Gender-Bending in Cyberspace

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Two days later I was back in the MUD. After I typed the command that joined me, in Boston, to the computer in California where the MUD resided, I discovered I'd lost my password. This meant I couldn't play my own character but had to log on as a guest. As such, I was assigned a color: magenta. As "Magenta_guest," I was again without gender. While I struggled with basic commands, other players were typing messages for all to see: "Magenta_guest gazes hot and enraptured at the approach of Fire_Eater." Again I was tempted to hide from the frat-party atmosphere by passing as a man.

Much later, when I did play a male character, I finally experienced the permission to move freely that I had always imagined to be men's birthright. Not only was I approached less frequently, but I found it easier to respond to unwanted overtures with aplomb, saying something like, "That's flattering, Ribald_Temptress, but I'm otherwise engaged." My sense of freedom didn't involve just a different attitude about sexual advances—which now seemed less threatening. As a woman, I have a hard time deflecting a request for conversation by asserting my own agenda. As a MUD male, doing so (nicely) seemed natural; it never struck me as dismissive or rude. In this way, I was learning about the construction of gender—and learning about myself.

It was easy to see that virtual gender-swapping teaches the first lesson of gender studies: the difference between sex as biology and gender as a social construct. When a man goes online as a woman, he soon finds that maintaining this fiction is difficult. To pass as a woman for any length of time requires understanding just how gender inflects speech, manner, and the interpretation of experience. Women attempting to pass as men face the same kind of challenge. One says: "It is not so easy. You have to think about it, to make up a life, a job, a set of reactions." Pavel Curtis, the founder of LambdaMOO, has observed that when a female-presenting character is called something like FabulousHotBabe, there's usually a real-life man behind the mask. Another experienced MUDder shares this piece of folklore: "If a female-presenting character's description of her beauty goes on for more than two paragraphs, [the player behind the character] is sure to be an ugly woman."

Case, a 34-year-old industrial designer who is happily married to a coworker, told me that he currently plays on several MUDs as a female character. When I ask whether MUDding ever causes him emotional pain, he says, "Yes, but also the kind of learning that comes from hard times.

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