Hey!!!

So the other day i was thinking, about 1 year ago my urge to be a Female droped alot. I was trying to work out why and they i think i found out.
A little over 1 year ago, I brought World of WarCraft (A Online MMO) I started playing it ALOT, not to the point of addiction, but I would play it instead of watching TV or watching a movie or somthing like that. Why i say this is because in this game i could be who ever i wanted to be, I could live a different life then the one i live IRL, I could be and act like i wanted to and people excepted me for the person that I was.
When I went on a holiday and did not get to be who i wanted to be, the urge come back stonger then ever!!!!

Does anybody else have any similer storeys?

My whole life I have been playing video games as female characters for the same reasons you have stated.  I've noticed that my urges to lose my self in the video game world drop drastically when I'm presenting female.  I've played almost every MMO you can think of trying to find one that would give me the best expeirence of not only gaming but also being who I am.

One MMO I really loved (loved past tense as I'm not allowed to play for obvious reasons lol) is Furcadia.  The graphics are.... well ->-bleeped-<-.  However it's an RPG where you can be whoever and whatever you want.  It's all in the text.  Roleplaying at it's finest... sure it's meant for people who like anthropomorphic animals, but you can be whatever you want depending on your description.  I had alot of interesting romances on that as myself, until of course I met my now irl wife.

This is known as escapism and can ruin lives.

A lot of people do it, whether they're trans or just unhappy with their lives. It avoids the problems by 'escaping' from them. Bad relationships, unhappy job futures, wrong genitals.

Eventually the server gets shut down or your guild disbands or you wake up 10 years later playing the same game. It's a bad investment.

Having just spent my first weekend at a renaissance festival with friends who see me as a woman, or a woman blossoming - it's been over 3 years since I quit playing WoW seriously and it's much more satisfying to really be seen as a woman.

Of course I played male characters because the internet culture when I grew up *strongly* hated on men playing women because everyone was so heavily invested into game reality that they were very put off to find out the elf they were cybering had a penis... "any man who plays a female character is gay/a pervert/sick" etc used to be the common attitude. Nowadays it's just assumed that most female characters are men for T&A factor.


The first time I ever heard about transsexuals was from a guildmate back in EQ. Quiet little rogue who never said much, but was a male playing female. I made a comment about how I'd cyber him if he was a girl and got a series of tells explaining the trans condition. I really felt like ->-bleeped-<- because it totally wasn't meant to offend, and I had no idea. She lived in the south, too. "You have no idea what it's like to be afraid to go outside because you may be beaten or killed."

Too much irony, Huc, too much irony. I hope you got to transition in peace years ago. 

Quote from: Autumn on November 03, 2009, 10:11:22 PM
This is known as escapism and can ruin lives

it's much more satisfying to really be seen as a woman

I played Anarchy Online for several years, finally quitting a couple years ago. I agree with both sentiments wholeheartedly. They are also an addiction though, I quit smoking a year ago and I still think about playing that stupid game more often than I think about smoking, no kidding. Seriously darling log off before it's too late.

I played WoW the free trial for like three days...I just don't see the taste...Too me it's just another boring game! But eh...That's just me.

But sometimes when I'm really sad; I'll go outside wrapped around an blanket and gaze at the pale moon just hoping that someone else is putting their focus on that same moon and having the same problem I have. It's comfort for me.

I have found myself constantly chosing female characters in RPG because i believe it is a reflection of my wish to be female

this is actually interesting i played eq for years as a female necro and while i was playing i always felt more like my self the irl sad but true lol i stopped when i developed a huge crush on a guy and had to break it off when it reached a point of trying to transend into rl. i realized then that what i was experiencing was unhealthy from a connection perspective but it also made me reall consider my gid for the first time instead of surpressing.
jessica

I was addicted to a game as well where I presented as male. However I had to break that addiction and during that game I really realised I needed to do something about my gender issue

It is amazing, it was the first game ever to drag me in and keep me there.

Jay

As others have said, this amounts to escapism, and can suggest things about the gender dysphoria suffered also.

Why do you want to escape life?

Is transition just another way to escape? another 'life'? The concept of adult babies is similar... they roleplay and fetishise infancy as a way of rejecting the responsibility of adult life... that and getting thier rocks off.

However, this can just be a simple case of depression.... one burries ones self into another world to ignore the problems, gid originated or not.

I love to imagine... I'm a writer. Fantasy and escapism have thier place. Sanity is knowing when to stop hiding.

I have no interest at all in computer games or fantasies associated with them. I have been in a female or androgenous state since the mid 70's when I was quite young. I always wanted everything to be grounded and real and never felt any other way about my gender.

slightly OT...

I've been playing WoW on and off for some three years now. Never once would I say I've been addicted. I play when I want to, but I do other things (like blog, knit, bake bread, go to work when I can, play with my cats, pay my bills, etc). I use it for escapism, yes; it's fun to get lost in something else for awhile and forget your problems. But I also play it because it's a game I enjoy. I play other games, too (Harvest Moon, anyone?). I also use things like books as escapism. It's just an extreme way of 'getting lost' in a story. I do the same thing when I write, larp, and tabletop roleplay.

It's never stopped me from dealing with my problems, but sometimes it has given me a breather, so I can get away from them long enough to think straight. Can't any activity be like that?


Point being; Yes. It's entertaining and I love it when people take my male characters at face value, as guys, without me worrying about my voice or hips or soft, silky skin. It doesn't, however, offer anything even close to a replacement for dressing and presenting in real life; even if real-life is a lot more hit-or-miss for my passing.

It doesn't have to be unhealthy. Anything can be addicting, escapism-enabling or otherwise.

I am SO addicted to WoW! I too have always chosen female characters for the most part. What is funny I never made the connection until the last 6 months or so with why I chose female over male toons.

I play WoW, but at least it serves a practical purpose for now.  It's really cheap compared to many other things, and has helped with my saving as much money as possible these last few years.

On the bright side of it, I have met 10 people I play with outside of the game since I started and most of them are great people.  Several thought I was a girl the first time I talked on ventrilo in my normal voice, so I'm hoping that means I won't have too much trouble in that area 

oh just go get a full blown crack addiction... its more socially acceptable than WOW and they do have addiction treatment for that atleast...

I was really into that stuff to escape I tried all the MMO's at least once and some of the free ones in my mid teens currently I only play xbox 360 with friends if anyone likes to game on there look me up my names  " Souliess "

 I was an EQ addict for 4yrs then I found secondlife.com. It's where it allowed me to come out to others in a safe way and in turn I got the courage to come out RL. Now I'm addicted to Lord of the Rings online and most my chars are male. I do have 2 female chars but just for ->-bleeped-<-s and grins.

In WoW, City of Heroes, and offline games with customization elements, I played as a character which represented an unfiltered version of "the face" I presented in my real life. Ever since my early days online as a person in the bobandgeorge.com community, I had this alter-ego which while it represented my ideal self emotionally and psychologically, it's visual manifestation mirrored that of my physical body.

It's kind of surreal thinking about it now, that for the longest time I used an avatar of my defense mechanic projection, so to speak, as opposed to myself. When lamenting that I took so long to explore myself, that "he" held me down and wasted my time, my therapist told me at the very least that he/it kept me/her safe at a time when she wasn't ready to come out. It's very true; I was never ready before. Looking at all of those images now, I can't recognize that figure as something representative of me, despite nearly a decade of use.

When I first started all this, I paid to have my main WoW toon re-customized to female, and it didn't take long for me to feel its therapeutic effects. (It also didn't take long for some random creep to hit on me.  ) Now, though, I hardly touch WoW due to being guildless for the last several months. I have taken up Dungeon Fighter Online, with a soon to be witch main and a fighter alt. Like with WoW, there's no addiction there for me, but it is nice to have some places to ditch "the face" until the day comes where I can remove it altogether everywhere.

Actually, video games sort of helped clue me into my own situation.  I always made girl characters.  I had no interest in watching some hulky male warrior fight monsters.... I wanted to like how my character looked.  It got worse when I got The Sims 2... that game ate up days and days of my life.  But it just felt so good to live those mini vicarious lives.

Of course at the same time I still like games like first person shooters (just picked up a new one today but I've been too busy with my new boots to bother playing it!).  Doesn't really make me stop wanting to be female... I often dress up while beating 'noobs' in multiplayer .  If only they could see me, how bad they would feel about themselves!

Actually there was even one time when I was in a small guild in Guild Wars where I sort of almost pretended I was a girl.  I say sort of and almost because I played only female characters, and some people would interact with me as if I was a girl, but I never said anything specifically one way or the other or tried to imply that I was (such as talking about makeup or whatever stereotypical thing a girl might talk about).