Gaming while female

Today, as usual, I was playing WoW while having my breakfast. I was doing dungeons and got in a good group for Deadmines. We did an achievement, which went well, and managed to get in some conversation between the fights. The tank and healer were both very good and the other dps were about my level, so it worked out nicely.

Now, in Deadmines, once you've killed the actual Deadmines boss, the daughter of the previous Deadmines boss shows up. She's not in a good mood; she poisons the group, sending them off somewhere. As soon as she came up, the healer said:

Here comes the rape.
Get back in the kitchen, bitch!

At which point I said "sigh", and dropped group. I just don't have the energy for another one of those conversations - the ones where you spend at least half an hour explaining that no, rape isn't a "traditional gaming term", and yes, it does actually hurt to read that in a random conversation, and yes, throwing gendered insults around is really hurtful and no, "just a joke" isn't a defense unless you're four years old, in which case you shouldn't be playing WoW anyway.

It wears me down.

And a better gaming story

I play WoW on a role playing server. In theory, this means that players should build characters that have actual character and history, and all conversations that are audible/legible to others should be spoken as the character, not the player. So if someone asks how your day was, you may be talking about the nice weather in Thunder Bluff rather than the rain in Stockholm.

In practice, of course, most people don't bother. But today, as I was hanging around the mailbox in Orgrimmar, a goblin came up to me and smiled hesitantly. I raised my eyebrows at him. He politely asked if I could possible give him transportation, since mages have the ability to make teleports available for others. He offered to pay me; I declined, saying that I thought curiousity and an interest in other cultures should be encouraged. Then I gave him his portal to Dalaran, and he bowed a goodbye before leaving.

It took all of two minutes, and it left me smiling.