Writing Sexuality and Gender

[Fortwit]

Sachiko, You play the gayest men to ever grace the face of CotH. They are so gay they put real life me to shame, and being a man with sixteen best lady friends, That's saying something.

[Roxas65]

What I learned from this thread is that, according to what's common, I'm half-female! Who would've thunk it.

[Ural]

Thanks for putting in the time and effort into this Grakor. I thought it was well written and easy to read despite being a wall o' text. Hopefully some of this will sink in and positively impact my role-playing abilities!

[Esthrunil]

Grak, I love you for this, so much.

I'd also like to just tag a few little notes of my own, specifically on the topic of gender (because it does get confused a lot.)

There's the semantic issue people have fairly often - Gender is not purely synonymous with sex. Gender can, and more often than not does, refer to a person's gender identity. That is not what bits they have, but who they identify as mentally, spiritually, socially and what have you.

To recap - Your sex is what you have (this can be male, female, intersexed and I'm certain there are more). Your gender is who you identify as (you can identify as male, female, bi-gendered, gender neutral, gender fluid, agendered and SO much more).

A brief rundown on gender identity:

You can be physically female and identify as a man - likewise, you can be physically male and identify as a woman. This is what people most often refer to when they reference Transgendered people - a catch-all term for people whose gender lines up differently than their sex, manifested in whatever way. A big note here: You can be Transgendered and not seek to change your physical sex in any way - this is something that trips people up commonly.

Being Transgendered is different for everyone in many different ways. The reason it's so hard to put a label or write about what it's like to -be- Transgendered is because there is no universal feeling or experience to it. I'd absolutely suggest doing plenty of reading before you play out a character outside of the gender norm, for many reasons more than just to do it well.

The Transgendered community is, unfortunately, the subject of a lot of undue hatred and violence, and playing a non-stereotypical character will avoid hurting people who just want to be themselves.

As always, I request anyone to correct me if I am wrong on anything.

... Sorry. << This is one of my soap-box subjects. Apologies for... Yeah.

[CappnRob]

I was gonna say something meaningful like everyone else but then Rigley had to go and post Hark! A Vagrant and now I'm too busy laughing to think.

GOOD GOING NUB.

[McKnighter]

Welp.

Considering a good half of my characters are bisexual, I try not to play off the stereotypes and such... I suppose it's a good thing that I really don't -know- of the tropes and really just trying to go off what I've seen IRL and what makes the most sense to me. I think I've done a good job apart from "So, Who's On Top?". Most of my men that are bi I determine if they're a bottom or a top from the start... I'll have to change it up!

As for the Lustful Women, I always try to be cautious with Noria. While she had a 'wild' past due to the power trips she went through and wasn't kept on a leash, she used to do just about anything she wanted. After she grew up and woman'd up, she now has a much higher bar of expectations for anyone who'd attempt to court her. So far, she's only came across one partner to purse that aspect and I've been careful not to have her jump around too fast and too quickly. I haven't been able to devout much time to CotH anyways, so I think I'm handling it rather well. ^_^

Guud read. Guud post.