Forums » RP Discussion » RP Romance Gender Preference

Earlier this morning, I was randomly curious as to the roleplay gender preferences of the users on this site. Before making this thread however, I decided that I should look it up using the handy "search" feature. I used keywords such as "mxf, gay", etc. I used the forum topics section as a reference. Here are the results:

MxF - 20 topics total
MxM - 41 topics total
FxF - 16 topics total

These, of course, aren't entirely accurate, but they may have provided a hint as to what a majority of people like for their romance.

My question for all my fellow romance RP lovers is: What romance gender preferences (MxF, MxM, and FxF) do you have and why ("why" is optional)?

For me, its FxF

MxM All the wayyyyy.

I prefer M/F or F/F. I have very few male characters, so M/M isn't always on the table, lol, but I enjoy it when I get the chance to play it.

I think I prefer F/F to M/F but it's so RARE not only to find people who play it, but people with interesting and well developed female characters. People seem to spend more time developing male characters into something interesting, too. It's hard for me to find a well written female character--which is a shame because women in real life are oddly extraordinary in comparison.

I only play female characters so clearly MXM is off the table. That being said I have absolutely no interest what so ever in FXF so that only leaves MxF. That being said, I am a massive romance junkie.

The why is probably because I have very little interest in Yuri/Yoai with only a few specific pairings being the exception to the rule.

I am actually not at all surprised about the huge amount of MXM topics since there is a higher percentage of girls to guys in roleplay and Yoai fans tend to be dominated by women. Not saying that there can't be men who like it of course, just that they tend to be outnumbered by women.

I play namely male/masculine characters than I do female/fem ones. I namely play M/M but I'm not opposed to M/F or F/F, it's just it takes me more work to connect with my fem characters at times.
(•́ヮ•̀);;

I play whatever 'fits' the character and their backstory.

Like Kidd said, it's so rare nowadays to find M/F or F/F roleplayers and well-developed female characters because a good majority of people who want to RP romance and pairings love M/M and Yaoi/Shounen-Ai. (And this is coming from a fellow yaoi fan.)

I personally love F/F pairings because you barely see good yuri in general, let alone meaningful F/F stories that aren't geared to the male eye. I want to be part of those RPers who do wonderful roleplays and stories with female/feminine aligned characters, romance genre or otherwise. We need more feminine love~!

However, I'm never, never adverse to M/F or M/M; two of my most loved pairings in general are M/F and M/M. Love is found in many places and in many forms, and I do my best to make sure my characters see all sorts of relationships, no matter who the gender.

But this is coming from a hopeless poly shipper, so~

I don't really care much, but seeing as I have two female characters over my lonely Maeko, I suppose I'd ahve more FxF on the table, but you can never find any, most of the time that is. Though because I haven't been offered to use my female characters much, I don't get to have much experience for both my females. I don't usually take many Romane RPs though, I'm more of an Action or Battle Royale type person. That's why I make sure my Females can take care of themselves. The twins come as a package deal though... I'l have to think about that in my non-existent next Romance based RP.

MxM or no romance is my preference, but all my characters are different. I also notice that people looking for FxM will often simply advertise their topic as just "romance" and only specify "female looking for male" or whatever in the description. Not sure if that skews your data!

It kind of does lol but I'm almost positive MxM still takes the lead haha

I think this is on topic. A lot of people are using the words "yaoi" and "yuri" and while I see the appeal of the genres, I'm a little frustrated that it's a theme in the RP community to describe any LGBT romance as such. It's not just here; almost every RP community I've been a part of uses the terms: sometimes looking for RP and sometimes banning homosexuality within their group RPs (which is another issue altogether though I think it's somewhat perpetrated by the usage of these words). To me, there is an inherent sexual connotation to "yaoi" and "yuri" and it's a shame because people already over-sexualize gay people. From what I see, Yuri and Yaoi--Yaoi especially--fans perpetrate a problematic culture, and I tend to not RP with people who describe MM or FF as such.

I have characters who are neither male nor female, but still romantically involved, so I'm just going to go with "anything". I don't specifically advertise or look for certain gendered pairings, particularly if a character isn't straight or has a different gender identity than is the norm.

I enjoy exploring romances that are less conventional in nature, and that means the standard male on male, female on female and female on male pairings don't always apply!

I'm only comfortable with playing MxF when it comes to rp, and I really don't know why. I only get romance involved in an rp when it fits the characters,as I don't like forcing it into the story. I find it really hard to find good MxF rps, because there seem to be more homosexual rps in general, and because I tend to look only in the LFRP adults section, because I am prefer players over the age of 18.

Personally, as a friend of mine said, "hearts not parts".

That also said, I do find it a little surprising that everyone seems to have trouble finding FxF relations. The female characters I have played almost always wind up in relationships and romances with other females. A lot of that has happened on Furcadia, though, so that might also be another monkey wrench in the data.

O///O

I think the problem might lie in how the words are used, not the words itself. You see, in Japan, yaoi and yuri simply mean "boys love" and "girls love", respectively. It is used for entertainment media and can be used for any homosexual material (whether sexual or romantic, explicit or implied). But in the west, it is used to describe entertainment media that explores the more explicit parts of the homesexual relationship. These locational term differences lead to a lot of confusion in those unfamiliar with the words and/or their history.

To get to my main point, the words yaoi and yuri don't always have to associate with "sex". There are plenty of titles that portray more romantic relationships between same-sex couples. These material are the ones that mostly interest me, specifically yuri. And yes, even though nowadays yaoi and yuri media produced is mostly for entertainment than for accurately portraying a modern or antiquated (for lack of a better word) relationship, it still occasionally has interesting and philosophical morals and messages.

Anyway, the terms "MxF", "MxM", and "FxF" seem to more properly fit fanfiction, instead of roleplay, as these tags are mostly used there. (Also, it's easier to say "yaoi" and "yuri" out loud when describing that media than to say "'letter' x 'letter'".)

I hope this clears up any misunderstandings, if there were any. Also, I'm not trying to change your opinion, just trying to make sure the true meanings of the words are understood.

Literally my opinion.

Spread the love, man.

This. I love yaoi and yuri as much as the next person, but when I think yaoi, I don't think RP. I think manga and anime, and some of the more popular ones are most definitely over-sexualized. Enough to make even a pervert feel slightly uncomfortable. (Like MSochist said, the term originated from Japan, but it's most prevalent in anime/manga, and it's just now spreading to other areas like roleplay and fiction because of its popularity.)

Yes, there is "yaoi" and "yuri" that are romantic with no sexual activity involved. But in the world of yaoi/yuri fans, those are more identified as shounen-ai/BL and shoujo-ai/GL respectively. Which further gives the words yaoi and yuri a sexual connotation. Despite what it really means in Japan, if it really does mean that, it still carries some sexual implication here in the west. Most people who identify as LGBT don't even like to correlate yaoi and yuri (or uke, seme, and seke) as a part of LGBT culture because of those said sexual connotations. But M×M, F×F, M×F is more seen in LGBT fiction in general, not just fanfiction (Which also states yaoi and yuri in its tags more often than not.)

Also, what JayBird said. Beautiful. I just love people. People are nice. ....Except when they are butts.

Yes, of course. You're absolutely right about all that. The words themselves are fine. Though, I dislike how the genre in Japan is perpetrated, often reducing boys' love into entertainment for young women not meant to be taken seriously (similarly to how lesbian porn is treated by males in the west). I also dislike the sexual meaning Western culture insists it has.

I used to use these words freely and I still enjoy reading yuri/shoujo-ai. However, I'm just not 100% comfortable with the connotations attached to them in either Japanese or Western culture. And most RPrs I am in contact with...are western. So the meaning is very often explicit for them.

At the end of the day, though, you're right! It's just my opinion. And I've never really read fan fiction, so I don't know about any of that? But I've just always preferred MM, FF, or MF to describe the type of romance. But on that note, others are making a good point: non-binary relationships are even more difficult to write with most characters being exclusively male or female.

I really agree with this! And I wish it weren't so.

Actually I was wrong about that, sorry. Light was correct.

I just want to mention that this is nothing new. I've been roleplaying for 15+ years now, and yaoi and yuri have always been exclusively used to portray sexual relationships between two people of the same sex in roleplaying. It's not been until recent years that the definition has grown to include the non-sexual context of simple romance - it used to be called just shounen or shoujo ai when no sexual content was involved, that always made the distinction. And when you browse specifically for yaoi and yuri themed Japanese mangas and animes, you're looking for the hentai variety, rarely just for the nonsexual romance. While some shounen ai series contain sexual content, that seems to be the exception to the rule in most cases.

(This is address to everyone:) I'm curious though, what is the reason for not just simply calling it gay/lesbian/straight roleplay? Is it because the characters are specifically anime based? What makes it different from gay RP to you?