Q&A with the "Cyber Queen"

Having read Rufa's self-described origins story, I asked the "cyber queen" some questions of my own. The following are excerpts from his answers:

"Am I really only attracted to women, i.e. straight? I've got nothing against being attracted to a guy... I've just never met a guy I've been attracted too. I've never said to myself, 'Boy! I sure could go for some cock today,' while I've spent plenty of time agonizing over the fair sex. But can anyone who has spent as much time as I have pretending to be a girl for the sexual gratification of other males really be called straight?...

Am I attracted to my own character? Easy one first, yes, I'm always attracted to my own female persona, except for a few cases where someone has asked me to play a certain character for them that I wasn't really into. When I'm playing female, I'm much more interested in what's happening to my character, what she's thinking or feeling, than what's happening with the other guy... Do I envision a girl attached to the persona? Not really, but I do self-identify with the female persona. It' s 'I' rather than 'her' when I'm logged on as woman.

Once I'm aroused, I have a tendency toward circular writing and purple prose... What makes me attracted to a guy online? Mostly just the fact that he's got more sex in his head than just 'I really want to fuck Britney Spears!' Things I remember people doing that got them added to the friends list: wanted to eat sushi off a girl, wanted to be anime characters, wanted to do it in a car, wanted me to be his secretary. Of course, everybody has to pass the basic 'coherent sentence' and 'no ur' test. 'For' is three letters, 'your' is four: you may have gained two keystrokes, sir, but you have lost my respect.

What female names have I used? Back in the MUD days, when you could set your gender in game, I'd take a neutral name. I can't remember any of these. Internet stuff tended not to show your gender globally, so I started going by female first names, like Jenny, Amber, Melissa. I tended to go through a few names a month. If I wanted to collect solicitations on IRC, ICQ, or AIM, I'd add something cloying like 'Lil', alternating caps or the ever popular underscores and Xes. My longstanding ICQ name for pervy cybersex was Bonnie (sorry), giving the guy a good set up for a 'Bonnie and Clyde' line (they all thought they were so damn clever). I'd usually attach the spec for some cool piece of machinery to the end...

Have I ever wanted to cross dress? Never during my teenage years. My image of cross dressing for most of my life was set by the Rocky Horror Picture Show...

What were people's reactions when they found out I was male? I never told anybody, really. If they wanted to verify my sex, I'd just excuse myself from the chat, and that should have led to a conclusion on their part. With the guys I regularly cybered with, I think it was an open secret that most of us were surely male. If it didn't bother the other guys, it didn't bother me...

I did get asked for a lot of unusual things, but this was often after I had asked for something even more unusual first. I got asked to be the prepubescent girl a couple of times. More than a couple. Some of the anime-themed MU** there would be a guy who would ask for a character like Sasami. Sometimes a guy in chat would just flat out ask me to be a 10 year old girl. So that always takes things from good dirty to bad dirty.  Sometimes I'd get weird stuff like "be inflatible." Some guys had specific costumes or clothes they liked, of course. One time I got "And we're in Soviet Russia." Well, there's actually a lot of weird stuff over the years...

[Why was I afraid?]  The real problem is the femininity. Where I went to school, a boy who likes girly things is just as much a fag as a boy who likes sex with boys. There's not much distinction between being gay, being feminine, being incompetent and being worthless. They all make you a fag. Cybersex would have made me odd, pretending to be a girl would have made me a fag. That would have been the end of most of my friendships, my relationship, and put me on "polite" terms with most of my extended family.

So that's what I used to feel, that was the fear. Do I still feel it? Not nearly as much. I don't return calls from any of the people I knew in highschool anyway. I definitely wouldn't miss the family. I already broke up with the girlfriend. It would be embarrassing to get confronted about it by my co-workers or parents, but they are both stuck with me. I don't feel guilty about anything except deceiving people about my gender occasionally, and there I use the 'should have known better' defense.

So all that leaves is how I do feel about it now. You know what? I don't feel much at all. I've got no problems with who I am or what this meant about me. Yeah, it's a little embarrassing, but so is regular sex or pornography. It's okay."

Remember to check back again soon for commentary on Rufa's story.

Comments

1.

First.

In before lock.

[Gooney]

2.

Interesting. I've known of several friends over the years that have played the game as the opposite gender. They however were doing it because the games are generally much "easier" for females than they are for males. What I mean by easier is that most males (who are the majority of players) begin from a defaul "more freindly" stance when speaking to a female avatar. This doesnt always prove to be true, but more often than not.

Im sure that the majority of players doing it do it more from a sense of harmless deception, titilation, and plain old fun. I've never managed to play the opposite sex avatar convincingly. Im pretty sure that its simply because I dont know how women think.

I ran a fairly large guild in one MMO, and I remember several instances where my style of "the rule of law" caused conflicts with some real female players. My style was to be as objective as possible, if an issue that required my input was brought to me, I tried to be as fair as possible, using the rules of the guild charter to ultimately decide the right of the situation. I came to learn later that most of the gals in my guild considered me fair but cold. This surprised me a great deal, I thought that I was being sympathetic, and extremely understanding.

It was at this point that I came to understand that despite being a husband and father of 2 daughters that I really still dont understand how the female mind is wired. Im working on it of course, but this does prevent me from portraying myself as the fairer sex in MMOs, convincingly at least.

-Gooney

[D Lacey]

3.

I did some of this too but the other way around about a decade ago (am female, pretended to be male). It started as a whim and changed to a fascination/self exploration thing. Eventually though when an online friend got her feelings really hurt by my lying to her I decided it was a bad idea and quit doing it.

As for understanding "how the female mind is wired," there isn't any such thing so no wonder you can't understand it. Women think the same way men think, just with a few tendencies in different directions and some different socialization emphasis.

[Endie]

4.

"D Lacey" said:
Women think the same way men think, just with a few tendencies in different directions and some different socialization emphasis

Well, that's certainly, erm, a position. If you mean that we both use neurons, then yes, males and females think the same way.

[Jacra]

5.

Being female myself I had a very very short start as female avatar, got sick of "asl" (age sex location) questions from male avatars - Do you ever got this when playing a male one? Never for me. - and switched to male avatars just for the sake of peace.
I've played male and female characters over the years in all those mmorpgs and it was always "I" instead of "him" or "her" - but I never got comfortable with touching or more private gestures/emotes in something like a love affair when playing a male character.
This became extremly clear when I played a guy (fantasy roleplay thing) and got to meet a girl ingame, we got close and played falling in love - and I was very confused everytime we had a date ingame. All the time like "Uh, she lays her hand there ... now erm ... what the heck am I supposed to do ... think like a guy, what would a guy do???". It was amusing and puzzling strange at the same time, of course if I would have been the girl I would have known what the guy was supposed to do, but in the switched perspective there was a huge blockade suddenly. So I can say for sure I couldn't enjoy what Rufa is doing.
Maybe as an add-on to the story: I soon found out that the girl ingame was a guy RL ... Talk about cross gender. ;)
But this killed the thing for me totally instead of fixing anything, isn't that crazy?

[John Bilodeau]

6.

All the time like 'Uh, she lays her hand there ... now erm ... what the heck am I supposed to do ... think like a guy, what would a guy do???'.

Don't worry, even us guys take a few years to figure out what 'guys are supposed to do' ... some of us are still working on it.

[Peter Howard]

7.

Im sure that the majority of players doing it do it more from a sense of harmless deception, titilation, and plain old fun. I've never managed to play the opposite sex avatar convincingly. Im pretty sure that its simply because I dont know how women think.

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