If you do happen to behold two characters mysteriously undressed and engaged in a lengthy private conversation, it's likely that you're witnessing an instance of erotic roleplay, commonly referred to as ERP. Erotic roleplay, as the name plainly indicates, is form of roleplaying centered on sexual behavior. ERP is not unique to WoW; it also occurs in other MMORPGs like Guild Wars 2, Starwars: The Old Republic, and Wildstar. Nor is it really encouraged in any capacity--according to World of Warcraft's terms of use, language that is "vulgar, obscene," or "sexually explicit" is strictly forbidden. But that technicality hasn't stopped ERP from happening.In fact, the game's ERPers have created their own veritable sex town, despite official disapproval: On the Moon Guard roleplaying server, the area of Goldshire is overrun with characters brazenly looking for erotic interaction. Many WoW players disparagingly, and not quite cleverly, refer to the area as "Pornshire." To venture into "Pornshire" is to behold the trappings of a roleplay-based sex bacchanalia that would make Georges Bataille blush, or at least stroke his chin pensively. "Goldshire has become this free-to-play adult sex chat friend finder," said Nico, a former WoW player and blogger who added, laughing, that many players occasionally drop by the tavern in order to "gawk.""If you play World of Warcraft long enough, you're eventually going to stumble inadvertently onto two characters mysteriously facing each other, undressed."
In an email, dixe seemed fairly nonplussed by the massive and diverse litany of in-game sexual behavior. "I believe that extreme fetishism exists in every nook and cranny of our 21st century viral content-driven culture," she wrote, further arguing that the kink one sees in WoW is no different than the content that sites like PornHub and Xhamster offer to "the fetishistic altar of consumerism." She continued, nonchalantly, "Every woman goes ass-to-mouth on the first date now, so what's wrong with making a toon who likes to get trussed up like a cheap whore and fly down to Booty Bay to service goblin longshoremen?"Her blasé attitude is not uncommon. According to Katherine Cross, "Self-consciously, ERP communities tend to accommodate a lot of extreme fetishes." This kind of overt open-mindedness, at its best, cultivates an environment in which sexual negotiations are remarkably frank and candid. In such cases, fetish lists outline clearly and concisely what each user consents to, reading like virtual versions of those hypothetical "sex contracts" that conservative commentators love to invoke with disdain.Take, for instance, the Dark Nest forums, where users looking to meet up in-game for erotic experiences can post personal ads. One such ad, posted in March, was titled "Fart Worshipping Slut looking for mistress." Its body contained a lengthy list of kinks-including, as the title would imply, a lot of "toilet play." Other forum users' responses were all blithely nonjudgmental and supportive: "I wish you best of luck!" one replied. "Good luck in your quest for sordid butt adventures," encouraged another; a third warmly informed the poster that he had sent her a private message."Every woman goes ass-to-mouth on the first date now, so what's wrong with making a toon who likes to get trussed up like a cheap whore and fly down to Booty Bay to service goblin longshoremen?"
"Guild drama," as a concept, tends to isolate and punish women in particular. A 2013 study in Frontiers in Psychology found that male players use it as an excuse for excluding women; multiple women polled said they had "seen guild recruitment state that they do not recruit female players due to the drama that they may cause." And even though World of Warcraft can allow for an unfettered sexual imagination in some ways, in others it remains constrained by the banal double standards of the real world. "If you have a woman who's an officer in the guild or even a guild mistress, and it is revealed publicly that she has ERP'ed with someone who is male-identified, she will always be accused of having e-fucked her way to the top," said Cross. "That will become a public scandal. People will say that she's not someone to be trusted.""You can easily find yourself in relationships that are, for all intents and purposes, deeply felt and genuine connections with people you may have never met or rarely interact with IRL."
A friend of mine, a girl, was new to the game and decided to play with me, also a girl. We made female blood elves together and played with no incident for around half an hour. We went back to the city for something, and then had a group of 4 guys following us around and not letting us quest in peace. After a lot of hounding and interfering with our quest mobs, they convinced her to go back to the city with them and offered to pay her 100 g to take off her character's clothes and dance in one of the inns. I suggested that we make male toons and she agreed. After making male characters, we encountered no more problems.