A Thought Experiment

Suppose a disgruntled programmer were to run some code that flipped the sex of every player character in EverQuest. Further suppose that this programmer did such a thorough job that it would take a week before all the characters could be flipped back.

The players would complain, obviously, but would they actually play for that week? Would they learn anything from the experience?

Feel free to partition the player base any way you like, if you feel that different groups would have different reactions. Note, though, that I'm not asking how you would react; I'm asking how you think players in general would react.

Comments

[Edward Castronova]

1.

It's a deeper question than I thought at first. We're talking about a one-for-one perfect switch that is common knowledge in the player base, right? So basically, most female avatars are now run by male players, and the male avatars are split 50-50 male/female (if we take Yee's findings here).

I suspect that male avatars would be less likely to be assumed male players, as compared to the way most female avatars now seem to be assumed female. In other words, the potential masculinity of female avaters is generally ignored now, but after such a switch I think the potential feminimity of male avatars would be examined and checked thoroughly.

Meanwhile, everyone would assume that female avatars were all men; from that, I think, we should expect a wave of misogyny and objectification as the males attempted to demonstrate how very unfemale they are in RL. It would be campy, to say the least. All the female avatars would be running around undressed or doing Dame Edna impersonations; anything so as to seem not actually female.

[DLacey]

2.

"The potential masculinity of female avatars is generally ignored now"? This isn't the game world I see. In fact the potential masculinity of female avatars is widely discussed, often assumed ("I assume all players are male" is one I hear a lot), and even often problematic for some players in a variety of ways.

Whereas the potential femininity of male characters *now* is not nearly as often a subject of discussion.

In the reversal I suspect you'd see most people still playing - as long as they're assured their experience/loot gains would be retained after the fix, not rolled back to the previous week when everyone's character was the chosen sex. There would be a lot of joking, much of it crude (not all). I think a few people would be very annoyed and angry and find they could not play at all because of the change -- some roleplayers and some non roleplayers who still had a level of identification or value of their choices of appearance -- and some who wouldn't really care because they did not put the same level of value into their shown identity, or because they felt their shown identity was centered somewhere other than the changes (in chosen name and style of chat, maybe).

[ren]

3.

I imagine that a good slice of the players would not play till things were put back. A bigger slice would just get on with it making the assumption that female presenting = physically male and trying to run with that.

But I imagine that pretty soon things would start to get less comfortable – I think that the way that people interacted with the female presenting avatars would be different than with male presenting ones how ever much players said thought that they really knew that there was a 1:1 swap. By the same token assuming that they played a male presenting avi exclusively, they would find that peoples interactions with them was odd.

At least some would stat to get how gendered communication is and how visual cues can override conscious ‘knowledge’. I also agree with D above that there would not doubt be a lot of ‘joshing’.

[David Reim]

4.

Players are always saying that they want to affect the game world and its events. Take your Thought Experiment and make it a Feature not a Bug. What if the design of some particularly large game event caused all avatars to switch gender. Talk about a game unifying event! If, in order to return to the previous state, some particularly large counter-event had to happen, I think you would see player involvement that would approach, for the first time, the type of dynamics you see in the Asian player-base within Lineage.

Sorry for not answering the question. ;-)

[greglas]

5.

I've got to assume this hypothetical has happened at least once, what with the vast history of small 100-200 player MUDs and MOOs out there run by a small clique of college friends, right? In the past 25 years, some wiz-admin somewhere must have said "hey, what if we swap all these values?"

(Richard, weren't you the first to add those values, btw?)

As to the effect of it -- I think Ren is right that some people wouldn't play. I don't think that this would be an awfully big number, though.

Does the average player care all that much about ingame/IRL gender? If you're grouped and chatting at length, I suppose you'd be curious, but for brief encounters I don't see why anyone would care.

[Bruce Woodcock]

6.

Assuming you don't have any gender-specific equipment that stopped working (like armor), or if you could code it somehow that all such items also got switched gender (unlikely unless the items were originally coded in such a way in the database as to be identical save for a gender "switch" and their associated graphic), then I'd say yeah, the vast majority would still play.

Actually, this sounds like a really cool thing to have as an in-game event. So long as players were told it was temporary (no more than a month). The biggest issue I'd imagine would be complaints from in-game weddings and similar events that had been planned. You'd want a good community coordinator who could hold everyone's hand during this period.

Would anything be learned? Well, probably not for the admins. I think there is a lot to be learned by the players, but, sadly, it seems unlikely most actually would.

Bruce

[Richard Bartle]

7.

Ted>It's a deeper question than I thought at first.

I asked it because if people are prohibited from basing their argument on how they would feel themselves, it means they have to have a theory they can apply. We're short of theories in virtual worlds, and a thought experiment like this can help bring new possibilities into the open.

>We're talking about a one-for-one perfect switch that is common knowledge in the player base, right?

Yes, that's right. Players can play exactly as before, except that their character's gender is flipped along with everyone else's.

>In other words, the potential masculinity of female avaters is generally ignored now, but after such a switch I think the potential feminimity of male avatars would be examined and checked thoroughly.

Why would that be?

>from that, I think, we should expect a wave of misogyny and objectification as the males attempted to demonstrate how very unfemale they are in RL.

How long a wave? When players realised that everyone else was in the same situation, would that make a difference? Or would some players still go to great lengths to "prove" they weren't female, even though everyone was aware of the circumstances?

>anything so as to seem not actually female.

But if everyone knows what has happened, why would they feel the need to do this?

Richard

[Richard Bartle]

8.

DLacey>In the reversal I suspect you'd see most people still playing - as long as they're assured their experience/loot gains would be retained after the fix, not rolled back to the previous week when everyone's character was the chosen sex.

This is the assumption that I was making. However, the idea of a "lost week" is itself interesting. We did something like that on MUD2 a couple of years ago, where for a period of about 2 hours (advertised in advance) players could do ANYTHING THEY WANTED, in the knowledge that it would all be undone when the saved database was reinstituted at the end. It was a riot, but a LOT of fun! Mind you, MUD2 is pvp, so a period of no consequences means that people do have some rules they can break. I don't know that a no consequences day in, say, EQ would have people exploiting their release from the grind in many fun ways.

>some roleplayers and some non roleplayers who still had a level of identification or value of their choices of appearance

I can see why non role-players might have identification issues, but why would a role-player? Can't the player role-play a character who has had their gender forcibly changed for a week? Isn't that just the kind of challenge that role-players like to get their teeth into? Or are there different types of role-player, some of whom use it as a mask to defend their identity and others of whom use it as a means to explore their identity?

Richard

[Richard Bartle]

9.

ren>I imagine that a good slice of the players would not play till things were put back.

Why wouldn't they? All for the same reason, or for a variety of different reasons?

Richard

[Richard Bartle]

10.

greglas>I've got to assume this hypothetical has happened at least once

It probably has, although I can't recall an instance of it myself.

>(Richard, weren't you the first to add those values, btw?)

Yes, I was, but only because the English language made me!

That said, MUD1 had a spell that allowed players to change the gender of its target, plus a small number of ways to do it through action (eg. by picking up a bangle, which you could convert into points). Players would occasionally forget which sex their character was as a result
("oh, am I female at the moment?").

>Does the average player care all that much about ingame/IRL gender?

I'd like to hope not, but there are people out there who thing cross-dressing is a sin so I do expect there would be some.

Richard

[Richard Bartle]

11.

Bruce Woodcock>Actually, this sounds like a really cool thing to have as an in-game event.

It depends on the game. I expect it would go down better in ATITD or CoH than it would in TSO or SW:G.

>The biggest issue I'd imagine would be complaints from in-game weddings and similar events that had been planned.

There are other practical issues, for example the future gender of characters created during the week of change, but yes, these could all be sorted out in advance of an event.

It would make the "character for sale" descriptions on eBay a little longer, if nothing else.

Richard

[Ola Fosheim Grøstad]

12.

Just a quick guess:

Male-presenting males who dislike genderbending would spend a lot of energy flaming devs on forums, guildchat. When they play they would make sure that everybody knows how bad they feel about it in order to protect their id and make sure that nobody even think that they enjoy it (while they actually might enjoy it).

Female-presenting males and male-presenting females would react with a "duh... Oh, well, so-what. I'll get that nice body back in a week".

Female-presenting females who dislike genderbending are more difficult to grasp. Not sure why. I suspect that they would be a bit more like "LOL, this is so silly!", i.e. a bit less aggressive about it than their male counterparts. Comparable to women wearing trousers and men's cloths while it is a stigma associated with men wearing women's clothing.

For roleplayers it would depend on how you wrap it up in fiction and whether they are heavily into cybersex.

Close enough?

[Annor]

13.

Jeremy Bailenson's Virtual Human Interaction Lab (http://www.stanford.edu/group/vhil/projects.html) has done some work with gender shifting. To me, it depended on the realism of the avatar; the avatars I experienced were so unisex that I didn't "get" the shift. I expect that the experiments with shifting race are more effective.

[ren]

14.

> ren>I imagine that a good slice of the players would not play till things were put back.

Richard >Why wouldn't they? All for the same reason, or for a variety of different reasons?

I’d think there were a bunch of reasons, ones I can think of off the top of my head:
- It’s not the same game that they thought they had been lead to expect / this is an error to be fixed
- It’s ‘gay’ for a physical male to play a female-presenting avatar, which I would interpret as a lack of confidence in ones sexuality
- It’s not within the Role Play scenario that was being played out, I’d hope RPers would just fold it in but how are hard line about their perception of the universe might think that this is simply outside accepted bounds
- An excuse just to have a break for a while

[James Robertson]

15.

I posted some thoughts here:

http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/blog/blogView?showComments=true&entry=3285674024

[CherryBomb]

16.

>It depends on the game. I expect it would go down better in ATITD or CoH than it would in TSO or SW:G.

I'd have to disagree with you about The Sims Online. If it were for only a week, I think people would be laughing themselves silly finding what their friends looked like.

The gender-bending issue is a lot different in TSO than in a game like EverQuest. You have roughly equal numbers of male and female players to start with. Second, you have several avatars you can switch between. It's pretty common for people to create a "temporary" Sim of the opposite sex, play around with him a while, and then make a new Sim. However, it's almost unheard of for someone to play as the opposite sex with their main character or for a long time. That's what would make a gender switch in TSO so funny.

[Mike Rozak]

17.

I read that at the end of WoW's beta, the GMs were wandering around turning PCs into chickens. The players seemed to enjoy it. But then again, they new their beta characters were about to be deleted anyway.

I don't know if the chicken transformation showed any gender bias... Players may not have enjoyed the event as much if they had been turned into the opposite gender... hens into roosters, roosters into hens. :-)

[Bruce Woodcock]

18.

As for why some people wouldn't play, sure there are some people who would find it too jarring, for whatever personal reason. Homophobic-type fears would be a common one, but there are several others. However, I think the vast majority of the gamers would not quit, either because they would not be bothered that much, or that while they might be bothered some, the thought of being "weeks behind" in the levelling treadmill of their compatriots who are willing to play would be too great. And I think this motivation would extend beyond simply the achiever class.

Bruce

[Bruce Woodcock]

19.

Actually it might be most jarring to transgendered players: they spend most of their early lives as a man wanting to be a woman, and so maybe they make the transition in RL, and they also play a woman online, but now they find they are forced to be a man again. One the other hand, many of the TG folks I know seem to be quite fine with roleplaying either sex or even in-between, so maybe the mental flexibility outweighs any potential emotional trauma.

Bruce

[Richard Bartle]

20.

Ola Fosheim Grøstad>Male-presenting males who dislike genderbending

What you're saying here is that people who don't like it won't like it. Do we have any theories as to why they don't like it in the first place? What is it about "male-presenting males who dislike gender-bending" that causes them to dislike it? If they dislike it, why do they spend any time with people who do like it (eg. many of the players behind female avatars)? Is it that they don't like the idea of it, or the experience of it, or they're afraid they will like it? Or what?

Richard

[Richard Bartle]

21.

CherryBomb>it's almost unheard of for someone to play as the opposite sex with their main character or for a long time. That's what would make a gender switch in TSO so funny.

Why "funny" and not "disturbing"? It seems like you're saying that because so few people do play cross-gender with their main character in TSO, that would make such a gender flip more acceptable than in EQ, where cross-gender play is more common. I'm not saying this isn't right, I'm just wondering if you have any suggestions as to why it's like that?

Richard

[Ola Fosheim Grøstad]

22.

Richard>What you're saying here is that people who don't like it won't like it.

I was more saying that they would make sure that nobody would think that they liked it in order to preserve their male-identity and honour. They might actually enjoy it, but they wouldn't want anyone to think that they do.

As for people who dislike genderbending:

* Some don't fully comprehend that other people genderbend. What you don't see you don't have to believe, and you are better off believing what you see. There is heavy bias towards visual senses. We believe sight rather than sound etc. This applies on many levels in my experience. (I think I've written something about it somewhere, hmmm...)

* Even if you "believe" that other people genderbend, you don't necessarily believe that people that surround you do. My experience is that many players express surprise when it is disclosed. We aren't very good at determining gender based on behaviour, but we think we are!

Also: If we actually believed that men and women were equal then many of our conceptualisations about the male-female relationship would be shattered. It is politically correct to say that we are equal, but I doubt most people actually want to believe it, not even if it is true. We want to preserve the border of our male identity which is preserved by being different from female qualities. I think it is easier for women: they can give birth. Defining masculinity as being incapable of giving birth doesn't really work, it would make us lesser females... I am sure many will be upset by this exposition :P.

* Some players are heavily influenced by external-world social norms. So, they will find genderbending suspect. However, they can be convinced to try, IF it is fictionally wrapped up as "theatre". But they have to spend some time getting used to the idea and convince themselves that "theatre" doesn't pose a threat to their identity and their position in their external-world society.

+++ lots of other reasons

[Ola Fosheim Grøstad]

23.

It is considered bad form to ask about real gender. I suppose such questions would signal that you want to have cybersex with them.

That makes the whole issue very convoluted.
Players who believe that hidden genderbending is immoral will assume that people they interact with, and like, are presenting their real gender. They couldn't possibly like people who do genderbend, could they? Players who believe that most MMO players are all male might want to believe that the female-presenting characters they really like are presenting their real gender, and the others are irrelevant. Genderbending players (esp hardcore roleplayers) may however be more inclined towards assuming that others are genderbending too.

We expect others to be similar to ourself, and we try to stay within the norms which we perceive that others have established. Since we seldom get good gender information the "norms" will be rather incoherent and subjective.

So getting back to your question... Players will dislike genderbending if they think that non-genderbending is the norm. Players will be more accepting if they can wrap up genderbending in a way which resolves the conflicts it creates with norms. Players default to their external world norms if there are no clear in-game norms.

I've been toying with the idea of creating a non-erotic roleplaying MUD in which all NPCs are male and all PCs are female. This would establish an ingame norm. It would establish genderbending as utilitarian rather than an identity issue. I think it could work, even for players who dislike genderbending. Players who dislike genderbending are afraid of telling other players that they PREFER being a different gender. Thus they are more accepting if it is "educational" (learn how people treat the other gender) or intellectual (create a fictional story) or otherwise a non-emotional non-erotic choice.

[CherryBomb]

24.

What I was driving at in describing Sims Online is that you don't have the sexual ambiguity that you have in games where half of the female avatars are actually male players. If you meet a female character in TSO, you can be pretty sure she's actually female. If she's more than 30 days old, you can be practically certain of it. If the developers switched everybody's sex in game, it would be simple to cope with: everybody that looks male is actually female, and vice versa. It would just be a big joke, like the April Fools Day when the dev's put monkey heads on everybody. In TSO, we need all the entertainment we can get.

[AFFA]

25.

This is an interesting question. It's easy to say how I'd react. Or not react. I play both genders in games, about equally, though I seem to play female characters longer. A universal gender switch wouldn't bother me as long as I knew it was temporary. If it wasn't temporary, it might still not bother me, but I'd want to be able to choose my appearance again instead of whatever random face/hair/etc combination I was given.

This may just be applying my own reaction to other players, but I don't think most players would mind unless there were in-game issues (i.e. you couldn't use some of your armor because it was for the wrong gender). There would be jokes about the in-game situation and jokes about developers who were so incompetent, they couldn't even tell men and women apart, etc. But most players don't seem to care that much about the real-life gender of other players.

I think most players would treat is as a silly, one-week event. The game might even be more fun for a week as a result. It would certainly be educational, especially if the characters were switched back one at a time instead of all at once (though the player's names might give clues if they were unchanged).

There may be some real-life examples of this, though all the ones I can think of are voluntary. In elementary and junior high, we had a cross-dressing day. A few people did make fun of guys who dressed like a girl, but they were a minority. I can't recall any girls being made fun of for dressing as a guy, but I wasn't friends with many girls back then...

The minority of players who would care are:
1) Some (not all) players who cyber.
2) Men who, as Ola said, place alot of emphasis on their masculinity.

I can't think of a non-self-referential way to classify these people. I've met a few players who are very quick to establish their real-life gender (and wealth and fame and the number of martial arts they had mastered and the elite branch of the military they served in, etc). I think the ones playing male avatars were mostly men, just not very honest men. I think the ones playing female avatars were also mostly men, just not very honest men.

When playing a female avatar, I don't try to act feminine. I do roleplay, but the roles I choose are rarely dependent on gender. Oddly, I think other players sometimes mistake me for being a Real Girl because I don't try to act like one.

[Peter Edelmann]

26.

This thought experiment has done a good job of highlighting just how superficially gender tends to be integrated into the physics of virtual worlds [I think Richard, among others, has talked about the reasons for this - qv DVW p.378]. The underlying assumption in most of the posts is that the only difference between female and male avatars is in terms of graphical [or textual] representation.
The mass gender switch Richard proposes would undoubtedly have different implications if we are talking about a world such as Ragnarok, in which female and male avatars have different abilities and/or skill trees [http://iro.ragnarokonline.com/game/basicboygirl.asp].
The integration of gender into the system level might make player reactions less of a social issue and more of a gameplay concern. I imagine similar "gameplay" issues would arise in a world like Sociolotron, which has been discussed here before.

[Richard Bartle]

27.

CherryBomb>If you meet a female character in TSO, you can be pretty sure she's actually female. If she's more than 30 days old, you can be practically certain of it.

That's a lot different from other virtual worlds, and even from chatrooms. Is there data for this anywhere?

Richard

[Richard Bartle]

28.

AFFA>This is an interesting question. It's easy to say how I'd react. Or not react.

Yes - which is why I explicitly ruled this out, of course!

>There would be jokes about the in-game situation and jokes about developers who were so incompetent, they couldn't even tell men and women apart, etc.

I agree there would be such jokes, but why? Would there be different jokes for different reasons? Some people, for example, might joke because they found it hilarious that other people were uncomfortable; others might joke because that way they were reinforcing that this was all fun and they weren't really worried by it at all, no, really they weren't. What other reasons might people have for joking, and why might they make these jokes?

>But most players don't seem to care that much about the real-life gender of other players.

Is this because of the culture, or because they don't really have much of an option anyway?

Richard

[AFFA]

29.

I think it's primarily because real-life gender does not affect the gameplay. In-game gender usually doesn't affect the gameplay either.

The culture probably makes a difference, especially the "gender certainty factor" (the perception of how likely it is that someone is playing their real gender). If there are major differences between games (i.e. female avatars are treated much differently in TSO, but not that much differently in CoH), that could be a "cultural" difference, though I'm not sure that's the right word for game communities. I can't think of a way to test the "gamer" culture as a whole.

Most players seem to believe all avatars are created equal. A few players treat me differently when I play a female avatar (give lots of simple advice, don't listen to my advice, less likely to let me lead the group, incompetent flirting, etc), but the vast majority of players do not act any differently. I do not know if they're assuming I'm male or if they treat everyone the same. I've often teamed with the same people with avatars of both genders (or all three in AO) and did not notice any difference.

This didn't used to be the case. When I first started playing MUDs, gender either made more of a difference, or I've gotten used to the differences and filter them.

[CherryBomb]

30.

No hard data, Richard, but I know it is true. Give me a week to figure out how to do an unbiased survey, and I will e-mail you back. I'm fairly good at that sort of thing.

[Starling]

31.

I am female and play a female character in EQII. Real gender is discussed in game - at some point you are asked about it in chat, if you get talking enough. Guys I have made friends with were doubtful at first. I am happy to help people a lot, not asking for anything in return and I have been told (by guys) that they are wary of female characters because 'men roll female chars in order to get money and armour off you'. One guy told me that 'I guess that the real female players help people too much and don't ask for anything'. He was referring to the fact that I'd rather hang out, swap banter and help him complete silly quests rather than grind my way through the levels.

I joined a guild which comprises 7 women and 5 men. I can tell they are in fact women (and men) because we use voice on Ventrilo. We all have alt toons, though interestingly enough, none of us has rolled a toon of the opposite sex. If we experienced a toon sex-swap for a week I know that everyone in my guild would have a whale of a time, it would be great fun. I don't see that anyone would have a problem with it but that's probably because we know each other. It would be very interesting to compare notes during and after, see if we notice any differences in the way we are treated out in the field. However, if every player knows about the sex-change then behaviour is not going to be 'normal' anyway. If we had the ability to change sex at our own discretion we might learn more. You can always roll another toon to do that though!

Btw, I have never noticed any strange behaviour from other toons to my female toon. I usually form the group and am group leader, often issue instructions and several times really had to put my foot down. No-one has ever gotten stroppy about it, I get a good deal of respect - and a good deal of gracious and witty flirting too! Better than real life. ;)

[Richard Bartle]

32.

Starling>We all have alt toons, though interestingly enough, none of us has rolled a toon of the opposite sex.

So what would happen if, for a week, all your characters had their gender flipped?

Richard

[Hans Terje Bakke]

33.

> would they actually play for that week?

Yes, they would.

I have seen this happen in a MUD once (don't remember which one). You saw another sex on your own "stat screen", and all references to the character changed he/she, him/her, etc. But that was all. It was so obviously a bug, it affected everybody in the same way, and it had no impact on anything except appearance. People weren't even all that eager to get the reboot that would fix it. There were more sighs when the reboot was announced than when the bug was announced. But compared to Richard's thought experiment, this world had a small population, and everybody knew which sex you were supposed to have. At least everyone you cared if knew - which could still be valid in EQ. The bug was also soon announced and fixed in a few seconds; and there was a known period for which the sex change would stay around.

One reason they would play for that week is because the thought experiment didn't say they would know that it would last a week. The developers would try to fix the bug for a week, and the players would continue to play, hoping it would be fixed some time soon.

A lot of players would continue to play no matter what, and therefore a lot of other players would, also. In order to help their friends, to not miss out on the loot, not miss out on the leveling race with those that didn't care, etc. This is only valid, of course, for those that would intend to keep playing after the bug were fixed. (Others might see this bug as the final drop.)

This specific experiment is for EQ. But if we extend the experiment to other games as well, perhaps the resulting discussion will tell us more about what impact this could have on EQ players. Some of the following has already been touched upon:

1) How would this be different in a world with less gender bending (such as TSO)?

2) How would this be different in a role playing world? (I.e. people don't care which sex their character is, they just play it.) I think someone suggested that it would have less impact. I think quite the opposite. The player could and would perhaps play any character and role placed before him (or her), but most often the player has created and developed an alter ego and would not like to have that character - that Character - messed up temporarily by a bug. The role player might decide to take a break. On the other hand, if this was a "world event" kind of thing, he might want to role play through the event.

3) How would this affect new players that enter after the sex change and learn that their character's sex is going to change soon? They would leave and think that they will come back later when the bug is fixed, but they would never be back. The other direction is to continue, thinking that this is a temporary character. After a week with the temporary character, they will leave. If they stick until the bug is fixed, they will make another character.

4) How would this be different in a world where gender had tangible meaning? A terrible mess!

5) Will players of lizards and frogs care less than those who play humanoid characters? (And would anyone else see the difference?)

Also, what does the sex flip mean? Is it only their naked bodies? Or did all their clothing change genders also? Will all the women now have large body builder chests and half the men be cute little darlings? (And will they have kept their female origins' silicon implants?) In a world where gender matters, would it only change gender on the characters and not on requirements and opportunities? Would the political system collapse? Would all knights now be female and the men sit at home breastfeeding their babies? That is, would a sex change also carry with it the "powers" (or whatever) that follow the sex?

As far as my experience with EQ goes, such a sex flip wouldn't matter much. One week is too short. And with the high fantasy setting (i.e. "anything goes") combined with genders meaning practically nothing, it would not have a great impact on the player base and even less on the state of the game world. Some might want to postpone their wedding, though.

> Would they learn anything from the experience?

I would rather say it would leave a few scars. Not on those whose character is simply an instrument. But it would scar those players that play a Character of another sex and would not like their gender bending exposed. They would be uncomfortable if they are challenged, and both they and their in-game relations would be at a crossroads if they are exposed. (But why should they be?) Some might also feel "sexually abused" by the system in the same way that some people in the real world feel trapped within a body of the other sex. But I guess any resulting anger from this would be directed towards the developer or whoever else one blames "acts of god", and not towards other players.

I don't think there would be a lot of statements such as "I'm really a woman, you know.. there's this bug..". Not unless they talk to newbies. Most character names would also counter the gender confusion.

My general comment is that the sex flip might have a different effect than what we are searching for. The female body builder named Alexander would still be considered male, and the players would look upon the bug with a mix of irritation, amusement and disbelief that this could take a whole week to fix. During the week and some time after, people would have a hard time becoming immersed - if ever they were.