult areas but do like to go dancing in mature clubs.

my Av is 1.5m tall and thin with breasts set about slider 20, I dont usualy wear a dress, tend to wear a Tee or tank top and shorts or jeans and sneakers. my profile is entirely in Japanese so that may put some people off too.

her Av is 1.8m tall, has long red hair has her breasts set about slider 50, and perfers nice dress's, but she dosnt dress overly sexy. her profile only has a little Japanese in it and is mostly english.

She is forever telling me so and so just propositioned her, or was coming on to her ...its even happened in open chat while im dancing right next to her, and we are officialy partners if they had cared to actualy look at our profiles!

But me... I get the occasional "hey cute av" and thats about it. I cant remember the last time someone tried to come on to me in game....

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Ned Easterwood

/me reminds himself to come on to Kyllie the next time he sees her log on.

Arilynn

Maybe I am weird, but I changed my av exactly because I was tired of being approached. In my experience, after being approached, the "talked to" part went something like: "hi. u hawt" or "How old are you? I'm [age]. I live [name of asylum]. And my real name is [try to forget, try to forget] Where do you live?". It wasn't exactly a magnet for people who wanted a big discussion or even friendship, IMO.

Ann Launay

I got hit on way more often before I adopted the way of the Neko...and since that happened 2 or 3 months in, my av was pretty homely at the time too.

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Arilynn

In my experience, any variation away from human seems to discourage random horny IMs, with the exception of bovine-like breasts.

Lalo Telling

Speaking from the furry side of that line, and according to nearly every female furry I've spoken to in my (almost) 2 years in SL: mere non-human appearance only discourages being hit on by human avs.

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Arilynn

Thanks. I don't doubt that. There rarely are furries at the places I spend the most time.

Kyllie Wylie

Not weird at all, I did exactly the same thing. I used to be 6'6" with 70 breasts and wander about in Latex outfits and Thigh boots. but I got tired of the random im's for cyber. I decided to make my av look more like RL me as an experiment and really liked the look in SL so kept it... I think the biggest thing I did to put a halt on the random IM's was to change my profile to Japanese, when they think you cant speak english they kind of give you a pass.

I do get the occasional かわいいです！ ! サイバーしたいですか？ ? but it's so rare its easy to fend off.

Ingrid N

I used to have an av that was more generically pretty than Ingrid is. Not out of intent, but she was basically the opposite of my current SL self: tall, blonde (my forum avatar lies), chesty, dressed sexily. I got hit on a lot when I went out as her and it got tiring. The antlers and deer ears pretty much ensure I don't get hit on and I'm okay with that.

Hey, can we dredge up the tired old "she has got big tits and acts like a jerk oh she's probably a guy irl" meme again? Yay we can. If anything posting at SLU has taught me it's that women and men can both be twatbags. (although the shape bit is true. Most guys are terrible at making female shapes, but not just in the chest department.)

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io Kukulcan

I'm makin' a list, and I'm going to hit on all of you, regardless of avatar.

Darkley

I've known plenty of RL women who do go XXL on the boob slider in sl too, the indicators that its really a guy operating the avie are many, and subtle

a few can be .... big hair, i mean really big floofy hair, huge eyes, a fear of the fat/saddlebag slider, tiny hands

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Beebo Brink

I've read far more in-depth and illuminating discussions on this issue here on SLU than I would ever hope to see in the media. But that's pretty much to be expected.

A few days ago I was hit on in public (while on a fashion hunt at Atui) for the very first time since I joined SL. But it was a literate and articulate pass made by a woman, so I'm still missing out on the "hai! lol, u wanna fuck?" experience so near and dear to everyone's SL. I guess I just don't make the grade. Darn.

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