[RP DISCUSSION] Gender/Sexuality in RPs

[bury the year]

Kk. So. I did an open ended discussion thread like this once before, and I thought of another topic that will hopefully be thought provoking. Let's go~

[b]Of male and female, which do you end up playing more of when it comes to RP characters, and how do you think that reflects you as a person in real life?[/b]

[b]Me:[/b] On the offsite RP I host, I've actually played more women than I have men (5 to 2) despite being male in real life. This is because gender and romance are kinda non-issues for me: I consider myself [url="http://www.asexuality.org/wiki/index.php?title=Grey-A"]grey-A[/url] and thus the two don't really intertwine or even apply for me. Because of that, I don't feel that I'm limited to gender stereotypes as much - I've played people of all sorts of personalities and sexual alignments - but I also can't write a good romance plot to save my life. The two are mainly just another checkbox. :'3

[Kitty]

The little RPs I do off this site I play as either myself or my OC. I normally play as a female but my female character has more male tendencies that female. (Like less likely to go shopping over a good fight etc.) The characters I play reflect me in rl some way or another.

[Raine]

I enjoy theatrics, complex relationships, and dramatic irony, all those juicy things life doesn't offer generously in reality. So when I RP, during the app creation process I find the best personality and bio to create the greatest sense of excitement and depth. Which ever gender seems to be most coherent with the base is what I choose.

[Alice Moonflowyr]

I play a good combination of males and females both IRL RPing (D&D) and online RPing. I just play whatever gender feels 'right' for that character. For example, my fav DnD character was a Gun Mage named Ke-Nan. Male. Just felt...correct. And in the Dragcave RP, I'm Lintra. Female. And again, just felt...right.

[Elƒie]

Hmmm.. I really tend to go with female. It's probably because I am a female and my characters are often a focus on one or two aspect of me. I've probably done only.. 3 males characters on here and 2 of them were for my very first rp. Lol.

As for their sexuality, my characters have always been heterosexual, though not many of them have actually had relationships, only about 3-4 out of god knows how many I've done..

[Otaku-sama]

I think I mix my characters up between male and female. I think that sexuality in RPs I'm in tend to be non-issues since most RPs don't last long enough to address such issues. My female characters are never the girly-girl types, which I presume reflects my taste in women. My male characters tend to be more diverse and can range from manly berserker types to broken souls. I guess I put more creativity into my male characters since they are not shackled by my perception of beauty like my female characters are.

[Desu the Blue Nerd]

[color=#0000CD]I usually use male characters and do prefer them so much more most likely due to me being a male and just being more comfortable that way. I pretty much have the same reason as Aisu. Also should be noted that my male characters are heterosexual or at least would be for the most part but I've never been the type to worry too much about my character's relationships. I'd prefer that a relationship really be built up instead of instant generic love on first sight crap that actually manages to piss me off a lot. The last time I can actually recall having a character in a relationship was years ago. Like one of the first few RPs I was actually in.[/color]

[color=#0000CD]I have tried female characters in the past but even though the RPs never lasted much longer after having made the female character and therefore I really didn't get a very good chance to try them out I didn't feel that it was suiting me. I just didn't think it was something I could really pull off if I continued with it and therefore I prefer RPing as a male.[/color]

[ListenToLife]

As a general rule, I RP as Males. Probably, as said by others, because that is my RL gender and as such I feel more confident at RPing that Gender. However, I do occasionally RP female characters, though there is usually either less detail and effort put into them, or less love for the actual character when I RP Female. I also tend to only RP female when I already have a male character in an RP, which tends to shun the female character into a lesser role.
However, my Male characters are also much more varied and elaborate than my female characters, primarily because I can think of many more variations within a Male Persona than a Female due to my own experiences as a male and the larger variations of male personality shown in the Media in comparison with the much smaller variation shown for Females. As such my character can range for rather slow and dumb characters for Comic Relief to Proud, lordly characters to Timid and intelligent types, and all over the shop.

As for sexuality, I generally either RP a Heterosexual or dont think about a relationship for a character(Either because it's not the right type of RP, there's isn't a chance, or it doesn't suit the Character). However, I'm pretty sure I've RPed as a Bisexual before, though the character itself was not very successful.
I'm quite confident in building upon a Relationship in Roleplays, though I'm not very good at starting them or suggesting the Idea. It's an Area I would probably like to work upon.

[encapturer]

It... depends on the character, really.

Recently, though, the ratio of males to females have been swinging towards female for my characters. Besides that, I haven't noticed any trends coming from my characters. Then again, I usually don't think of adding 'masculine' or 'feminine' traits in particular to any character, outside those forced upon them by the setting.

[Ren✧]

In the few RPs I have been in, I have only had male characters. Being a guy irl, I just don't know how a female would react to things. I am not saying that like a stereotype, but the different genders do react differently to different things. That and I think I just relate better to the character if they are same gender, also the reason I try to make them reflect some aspect of my personality.

[Hydra of Ages]

I tend to see Roleplays as a sort of practise run for my actual fiction. As such, I try to keep my characters as diverse as possible so I can stretch my creative muscles- that said, I have a bad habit of playing contrary. I'll generally make female characters for roleplays mainly dominated by males, and vice-versa, though that expands to pretty much every other option as well.

I tend to think I'm pretty okay with romance (It's actually one of the top three genres I write for), but I rarely get to show that off around here so sexuality is largely unimportant. In particular, I don't think I've made a gay male character in any RP that's lasted for particularly long... I kinda want to correct that soon, so I can see myself making more males than usual soon, which is a little odd for me; I'll tend to default to female if all elements are equal.

Writing a different gender is a pretty interesting exercise when you put some effort into it, especially if you have a bit of a sociological or psychological background- one thing I keep trying to remember is that it's far more common for women to continue conversation by asking clarifying questions, whereas men tend to just remind whomever they're speaking to that they're listening by making small sounds or gestures ('Hmm.', nodding, etc). It's a small thing, but little touches like that tend to add a spark of genuineness to your writing- well, as long as you remember that they're generalities and not hard rules anyway. But that goes for pretty much everything in writing.