Oh, there's much more cybering by proxy of avatars than you may believe, not to mention obsession over users just from their avatars. It's often quite obvious. And I'm speaking out of personal experience.
Guys trying their hardest to get female avatars to confirm their gender assumption. "But you ARE a woman in RL, right?" And then they take the lack of an answer as a yes and carry on. They try to convince themselves that the user behind that female avatar HAS to be a woman based on whatever they deem evidence. "It's impossible, absolutely unthinkable that a man can make such a beautiful female avatar!" Or no evidence at all. "I know that behind every other female avatar is a real-life guy. But behind THIS avatar, there's a woman! It just HAS to be! I KNOW it!" And yet, they're fully convinced that this is not wishful thinking.
Now, they are actually fully aware that users don't look like their avatars. "I don't care if you're 60+, I'm 60+ myself." They do consider that the user behind that female avatar isn't an exaggerated 3-D hentai caricature of Kim Kardashian. But they still deny the very idea that the user behind that female avatar is not a woman.
The same guys would be shattered and devastated if they found out there's a real-life guy behind that gorgeous female avatar. And seeing as how many emotionally unstable drama kings and queens we have on the Hypergrid, you never know whether they'll over-react, and if they do, in which ways.
By the way, another small piece of evidence of people actually cybering via OpenSim is that they always masturbate while their avatar is having virtual sex. A somewhat bigger piece of evidence is that their avatar cums when they do. And only then. A much bigger piece of evidence is that they assume that the same applies to their opposite. If you tell them you cum when you don't, at least not in real life, you lie straight into their face.
As far as "honesty up front" is concerned, I'm currently writing something regarding that. Honesty is generally good. However, blurting out your real-life gender right away is baaaaad style.
Lastly, I've always thought that it's obvious to the point of common knowledge that I've got at least one female alt. Maybe I'm still not dropping enough or not sufficiently obvious hints.
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