Not that there is anything wrong with it, but over half of men and nearly three quarters of women play MMOs as the opposite sex. That’s right, that cute elf warlock you’ve had your eye on the past few weeks might actually be a dude. It’s not quite The Crying Game, but more like the ending of the first Ace Ventura: Pet Detective.

The findings come from a study at Nottingham Trent University. T hey found that 54% of men liked to play as women, while 70% of women liked to play as men. Chief researcher Zaheer Hussain explains, “It seems that women gender swap for a variety of reasons, such as to avoid unsolicited male approaches on their female characters, or because they felt male characters were treated better by other males during the course of the game.” You mean, female gamers are tired of being treated poorly by male gamers? Sadly, that probably does come as a shock to many.

As for the bigger news of cyber-cross-dressing, how in the world will Halo players deal with such news? Anyone who has played that game has dealt with the rampant homophobia and racism spouted over Xbox Live. Perhaps they are simply women pretending to be ignorant 13-year-old boys? Probably not.

Still, the study’s findings are interesting. People who would never consider such “controversial” social behavior in reality are perfectly happy to strap on a pair of high-heeled pumps in cyberspace. It would be fascinating to do a Kinsey-esque follow-up study to this one.