>>103
> An even bigger problem is if you do roleplay and obviously, your partner never dies and you are fully aware that all that pain and suffering is absolutely pointless because you are both experiencing pleasure and everything is just a plain joke.

Eh... I don't know. Roleplay is collaborative writing, I don't think it's very different from a regular story (typically written by one person). In drawn artwork, in stories, in RP - in all these media it's the character who suffers, not the creator. And if you're watching a live-action movie with some violent scene, the character suffers but the actor (usually) does not.

I mean, sure, people roleplay in 1st person too, and some stories are written in 1st person too, but does that really change much? Literally everything except for real unsimulated IRL violence involves suspension of disbelief.

Then again, my take on RP might be different than it is for most other people. I roleplay misadventures of some characters, sometimes existing ones and sometimes original ones, and it's pretty damn obvious that I'm not Johnny Cage or Kim Possible, and my RP partner isn't Kitana or Dr. Drakken. It's pretty clear for me and for my writing partner that we're writing a shared fantasy, instead of imagining that this is happening to me (or to them). But I suppose it's different for some people who like to imagine specifically *themselves* in these situations.

Same with sex/smut roleplay. Myself, I have no problem playing male characters, female characters, and my partner playing M or F regardless of who they are IRL (... as if that is verifiable). I'm a heterosexual guy who is attracted to female humans - real ones or imaginary ones - so I stick to scenes of M vs. F or F vs. F characters, but that's it. But for some people (many of them?), sex/smut RP is about imagining themselves in that situation. These people are usually quite uptight about the gender and/or sex of their RP partner. IDK. IMO, who cares, it's a shared fantasy story. Most porn (of the live-action kind) is directed, filmed and edited by male crew, but it features female "characters" / actors. How is it any different?

I don't know, I went on a tangent here I guess. My point being, unless one's goal is to specifically imagine yourself in that situation (or imagine yourself doing something to someone), I don't really see how RP is much different from any other fictional media. It's ALL make-believe and no one actually suffers.

Side note, I wonder if all this is closely linked to the concept of "relatable" characters (in books, in movies, in games). This is a rather popular point that content creators are pushing in the past decade or so. "We need to have a character of X or Y gender, sex or race, so that the members of our audience who are also X or Y have someone to relate to". It's also often praised lately when a work has characters who are more or less "grounded" – someone who you might be able to become at least somewhat realistically if you try your hardest – instead of "larger than life" characters. I guess humankind at large, speaking generally, does indeed prefer imagining themselves as the lead character of a work. I'm willing to entertain the idea that it's me who is the odd one here, but I never felt the need for this in my life. When I read a book, watch a movie or play a game, I'm perfectly capable of following the adventures of some interesting character without literally associating myself with them or imagining that it's actually me there instead of them.

An even bigger tangent, eh? But this paragraph stays.