Velok the Younger
When I Was A Young Warthog
So, a few things to know about me.
I'm a straight guy, married, second kid on the way. I've been writing online, almost exclusively in Star Wars RP, for twelve years, and in that time roughly half the characters I've created have been female. My very first character was male; my second was his sister. I've written aliens, humans, straight men, gay men, straight women, gay women, asexuals of both sexes. I do that because I'm a writer and I've always believed that a writer should be able to understand over fifty percent of the human race to some degree.
I'm not fond of folks who sneer at how other people have fun, but I think, after twelve years, something's worth saying.
There is most definitely a wrong way for guys to write women.
I could go into detail, but you all know exactly what I mean. Heck, based on Rave's story to this point, she should be indifferent or asexual, but I've literally had to play her as defiantly straight more than once because guys writing women kept hitting on her -- sexually harassing her, frankly. And their writers saw it as just fine, because sexual harassment is obviously not a problem if they're wearing a fictional (female, lesbian, that's all there is to the character) mask. Some of my lesbian friends are even uncomfortable RP'ing lesbians at all; they make and write straight characters so they won't get categorized with the folks I'm talking about.
Something else to know about me: Several of my best and oldest friends have been lesbian, some comfortable with their orientation, some less comfortable. Many of them deeply offended by this particular aspect of internet RP. Please don't go 'oh, Jon's friends with RP'er X, so he must be speaking for her' - trust me, I've got friends everywhere, including IRL friends who RP online in fandoms that bore the crap out of me. I'm not saying I speak for them either; I've seen what happens to the world when white guys try to speak for women. But I am saying, as a husband, father, brother and son, I'm often offended for them.
"But Jon! You write a lesbian love story!" Yeah, my longest-running current characters are female. My little sister created Ashin in 2002, and I took over the character when she lost interest; I created Rave as a very young supporting character in 2003. One's married to a woman, one's straight. That's just the way their stories turned out -- well, no, that's not quite true. I wrote Ashin as straight until a couple of years ago, when I really started getting fed up with this particular part of internet culture -- guys who primarily write shallow promiscuous lesbians for prurient reasons and attention. At that point, me and Spencer decided that our (straight) characters' stories had gone in a direction that we could write a respectful, realistic story about a genuine same-sex relationship, both as an example and as a condemnation (and doesn't every example feel like a condemnation to someone?) because we were both a little fed up, and I doubt she'd mind me saying that. That was a deliberate choice. Maybe it's worked, maybe it hasn't, maybe this is just me trying to stake out moral high ground to reinforce the point and make myself feel good, whatever.
So what's the point of me saying all this? Well, it's about respect, and understanding when selfishness makes other people uncomfortable, even when, yeah, it's a game and it's fiction.
One final thought, if any of the folks to which this applies have actual aspirations as a writer. As the novelist L.M. Montgomery once said, a writer must have a sacred respect for the truth.
I'm a straight guy, married, second kid on the way. I've been writing online, almost exclusively in Star Wars RP, for twelve years, and in that time roughly half the characters I've created have been female. My very first character was male; my second was his sister. I've written aliens, humans, straight men, gay men, straight women, gay women, asexuals of both sexes. I do that because I'm a writer and I've always believed that a writer should be able to understand over fifty percent of the human race to some degree.
I'm not fond of folks who sneer at how other people have fun, but I think, after twelve years, something's worth saying.
There is most definitely a wrong way for guys to write women.
I could go into detail, but you all know exactly what I mean. Heck, based on Rave's story to this point, she should be indifferent or asexual, but I've literally had to play her as defiantly straight more than once because guys writing women kept hitting on her -- sexually harassing her, frankly. And their writers saw it as just fine, because sexual harassment is obviously not a problem if they're wearing a fictional (female, lesbian, that's all there is to the character) mask. Some of my lesbian friends are even uncomfortable RP'ing lesbians at all; they make and write straight characters so they won't get categorized with the folks I'm talking about.
Something else to know about me: Several of my best and oldest friends have been lesbian, some comfortable with their orientation, some less comfortable. Many of them deeply offended by this particular aspect of internet RP. Please don't go 'oh, Jon's friends with RP'er X, so he must be speaking for her' - trust me, I've got friends everywhere, including IRL friends who RP online in fandoms that bore the crap out of me. I'm not saying I speak for them either; I've seen what happens to the world when white guys try to speak for women. But I am saying, as a husband, father, brother and son, I'm often offended for them.
"But Jon! You write a lesbian love story!" Yeah, my longest-running current characters are female. My little sister created Ashin in 2002, and I took over the character when she lost interest; I created Rave as a very young supporting character in 2003. One's married to a woman, one's straight. That's just the way their stories turned out -- well, no, that's not quite true. I wrote Ashin as straight until a couple of years ago, when I really started getting fed up with this particular part of internet culture -- guys who primarily write shallow promiscuous lesbians for prurient reasons and attention. At that point, me and Spencer decided that our (straight) characters' stories had gone in a direction that we could write a respectful, realistic story about a genuine same-sex relationship, both as an example and as a condemnation (and doesn't every example feel like a condemnation to someone?) because we were both a little fed up, and I doubt she'd mind me saying that. That was a deliberate choice. Maybe it's worked, maybe it hasn't, maybe this is just me trying to stake out moral high ground to reinforce the point and make myself feel good, whatever.
So what's the point of me saying all this? Well, it's about respect, and understanding when selfishness makes other people uncomfortable, even when, yeah, it's a game and it's fiction.
One final thought, if any of the folks to which this applies have actual aspirations as a writer. As the novelist L.M. Montgomery once said, a writer must have a sacred respect for the truth.
