Gender-Switching in Cyberspace - Do Girls Just Wanna Have Fun Too?

            'He' was much shyer than my normal 'real' or cyber self, if also 'older', and presumably 'wiser', and I could often 'see' 'him' in my mind's eye, 'wiping his glasses', which I also do not wear, as 'he' hovered as observer on the fringes of a chat, before committing 'himself' to considered opinion. This is very unlike my primary (Aries) identity, which tends to jump in first, boots and all, and ask questions, and, if necessary, apologize for tactlessness later! I wonder if I am an oddity, or are there other women out there who use male personae for similar reasons? I see "The Doctor" as not a little like the researcher's 'grey owl' primary avatar! But this could also be interpreted as a wholly feminine image, i.e. the grey owl of the goddess Athene!

After switching chat environments, she felt she didn't need The Doctor at all anymore. She learned that when she felt threatened or vulnerable, she could simply retreat into a lurking or semi-lurking mode to get the same effect. Even with what she regards as a "feminine-enough" handle, many male users still assume she is male - which she attributes to the fact that as a strongly opinionated woman she seems to be expressing her own inner masculine energies. "However, it does serve as a handy weapon, when they think they have me all sewn up, to come back with 'All that may or may not be true, but you at least have got the sex entirely wrong!', usually accompanied by a protruding tongue, as in playground battles!"

John Suler, Ph.D.