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Suleiman -> RE: guys who pretend to be girls (10/26/2004 1:16:23 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: LadyAngelika
quote:
This is not to say that I particularly condone such deception, merely that I can understand it. As a "lifestyle" gamer and roleplayer, taking on a female persona, or a non-human persona, is quite acceptable to me, but I am also used to being able to look up across the table at my fellow players and know who they really are as people and as my friends. That lack of a personal connection is one (of many) things that turned me away from chat.
Ah, I think we are too hard on people exploring. We perform everyday. We role-play everyday. Judith Butler calls is performativity. Kenneth J. Gergen calls it the fragmented or splintered self. The fragmented self is not necessarily a bad thing: it can create a greater open-mindedness within individuals who, through adopting a multi-faceted personality, can be more in touch with a multi-faceted society or reality.
Seeking the elegant backpedal...
Okay, upon further reflection, I have to agree with what you said, but I can't seem to find a way to articulate any more clearly what I had already expressed.
Much in the way that people who are "lifestyle" gay or leather (as opposed, I suppose, to "closeted" on the other end of the spectrum) I am a "lifestyle" gamer and roleplayer. I interpret a lot of the data around me in these terms, and I see a lot of roleplay in how people interact, much in the way that many of my gay friends see homoerotic elements in people's interaction. Because I belong to a community (gamers) who condone roleplay and "performativity" (if I am using the term correctly) as an activity, I am used to slipping into and out of various persona masks as part of my day to day interaction.
My non-gamer friends think I'm just being a bit schitzo, or just plain wierd, when I suddenly hunch over and start pretending I'm "Igor" from the old Frankenstein movies, or when I suddenly straighten up, raise one eyebrow, and mutter about the illogic of humans, or hop up on the table and laugh what fools these mortals be. Among my friends, this is an accepted form of behavior, and in fact forms part of the repertoire for how we communicate among ourselves.
What I'm having difficulty with is the fact that I don't consider this to be deception. This is simply one form of human interaction, taken to a silly level, just as dominance and submission are forms of human behavior which we of the leather persuasion take to a silly extreme (quickly ducks hurled items and then goes back to typing). It saddens me that there are "closet gamers", just as it saddens me that there are "closet queers" or "closet pagans". I will not attack someone for being such a thing, but I will try to encourage them to not hide who and what they are, and to me that means that I do not condone their behavior, even though I understand it.
I suppose it's a variation of the old christian aphorism, "love the sinner, but not the sin"
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