This Fleshless Place: Dysphoria and Virtual Reality
“When is a house not a home?”
The voice echoes through my speakers. It’s not as bass as mine, not as much of a showman. But in it’s timbre I hear the makings of both. It repeats the question once more as conviction fills the syllables this time. Belief. That’s what was missing. It had to believe it’s role.
“When is a HOUSE not a HOME!?” it shouts, with all the blood and fury of a madman. The reply that comes from my speakers is a friendly voice. Someone I knew well from the time. They had an upbeat, cheery tone. Just as I had instructed them to. None of this was planned. None of it. Yet we sold the whole affair as a living, breathing thing. A world worth stepping into if only for a little while, if only for us. Different lives and faces. The audio ends abruptly. My computer begins to auto-play another entry far more recent. I know without looking at the time stamps. That voice? It’s got a lot more bravado, a lot more daring in it now.
It’s me, changed and having grown strange over a span of ten years. The guy in the first recording? Gods. If only he knew what we’d become, what we are. I wonder if he’d be happy?
The guy from then, this twenty-something punk so terrified of everything, that’s what he wanted most. To exist beyond the mere confines of what he’d rooted himself within. The waking world had put him within a corner, one he didn’t like in the least. So he chose acting. Bit parts with friends done once a year around halloween. He chose that holiday because it gave him an excuse to admit it was okay to be someone different, sometimes radically different. In that particular recording, it was Nick Upton. A paranoid, delusional schizophrenic that had inherited his fathers ever twisting, ever shifting house. The punk I was ten years ago slipped into Nick’s tone and cadence as easy as one does a well worn sneaker. I wasn’t myself when I recorded Nick’s parts-I was he, with his history, his face, his hopes and terrors. To not be myself, if only for a little while, was liberation.
I’ve been chasing that high ever since.
To be free of the confines of my own flesh through brief windows of time. To be free of the terrors and horrors of the world I was born into, with it’s death and war and global warming inevitably coming for us all. This ravenous machine that never ceases in it’s lust for blood, it gets to be so damn much sometimes. Any port in a storm, any out from this place that won’t lead to my destruction is often one I explore.
Most days, that means jumping behind a mic. Wearing the flesh of this magnanimous wizard that can do anything. Sometimes I’m a werewolf, a demon, a priest, a bully. I lean into these parts with all I have. Acting is baptism when you’ve sought salvation from yourself your entire life. I cup my hands together and take a deep breath. With an exhale, I let out everything in my lungs and push it right into this character. An existence apart, but familiar and wonderful and radiant. A better place and a better me. A place I love, and long to be a part of.
If you’ve ever sent in a request or a commission, know that in a real way you’ve saved me from myself. It’s why I tell you all so often that I love you. It’s true. Every word. When the hydra of dysphoria, disassociation and imposter syndrome strikes it’s recording that’s kept me sane, here and “real” within those fleeting moments.
Satiating that need to be away hasn’t just got easier, but fundamentally changed in radical ways I never would have dreamed of as Nick, or even as “Jack from Tumblr”. There’s the mic, sure-but also technology in place to pull you from the world for hours at a time. Roleplaying exists and always has-but with the rise of Virtual Reality has come a path unlike those before it. You can directly toss yourself into a game, into a place you’ve never been for as long as you’d like. You can explore, experiment and alter yourself in ways you’d never been able to. Even with things like Second Life, there had always been the omni-present feeling of controlling an automaton.
That’s gone, if you’ve the coin and gear to make it happen.
Virtual reality has come a very, very long way. With no small amount of interest from big tech. They’re turning you into even more points of metadata than ever before, but that was inevitable.. Oculus billed itself as a (reasonably) affordable alternative to the HTC Vive and Steam Index. Unlike its counterparts, the modern iteration can go cordless. In an era where silicon shortfalls and bitcoin mining have made building a gaming PC a pipe dream, this gives Zuckerberg’s living data collection monster an edge even with it’s software limitations. There’s still plenty on the platform, even viable ports of some titles.
But that’s not what interested me in obtaining one. Nor is it what led to this article.
The pandemic hasn’t been as harrowing for me as it has others. I’ve lived a life apart and largely in isolation despite my stage presence. In the woods of NC I’ve no company that I’m not aware of save for the deer, silent and graceful and terrifying. There’s a hawk that flies overhead sometimes too. What’s more, I had an absolutely incredible support network of family, friends, lovers and more that helped keep me grounded. We may not have been able to hug, but we could talk. In the end, that was enough.
Yet, they weren’t always awake. I spent the long hours of silence over the last year working to push away the quiet. When I wasn’t that, I did a lot of thinking. I turned over many events of my life and took note of things that I’d done for attention and self satisfaction. I realized deep in that pondering I had a word for all those odd moments I did something, anything to feel at home in the body I find myself in.
Dysphoria. That’s what it was. It was dysphoria that made me feel like something was wrong and horrid and “not right” about the flesh I was in. Suddenly, the years spent almost killing myself on a weight bench, struggling to find “the right style” and more made a lot of sense. I was at odds with my body far more often in my life than I had ever dared to realize.
That guy in the decade old recording, that’s why acting felt so good to him. He was free. If only for a moment. I don’t think it’s unfair to say trying to understand my relationship with my body and make peace with dysphoria is one of the driving forces behind my career.
One of the best people in the fucking world mentioned to me “you made your self insert in your works as gross as possible. He was smelly and didn’t take care of himself. That wasn’t a bit-that was you projecting how you saw yourself”.
They’re going to smirk reading this, but I’ll type it regardless: They were right.
Battling dysphoria, coming to terms with this bubbling self hatred I had for so long and coming to realize I could love myself is why I picked up an Oculus. It was yet another (relatively safe) path to explore my gender identity. I lied and told myself I needed something to do with my tax return, but the moment I saw multiplayer games? I knew. Even if I didn’t say it.
VRChat was in the oculus store front and center. Boy howdy, was I not brave enough for that yet. An always online world where you could talk and use body language? Ha-ha, fuck that. I was terrified of socializing with people in digital spaces enough as it was. There’s no way I could-
Then the light bulb came on.
Four months. Four months before I finally downloaded it. I went into the world for a full 48 hours to see if that lightbulb could keep its radiance.
I had some thoughts.
The Oasis
A cursory glance on Youtube brings up plenty of compilations like this (TW for all the things you probably dislike). VRChat brings all the (nearly) anonymous liberty of a chat room with all the manic energy of an adult puppet show. At this point in my life, I’ve been on the internet for two decades. I’ve dealt with every oddball, weirdo, troll, political extremist and creep the tubes have to offer. Watching stuff like this was more groan inducing than anything. It wasn’t anything beyond what I had heard, seen or personally experienced. But I also wasn’t a fucking idiot.
Creating a VR chat account took some finangling, as setup simply couldn’t complete while I was using the Oculus. Their mobile site is abysmal, yet managed to push through. I verified my email, and logged in for the first time.
There’s a brief tutorial on setting up your control scheme and camera angle. If you’re unfamiliar with VR, I actually recommend going through it. It shows you how to bring up your menu, which is where you’ll spend a sizable portion of time hopping between worlds and identities. After that, you’re dropped unceremoniously into a central hub that features a few VRChat original worlds.
Before you go any further, I recommend going into your Oculus settings and enacting every single privacy measure available, especially if you’re logging on with a facebook account over an Oculus account. People in VRChat won’t be able to connect to your Normiebook that way. Likewise, VRChat with the oculus has some limitations. You’re not going to see every crazy skin or affect there is. They have to be compatible with the VRChat APK build of the game, or they just won’t show up (users will appear as triangles). That’s even with all your privacy settings on custom within VRChat to allow such things.
This brings us to the next limitation: Your skin has to be able to work with the Oculus if you want to use it. I’m sure there’s some crafty technomancers out there that have found a way around this, but I didn’t really care. There’s a large amount of skins available to users, and more growing all the time-a majority of VRChat is actually user created. Worlds, skins and more are almost universally plucked from someone’s brain (or whatever SFM dump they can get).
Which brought me to my first conundrum-what do I pick to be?
Skins are arguably the most noticeable part of VRChat and the one that gets the most attention. While you’re not married to any one individual skin and are free to swap, many users (especially streamers and Youtubers) often craft or pick one to be their identity. Lots of users will engage with you based on what your skin looks like. This brings all the horrors and joy of the real world into what should be an engaging (and safe) digital space.
I was leaning with a masculine skin to begin with, then paused. Instead I went for being an androgynous cat person in a purple, floor length coat. It was a far departure from the gross projection I used to give myself. They were small, lithe and far more effeminate than I’d ever dared to be in other online games.
Because people always say something about my voice.
Fuck ‘em I thought as the skin loaded. I lifted my hands and looked at the smaller wrists, the hands uncallused by years of lifting. Then I took a deep breath, muted my mic and dove in.
The Black Cat Nightclub was billed as a bar/diner where you could gather around with patrons. It featured a balcony, two stages and even bathrooms. The lighting and everything looked great. If the place existed in real life, I doubt I’d have any clothes fancy enough to go. The moment I entered people were screaming. I was Dante looking for a Vergil at the precipice of hell, as the shouting was a mix of joy and raw anger. I double checked to make sure my mic was muted, and stepped within.
Socializing for me has always been difficult because I never truly know who or what people expect when they meet me. Online, people often approach me for business or as fans of my work. In the waking world, they come to me for computer repairs or because they knew my father. It’s placed me in an odd quagmire of making sure I’m wearing the right face in the right place out of deep rooted fear of getting a question I can’t answer with my usual improv flourish.
Yet I know both of those stages incredibly well. I know those roles. With a crooked smile and the right voice, I can find my footing through both. When I’m away from them or in unfamiliar territory, I say nothing at all. I’m quiet and gray, another face you pass on your way to work. Being unextraordinary and unknown is a safety I wrap myself in daily to keep my sanity. When you’re Unknown, you don’t have to be anyone’s anything except your own. In the quiet moments is when you’re the true form of yourself.
The first few moments of playing VRChat I felt like I couldn’t breathe. I was plunged into this space of strangers that spoke with a familiarity that wasn’t reserved for me. Even if they didn’t know each other, they tossed jokes and laughed. They talked, they argued in a way that felt so alien to me in those moments I might as well have been on mars. So I did what I do in real life. I wandered around. I listened to other people. I watched and observed customs that have been bizarre to me since birth-that of people at peace with themselves and their surroundings.
A DJ stood at the stage and busted through the top forty. I walked towards it and stood there, just focusing on them as I scrambled to bring up my menu. To go somewhere a little smaller, a little less crowded and a little less overwhelming. I was scrolling through my options when I heard “Hey you, with the purple.”
I turned around to see Legoshi from Beastars with two bottles in their hands. I lifted a hand, and pointed at my chest.
“Yeah, you. You want a beer?” came what sounded like someone from the midwest. He extended a beer towards me. I tilted my head, and took the bottle. Legoshi raised it and tilted his towards me.
“Cheers, yeah?”
Our bottles went in for the clink, and he tilted back to drain his. I mimicked him-because that’s the default when all else fails for me. Act “normal”, whatever “normal” is for where you’re at, and eventually you’ll find an in. Legoshi threw the bottle at the stage towards the DJ, who didn’t so much as move or pause their set. He gave me a salute, and turned heel to walk away.
I quickly hit unmute and, in my deepest and most gravelly voice, gave a “thanks mate”. Which must have sounded odd enough as it warranted Legoshi turning back around.
“The fuck?” they said, “Was that you?”
I hit unmute again, and summoned my best Jimothy tone. “Nope, couldn’t have been me,” I replied.
Legoshi put his hands up and took a step back. He started laughing, and said “Nah, that had to have been you. Are you using a soundboard or-”
“Nah, don’t have one,” I replied in the gravely voice again. I tipped the beer back and tossed it over my shoulder. Legoshi stood there as I walked past them towards the bar. In my normal speaking voice, I said “You have a good one now,” as laughter erupted behind me.
People at the bar were talking about everything. Minors spoke about homework and mixed freely with adults on the other side talking about their sex lives. The first time I noticed this it was jarring, but then it dawned on me this is how most public spaces are. I’d been to plenty of eateries where this same exact scene played out feet from each other. I thought there was nobody working the bar-then I spotted the floating name tag and peered over. A shiba inu floated up and placed it’s paws on the countertop.
“Hi miss! Can I get you anything?”
I placed my hands on the counter, and hit unmute. I roused my “splay speaks” voice from its slumber, and in the most over-the-top dramatic tone I could manage said “Can you give me something to help me forget about her?”
The shiba broke into an immediate laugh, and I felt the tension that had coiled in my guts relax. A few others gathered around, and I found my way into small talk. I swapped between a multitude of all my voices without so much as a pause or a breath. I denied several more times I was using a soundboard before I revealed I was a professional voice actor. A few kids gathered around and asked me to do impressions of this character or that. Instead I spoke as Kermit with a penchant for swearing. They laughed and laughed. Some played right along, characters in their own right filling in the chaos of the scene the best they could.
Then the entire thing was crashed by a group of Mountain Dew storm troopers telling us all to convert or face death at the hands of the empire. I waited for one of them to approach me, his banner high as he said “Hey miss, why don’t you join up with us?” with the fervor of someone manic after their nine to five.
I smirked. I brought forward my femme voice, and said “Sure, on one condition. Can you answer a question?”
There was an audible stutter in his reply as he said sure, he could do that.
“So, the armor. It’s green. Are you green underneath it? All the way down?”
“I-I uh-”
Then in my thickest, most obnoxious and gnarliest accent I said “Ayy, C’mon! Show papi how verdant these fields are!”
He laughed so hard his avatar glitched and he had to reload into the world.
I swapped between worlds after. Still observing, eavesdropping when and where I could. That was the one constant regardless of the crowd, regardless of their intentions for being there-it was a rare occurrence conversation was broken by the appearance of a stranger or interjection. People were unabashedly, fearlessly themselves. Even if they were an asshole, even if they were kind. The willingness to not only be a part of something but to readily join social interaction was something that I’ve personally found difficult in the waking world. I’m not alone, either. Every single day we pass strangers on our way to work and while we’re out. With the US re-opening, I don’t think it’s unfair to say socializing in general gives way to an anxiety that feels off to many people. A feeling that simply wasn’t there before.
I didn’t find that in this digital space, this surreal facsimile of life. It’s the idyllic wonderland we cocooned ourselves in as children, but through the eyes of adults. The wanderlust wears thin in a lot of places. Even with the ability to create whatever, whenever you like (or at least copy it), worlds are barely more than glorified technicolor Discord servers where foodfights can happen at any time.
Yet, the ease with which individuals step into roles-as their favorite anime character, as something they could only dream of being-happens so naturally few people notice it. Many even join VRChat and other services for the sole purpose of facilitating those desires. The way in which I broke the terrifying, ever cracking ice of small talk by putting on a role more familiar to me (that of an entertainer) in a skin so different from my fleshy reality is but an extension of those fledgling moves I made a decade ago.
Any action towards being who we innately are happier being is a positive action, even if it means muting and blocking a few trolls.
Awakening From The Dream
This is stupid, I tell myself. I’m going to look so fucking stupid.
The lacquer is on my nails before I can really say no. I’m high as hell off some sour diesel and even pounded a few beers for good measure. My nails look like shit and I’m doing a terrible fucking job, just god awful. But I had to be high and drunk for this, because otherwise the roaring voice in my head telling me “You’re going to look like a faggot, a fucking sissy boy” would keep on yelling. Most days I do a wonderful job of ignoring it, but it had practically broken down the door tonight.
Because I had been planning this for two days. That’s how overbounds this was for me. Even now, proudly out of the closet, experimenting with my gender through my style terrifies me in ways I can’t describe. I live in a town where gay couples routinely had violence brought against them by the old guard of evangelicals. Then all those old bible thumpers started dying off, and people started coming out from their closets. We were their kids, their grandkids, their husbands and wives. There were too many of us to kill and beat and sexually assault.
It was their turn to roll over and simply accept.
Yet here I still was. Drunk, high, hands shaking as black lacquer covered my nails. I let them dry, and took a shower the next morning.
They looked fucking great. I felt great because they looked great. It was such a small thing, totally insignificant to everyone else. But here I was asserting that our local gender roles were dumb out loud, where everyone could see. That’s the first time I’ve done anything like that. It just happened this year. I got my ears pierced roughly the same time.
That punk with the mic over a decade ago, he was a woman online. She had a lot of friends. She didn’t understand why she told people that, only that it felt right and so it went. She grew from the experience until she bottled herself away for another seven years.
VRChat isn’t this wonderland of infinite possibility. But it can facilitate something that is innate to a lot of my experiences within virtual reality as a whole-it’s a path. It’s a way to look inward, to ask questions we’re afraid to ask in meat space. Maybe we don’t have the support network we’re desperately due. Maybe we’re simply scared of approaching the question at all. Being able to “role play”, to step into the shoes of this totally separate existence in a way we never have before isn’t a solution…
But it’s a start. It’s an avenue that is approachable to people who never, ever would have had those moments of introspection otherwise. It gives those of us (myself included) who are so incredibly terrified of stepping a single toe over the line of entrenched gender binaries the opportunity to live and breathe within an existence that we’ve only the daring to approach in dreams.
To truly answer when the flesh we are housed in becomes a home we long to stay within.
It’s only going to grow as technology advances, becoming affordable and readily available to more and more people as well. There’s efforts starting to normalize the space of VR, to use it for distinctly capitalist efforts from the very company that created my Oculus. To view this as anything less than both an assault on creative/artistic spaces and avenues of self expression takes buying into the marketing spun about VR.
Virtual reality is “the future”, but only insomuch that we as users, creators, artists, dreamers and gender fuckers keep it as such. To fail to do that ensures that countless untold people will be denied a safe, viable avenue to explore the possibility of who they could become. The cyberpunk dystopia of Ready Player One isn’t simply an Oculus or Vive, but the omnipresent and malicious means to capitalize on it for focus groups and “test markets”.
So keep VR fucking weird. Keep fucking with gender. Keep wearing skins and expressing yourself in ways you haven’t before in the Oasis. Push so fucking hard that marketing to you and your friends becomes impossible. Keep embracing the freedom of self-expression, exploration and identity present not only in VR but in all media. Fight for it, for faltering in that endeavor means pushing us down paths of predictable metadata based, hetronormative consumerism.
Enough people have given blood to the machine.
It’s time to make a withdrawal on our deposits.
-J