I found the following blog post about being a female gamer somewhat entertaining:

http://lostinazeroth.blogspot.com/2007/07/being-female-gamer-for-profitor-why-do.html

Here’s the bit that fascinated me the most:

Although it is reportedly not as common nowadays as it was in the earlier days of WoW, every once in awhile, I will receive whispered questions of “Are you really a girl?” or “What do you look like IRL?”. I usually just shrug them off, but sometimes the invitations can be tempting. If you are supposedly a true female AND a sexy race (Night Elf or Blood Elf in particular) the attention you may receive can be insane. Being offered 5G (which when you are lower levels can be a small fortune) to “talk dirty” to a male character or a purported male player, isn’t all that uncommon.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with WoW, it stands for World of Warcraft and it’s an online role playing game. The game itself costs around $50, and then you have to pay around $15 a month for a subscription so you can play online. I’ve never played myself, but I had a roommate who was hooked on it for a few months.

Anyway, the whole idea of spending fake money to have some supposed girl talk dirty to you reminds me of the whole “cybersex” phenomena that was big in the mid to late 90’s. I remember being 16 and having a couple of friends over and all they wanted to do was to get on the net and “cyber”. I remember it being this huge thing, I remember being asked several times by people, after they found out I had net access, “dude, have you ever cybered?” Nowadays I don’t get that question so much. In fact, I don’t think I’ve been asked that question since I was 16. I’d hypothesize that the majority of guys doing that kind of thing in WoW are just horny teenagers, though I’m sure there are older guys doing that too, which is a little creepy, and a little sad too, I suppose.