I'm wondering if these attention whores are really so plentiful. Certainly, I've never met one playing online. What I have come across on occasion is a sort of self-congratulatory gallantry, conspicuous "gentlemanly" behavior, with a flip-side of "just joking" flirtation. I suspect I'm being given additional considerations because I'm female. Just for reference, this is my guild master I'm talking about here. I'm pretty sure he doesn't go around /hugging male players but I've gotten hugs and "roses". I don't want to be treated any differently but it's really hard to confront this sort of thing. The one time I jokingly called him on some of this, he got his dick in a knot and two months later was still growling about it.
How's that tie in with the attention whore thing? Well, I think there are a lot of gamers who go into the situation with the attitude that they will take any advantage they can get. That's not gender specific at all. If that gamer happens to be female and she comes across a guy who gets all tingle-pants at the idea of playing with a girl, why wouldn't she exploit that? Now keep in mind, she's not doing it because she's a girl, she's doing it because she's a player as well as a gamer. She's just playing the angle she found, which happens to be gender-based. If she finds the angle more than once, just like any other amoral opportunist, she will keep working it. If guys just treated female players like they did male players, this tactic would stop working and they would stop using it.