Becoming a Man: Identity Change Assignment

This assignment was a very interesting assignment, not only changing the way I look, but I had to change the way I act and interact differently with avatars. Changing into a man took me a while because I was having a hard time looking really like a man, but my finished product of my avatar I believe is manly.  The feature that really helped me look like a man I beleive was the facial hair. When I first changed my avatar into a man I had mixed feelings.  When starting Second Life I didn't get really into it, then the more I was on Second Life I really got into it and my avatar felt really real and more like me.  Now that I have changed my avatar to a man, I feel like I am new again and really can't get into my avatar as much because it's not really a reflection of myself anymore.  When I was a female in Second Life it was easy just to have my avatar just like me, not only appearance but how I talked to people and what activities I would do.  Being a different sex it is harder because I have to think about everything I do and say, to make sure it seems like a "male" person behind the avatar.

I have had mixed reviews and reactions from some of my friends on Second Life (I have had intereactions with 2 of my friends on Second Life since the sex change). The only reason I informed them of the sex change is because I see them in Second Life daily and they know me by name and know who I am in real life so I felt that I needed to tell them why I changed sexes, other people I interacted with I did not inform them of this assignment. I didn't inform them of my assignment change, nor that I was on Second Life for school so when I would come accross someone that has seen me as a girl they don't recongize me and question if I was the same person.  I had to explain to them that it was for an assignment and why I was suddenly a man. Their reactions were that they were both really confused but liked the idea and told me to inform them how it went and if it was hard not being yourself in Second Life and having to think about what your doing.

This is the conversation with one of my friends, one of the two people I told why I was different.

***clay Walker: Hey Taylor, why do you look like a man lol?

Taylor Veeper: We are doing a sex change assignment for class, seeing the responses from other avatars etc

***clay Walker: wierdd... what class is that for?

Taylor Veeper: class is called cyberculture, its actually kinda cool.. besides the fact that a female asked me to cuddle.. it was kinda wierd

***clay Walker: hhahahah i wonder if she knew it was a female behind it

Taylor Veeper: No she didn't, were not supposed to tell people about the assignment or sex change etc..

(Converation continued but not significant to assignment)

I did notice myself acting differently as a male avatar.  One example is when I went to a dance party, instead of dancing with a male, since I am now a male, I danced with a female.  I thought this was a little awkward because I don't normally dance with girls (in life and in Second Life).

This picture shows my male avatar dancing with a female avatar, ( I blocked out her face because she wasn't available online to agree for my use of her picture).  This was an awkward situation and this is when I felt the most unlike myself so I didn't do any more dance parties or dancing after this expierence.

I didn't feel limited as a man at all because just like female activites there are many male activities but did feel challanged in the way that I wasn't sure if in my intereactions and conversations with other avatars if I was really putting off in a "male and manly" way.  Another way that I felt challanged was when a female avatar wanted to "cuddle" and since I wanted to see how this played out I went ahead and "cuddled" with her so I could see the interaction. I thought this was interesting because when I was a female avatar I never had anyone ask me to "cuddle" but within one hour of becoming a male avatar I had a female wanting to cuddle.

***var Looper:  Hello Taylor, do you like this place?

Taylor Veeper: Yeah, I always come here theres always alot of people

***var Looper: Wanna Cuddle on the top of the tree?

Taylor Veeper: Yeah which tree, there are a bunch of different spots

***var Looper: I will teleport you there Taylor

The conversation when we were "cuddling" in the tree was almost awkward because she was asking about if I hook up with alot of people in Second Life and if I wanted to meet her later in Second Life, I didn't stay long with her because I had to get off Second Life but  I thought this expierence was funny because I was wondering what she would feel if she knew I was really a female behind the male avatar body and if she knew I would be using this interaction on my wiki because alot like the dancing expierence it was different to be cuddling with a female avatar and he asking me questions thinking I was really a man.

I was very conscious of myself during the past few weeks as a male because I felt that I had to almost act out a part or they would know I wasn't who my avatar was implying. The reason I was so conscious was because I really wanted to get alot out of this assignment so the more manly I could get I thought the more I would get out of it.

When I was a female avatar I never went out and played sports, mostly went to party type and dance club places.  Not that I wasn't able to as a female avatar but as a male avatar I found myself playing alot of different sports and going to sporty type places. I guess you could say that I was more comfortable as a man in sporty places then when I was a female.  I think I did this because I think of men as very sporty people, so without really knowing I was doing this I went to sporty places to make me feel more manly.

On thing that got me thinking while doing this assignment was how many people on Second Life aren't what they portrey, how many female avatars are really males and vice versa.  Also I thought about if anyone I have had interactions with on Second Life are doing any assignments for class like we are and are using my interactions with them for their assignments.  

For this assignment I visited many different places, some with high populations like dance parties/clubs and some with less such as sports places and beaches.  I did visit moslty places that I have been before (as a female avatar) so that I could see the difference as a male. The only places that I visited that I hadn't been to before was sport type places (one football game and a sports bar).  I didn't have much interaction at either one of those places, there were all guys at both places (one female bartender) so there was not much interaction going on.  One thing that I did think about at those two places was that if I had come in there as a female avatar there might have been more interaction between me and the other avatars because I would have been the only female there.  As I said earlier, I did feel that as a male I was treated different such as female avatars asking me to cuddle and dancing with female avatars instead of males, but as conversation wise I don't think I was treated differently at all, coversations seemed to go the same way.  Besides the "cuddle" conversation, I didn't have any other conversations with anyone else that was significate to this assignment.

Coming Apart at the Seams: Sex Text and the Virtual Body : Shannon McRae

When doing this assignment I remembered and thought back on this text we read a few weeks ago.  Shannon McRae stated " a surprising number of men masquerade as women in order to seduce other men. Their motivations vary: some tri it on a dare... Others are motiviated by a sense of self-exploration, to see what it feels like to experience from the point of view of a women." When I went and re read this article this part stuck out to me because it is exactly what we are doing (vice versa for me).  When reading this I connected it to our assignemnt by when it was said it was about self-exploration.  I first was trying to figure out how by changing who you really are is self exploration but when thinking about it, I understood it and connected it more.  Even though on Second Life I was in a male avatar body, I was still doing self exploration on how much of a girl I was and if I could act normally and be perceived as a girl still even in a mans body and vice versa.

The Erotic Ontology of Cyberspace: Michael Heim  & Jean Baudrillard: Simulacra and Simulations

The questions and points in the beginning of Michael Heims all related to this assignment.  Some of those questions and points were: "a tool for examining our very sense of reality", "should ususer appear to themselves in a virtual world", "should they appear to themselves in cyberspace as one set of objects amoung others". Those were just a few of the points but those were the main ones that I beleive relate to this assignment. Re reading Jean Baudrillard's article did the same thing for me as Michaels Heim's and the assignment wachih was again, understand the word reality.  I have had a hard time with the definition of reality due to the many perceptions of it.  Getting more into Second Life I was understanding other peoples definitions of reality and starting to believe the reality in second life. Now that I have changed my appearance of my avatar and am a different sex and having to change the way I interact with people, that sense of reality in second life has change. I am still a person behind it but "acting" as a differnt person.  These reading are what made me think that way because of the beginning points I listed and Jean Baudrillard's reality points.  Those points made me question reality and my appearence in real life/second life.

This assignment made me explore the definition of reality again but I beleive it didn't do much for me in  "self-exploration".  I enjoyed this assignment and beleive it will be very interesting to continue as a different sex to see how it plays out, but I don't believe I am exploring an alternate side of myself, more of acting.  I beleive I am still myself behind this male avatar but I am in a sense putting on an act of a different person (in this case a different sex).