I don’t think I’m alone in this - but the organic restrictions on my body, sex and gender have left me largely unfulfilled & imprisoned in the identification that comes with them. I don’t fancy having a sex change, so I’ve overcome these limitations to some degree by filling my life with a universally open outlook and many varied and sometimes extreme experiences, to challenge these boundaries, and myself, who I do actually like a lot! However, I’m a person that thrives on change, so being me for all this time is at best frustrating, and at worst, offers a very familiar and predictable future. Over the last few years I’ve settled down a bit, not into a catatonic state, far from it, but into a more regular rhythm of life than I’ve had before. I have always been drawn to the extravert, the kinky and the queer folk who illuminate this world with colour, energy and inspiration through freedom of the mind and a harmonious personal expression. By ‘queer’, I don’t mean gay, but just not straight (see ‘Queer theory’ by Michel Foucault).
This is my failing: I have no straight friends or acquaintances. By ‘straight’ I do not mean heterosexual, but straight – the conformist followers, uncreative and unimaginative people, bound by unknown entities which will never let their soul sing. When in the presence of great straightness, I often become quite vacant, and drift into a more pleasing space in my head, protecting my own energy from being drained away from me. However, as someone who feels all peoples of the world are valuable and equal, I have to address this issue, and explore this sub-culture for myself, if only to understand what actually stimulates these seemingly frigid folk.
So, I have recently delved into the unknown but safe world of Playstation ‘Home’ – a completely virtual community, made up of personal and communal spaces that users access through an Avatar of their own creation. Users are allowed to store up to eight banked Avatars, indicating an expectation of alternative expression and fantasy.
The Home Avatar is a virtual representation of the human form, driven by a processor, and is surprisingly flexible and adaptable. Each Avatar can be personalised from a huge range of appearance options, a varied wardrobe and some adornments, all of which mean that there are unlikely to be two that resemble each other closely. The Avatar can walk, run, dance, speak in speech bubbles, or over a headset in private spaces, laugh, yawn, and express itself in a limited but globally comprehensive way. I now have six of them; one of them represents me, Mino , visually and vocally with as much truth as one can get from a prescribed set of options, and a speech bubble!, and the others are fictional, and have evolved as my journey to the dark side took on a gradual decline. Each visit to Home is made with the assumption that no-one using this space is true to the Avatar they portray, ergo everyone is exploring fantasies in this way, so a queer and unrestricted world awaits me and my creation. I can experience the interactions of the people of the world in whatever guise I feel like, have an androgynous username and, in a different persona, be free from presumption and prejudice.
One Friday night a few weeks ago, I created my first alter Avatar, inspired by seeing Roberta Flack on the T.V. Experiment 1 was a pretty, young, 70’s styled African woman, Afro hairstyle, denim, and big Farrah Fawcett shades - a very kool and groovy chick. As I watched how she moved, I began thinking for her, developing a dialogue that would suit her. . I received, some compliments, some offers of getting Jiggy.. “Hell no, do I look like that kinda girl!..” and amongst other things, taunts ranging from out and out racism, respect from my black & white Avatar peers, and the expectation of an easy and filthy lay from both Avatar sexes. Teasingly, she declined, but had fun being a flirt.
Later, by altering that Avatar to an old black woman, and she became “desperate, lonely, and her grandchildren must be crack addicts…” The change in tone was a surprise, and I stayed around a while to experience this more, but no-one spoke to my Avatar, except to abuse her.
On each occasion I’ve appeared as a blatantly gay man, (insomuch as copying the stereotypical look & expressions of many gay men can make you blatant) my innocent creation has both had indifference, been hounded off a public space, and had gangs of youthful male Avatars wishing AIDS upon his virtual person (quote one Avatar “..it stands for Anally Induced Death Sentence..”). I have received personal messages in my PS3 inbox telling me that that God will redeem me if I repent this satanic aspect of humanity, that I am responsible for all the evil in the world, and that I will be found and dissected, genitally, amongst others.
To counter that, I had a very positive and touching conversation with a young gay Avatar, who invited me to his apartment to talk about his fears of coming out and that he was using Home to gain confidence in telling his family and friends about his break away from heterosexuality. Naturally my Avatar was more than happy to listen and offer help, and I spent just over an hour in his company. I told him at the end of it what I was doing, and he thought it was kool, and is now one of my on-line friends, and has seen me in my genuine form since.
The next incarnation was an old, effeminate man. This Avatar was instantly perceived as a child abuser, and watched with dismay as the majority of Avatars ran around the square warning everyone that there was a pedophile in town. I witnessed the panicked gathering of most Avatars in the area as my old queen decided not to care and stood in the middle of a crowd, dancing like John Travolta in Saturday night fever, which may have given the game away, but such was the hatred towards him, that this seemed to go unnoticed.
As a gay black man, I was less abused by the majority, but abused by the black Avatars, who called me a Batty boy, and a shameful scar to the cause. I have learnt that I, Mino , am a bit of an island in this virtuality, I would never speak to people the way I have been spoken to as these Avatars.
Now, I am a supporter of free speech. I believe that dialogue, not legislation, is the way to overcome the prejudices that compel the people sending me messages to speak to me in this way. In this context, as a piece data, in a virtual world, the views of these people are permitted by of a wall of data and unreality that spares them from the intimacy of spewing hate, face to face. This is also true of some car drivers. We also know that the internet gives plenty of users the chance to be someone else and to purge themselves of their more outrageous and unacceptable opinions that social and cultural restrictions, and increasingly, laws, will not allow. This is the effect of repressive legislation and attitudes; they repress and concentrate this angst into a volcano of pent up potential and disproportionate hatred and rage. I would like to make a clear definition here between one on-line interaction when being ‘yourself’ is required and those of a created character in a virtual on-line world.
I am a fan of the idea of web forums, and belong to a couple, and have made some on-line buddies, and met quite a lot of them in my actual life. You will see some percentage of any forum filled with similar characters. The difference being that forum users are not identified by a digital creation, but are linked to their physical identity and persona, via a username, and the recording of their opinions, comments and perception of their world within the forum history. They are responsible for being themselves. Their opinions are perceived as belonging to them, debates are taken on these terms, and in some forums, emotional support is given and received. The natural assumption has to be that the person typing is being ‘themselves’ or else web forums could and would not work. The same applies to many other on-line communications such as E-mail, and the social networking phenomenon.
In the case of the Home Avatar, in a virtual and fantasy driven world, this deceit is notwithstanding, as it is a created space of pure fantasy, of which very little resembles our actual world. The sanctioning of multiple Avatars that can be stored for use at anytime, only serves to strengthen the position that Home is your realm to make of it what you choose. It certainly can be used to make friends, discuss and play games, have parties in your apartment, and be extremely socially beneficial, but this is not all it can be used for, and users should expect that what they see is not what they may be getting. Anything other than that represents a delusion by the user that the virtuality of the Avatar and location should be honest and true. Home is neither honest, nor true, it doesn’t exist, and neither does the Avatar. Why then should we expect any truth from the participants?
I do not delude myself about the Avatars that gave me abuse in the various guises I have worn. Using Home for my own personal exploration, I must expect that the person behind the character wishing AIDS upon mine was simply exploring the side of humanity that is the homophobic human, or that the racist was experiencing how it feels would be to be racist for a day. It was interesting watching real life reflected in the case of the old man; as soon as one Avatar shouted pedophile, he was surrounded by a crowd collectively supporting the same idea, all desperate to entrench their hatred verbally and visibly to each other in a collective outrage. It reminded me of a group of people in the UK
So…I conceived a plan to explore the levels of expectation from other Home users….Strolling through Home Square, I watched from a distance a conversation between a very macho male Avatar, a beefy skinhead, kitted out in military clothes, and a pretty young female Avatar, dressed fairly conservatively. His dialogue quickly descended into the realms of his sexual desires towards this character, which is fine, except that the female Avatar was clearly upset by his suggestions. Where she ran, he followed, when she asked him to stop, he got more leery. This Avatar was showing a complete lack of respect to this other one, and because of that, became fair game.
I found a quiet corner, created a female version of him, and flipped Avatars. She then casually strolled past him, hung around, and waited until he eventually took notice. My skinhead with shades, a PVC bodice, bulging at the top, and tartan mini skirt look was an instant hit, and after some brief introductions and not much else, I invited him back to my virtual personal apartment so that we could talk in private.
I let him suggest and discuss his desires towards my Avatar, only slightly encouraging him with comments like “Sounds good” and “I hope you’re gonna live up to this”.
“You got a headset or camera?” I was asked “No” she responded, which was true, the virtual should stay just that, and bridging the two is pointless in this instance. “A photo?” his Avatar asked, “ok”, and I sent him a picture of a girl I know, from the neck down. He commented on the nice body, and she thanked him. She asked him for a pic and he sent me a pic of a man, could’ve been anyone, but whoever it was, he was quite cute, about 24. “Sweet” she said and blushed a bit.
What followed was nearly 10 minutes of him telling me that he was getting very excited, and a monologue of his desires to my good Avatar. At this point, there was not even a whiff or arousal in me or my Avatar. I then received a picture of his, (or someone’s), appendage that I was virtually about to receive, and may the Lord make me truly thankful! “Thanks for that” my Avatar said for me, even she clearly impressed, I hit the controls and made her clap and jump, which seemed to please his Avatar. Then, I changed her approach, and started to talk dirty back. I wanted to see if I could out-filth him. We got it on, all in speech bubbles, which was making me laugh. I responded to his various questions about the satisfaction I was receiving with typical porn flick style comments… I was so out of my league, I struggled to come up with anything original, but it seemed to be what he wanted to hear. Porn is, after all, a fantasy, and here I was being fantastic. He seemed to be getting a lot out of it. But still I felt nothing. He gagged her, spanked her, and called her a dirty slut, with her permission of course… and then moment came….there was silence…
A couple of minutes later I received a message in my inbox with a photo of his issue, lying like a dead thing, on his belly. I wretched a bit, she said “Hang on, I’ve got something to show you back”
“Yeah, kool….that was frickin amazing” was the reply.
Before his eyes, I flipped Avatars, and became the camp young queen of an earlier incarnation….silence…..”You frickin dirty frickin Goddam queer bastard, go to hell you pervert….” It was worse, but that I can’t print that.
Now, I had no reason to believe that the person behind the Avatar was a man, any more than ‘he’ had reason to believe that I was female, or male. Was ‘he’ upset because I’d spoiled the fantasy, or because my Avatar had deceived him? Who knows, but in the end, I had to block him, the messages were getting a bit scary.
Within the Playstation Home community, there is a movement to have Avatars truly represent the people behind them. Plans are bandied around by fearful and straight users to introduce face mapping so that your Avatar looks like you- the implication being that an Avatar that has no human face is not genuine. This crowd normality ethos is completely missing the point of virtual and fantasy; If you create a world where nothing is real, then introduce a identifying level of reality into that world to appease users who feel challenged by the whole idea of fantasy, then the whole idea of Home becomes what it is not – an extension of reality, not a virtual one.
Like many people who use internet forums to speak to the outside world where they may not be able to do so in their real lives, virtual reality offers us the chance to experience life in many guises, and this can only be a good thing, as it is through walking in others shoes that we learn how their lives are, albeit in a fairly primitive and exclusive world.
If I were infinitely bound to a wheelchair, yet able to escape this restriction by going to one of the club spaces in home and dancing with many people….or living a solitary life with social difficulties, yet was able to chat and speak to many people from around the virtual world as the persona I wish I could be, would I be castigated for being something I am not in the same way that my creations were, and continue to be?
Like many real human instances, when put together in a strange place, with strangers, the need to set a level of what is acceptably ‘normal’ is a driving force of the human state, probably required to alleviate the inert fear that we have of others, and to justify that fear, which is, after all, anti-social. We have evolved to be a social species, so justification is needed to overcome this kink in our make up. Consequentially, a divide is created, and those of the periphery of the communal understanding run the risk of castigation from the majority. It seems that even when given the platform to be free of these shackles, the majority are simply unable to free themselves, or expose themselves to new lives and ways of being and thinking – ‘Straight’….the people left on the periphery, who cannot commit to this template of acceptability, well, they’re queer! I have traveled to many places and lived in a variety cultures, and this is a global truth of the human condition in its actuality. It must therefore prevail in virtuality as well. I’m left thinking that virtual reality is wasted on us. If all the people sat in front of their games consoles and computers being themselves in virtuality were to go out and have real conversations with real people, this would progress the evolution of our species and culture. The escapism that virtualuty offers us is an ideology, that can never be a reality.
Like many real human instances, when put together in a strange place, with strangers, the need to set a level of what is acceptably ‘normal’ is a driving force of the human state, probably required to alleviate the inert fear that we have of others, and to justify that fear, which is, after all, anti-social. We have evolved to be a social species, so justification is needed to overcome this kink in our make up. Consequentially, a divide is created, and those of the periphery of the communal understanding run the risk of castigation from the majority. It seems that even when given the platform to be free of these shackles, the majority are simply unable to free themselves, or expose themselves to new lives and ways of being and thinking – ‘Straight’….the people left on the periphery, who cannot commit to this template of acceptability, well, they’re queer! I have traveled to many places and lived in a variety cultures, and this is a global truth of the human condition in its actuality. It must therefore prevail in virtuality as well. I’m left thinking that virtual reality is wasted on us. If all the people sat in front of their games consoles and computers being themselves in virtuality were to go out and have real conversations with real people, this would progress the evolution of our species and culture. The escapism that virtualuty offers us is an ideology, that can never be a reality.
My search goes on.
Happy Fantasies,
