We can be who we chose as an avatar, but how much does our
“us-ness” carry over and be revealed in our avatars?  Do we get treated as our avatar or as
“us”?   That is we can try to be our true
selves and transcend how we seem to others, but can we overcome our social
conditioning?  When we are treated badly
as an avatar does it reinforce our pasts? 
Does encountering “mansplaining” 
when we are presenting as male make us react as a woman? Or does it
suddenly seem an appropriate way to talk to a woman / perceived inferior? 

Do we act in our roles no matter what? 

Do we over compensate? 
Are women as men super macho? 
Does that reify the difference?

For example if we are perceived as “Chinese” by the mere
fact of being seen in a repetitive activity and thus assumed to be gold
farming, are we locked into a role, we’re unable to prove were not,  and if we are Chinese, what then?  

Are we freed or trapped? 
What if we have no access in the first place?  Does the freedom of others lessen our lives?

What does it say if an oppressed category wants to
experiment as the other?  Is it wrong to
play as another race or gender?  Is it
“slumming” or voyeuristic is we go “down” the oppression scale?  Is deceptive? Is it self-hating to go “up”
the scale?  Women playing men, okay
--  that’s trading up!    But would we see it the same if black plays
white?   

An aspect  I find
intriguing is the abilism of the  avatar
world --  it’s assumed one will want to
be “whole”  or to experience a life “freed”
from the body’s limitations.  Disability
Pride might say otherwise.  (Not to
mention the communities that see their true bodies as missing parts or that
fetishize amputees.)

I choose to create a male and US-Japanese avatar (TommyTanaka)
 in Second Life to see what happens.  He’s not straight, but no one knows that
yet.  Right now he can hardly walk, so we’ll
see what unfolds.  I’ve had female avatar
in the past, but she was used for academic experiments in on-line learning and
didn’t really interact much outside the campus set up for us. 

Just as I find it irksome when people say English as a
Second language when many of my students are on a 3^rd or 4^th
one, I feel eye-rolly that they think this is only my 2^nd life.  As if! 

I loved that their registrations age range allowed that I
could have be born in 1913, but I feel sad for all the 101+ year olds wanting
an avatar.   

Sarah