More than a decade ago, when I was growing up in Finland, my model of an attractive woman was Pamela Anderson from “Baywatch.” She was my father’s favorite. Whenever the boys at school asked me who I Googled when my parents weren’t home, I said, “Pamela,” and the name was greeted with a unanimous nodding of heads.



I didn’t care much for her nude shots, but I liked that she was of Finnish heritage.



My nonsexual feelings for Pamela were just one of the things that made me an outcast. Another was that I preferred computers to people. And so, as a child who loved playing board games, I soon discovered I could play them online with strangers on a Finnish gaming website.

To access the site, you typed your user name in the blank field, waited for a slot to open and then found yourself in the main chat room, where you could challenge people to a round of blackjack, keno or billiards. Except it seemed no one else was there to play those games seriously. The screen was a constant stream of dirty messages.

I realized no one wanted to message with a boy in his early adolescence, but many were clamoring to chat with an attractive woman. And that’s where Pamela came in. To interest fellow gamers, I needed to become a woman.