Sexuality in role-playing

Since I don't have a lot of time and I am currently lacking focus to make posts, I thought that I might as well write something for the community and continue on our never-ending quest to better know our fellow RPers. I have to warn you fellow readers before you proceed further into reading this. I am treating of what I believe is a very personal and mature subject, which might not be for everyone. As always, follow the forums’ rules when posting here, but discretion is also advised.

It has come to my attention quite recently that we have a rather nice bundle of variety when it comes to our members of this forum. It is to be expected, since the internet is rather large and open to everyone. We have people of different age scattered all-around the globe with different opinions on different subjects. Also, as funny as I think it is, the stereotype of having a crushing majority of the male gender on the internet does not apply here, as I believe we have an incredible amount of female RPers in our small community. Furthermore, to add more arguments about how varied our bundle of RPers is, we have a lot of people who have different orientations on sexuality.

Seeing the popularity of our various boards, it is easy to tell that 1x1s and R-rated RPs are the most popular around here. While I do not read the 1x1 section, I have my reasons to believe a lot of romance, if not further than that, is greatly present in these RPs. And by looking at the R-rated popularity, it is safe to say that our community favors having freedom over their characters’ personal choices than being restricted to stuff reserved to a younger audience.

With those facts in mind, it brings several questions into my mind. As you all probably know by now, I like feedbacks from the community on what I write or what I think. To be a community, it is essential to know more about our fellow forummers. The chatbox does this job well, but unfortunately we can’t get a hold of everyone on there when it comes to general stuff like what I am typing right now.

I don’t need to ask about how you guys feel about romance in RPs, since I believe it is an obvious choice considering how much of our community posts in mature boards. But romance and sexuality are different things. Romance is best defined as flirting and being attracted to another character, IC-speaking. Sexuality goes into more details, even in its most subtle aspects, like kissing. Some would not be bothered about having their characters kissing someone else’s, while others might think engaging their characters that deep into a relationship (yes, by only kissing) would be nerve-wracking. So I was wondering, what is your comfort-zone about your characters’ sexuality? Do you prefer keeping it to romance, or are you not bothered of taking a relationship to the next step?

Another thing I’m thinking is about the RPers themselves. As I said, we have a varied community when it comes to sexual orientations. What others might like is not the case for others, and that can often reflect upon decisions made from an RPer towards another. What I’m more curious about is RPers engaging their characters in a relationship with another RPer. Even if the two characters are compatible in gender according to their characters’ likings, it might not be the case for the RPers involved in that relationship. As an example, a heterosexual guy might find it awkward to have his male character having a relationship with another guy’s female character. Despite the characters are gender compatible according to the first guy’s sexuality, the thought of having to develop a relationship with guy (despite he is playing a female character) would make him uncomfortable. As such, I want to ask, are you comfortable in RPing with someone who is not of your sexual preference? Do you think it’s awkward doing so?

As I said in my introductions earlier, this is a personal subject. Some might find it intrusive, but it’s not something you have to answer to. It might just serve as food for thoughts if the subject is too personal to be replied to. I think it’s a rather interesting subject considering how open our community is and our tendency in playing in more mature RPs.

I'm surprised I never found this and took the time to read through it, but I'll make a post here as I feel I need to and want to. ^_^

The first point about the characters, for me it'd all depend on how deep the connection between the two characters are. Sometimes I find myself using my characters sexuality to further a plot line, such as a distant observer, but if the bond is deep enough be it with another character of a similar sexuality or something different, I'd try and distance it. Thought, I'm a weird one.

The second one, being as how I am I would personally find it a little awkward but I'd still go with it, I don't know why. I just feel awkward in those situations.... I just can't explain it. *Flails*

Anyway. That's how I see this.

Me: *sees Rei make a post with a thread with the word "Sex" in it*

Me: *prepares to freak out*

Me: *reads and then calms down*

Anyways!

Well, Max, here's my own take on it.

One: It all depends on the personality of my character. For instance, let's use a widely known character of mine (Vera) as an example. She's extremely flirtatious but not one for relationships. Her personality makes it very, very hard to find someone compatible enough to create a relationship. Even if a relationship could happen, going farther than that would be even harder due to her past. 

That being said, my own personal opinion is that I hate predestined relationships. I noticed it's very common for role players to be like, "Hey, X + Y in RP A?" "Yea sounds good."
 But there's no chemistry, no desire, no "THEY ABSOLUTELY MUST GET TOGETHER." They're just... together. It's really disappointing and almost tragic. Just felt like throwing that out there before I hit...

Two: All the other stuff that makes you feel fuzzy inside. I think, in total, I've written maybe 6 smut scenes. Which now makes me feel like a dirty bar-stard but it's not that bad considering the amount of roleplays and 1x1s I've been in. I have this whole perfectionist attitude in which I have to excel in everything, including the more blushy squealy stuff. Anyways, besides that. I think this also is determined by the setting, the intention of the roleplay, and the relationship itself. I honestly haven't had many RP relationships besides... well... like three maybe? Maybe. I'm not sure, I don't remember. Could be four. Anyways, that's not what I'm trying to say. When I choose, if I choose, to allow my character a partner, it's someone that they will get along with. It's someone I know my character will come to adore. If I leave a character single, that's because I didn't feel like they were compatible with someone.

Basically, if I find someone that deserves the relationship with my character, I'll allow them to do blushy squealy stuff. Preferably after marriage. Finding someone who works for my character is much more important than smut or having an IC relationship. Which now brings me to....

Three:

This may sound sexist but it's my own opinion so nyeh. RPer A is a male and RPer B is a female but they're both playing girls. Two girls get into a relationship and hot steamy sex ensues. For a heterosexual male, that's really fine and dandy because it's two girl characters. However, let's say they're both playing boys. A heterosexual male is less likely to allow a homosexual relationship between men than he would women. Why? I'm not sure. Society may think it's 'gay'. 

As a female RPer, I have more freedom than a male RPer. If I RP with another female, if our characters wind up getting together, it's fine. If I RP with a male, that's okay too, I'm a little bit of a special case since I'm married so I'll try to avoid doing too much ahem, ahem with either of them because I'd find that very inappropriate. 

Anyways, back to my point. I could even roleplay in a guyxguy and it'd be socially acceptable.

Basically, heterosexual males are SOL when it comes to certain things. If two heterosexual male RPers have their characters in a relationship, they shouldn't have a problem with that. It's the characters in a relationship, not the people themselves. That's how I look at it, anyways. I mean, if I was like my characters, I'd be a half insane badass with violent tende-oh. Well then. 

Lol, I'm joking. But I seriously sometimes think that people don't make that separation between who YOU are and who your character is. You find who works for your character and let the rest fall into place.

Quote :

Even if the two characters are compatible in gender according to their characters’ likings, it might not be the case for the RPers involved in that relationship. As an example, a heterosexual guy might find it awkward to have his male character having a relationship with another guy’s female character. Despite the characters are gender compatible according to the first guy’s sexuality, the thought of having to develop a relationship with guy (despite he is playing a female character) would make him uncomfortable. As such, I want to ask, are you comfortable in RPing with someone who is not of your sexual preference? Do you think it’s awkward doing so?

 
First off, I think I should link to my own topic about using other genders in RPs here.... I feel it's pretty relevant to the topic of how comftrable people are with players using characters of the opposite gender, but I don't recall alot of discution on the awkwardness of having relationships with a character being controlled by someone of the other gender. Never the less, 100% of people who have voted in the poll say that it's acceptable, so I'm going to assume that, for the most part, that carries over to this discution. I don't think it really matters because you are not your character, at least in most cases. Sure, there's similar philosophies and personallity traits, but no matter how much a character is derrived from the writer you have to accept that you are still not that character and it doesn't reflect all of your thoughts or actions. Like, for example, if I ended up killing one of Shirat's characters, that in no way means that I want to kill him. So why should it be any different for using characters of opposite sexuallity?
 
Say that I made a princess character with a good backstory in mind, her younger less mature brother inhereted the throne instead of her because her parents were kind-of unsure about an unwed queen in power. So she's really frustrated, powerhungry, aggressive and such.... Then someone else, uhh... IDK, Mike or someone, makes a character in power that was just as relentless and just worked with her personallity well. No matter how close they get, you can't really say anything about it because she's not me, she's my character. And no matter how much I plan to just get them together and kill Mike's character for power, if they work together they just work. In a wierd way, characters often do just take on a life of thier own when it comes to thier personallity and, as things move on, it becomes more and more about how you can work in plans with thier personallity than what you actually want to do.
 
That's another thing, and just take my word for this.... NEVER get people to talk you into having 2 characters have a relationship with eachother for the sake of a relationship. Just take my word for it. When relationships go right, it's awesome and makes your character more relatable. They feel more human, they have something they have to care about from thier lover, it makes them vulnerable without being any less powerful. And that is a REALLY good thing to have in a character. Not to mention how much it can show in thier mind just through verry simple means and how they deal with issues such as fear, loss, and grief if anything ever happens to them.
 
HOWEVER if they share no chemistry as characters, it has the worst freaking effect.... If 2 characters don't work but it's written as if they do because of "love" that's never really explored, it will feel rushed. It will feel lazy. You won't want to keep writing for that character. And then, you've trapped yourself into a corner. If 2 characters break up, then that won't end well... much like in real life when things get awkward after a breakup. Which... could be good, I guess, but I would imagine it would be REALLY difficult to pull off going through multiple pages of "I love you sooooo much" just to say it's all pointless. Then there's the other extreme when you're trapped in a bad character relationship where none of them work and you have to kind-of work harder to convince the audience your characters are in love. Which IS ok if you can justify it or something or if they grow together. But the longer that goes on without progress, the worse off your going to be and the deeper down your character's going to be screwed.
 
So........ Yeah, I think I've said enough for one post. I'll just end it now and save the people talking below this some time scrolling down the thread, lol!

EDIT: Holy crap, Aro pretty much summarised alot of what I was saying about not forcing relations and how we're not our characters. But I still think I made a few good points and went deeper into it than she really did, so......... Yeah. Small victories, I guess.

I have a disappointingly low experience with RP romance, due to the fact my characters usually end up with some sort of quality that makes them undesirable, or even unable to be in a relationship. For example the character is a child, or the character is insane to a point where a relationship is either unlikely, or too troublesome for me to cook up, or even that the character has an NPC spouse already. Notably, I've had a couple situations where people STILL tried to pursue a relationship with my character, (the child example, specifically), but I've mostly avoided it.

What I do know though, is that I would not roleplay anything intimate I would not do with someone in real life, taking into account how long I knew the person in question. For that reason, I would absolutely not write a sex scene, because I am still underage, and not really comfortable with the idea. Frankly, growing up sheltered, I don't think I'd write it very well anyway, heh. Also, I tend to avoid my characters having sex outside of marriage due to my own beleifs, but would still allow it if it fit the character and their situation.

I don't mind when other people play characters opposite their gender, and I do it myself, if not entirely realistically.(As I discussed in Dethhollow's thread on gender.) That being said, I feel a little undeservingly flattered when a male roleplayer with a male character wants their character to end up with mine. (Actually that only happened once...) It's a little pathetic, but I don't let it affect my interactions.

I'm not really interested in such a concept in a RP. It would feel weird to me.

Nothing wrong with it, but just not my cup of tea.