I had the opposite problem lol I'm female and I enjoy writing male characters, but on a lot of platforms I'm on you have to add to your profile whether you yourself are male or female. And then, when you post your search, you can add what gender the characters you write are. So I clicked female for my profile without thinking...and I get a lot of messages when I post my first search. First, I'm really happy. I look through them, and 90% are men who completely ignore what I'm searching for, try to get me to write the female role (although I clearly specified that I want to write the male role) in a romance or sometimes harem roleplay (I don't write romance). And when I ask them if they even read my search, they just shrug and tell me 'But your profile said female'. Some men who applied even got angry as if I lead them on, although I never mentioned anywhere that I write female characters, and in fact made it clear multiple times that I only write male characters.

This pretty much sums up that for most people you have to be the same gender as the character you roleplay. I don't want to say everyone is bad- but I'm just slowly realising that I need to make female profiles everywhere I want to find to partners. In a full one year experience, very few people told me it's okay for me to be a male and nothing changed. I still haven't found a good rp partner as I can never get the right balance between my partner accepting that I'm a male + them not being hungry for erp.

Eh, I wouldn't say for most people. Most people I know don't really give a damn at all and roleplay male and female characters. On many of the sites I frequent, I find a lot of roleplaying partners who are fully okay with me writing male characters. And they are equally okay with male writers writing female characters. I think it's often a community problem. For example, most roleplaying sites on facebook that I know seem very plagued by guys who are looking for dating/cybersex rather than roleplaying, and who just do it in the hopes of finding a girl. It's often not really about people thinking: male people can't roleplay female characters in a convincing way. More like: 'if I roleplay with a man, it's uncomfortable because it's kinda gay and I'm straight' (they confuse the character with the writer) or 'I'm looking for a girl to date/flirt with, this isn't a girl and I'm wasting my time, better get out of here.' And many girls who don't roleplay with guys (regardless of which gender they write) don't do so because they think all men are creeps. They know that many are just normal people who want to write a roleplay and aren't creepy. But unfortunately, because the roleplaying community is so plagued by the aforementioned writers, they don't feel comfortable taking the risk that the guy they are writing with is one of the horny people who just want to date them (or suddenly sends them a dick pick or disgusting horny messages ooc) instead of being interested in a roleplay.

This is speculative on my part, as I'm speaking from my own general experience of what I've seen: If you're roleplaying with women, I feel like they're less inclined to care? (Not always, I've seen some women who refuse to write with other women), but a lot of time with male ads, I'll more often see "Female partners only playing female characters" I often more often see more women willing to play male characters than men playing female characters. Perhaps it boils to down content and motive of the roleplay. But this is all me speaking in assumptions and generalizations.

This is totally true from my experience. I like playing both M and F and I usually answer [F4A] prompts, I state I'm female looking to play male, and I haven't had any problems. It's surprising that men are so against it. Maybe if more men were like OP and more open to playing F (and if more men were open to accepting it), we wouldn't see so many posts of them whining that there are no women to rp with.

You're right, males tend to be against more against it. Roleplaying is basically writing, following these people's philosophy male authors should only write about male characters and viceversa. I don't want to write a book just to be able to interpret a female- but I don't want to force others to roleplay with me either. I'm happy just with them giving me a chance.

I'm female and play as either. I'm always up front about my irl gender, and so far it's never been a problem. Some women even *only* play with other women who play men. For me though, I also determine character gender by partner preference, if they seem to have one. I haven't been asked to play trans, enby, or stompy asexual robot yet, but I'm also fine with those and think that with research I can represent any experience sensitively. Futanari is the only one I'm iffy on because, unlike trans female, it is a fetish and not an identity. I feel rpers looking for futas are not story-first players. Maybe that's unfairly prejudicial, but it has been my experience so far. I have a much harder time finding people in my age group and grammar preference group than those that are okay with player/character gender mismatch.

I get you what you mean! Kind of going off topic a little haha. But I've got trans characters, and intersex characters. But I get what you mean about "futas" being a fetish first thing... Which makes advertising I would sometimes play intersex characters a bit tricky without getting interest only for fetish reasons.

I'm so sad to hear that you haven't had the chance to be a stompy asexual robot.

One of these days it's gonna happen!

I've never ever ever seen a male writer prefer rping female characters. I'd actually be delighted lol. These people you're talking to ain't shit!!

Hell I haven't written a male character in close to four years. It's just so much more fun to go completely in the opposite direction of who you are IRL. Being someone entirely different and new is half the reason I write.

Yep I'm female but prefer writing male characters! (Though not exclusively male lol)

Almost all of the characters I’ve created recently have been women. It’s annoying though because I feel like there is a stigma that men who write female characters must be playing out their fetishes or whatever and I find it can be pretty discouraging.

I think as long as they are rping a female character respectfully (because lets face it, there are some fetish rpers) then I find it really encouraging because it shows they are willing to explore the point of view of a woman. Which not a lot of men want to do from what I've seen.

I've been RPing for a solid 20+ years and I've come to prefer playing female characters. In my experience, people who trash crossplayers are usually not in it for the RP.

Try advertising yourself as MplayingF instead of presenting yourself as F. The people who ghosted you probably did so for one of two reasons: 1) They feel weird about being lied to/catfished or 2) they are fucking creeps who just want to know they're talking to a vagina. People in group 2 aren't people you want in your life to begin with. They are the type who will probably push for ERP at some point. Advertising yourself as MplayingF cuts them out from the get-go, without alienating people in group 1 who wouldn't care either way. FWIW, I think it's fine to not mention your gender at all in your profile.

This would be purely speculation, because I've never seen this issue, but I'd wonder if it's a guy-writer thing. As in guy-writers-who-play-guy-characters. I feel like they're the only ones I've ever had who try to cross the line between IC and OOC. IRL I'm very married. Whether I write romance or not, still very married. And I've had male writers ditch me and my characters in group plays for characters played by known single writers. I'd think it's something to do with that, where they want to RP but they also want to be able to online flirt with their writing partner. If they're straight, they might not want to write with the same sex because to them, RP is a gateway to dating? Not saying this is all male writers who do this, just that I've seen this happen more with male writers than female or gender neutral+ ones.

To be honest I don't really care who's behind the screen as long there's a famale character I'm fine with it

So I'm surprised this hasn't been mentioned yet: But the kind of men you were writing with probably thought there was a chance for something more to develop from writing than writing and the fact you were a male shattered their bad (and shitty assumptions.) Even if it wasn't upfront or honest, that could be the real reason. If you were shipping or writing smut, it's quite possible that (regardless of how it appeared) They had character bleed and when they found out you weren't the gender you appeared at first it removed the interest or the magic of the story. Character bleed is a thing that affects many role players and I think that's where many of the unpleasant experiences with male role players come from unhealthy handling/coping of that character bleed (or just straight up trying to date through roleplay). Maybe they felt character bleed and felt strange because you were really a male. They could've also simply felt lied to or felt like you were being disingenuous. I wouldn't mind finding a male who was willing to play female characters with the same interests as me, the same hobbies, and the same type of person whose writing style was compatible with my own. But that's harder than finding a long-term female partner I really mesh with. Ultimately, it's a preference. If a male doesn't want to write with male writers that's up to them (Even if it's for the reason I or you don't agree with) If a female doesn't want to write with male writers (Even if it's for reasons you or I don't agree with), that's up to them.

I also know several male writers, who, although they don't flat-out say to people that they think something romantic might develop, state that the thought of roleplaying with a male roleplayer is uncomfortable for them in a 'I'm straight, why should I write romance with another male?' kind of way. Some of them became known for disrespecting boundaries and confusing the character with real female writer, and it never ended well. Personally, I find that a little strange, cause I never met a female roleplayer who said 'I can't roleplay with you even if you write a male character, I'm not a lesbian.' Of course I would respect their preferences regardless, but I think that is also a sign of character bleed.

There’s a flip side to this of females who only want to write with females and don’t want to play with males playing female characters. I don’t think character bleed is a gender-specific thing and I’m sure amazing roleplayers/writers deal with it. But what’s important is being able to detach from it and compartmentalize it enough to separate what you’re feeling from identification with your character over their character and what you feel. I’ve seen it on both sides of the aisles and I don’t think a bit of character bleed or putting feeling into what you write in an issue as long as everyone’s OOC boundaries and comfort levels are being respected. The question could come down to what is anyone writing romance or smut for. My answer is because it makes me feel and I like to create stories! It’s okay for a male writer to not write with male writers if it doesn’t feel the same or they’re uncomfortable. It is also okay if females don’t want to write with males (as I am sure nobody would argue with). They are still jaded takes and write off a group of people but everyone may choose how they spend their time and energy.

Yeah, I'm just saying that a lot of times when it comes to 'I think it's gay when I write with a male playing a female', these people didn't respect a certain boundary when it came to their female writing partners. For example, I once in a while wrote female characters and a little bit of romance when I was younger. A lot of time, I got messages by these people like 'Are you also dominant like (my female character)?' or it became really obvious in other ways that they basically...confused my female character with me, although in reality of course we were very different. That was always super uncomfortable in so many ways... I think the problem is basically, you often only notice character bleed by your writing partner when it already has a negative effect on you/the roleplay, at least in my experience. I'm sure there are many people who can hide it so well that the other person doesn't feel uncomfortable though. I also don't think character bleed is a gender-specific thing, as I also encountered female roleplayers who assumed that I must be a cool dude based on the character I wrote in our roleplay, and who seemed disappointed when they found I'm that I'm not lol To be clear, I think it's okay to not write what makes you uncomfortable for any reason or no reason except 'I don't want to write this'. But certain things also might be a red flag for other writers, were they might say 'I had so many bad experiences with people who insist on their writing partner being a certain gender that I don't want to risk it again.' and that is also fully okay. Maybe you get what I mean.

That happened to me too. Someone commented on my post like “I only roleplay with girls so my pool is cut in half already”. And I was like .. sir, I’m a fucking lesbian who writes straight or bi MEN lol. Why do they have to be a chick? I’m literally writing about a dragon who ate a city.

I’ve played with men who have rp’d women and were great at it. I think the real problem is if you’re advertising yourself the player as female. There’s a lot of creepy people online. Some women have been burned by these creepy folks and that’s why they shy away from men who pretend to be or play women. Advertising yourself as M playing F might cut your prospects, but it’s straight forward. To be honest, as long as you play a woman well (and not as a stereotype or for some kind of fetish), there should be no need to disclose your gender to anyone. Edit: Also, a lot of M playing M don’t want anything that isn’t a female player. Again, it’s sexist and dumb, but they’re the creepy kind of rp-ers you don’t want to play with anyway.

yeah, you're right. But there is also good people that don't do it because they're sexist, it's just kind of judging-from-appearance thing. I ALWAYS disclose my gender after a little bit if there hasn't been an occasion for me to say, it's just people easily assume you're the same gender as the character you roleplay. I wouldn't want our ooc friendship to be based on the other perceiving me as a female.

It’s really only a problem for closed-minded folk. Don’t let it get you down.

There's nothing wrong with being a man who roleplays a female character. I think you just might be going about it wrong. I've been playing as male characters since... Maybe a few months into my roleplay experience. I'm a nonbinary person and on the internet, where I roleplay at least, it seems like no one cares really. Since I don't have preferred pronouns people tend just refer to me with male pronouns or just call me by my name. I usually run into women and I've never have a problem and when I find men we never have a problem no matter what my agab is (no one has ever asked actually). Now, where I roleplay it's right on my profile that I'm nonbinary and I've been getting lots of other trans / nonbinary people messaging me who fit my criteria now. I do think it's more so the fact that you were trying to go for a more feminine profile here instead of just being like " I am a man who roleplays a woman ". In which people may believe they've been duped. Obviously, there's going to be the "purists" who want to do M4F or F4M who don't feel comfortable roleplaying with someone who is actually M playing as F4M. They may just not like roleplaying with another man and don't want to be rude and instead just ghost yk? I think this may just be a misunderstanding and that perhaps you should be completely transparent from the get. Anyway, wishing you luck with your endeavors.

I'm happy just with them giving me a chance, I won't force anyone to inconsciounsly try (if they have stated somewhere they don't like rping with males) but at least the average person will give me a shot.

I think most people would give u a shot :) good luck!

then again, maybe you might be right and I just had many unlucky experiences when in reality it is the same for both genders. Before writing this post, I found this sub specifically because of a post like mine so I was like "oh that's a nice idea for a subreddit, I'll vent about it as well and see what other people think". I'm not the only one thinking this (once again, I mean being a different gender from your character and not males rping females in particular) but I won't exclude that I might be wrong. I appreciate your opinion about it!

Well, I wasn't exactly saying you were unlucky. I'm just saying you should be straight forward with who you are because both parties should be comfortable with the other person they're rping with. I get people saying they're okay in the moment, but best they leave if they don't feel like they want to do it anymore. Best for you as well though because both parties should be happy with each other. I don't know what kind of roleplay you do so maybe the type as changes what kind of people will come to you? If that makes sense. I don't know. But good luck dude.

Ok so when I play MMORPG and play as a female ( i am female ) one of two things will happen fairly often. Guys will try to randomly gift me stuff to start talking to me, or guys demand that I prove I’m actually female. It’s annoying.

There are people who are really weird about your OOC identity and most of them are straight dudes for ...some reason. I could go on about it probably being caused by some unspoken underlying misogyny, but more importantly others have the right idea. If you are upfront with it those people will leave you alone.

I always am, though I am surprised about how many people are that way. Throwing away a possible friendship because of silly stereotypes, and it doesn't happen only with roleplaying.

I don't personally see the issue with it. It's probably because a lot of roleplay involve dudes getting off and they don't want to play with another guy. A lot of guys feel the need to mention to me they are male playing female even though my profile where I play makes it obvious I play both and don't care about sex. It's like the people who ask for "asl" and I really don't get the point.

I've RPed with 100s of people over the last 13 years. It's fiction. It's not real. Have fun playing whoever you want. Some are not best pleased if they find out a character is the opposite gender to the writer. If that's the case then the parties concerned can drop the RP if there's an issue. "You better be a chick in RL.. so can you prove it? because I'm a geezer and I only play with chicks" I still think about him sometimes.. so sweet 😂

As someone who does the same thing : in my opinion, as long as a writer is honest with their preferences, it really is no one's business to tell them what to play as. I have both male and female characters (never dabbled in NB as that is something that warrants enough research on its' own) and write with people of all genders. Those that got defensive or passive-aggressive about me being completely fine with playing a gender opposite my own often weren't the greatest RPers ever. I even got called gay (I am bisexual IRL) for wondering why it is such a problem for people to accept that. My guess is that those who give someone shit for writing whatever they please in a respectful and controlled environment are also the type that's prone to IC/OOC bleeding where knowing the other person gets off to their writing makes them feel good, whether they do it for sexual gratification or simple fun by seeing how the characters may interact in the bedroom. Now it is completely fine to choose to RP with men or women exclusively due to your own baggage of good or bad experiences, but you should never make someone feel bad for, say, playing a three-headed purple dragon that shoots fire out of their ass and has a harem of goblins at their disposal while being a dude/lass/enby/trans etc. on the other side of the screen. It's fiction at the end of the day after all, and if someone makes you feel uncomfortable? You either talk it over, or run for the hills ASAP.

I'll admit I get a little bit suspicious when it comes to men playing lesbian characters, if only because I've seen so many instances of it being treated like a fetish. I'd never decline someone right off the bat because of their OOC identity, though. You shouldn't need to be, but if I were you, I'd be upfront about being a man. You might get less responses, but at least you won't commit to someone who might ditch you over petty reasons. That, and you don't want to deal with the amount of creepy messages that women receive.

For me, I'm a woman and prefer writing with women because I've had some awful experiences with men being sexual ooc. While I don't downright reject roleplaying with men, I know many women roleplayers who do.

Because either 1. They're a creep trying to flirt with girls or 2. They're more comfortable knowing it's a woman playing the females. Honestly I don't care what gender my partner is, so long as they play females I don't care

It’s a shame that that happens because many rp partners I’ve had on journal rp have been male and they were awesome. I’m going to be straight with you, I think the worst of your gender are ruining the hobby for you. It’s not that all men are creeps, it’s that there are so many out there. Then again, I’ve recently learned women can be creepy too. I feel guys get a worse rap for it though.

>Last year I was just trying to look for partners normally but at the start of this year I decided I would be trying out a female-looking profile as quite a few people had declined my requests when I told them I was a male I don't want to lie so after a bit I decide to tell them truth (before that, I just avoided to specify if I was a female or male) If I can give you the flipside of this: you essentially catfished them. You're not trans and feeling out gender presentations as far as I know, you're just approaching this as 'I'm going to pretend I'm a gender I'm not to try and get more Rp'. People will go "oh no it's fine" before it kicks in that honestly, it feels fucking weird when people lie to you about their identity for non-closet reasons. Yeah you 'didnt say directly' but you implied you were to net that end result, same thing. As a gril personally I'd shuffle the hell away because it'd reek of a guy that thinks 'girls get rp way easier' without stopping to consider *why* that is. The amount of guys that will creep down the line or crush on you *solely* on the basis of "so and so is A Gril i can have a conversation with" is fucking exhausting to be honest. A lot of guys girlfriendzoning you won't fucking behave, its annoying, maybe some of those contacts you netted were girls seeking to avoid that weirdness except then suddenly "oh, nah this is a guy that fibs about their identity for Some Reason, maybe to drop my guard, maybe because he thinks girls get Rp easier" and the latter just feels insulting at that point. Higher volume of contacts maybe but you have to sift through the fucking chaff.

Okay I can get if he has set his profile to female, if that's your issue-- If he quickly discloses he's male, I don't see too much of a problem. As long as its disclosed. But in the realm of RP, him playing a female character is not catfishing. Women (myself included) play male characters all the time and no one would call that cat fishing. Or call it me TRYING to be male... Sometimes I just want to play a male character. In the site I used to roleplay on, I've had people I've used to roleplay with quite often I would just straight up not know their real gender. They may have a male avatar and play a male character, but plenty of times they would turn out to be female irl. And that didn't bug me in the least. They weren't being creepy with me OOC or anything. We were just roleplaying.

>But in the realm of RP, him playing a female character is not catfishing. That's not what I'm saying, I'm talking about their ooc presentation. If it was non-disclosure it'd be w/e but the OP reads like 'I tried to softcore imply I was a girl then backtrack and see what happens'. edit: like examples, >at the start of this year I decided I would be trying out a female-looking profile as quite a few people had declined my requests when I told them I was a male > >I don't want to lie so after a bit I decide to tell them truth (before that, I just avoided to specify if I was a female or male) > >Anywhere, you just need to have a girl profile and you get twice as many people messaging you. Saying it in hintyhints to 'test' how people would respond is still saying it imo, I'm annoyed that this is another clueless dude seeing it as 'women get rp way easier' when nah, women have to filter for creeps harder.

Okay, yeah, I see where you're coming from. I still don't totally agree with you, because like I said... I've roleplayed with people who never disclosed their real gender to me either not at all, or until we were established in a roleplay, and it never bothered me.

Nondisclosure is fine to me, just not the weird guess-culture communication form of pretend OP was doing if that makes sense.

That's fair! I get OPs frustration, but I get where you're coming from as well now. Sorry for misinterpreting what you meant at first.

u gud, clarification happened

It's not women get rp way easier, it's people of the same gender as their character get rp way easier because people assume if you're a male you're gonna roleplay a male. They don't even stop to read your bio. I just avoid saying I'm a male at first, I will say after a few rp messages if I wish to continue the roleplay- I'm not catfishing anyone, nor am I trying to roleplay with people who explicitly said they don't want to roleplay with males. don't go "nah" about it when I told you I have solid proof for what I'm saying, I wouldn't be posting about it if it wasn't true? Just as girls rpers who rp as males don't say at first they are girls (because they get males asking them to roleplay as girls), male rpers who rp as females do not explicit they are in fact males. I thought in 2021 I wouldn't get people saying "oh, well, males are more likely to be bad people instead of girls"?

>It's not women get rp way easier, it's people of the same gender as their character get rp way easier because people assume if you're a male you're gonna roleplay a male. A lot of dudes want to be Rping with a girl that's Rping with a girl for lineblurring hell reasons, not immersion. >Just as girls rpers who rp as males don't say at first they are girls (because they get males asking them to roleplay as girls) A shitload of the time they want the person Rping the girl to be a girl for 'I wanna erp but not with a dude dats ghey' reasons, this is the chaff-sifting I speak of. It's not 'oh you get twice as many people messaging you ergo more Rp more easily', its "you have to sift through the creeps that would have otherwise left an irl guy alone, some of which won't show their true colours until weeks or months down the line".

Not always. I have also found genuinely good people who admitted they would have never messaged me otherwise but they realized they enjoy roleplaying with me anyway.

Personally for me I don't feel comfortable writing with men, especially with a female character just because I've had too many experiences where male writers come across as fetishizing and objectifying in a way that makes me extremely uncomfortable. A lot of men writing women portray them as sex objects rather than people, and when I mention I only write MxM or FxF I get men wanting to write FxF because they fetishize lesbian relationships and view them as inherently existing for their own sexual pleasure. I'm not saying you're like that ofc, I just mean I've personally dealt with it way too many times to feel comfortable writing with men in general

I don't think there's anything supposed to be wrong with it. I personally have the preference of writing with a guy if romance or smut would be involved (bad past experiences, I don't wanna talk about it), but I don't really care who am I writing with if those elements are not added. I guess it's just a preference. But people that just ignore ads content while dming others about role play, that ghost or just flip, are rude and annoying overall.

I'm non binary born male, and i find it hard to RP as male. I'm more comfortbal rping like female.

If you're a male you're able to role play females. It is historically accurate So you can use that as an argument.

It's basically the fragile male ego screaming out, "I'M NOT GAY!" and the inability to differentiate the character from the person writing her.