Guys who play girl characters

[GnatGoSplat]

I find it very odd that guys playing female characters can cop so much flak for it, I'm an older woman who prefers playing male characters in my games and my hubby and his brother play female characters in the same said games....Some of my teenage daughters male friends think its odd I play a guy and there are radical feminists I have come across who bizarrely enough are insulted that I play men....But from what I understand here, I would never have imagined the flak some guys are copping for playing females, it's been a real eye opener, how old are these nay sayers generally? Teens?...What an odd thing for them to create an issue out of.

 

I'm probably older than the average gamer as well (30s) which is probably why I'm at the point where I couldn't care less what other people think.

Yes, I do think most naysayers are young, probably teens, maybe early 20s. The ages where people are more impressionable and more likely to feel a need to fit in.

Sadly, it's not really that surprising. We've got:

1. A society that is still sexist and values masculine qualities of physical strength, power, and athleticism in males (i.e. high school athletes get more dates than math/science nerds), and therefore still finds females to be the weaker sex.

2. Young people who don't have enough life experience to embrace differences in others, and instead tease or bully those that are different.

 

You end up with guys that get a lot of flak for playing "inferior" female characters from others, guys who won't play females because they personally find females to be weaker and inferior, and guys who wouldn't play a female character because they are insecure and afraid it's not masculine, and not being masculine is just oh, so terrible because society says so.

 

On the other hand, I was actually pleasantly surprised that we don't have many naysayers in this thread. It looks like, at least in this thread, that a majority of male Skyrim players have no issues with playing female characters. I once found an old GTA thread where it seemed the opposite was true, a lot of those guys really objected to the idea of a female protagonist. Too bad, because I also really enjoy the GTA games and I would totally love a badass female protagonist.

[eodx9000]

I feel like a girl in real life even though I'm a guy so to me it's as natural to play a girl as for a regular guy to play a guy. Or a regular girl to play a girl. But for some reason, I am a guy that wishes he was a girl even though I'm attracted to girls too. But I don't want to be this way. If I could choose I would choose being a guy that is glad to be a guy over being a guy that wishes he was a girl like I am. That's why I'll never try to dress like a girl or get a sex change irl. Because I won't be a girl I'd be a transvestite. There's a difference imho. So I'm stuck as a guy so, dang it I might as well enjoy it. Right?

 

Interesting, I'm almost the same way - I don't want to just "look" female, I want to "feel" and "be" female while attracted to females (funny thing, even my doctors said I should've been born female before I was born). I say 'almost' because I think it's just current technology that limits the 'sex change' operation that keeps me from becoming an actual female and that the Singularity holds the key to being able to truly change my current biology to that of a female, both in DNA and looks alike. (Of course that's also because I'm a Singularitarian-Transhumanist.)

 

As for the topic - well in a manner of speaking I already mentioned why in this post, but there's more to it than that.

 

1. I've not once played a game with an optional gender choice and managed to stick with a male character. The gameplay just seems so 'bleh' and like I likely alluded to, I just don't feel I'm 'myself' by playing a male character when there's an optional choice.

2. I do like nude mods.

3. Perhaps because I'm always more satisfied with heroines than heroes. For instance, Sigourney Weaver (Ripley in the Aliens quadrilogy) was my role model growing up.

4. Maybe for the same reasons you like playing the non-human races despite that you yourself are human?

 

For the record, I'm 28yrs old and if I caught flak for it in the real world, rest assured the chances of an individual leaving my sight unwounded would be slim-to-none as I'm 6'0, 245lbs (I actually just recently lost 15lbs of fat as a matter of fact, as I've started back to working out), and can lift up to anything almost twice my weight with a kick power of 250psi.

Edited May 9, 2012 by eodx9000

[Trask]

Without reading any other postings and as such unaware if any of this have been raised before: 1. There's awesome outfit-mods for female characters. 2. I like strong and capable women (I wish I had a girlfriend that could kick my ass, but wouldn't of course, and help me with math) 3. And of course if I could be anyone I wanted anywhere I wanted and do anything I want without real consequences, I'd be a smoking hot-magic-dark elf-asssassin-chica.

 

I would've thought all this goes without saying :o

[tnguye3]

I'm kind of an aesthetic guy, so I play whichever gender looks better in a game. It also depends how I roleplay, for instance if I'm making a Warrior, I'm gonna play a male. Then I'll do a second playthrough as a female Archer.

For instance, I played as a male Khajiit first, cause honestly they look full of win - the moment I saw the screenshots I said to myself "aight, I'm gonna play as a muscular white tiger Khajiit".

I skimmed through the female races and thought they didn't look too good.

 

After the mods came and I checked a few (that's a lie, a LOT) of beautifying mods, I hopped on and decided to do a 2nd playthrough as a female Blader and plop now I'm playing as a chick. ;p

[ChemicalCola]

Usually I play as male when I want a full armor warrior, but for anything that shows skin I play female. The reason being females have more mod support and generally more effort into models.

 

Also I like butts, and generally male video game characters don't have adequate spherical posteriors.

[Araucano]

This shouldn't be an issue. Play a girl if you're a guy or vice versa, so what? Why is this an issue? In my case, when i play a female character i have a deep subconscious feeling that tells me to be more careful. When my female character gets hurt i really feel it, but this is just me.

[dling]

This shouldn't be an issue. Play a girl if you're a guy or vice versa, so what? Why is this an issue? In my case, when i play a female character i have a deep subconscious feeling that tells me to be more careful. When my female character gets hurt i really feel it, but this is just me.

This happens for me too.

But mostly I just flip a coin and roll a D10(10 sided die), Heads I'm male, tails I'm female. and the Die roll tells me what race I am, I'm always in first person so it doesn't bother me at all

 

And I download body mods/female armour mods for my follower, just saying xD

[MightyZ0G]

this shouldn't be an issue and any guy who says that they couldn't play as a girl missed out big time on the game that made the PS1.

Tomb Raider. the game where all the guys had to play as a girl and every last one of them loved it.

[Cynster]

:thumbsup: Why not play a sexy adventurer girl - I would think that a lot of guys would just to get the latest skimpy mods and have some eye candy when they play... Or maybe a realistic girl character with her own story, like you would a guy. I don't see what the issue is :)

[caromander]

I play characters of both genders but bias towards picking females, probably because I am a female. When I do pick a gender, it is based on the backstory I drew up for the character and even then gender is usually not that big of a factor for me unless the game takes place in a world where there are strict gender roles that I want to break or conform to.

 

I wonder if the females I know who play games tend not to mind playing males while males I know (not all of course) do tend to mind playing females because many of the games we ladies were exposed to in our youth usually only allowed us to play as boys. Playing an opposite gender was normal; it only rarely bugged me but I was much more interested in playing the game than nit picking over not being able to play a girl. Since guys typically were able to play their gender, they did not have that experience and it may be why some guys balk at the idea of playing a girl or why guys who play girls are sometimes scoffed at. I think there are other contributing factors, but males being the typical gender you had to play could be one of the factors.

 

It is a bit tangential, but I remember me and two of my female friends as kids being so thrilled to play Tomb Raider since we could play as a girl. It was amazing to us that the main protagonist and person you got to play wasn't a boy like usual.