More on topic, when I first started playing on NWN a few years back I was taken aback by all the, well, horny descriptions and character outfits that I would see on various servers, but as a veteran of online gaming I quickly got used to it. My personal policy is to give everyone the benefit of the doubt at least once, and do my best to not judge a book by its cover. I appreciate the desire for romance as (as one user pointed out) wish fulfillment is a big part of fantasy and as roleplayers in a fantasy universe, it's perfectly acceptable to want to explore something one might not get to experience IRL.
That brings me to my main point however, and it's on the topic of objectification: As a lesbian woman, I find it immensely difficult to roleplay my own sexuality to the same extent and fulfillment as others who roleplay their own sexuality (i.e, straight), either here or elsewhere, due to the fact that lesbianism is fetishized to such an extent in online communities in general. While it has gotten better over the years, I still find myself hesitant to express myself mostly due to either other player reactions to my characters' sexuality, or the objectification of my characters' by other characters. It's worn me down. I'm exhausted by even the idea of romance, because I know that - in my experience - despite my best efforts to be "respectable", or to not take up space, or to be subtle, I will inevitably have a comment levied towards either myself or my character that objectifies either of us and destroys the fantasy or illusion that I'm trying to enjoy.
This is no one person's fault, especially not here on Arelith (as due to my previous experiences I've never engaged in romance subplots with any of my characters here), but a trend that I've noticed over the years. I'm not sure of this post will reach the eyes of the people who need to read it, but since we're on the topic of respect, the only thing I ask of the community is to give other roleplayers the benefit of the doubt, and understand that not everything you see is necessarily the truth of the situation. Sometimes we're not roleplaying to get our kicks off, sometimes we're roleplaying this way because that's who we are.
(Apologies if this comes off scatterbrained. I'm not very good at collecting my thoughts, and this is a topic that matters a great deal to me.)
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This reminds me of a server I played on about a year and a half ago. It had different animation options for weapon styles, and one of them (probably unintentionally) changed the female walk-cycle into the male's. As someone who tends to dress my characters fairly gender-neutral and always HATED the sashay that the female characters have in NWN, it was a breath of fresh air. My fighter, in her heavy armor and thick tabard, felt appropriately weight down by her equipment, and with the sturdy gait of a soldier and frontline warrior to match. It was delightful.Irongron wrote: ↑Mon Dec 07, 2020 6:45 pmYou know, not to derail what has turned into a refreshingly academic debate, but with all this talk of NwN body shapes it's actually the Jessica Rabbit 'shimmy' walk on the females that gets me, and the fact that they cannot stand with their shoulders straight.