This presentation could be described as a reflection on the inter-linkage of textuality and coding in text-based virtual worlds (MUDs) on the Internet. It could also be said to engage in the discussion of embodiment in online environments. Either way, it should be understood as an attempt to threaten the notion of boundless creativity in online contexts, and to simultaneously challenge the idea of technology as a completely neutral tool in the hands of the typist. The activity of writing (and reading) in a MUD is to a large extent based on, and guided by, techno-cultural restrictions. These restrictions set the limits not only for what you can do, but ultimately for who you can be.

Seduced by the beauty of the interface, too many thinkers in 'cyberspace' have described online textualities as disengaged from the physical reality of the medium, as well as from the reality of material bodies. Countless are their stories about the ease with which 'virtual' bodies are written and transformed, the lightness with which they travel, morph, move and dance - as if these performances had nothing to do with the medium in which they take place, or with the cultural context of which they are part. This paper argues that nothing could be more wrong, and does so by taking a close look at the <@gender> command in the creation of MUD characters.

Intimately connected to the MUD software, automatically determining the pronouns being used in typed-in interaction, the @gender command comes as close as one can possibly get to a material existence of immaterial bodies. @gender gives the textual body a 'virtual sex' in relation to which other texts are rendered meaningful. Even though some MUDs have as much as ten different @gender positions available, these have far from been equally valued by the programmers. In fact, grammatical 'bugs' in the code with which these virtual bodies are written prevent unconventionally @gendered characters to move around smoothly. It might not be a surprise that online bodies, at large, reflect contemporary masculinities and femininities, while not only being part of the same symbolics, but deeply intertwined with the materiality of human bodies. What may seem more surprising is that a similar corporeal logic can be found already on the level of the MUD program, revealing how supposedly neutral computer technologies might have gender politics.