I also think that your comment "I think that even "Real Men" may also have a girly side" is absolutely true. I also have one.. would be horrible if i had not.
Dee, Im completely agree with you, free users are people to and have to be respected. I tried to say that behind a female free user saying "hi, I'm horny, i want sex with you" there is a guy often.
Guys posing as women isn't just an AChat problem, the poser thing happens all over the Net. Why do some guys do that? I don't know, I'm not a pysch major. I do know that it creates problems for real women:1. Somehow I then become obligated to "prove" who I am, while a guy gets a pass. This is outright gender bias, it violates my right to some anonymity (as a person, not necessarily as a gender), and is a blatant insult to me, because they're calling into question MY integrity, either implicitly or explicitly.2. An extension of the first is the pic, voice or cam request. This isn't totally a poser issue, as some want that kind of interaction that is outside the scope of AChat to enhance the online experience; which is fine for those who do it consensually. Where it becomes intrusive and gender-biased is when there is a demand to do it to somehow prove who I am.3. The gender doubt thing creates a whole doubt issue that can't be readily resolved without the woman having to bear the burden of proof. Oh really, it's my responsibility for who you're trying to cyber-bang? As Rocio said, there are ways to tell who is probably a poser. There are a lot of guys who don't care about any kind of meaningful chat and getting to know who you are first, they just want some quick cyber action (and usually in a crass, rude way). So if guys like babybuggybumper (BigTex) want to be more sure, maybe they ought to treat a woman like a person and not some object to stick their cyber pixels into. Ask the guys who do make it a practice to chat and know you first, making those connections in chat does nothing but improve the whole rest of the experience.Anyway, that's my quick take on it. Maybe I'll post this over in the non-techy area too, because it is something that happens; I've seen it happen, so maybe there's some way to discuss it (but without maybe tipping off the posers to what the tell-tale signs are lol).