Gender-Switching in Cyberspace - Do Boys Just Wanna Have Fun?

  But can gender-switching be accurately identified? Out of curiosity, I asked a group of approximately 30 women what questions could be asked to detect a male pretending to be female. The questions they suggested all revolved around female biology and products. The issues that surfaced while they discussed the use of these queries were quite intriguing, andcontroversial. No doubt, people online would experience many of these questions as embarrassing, or as personal invasions into their privacy - so the need to protect one's own feelings would have to be weighed against the other person's rights. Applying them would probably only be appropriate when the relationship had progressed to the point where a person felt emotionally involved with the "female" companion, but suspected that deception and manipulation was afoot. Even more controversial was the fact that not all the women knew the answer to all the questions, which raised doubts about whether there even is knowledge that specifically identifies a female. For some of the questions, there may not be a "correct" answer at all, or the correct answer may depend on such things as your geographical location and culture. Detecting gender-switching might be a matter of determining how many questions the person seems to get "right," combined with weighing the manner in which the person replies to the questions. Does the person fumble, confabulate, get defensive and angry, etc. But even this strategy can fail. In some cases, it may be impossible to tell whether the person is being deceptive.

  Here are some of the questions suggested by the women:

1.     What is the difference between "junior" and "misses' sizes? (junior sizes tend to be smaller and may use a different size-numbering system)

2.     What sizes do pantyhose typically come in? (usually A, B, Queen.... rarely, "small, medium, large" - but this may depend on geographical location)

3.      What is the difference in how flushable and non-flushable tamponsare made?    (non-flushables have plastic in them - flushables have only paper and fabric)

4.      What size ring do women usually wear?    (5, 6, 7)

5.     When coloring hair, how long is the dye usually left in one's hair?" (may vary, but approximately 25 minutes)

6.      What is the average range of sizes for women's panties? (typical range is 2-10; average size is 6-8)

7.      What negative effect may antibiotics have on a woman? (yeast infections)