Hehe, being of the "gender doesn't matter" faction, I usually don't care whether people think we're not out there. But I found that most of them realise it once I get one of my *****y fits...
Don't you get the links in your control panel under "Settings & Options"? If not, I'm sure it's not related to the number of thanks, but maybe you just need 10 posts or something like that? I'm rather sure I uploaded my avatar pretty soon after joining, so whatever the restriction is it should be easy to go past it.
Hehe, if I wasn't seriously lacking the language skills I guess I'd do the same with Korea and Japan.