Plywood: Gender Man vs. Crash

Originally published August, 2005.

Commentary:

Prying into ones personal life is a serious social faux pas in Second Life, especially with regard to real life gender. People have their own reasons for playing the opposite gender, or no gender at all. For some, it’s a practical issue, as with women who play men because they get tired of sexual harassment from boorish male players. For others, it’s simple aesthetics. If you’re going to spend hours at a time with your camera pointing at the same avatar’s backside (cameras are often set in third person mode, following your avatar), it might as well be a backside you enjoy looking at. And, for some, there are more personal reasons. But, whatever the case, it’s really none of anyone else’s business. At the end of the day, it really doesn’t matter, anyway. Jon is slowly, but surely, learning this.

--Nathan, August 8, 2008

Do you have any idea how difficult it is to answer pointed questions in a completely gender-neutral manner? I remember that this back-and-forth between the characters wasted several hours of our respective employers' time and email server resources. We decided to keep Crash completely gender-neutral since, after all, he *is* a robot. In my mind, however, Crash is a more-or-less masculine character, especially since in the previous strip he refers to the sexy car as a "she." (Though, then again, most car afficionados do.)

And then there's the disclaimer. Hee!

--Monica, August 8, 2008