Tomorrow, we’ll conclude the discussion that first post has generated with a post from our own team, since we’re no strangers to LARP ourselves…¹

LARP is sexist in the same way that many things we can know and touch in our society are sexist. It’s a broad sweep to say it is primarily played by white, male, ostensibly middle class individuals often lacking in social skills and hygiene, and it’s increasingly not true or fair to do so.

In this response to Al’s post I’ll speak about the games that have informed my perspective – Lorien Trust, PD’s Maelstrom and Camarilla/Vampire LARP. I’ve been LARPing for about 11 years now. It’s probably also appropriate to point out that I am a cis male and therefore I won’t experience sexism – at least, not in any way comparable to most female players.

LARP is, primarily, a male-dominated game – just on the basis of who attends. Women can and do come and play, but as Al notes in his post, it is often (though not exclusively) as tag-along girlfriend characters. Women who subvert this and succeed in the game, whilst sometimes respected, often become more of a target for “PVP” (“player versus player” conflict) than male players succeeding in the same manner, simply because they’ve deviated from an assigned social position.

In a highly anecdotal and unscientific manner I’m now going to list a few instances of sexist and/or straight up misogynist behaviour I’ve witnessed whilst LARPing. I’m listing them because I feel they most accurately depict common manifestations of sexism within LARP, and I promise they’re all true. They’re absolutely not true of every male player, but they do definitely exist and they’re not rare like a dinosaur. They’re also not especially true of one system over another.

“Humour” and Misogyny

First off, myself and a NPC (non-player character) were standing around during a major Lorien Trust game watching people walk by. Half a dozen teenage girls in ballgowns walked past us. They were pretty smiley and seemed to be having a laugh in the sunshine.

NPC: Aww, look at them! Don’t they look all bless and nice!
Me: Aww, yeah!
NPC: Fair play though, as soon as they hit the stroke of 16 they’re going to get the living fuck raped out of them.
Me: WTF?!

The untyped climax of this story is that I said that this was not a cool or acceptable thing to say, and I did not think it was on. It had definitely been said in such a way as to suggest that such abuse would be quite desirable/fun were it to take place. My reaction caused a significant souring of attitude towards me both from the individual I had this exchange with and also from the people generally around this person – it was felt that I was making a fuss over nothing and should just “take a joke”. I’ve heard similar comments from other individuals and small groups, as far as I can remember though only when there was no female player or female member of staff around to overhear.

I can also cite numerous cases where a “provocatively” dressed female player was scorned and massively disparaged for “being a slag”. This often seems especially likely to happen if she has achieved some kind of success in the game, and it’ll range from jokes about what “whorish behaviour” must have taken place to get said advantages to just straight up behind-the-back savaging:

Male Player 1: Yeah, I hear she’s a virgin.
Male Player 2: At this event, maybe.
Male Player 3: If we went to kill her character, we could be half way through and then be like “OK, we won’t kill you if you suck us off”.
Male Player 4: Then kill her anyway afterwards. If she complains to a ref just say she’s trying to get out of being killed because she’s a cheating bitch.

This sort of shared humour goes way beyond risky “laddish” jokes told privately amongst men, and in some cases actively steps towards hate. It also suggests that actual sexist action – even where it is less extreme than the above – is more and more being seen as okay (or desired?) at LARP amongst some parties.

Gender Roles

It’s already been identified that women can play prostitutes or healers in many systems, and that alternatively they can make a push into a more ‘competitive’ character that is less traditionally ‘feminine’ (at least in terms of many LARPs’ expectation of what is appropriate for a woman to play). Women who choose these characters may find they are competing with male player characters in a way that male characters do not have to. A male character that is not a caricature or inversion of masculinity can compete with any other character on the strengths and weaknesses of their character. A female player character, unless she wants to be ignored outside her group of mates in roleplay, can expect to be treated principally as a woman rather than as a magician or a priest or whatever else first – unless she is particularly vigorous IC and manages to defy being categorised as some kind of “slag” – or indeed “just” a female.

Casual Sexism

The above are fairly extreme examples of nastiness I’ve seen happen at LRP events, but there’s also milder general and casual sexism. Pleasingly, this sometimes goes wrong. About two years ago I was at an event where four very hard, very killy male combat characters all died from drinking the poison that a corseted and large breasted female character served them from a bottle of mead when she came into their camp. This is quite believable – boys are often stupid, and many like breasts, whilst also assuming that “girls are bound to be harmless”. A few camps down? Oh, how we laughed.

There’s a good line in utilising sexism in this way that can be done by women at LARP events, although this is still arguably a hideous cop-out in terms of actually being able to play the same game as male players, on top of whether you find it distasteful or not. Some (usually) female players create characters who work in the in-character sex industry, the background to which rarely involves STIs, violence, drug abuse, sexual assault or any of the other issues of the real world sex industry. This is an interesting thread off of the infamous Rule 7 forums about how to play through the in-character sex industry with “sex” as both a business transaction and a romantic interaction.

It also cuts (very, very slightly) both ways: as a male player, I’ve played character types who were meant to be without gender or sexuality and found that some female players attempted to use what I’ve perceived as out-of-character flirting when interacting with me, probably because as a male player I’m perceived as potentially at least a bit sexist in my behaviour. A more advanced manifestation of sexism in LARP is what I like to think of as “harem” behaviour. This is where a female player deliberately cultivates around her – both in and out of character – a small collection of young men that follow her around and who do what she wants – in a way that I think is often distinct from simply being a female group leader with group members who happen to be male. I think I can see in this a recognition that some women feel they can’t compete in the same way as male players because of sexist attitudes and general uncomfortable treatment. Instead they may feel the need to cultivate a group of male characters to act through – or to provide enough security to roleplay with the rest of the field in such a way that is insulated on their terms, without being either leched at or just ignored.

In LARP and in Life

I think my main issue and argument is that all the examples above translate neatly across from real life. Sexism does happen a lot in real life, but there is an increasing social and political movement backed up by law to reduce and prevent discrimination. However, in a LARP game, there is only what players and system are prepared to step up against and say “NO” to. There is no standard of behaviour that can really be expected to be enforced beyond the absolutes of “no out of character violence”. This means people are free to avoid rewarding female characters in-game and can also get out of taking them seriously. If someone behaves in a sexist way, people might think less of them but often there’s still no threat of consequence. The behaviour that often goes on in the field, if it were relocated to an office, would result in investigation and employment tribunals, which illustrates how some men are able to get away with treating women in the field in a way they might not always in real life.

The Plus Side

Things are getting better – in real life, many men and women are increasingly unimpressed with sexism. Male and female staff exist in senior roles in more and more systems. One LARP system I’ve heard has allegedly cancelled the contract of a catering company at its festivals because of numerous complaints about its staff standing around loudly making rape jokes with customers.

It’s certainly unfair to say that every man who plays is sexist or hates women, or agrees with the things they hear their mates say when standing around in the dark at an event. It’s just as unfair to say that every woman that plays is either a victim suffering from sexism, encouraging sexism in some way or having to engage with sexism all the time. It also wouldn’t be right to say that every female player is actively engaged in dealing with or fighting their way past sexism all the time as they try to enjoy the game – most of the time people care more about killing the undead, and a lot of the time sexism does not come up. After all, it wouldn’t be much of a fun game if it was always horrible. When it does go wrong, though, fantasy can be just as bad as some of reality.

I would advise women that are into sci-fi or fantasy to go LARPing if they like the sound of it – I think it’s awesome – but I wouldn’t sell it to them as a completely optimistic, prejudice free, potentially feminist activity – at least, not any more or less than any other male dominated hobby.

• Ribenademon has been larping for 11 years since starting at university. He is very tall with laser beams for eyes; once mainly a purple demon, he now more often resembles a tall and angry tree focussing its efforts on fighting imaginary imperialism and colonialism, all the while appeasing its dark god. He also clearly spends too much time thinking about LARP. He looks forward to sacrificing you regardless of your gender.

1. OK, not all of us. But a significant amount – about a third of the team – have LARPed at some point in their lives. Geek power at BadRep Towers!