

Sexual harassment in videogame culture - Chocolator
http://www.forbes.com/sites/carolpinchefsky/2012/08/03/sexual-harassment-in-videogame-culture/

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enraged_camel
I'm a guy. Years ago, in what feels like another life, I played World of
Warcraft. My first character was a night-elf healer. I don't know what was
going through my head at the time I created my character, but I named it a
girl's name and, through my actions and the things I said, gave everyone the
impression that I was actually female in real life. The results were:

\- When I visited cities, random people would open trade windows with me and
offer to give me gold, anywhere from a few gold to a few hundred. One guy gave
me a thousand and I accepted. He then asked me if I would be his girlfriend. I
said no. He told me to keep the money, so I did.

\- People would offer me help, especially when I did quests. Even those from
the opposite faction would do it (I was on a PvP server) by helping me kill
mobs.

\- I would get a lot of what in real life would be considered "cat calls".
People would use emotes such as /whistle, /lick, /dance, etc. on my character.
I guess you could consider this sexual harassment, although I didn't feel
threatened (I might have, if I were actually female).

\- When I played with groups, for example in dungeons, if the group leader was
male, he would give me first dibs on loot. This often times made the other
players angry. At other times, they agreed I should get the best loot, because
I was a girl.

\- People, especially those in my guild, would send me private messages of
various natures. Some would make stupid jokes, some would share details about
their private lives (without me asking), some would just say sexist stuff,
etc.

At the time I quit the game, I was very rich, very popular on the server I
played on, and had several people who thought I was their e-girlfriend (even
though I had told them no). I was also the second highest-ranking leader of a
serious raiding guild - promoted because the guild master had a crush on me.
It helped that I was also good at the game, but I was undoubtedly given
preferential treatment because there were people who were more dedicated and
more skilled.

The whole experience, which lasted about a year, was very interesting for me,
because I gained a first-hand understanding of how women feel when they get a
ton of attention and receive special treatment, both positive and negative. I
interacted with normal dudes, lonely dudes, creepy dudes, stalkery dudes, and
girls who would complain about those dudes. And once I had this experience, my
real life behavior changed: I stopped treating women as special objects on
pedestals and started treating them like normal people.

P.S. I'm sure I will get some negative comments about how what I did was
unethical, and I tend to agree. Although I don't really regret it. The way I
looked at it at the time is that it was just a game and I was just having fun.
I never went out of my way to hurt other people, although those who I declined
advances from probably felt bummed for a while.

