Incentive

It started as a joke, and when you are the only female officer among a bunch of 20-, 30- something guys, it's going to be about you, and most likely it's going to be something about your sex.

No one ever wants to talk about that awkward social-byproduct of the game. Besides the innuendo ("Thrust Hodir's Spear", "Polishing Hodir's Helm") and phallic symbols sprinkled throughout Azeroth and Outlands (the giant crystalline objects around the forge camps immediately come to mind), WoW is relatively a sexless and gender-neutral place. There are no differences in gender among the characters themselves, and both genders are represented in every walk of life. I particularly noted that this expansion's "don-a-disguise-to-do-dailies" is centered around a female culture, whereas in BC it was exclusively male (I dare you to try and find a female Fel Orc on Netherwing Ledge). Even the NE and BE striping parties are a thing of the past in terms of amusement. Sadly, this gender neutrality and sexless state cannot be said for the players.

I see it as an inevitable result of a sexually-repressed male audience. Swapping back and forth about man-love, who is cheating on who in said man-love relationship, and OMG A WOMAN ON THE INTERNETZ. I find little is said about the real relationships themselves, or even about the gay men, unless they provide the joke. The most sensitive cultural taboos are still in place, despite the anonymity of being online.

As an active guild member and constant contributor to Vent, I get drawn into this sex-driven world. Sometime during a Black Temple run nakedneg.com was born. Thankfully, such a web site did not exist, so whenever someone said "visit nakedneg.com!" (usually after I replied to something in General), the joke would end there. In raid, it was used as a fake incentive and tension breaker: "Okay guys, if we one-shot RoS, Neg will provide a free year's subscription to nakedneg.com." My constant reply: "I hate you all."

I suppose the vindictive woman in me needed to have the last laugh, so I reserved and published nakedneg.com. Success was sweet. The mixture of people giving me the metaphorical-slap on the shoulder and laughing away, conceding that I won, and those who were too afraid to click on the link to see what I posted amused me. Some complimented me on my work, others were dismayed that I didn't just have a picture of a cow, who is by default without clothes, hence naked (but Tauren =/= cow, so I would never have done that). Personally, I think I went just far enough without being outlandish - you can see more nudity from the WoW rendition of JoCo's First of May - and I think it's benign enough to be used as a recruiting tool as well.

Now I'm going to use it as motivation. Sure, the satisfaction of successfully executing a difficult encounter is enough by far, but adding a cherry on top gives people that little 'umph' to keep going after six hours of wipes. I promised that once we down OS25+3D, I will post another picture on nakedneg.com. Since our Naxx10 run for The Undying achievement was canceled last nigh, I began work on the initial sketches. I guarantee anything I post will be of similar taste and modesty on the part of my character (I won't go the whole 9 yards on the subject, like By Way of Booty Bay), and will only incite a minor reaction, be it amusement or your gag-reflex :P.

EDIT: Figures, the server is down at the time of this posting. Feel free to berate me for trusting Google (it's not like they don't already own my soul).