I wish that the first time I had sex with a man had been in a video game. Instead, it was the second. And he really wasn’t a man at all, so much as a bundle of pixels and sprites.
That’s why I wish I could’ve done things differently, though. Because the first man I had sex with was very real, and so were the risks and consequences. I was completely safe with the second one, the virtual one. Playing as a character, being another person, I could have very easily gotten up and left the avatar at the table where he propositioned me. Or if I’d really panicked, I could’ve pulled the ultimate eject manoeuvre and just turned my PlayStation off.
I was free to get up and walk out of the bar in real life, too. But just meeting the man in the first place was dangerous in a way I didn’t fully appreciate until I began to learn from him and his friends what gay life was for them. I was studying abroad in Jordan, which at the time had a relatively relaxed attitude toward homosexuality compared to some of its close neighbours. But the men I met there still spoke bleakly about being excommunicated or abused by their families. Murder and imprisonment were tangible, if not immediate, threats. And that’s saying nothing about returning to college and my girlfriend there a few months later, harboring what felt like a nasty secret.
What was I thinking? There was an allure in breaking the rules. But, really, I needed to find out what being gay might mean for me. Seeing what the word meant when I took it inside, feeling how it fit when finally laid on top of my body.
That could have meant my real body. But it didn’t have to, not at first. I didn’t need to jump straight into the deep end. I only did so, like I imagine many young men have, because I felt like I was being pushed.
“Gay” was a word I was terrified of, consumed by for a long time before I got to college. My Freshman year of high school, a group of boys picked on me so aggressively that our administrators coined the school’s first rules against cyberbullying. They kept calling me it, but I had no idea what gay really meant at that point. I’d barely had my first kiss.
There’s pride to be taken, even in insecurity.
Eventually, I started dating girls. But that didn’t wash away the shame and residual fear. There was something about the way one of the boys in that circle would say the word, “gay,” pointing at me with his pencil from across the table in science class. It shook me in some murky place I was scared of. He said it so often, and he sounded so sure every time, that I started to wonder: what if he’s right? I certainly didn’t feel like I had all the answers, and here was somebody forcing one down my throat over and over again.
What I didn’t know how to say to my classmate, what took me many more years and bad decisions to realise, is: I’m not gay. I’ve been bent out of shape enough times that I’m not sure I necessarily count as “straight” either. But at least I can understand that doubt now, even enjoy it.
And why shouldn’t I? These terms don’t really do much for me anyways. They’re the farthest thing from my mind whenever I’m actually doing most of the things that supposedly warrant such incessant classification. There’s pride to be taken, even in insecurity.
This whole process of self-discovery could have happened another way, however. It could have been like the moment I just alluded to. The game was Mass Effect 3, and it was the thrilling final act of an epic space opera on the scale of Star Wars. Before the third game came out, developer BioWare said that men would finally be able to romance other men. I didn’t know what exactly that meant when I picked the game up in 2012. Then, one day, my stubbly and masculine protagonist Commander Shepard was sitting down at an outdoor cafe when he was approached by Kaidan Alenko, an old military buddy.
“We’ve been friends a long time, Shepard,” Kaidan said, sounding more nervous than usual. “Ever known me to be with anyone? Guess I’m choosy or patient or … I don’t know. Maybe what I’ve never found — what I want — is something deeper with someone I already … care about. That’s what I want. What do you want?”
I could already tell what was coming, but I had fun wondering if my Shepard did.
“You and me?” I prompted Shepard to say after a beat. “Is that what you’re saying, Kaidan?”
It was his turn again.
“It feels right, doesn’t it?”
Shepard smiled. The two of them were brimming with excitement. It was adorable. I couldn’t help but grin along with them.
“Be nice to have someone to turn to when things get grim,” Shepard said. “Someone to live for. Maybe love.” He paused again. It felt like he was turning the idea over in his head, imagining it as a new outfit and trying to decide how well it fit.
“You, Kaidan. Huh. It does. It does feel right. After all this time. You and me. I like that. A lot.”
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaand… scene.
That was that! The two lovebirds cavorted a bit more, but the encounter at the coffee shop was the only time my Shepard experienced any tension for embracing his newfound love of men. And even then, it was only a good kind of tension. There were no aggressive or judgmental questions. Former flames — female flames — from the last two Mass Effect games never confronted him in jealousy or anger.
Past and present romances played out with a similar arbitrary grace in Dragon Age, BioWare’s Game of Thrones-esque counterpart to Mass Effect, which allowed the player to flit between different genders (and species) with superhuman ease. The jilted lovers you left behind weren’t always happy to see you romping around with someone new. But you had to do a lot more than break someone’s heart for them to get so fed up that they’d actually pack up their things and leave you to slay dragons with your new beau.
Developers, gamers, and critics all referred to these new additions as gay relationships. But what’s fascinating is that the actual denizens of these virtual universes never seemed as determined to give a name to whatever it is they were doing. Sexuality in the games wasn’t good or bad, necessarily. It wasn’t gay or straight either. It just was. Nobody even stopped Shepard in the hall to say how glad they were that he was finally more comfortable with himself in that new leather getup.
Ok, sorry: there was no leather getup. My imagination was just getting away from me again. But still, the gay sex in Mass Effect seemed…odd, even for a video game in which talking to and, yes, even dating aliens who looked like scaly artichokes was normal. This was just another fact of life that nobody paid much attention to. Which sort of makes sense, considering how everyone was scrambling to survive an onslaught of giant mechanical squid monsters from outer space at that point. It was like some architect of the universe in Mass Effect had a massive gay light switch he turned “on.”
I still can’t decide if this was brilliant on developer BioWare’s part or complete and utter bullshit. The bullshit part is that, since it’s the biggest game I can think of that’s made this turn quite so boldly and abruptly, it has an outsized voice for a certain class of gamers. Ones who’ve been feeling disenfranchised for so long that they’re willing to latch onto anything. People like…me, for one.
For those people, the gay switch delivers a fantasy of near-perfect equality. Everything is so normalized you almost don’t even know it’s there. Unfortunately, that’s not how things work out in real life for many people. In terms of its storytelling, then, I think the sexuality in Mass Effect isn’t particularly sophisticated. It says less about the experiences of real gay people than something like the It Gets Better project. And that’s a public outreach campaign put on by a prominent gay rights activist, not something to be viewed at our leisure.
So it’s troubling to think that a game like Mass Effect or Dragon Age gives young players the idea that nobody will ever treat them differently once they find out they’re anything other than straight, rather than give them the tools with which they can start to understand and accept the discrimination they may end up facing in their lives.
I raised this concern two years ago at the Game Developers Conference when I was speaking with David Gaider, the lead writer on Dragon Age, about love and sex in his next project. His response, like his work, was refreshingly succinct on the matter.
Sure, he said. It is idealistic, maybe even simplistic, to make a world in which gay characters roam free. But is that really such a bad dream to have? For players looking for a rare chance to experience this dream, the fantasy can be just as powerful as one about slaying dragons. Or sleeping with artichokes, for that matter.
I don’t necessarily agree. But I love his argument all the same. It shows how a large and influential studio made two blockbuster video games that, intentionally or not, have resuscitated a utopian ideal from the heady days of gay liberation — one that’s barely supported by the modern gay rights movement at this point.
It’s hard to remember in light of the present furor over things like marriage equality, but for a long time prior to the AIDS crisis many vocal gay men didn’t care about getting married. Once the sexual revolution got underway, they were far more interested in lionizing promiscuity as a revolutionary kind of sexual ethic. The novelty of this idea, its profound difference from the norms and expectations of the nuclear family, was its entire appeal. As the artist David Wojnarowicz wrote in his memoir Close To The Knives: “The world we created in a day’s adventure exists outside the rest of the world.”
He was talking about the dalliances and indulgences into the underground of American life that he made as a gay man coming of age in the sixties and seventies. The sad irony of reading those words is that his flights of fantasy, like those of so many gay men who were fighting and fucking their way towards gay liberation at that time, is that they didn’t really exist “outside the rest of the world.” They couldn’t, because the real world always has a way of creeping back in. Wojnarowicz died from complications caused by AIDS in 1992. He was 37 years old.
A game like Mass Effect 3 doesn’t proffer any meaningful solutions to a public health crisis. It doesn’t have to; that’s not the point. Games can’t be a cure-all for physiological and social ills. But they can be an escape from those same traumas, a fantasy of something better than the real lives of the people who are playing them.
That’s a palliative measure, sure. But it’s still a step towards something far more grand.
“The world we created in a day’s adventure exists outside the rest of the world.”
Hidden as it may be behind all the pomp and circumstance and hairless buff dudes, I think there’s a similar fantasy on display at all the gay pride parades that have been unfolding across the country as of late. It’s less about a gay or LGBTQ community, but more about a community in which “love becomes possible,” as the activists Michael Callen and Richard Berkowitz put it in How To Have Sex In An Epidemic (One Approach), one of the first modern safe-sex manuals.
“From the day we are born we trained as men to compete with other men,” the two wrote in their seminal piece of early AIDS activism. “The challenge facing gay men today in America is to figure out how to love someone you’ve been trained to ‘destroy.’”
It’s hard to read these words from the safety of the present and not think about the times I went home from school as a teenager to hide. Most often, I hid behind video games like the ones BioWare made. I was cowering from boys who seemed intently focused on destroying the parts of me they could, quashing any nascent sexuality I might have had.
“The goal of gay male liberation must be to find ways in which love becomes possible despite continuing and often overwhelming pressure to compete and adopt adversary relationships with other men,” Callen and Berkowitz continued in their manifesto.
“Maybe affection is our best protection,” they ended hopefully. “Hard questions for hard times, but whatever happened to our great gay imaginations?”
“Love becomes possible.” That phrase has always stood out to me. It’s like they were trying to flip a switch.
Picture: Sam Woolley
Comments
58 responses to “Video Games Didn’t Make Me Gay, But They Did Make Me Proud”
…With a title like that, you had better be seeing some problems in this comment section in your future.
Remember when games just use to be games? And not about whether a guy likes to stick his penis in a vagina or another guys arse?
I for one am getting completely sick of this constant sexual barrage in gaming. Every game it seems is being associated with what the characters in the game like to have sex with.
I’m confused, is your problem with sex in games in general, being bombarded with sex related things, having customisable relationships, having relationships in games forced upon you/feeling necessary to enjoy the game? etc. I’m sure you get what I’m trying to ask.
I have no idea what your complaint actually is. You don’t want video games to explore sex or romance as thematic content? You don’t want to hear people who don’t identify as heterosexual being openly frustrated or disappointed about a lacking representation in the medium?
Also the sheer crudity and generalisation of “about whether a guy likes to stick his penis in a vagina or another guys arse” appalls me. There’s SO much more to it than that.
Theres more to it? Enlighten me.
Is the entirety of your attraction to women (if you’re a dude) about your preference to put your dick in their vagina?
Do you struggle to play Mario because you are too curious about his sexual orientation?
Wow…. even that got down voted…. Well played white knights! Well played!
Sometimes? Yes. I know that seems weird and shallow to some people (especially women, for whom attraction is known to be more complex), but it’s is absolutely not rare and there is absolutely nothing wrong with it. Base, superficial, looks-only lust is normal and the sign of a healthy libido.
I’m totally on board with my favourite medium – video games – exploring the deeper themes of relationships and maybe this guy isn’t (sad for him, I reckon we’ll be seeing more of it), but what I’m NOT on board with is the male equivalent of slut-shaming, mandating some kind of absurd ‘sex is only for relationships’ or ‘personality is what matters most’ view on attraction.
I was actually going beyond that, and suggesting that the having of a vagina and ability to put their dick in it was the only thing whatsoever the original commenter was interested in, as if women were just a giant fleshlight.
There’s the fact that some men enjoy sex with both genders, or enjoy sex with women but are still attracted to men, or don’t enjoy sex at all, or have sex with men but don’t enjoy anal sex… you can’t just say it’s about the black and white of a vagina versus an anus, or even a man versus a woman, there are a million shades of grey, and apparently you’re too ignorant to even think about them.
THEN. There’s the fact that sexual orientation, despite the name, isn’t just about sex, and reducing homosexuality to the sole idea of a man who enjoys having sex with other men is incredibly degrading. I for one do not identify myself solely based on my attraction to men. That’s a tiny part of me. That tiny part needs more representation in all forms of media, especially video games, in more interesting and realistic ways.
Like sticking your penis into a girls arse?
I’m more worried that everyone is so “OMG” about sex and sexytimes in video games but all the senseless violence is completely acceptable. I for one vote for more sexytimes, less murder.
It’s really weird that we’ve been that way with books and movies since forever, as well. I mean between murder and sex, one of them you’re expected to do several times in your life, is healthy, bonds you to people, is necessary for the growth of society and for fuck’s sake, your parents did it at least once for you to be here. So let’s make that one the one that we’re all fucking terrified of, treat with revulsion, and lock away to never ever be discussed or glorified, but let kids with hormones and allusions in music videos figure it out for themselves because there’s no possible way that could go wrong.
I half-suspect the reasoning is that they don’t want something so important to be treated so trivially or irreverently by a medium they have no control over, promoting messages they may not agree with – similar to as if we had video games full of religious issues beyond, “Some extremists have gotten violent.”
But if that were the case, it’s very much a case of demanding someone not do your chores because you’re the only one who can do them properly, then not fucking doing them yourself either.
It’s ridiculous to think that we’re leaving the only parentally-guided exposure to sex being that awkward, ham-fisted time(s) a parent relates something in abstract then clinical terms with no visceral relateability or the other visual aids of modern media, or confined to the limits of their own experience. By age 25 I already had ten times the dating experience of either of my parents, and they were not all (or any) wise experiences.
Thing is, I doubt we’re missing out on much.
I don’t know that I might have avoided the pitfalls or been better prepared, because one of the characteristics of youth is genuinely believing that you will avoid the traps that fucking every man alive before you has fallen into because you are the star of your life’s own movie, and that the others just ‘didn’t understand’ or ‘this time is special’, etc, kind of bullshit you’ll hear from any fuckwit 16yr old ‘in love’ (read: lust) for the first time. But of the later stuff? Of being in love with more than one person at a time, or feeling reciprocated love for someone who is already in a relationship, or navigating the social pitfalls of age differences, or trying to make a relationship ‘work’ when there are critical differences, or how to handle the 3-month lull when excitement of newness wears off, and the honeymoon is over…
It’s pretty naive to think games would be able to handle that, though. Hollywood’s shown that for every ‘Once Were Warriors’ useful and sickening depiction of violence, there’s a hundred other Whitehouse Downs and Die Hards. Were the shackles off and sex no longer a taboo subject, the video game treatment of mature relationship pitfalls could probably be the ‘Tits! Fuckyeah!’ treatment equivalent of the ‘mature exploration of violence’ we see in LUDICROUS GIBS.
I could get more effectively behind the aversion to puritanical nannying if we could expect to show something more for it than, “THREESOME! X10 SCORE MULTIPLIER!”
Agree. I want more games like FarCry, Crysis or Starcraft. Games that either immerse you in a serial world where you can enjoy the scenery and kill people, or focus your strategic and analytical skills.
If you want to explore complex neural, chemical and biological conditions within humans, study a textbook or read a novel.
Or, and hear me out here, we can make some games that allow you to kill people, enjoy the scenery, drive sweet cars, focus your strategic skills, etc. and some games for prople who want to analyse and explore other aspects of humanity within the context of a narrative, because there’s no actual reason why these topics should be constrained to literature or science?
The thing is, the only game that would truly allow you to understand and explore these complex themes would be one where you interact with only unscripted dialogue from other human players. Anything else would be delivered to you ‘the gamer’ through the eyes of the developer thus being per-confined to their own views.
I didnt make this clear in my initial comment because i wanted to see what reaction i would get from people like yourself – presuming that a game be a valid medium to help explore these areas without thought given to potential outcomes.
Games can either deliver facts or fiction accurately. It is a fact that people are gay, and thus gay characters can appear in a game. However their portrayal, interactions, purpose and perceived meaning are scripted and thus unable to be impartial.
The reason why i suggested a novel is that you are forced to use your own imagination to fill in the gaps, and colour in the story – thus you can learn more about your own feelings towards these ideas as you progress through the story.
The best way to tackle a topic like homosexuality would be to first understand that opinions are varied and what may seem right/wrong today can change as your understanding of humanity changes.
When a wise man points at the moon, the imbecile looks at the finger.
Cannot for the life of me understand why someone would down-vote this… So much effort to do that.
wsdk_ii, you’re obviously not entitled to an opinion unless it agrees with the status-quo in a given social situation (including internet message boards/comments sections). Lesson learned, I guess.
You people are pathetic and symbolise everything that’s wrong with attempting rational debate on the internet…
You have this weird double standard about games and books. Any form of media, no matter what it is, is presented through the lens of the creator. The game’s developers, the novel’s author, the magazine’s publisher, everything presents one viewpoint.
You’re trying to say games can’t adequately explore complex themes because they’re all pre-scripted, but ignoring the fact that books are also pre-written and have the same result. You literally make no sense here.
I kinda read that as “games should be about running around and killing things, everything else should only be in books”. Is that the gist of it?
Haha. You got voted down for saying nothing wrong. I 100% agree with your comment. Vote up!
It posted twice :/
Also, why is being ‘proud’ of your sexual orientation such a thing now? Should i be proud to be hetrosexual? And if i was open about it, would society pay me out about it because in not gay.
Why cant people just accept themselves and move on with it??
Because pride is the yang to prejudice’s yin.
So i can be proud that i’m hetrosexual then?
Nope.
For the same reason you cant be proud to be white.
You can be proud of whatever the hell you like… can’t you?
I would argue that in the western society, being proud to be part of any majority is seen as enjoying certain freedoms that others may not be seemingly open to.
What i mean is that being proud of an aspect of your minority status is seen as empowering, whilst for the opposite is seen as oppressing.
A bizarre world.
Being Proud to be White, Heterosexual and a Man translates on the internet to being Proud to be Racist, Homophobic and a Misogynist.
That comment is so goddamn perfectly relevant and 100% spot on, and is more true than anyone will admit.
I think the point here is that you can be proud to have faced oppression without giving in, so saying you’re proud to be gay makes sense, whereas saying you’re proud to be straight doesn’t. You can be proud to be openly gay in a society where that’s still a difficult thing to do, but not just for being born gay. That would be ridiculous. They’re just standing up to bigotry, and someone responding by saying, “Yeah, well I’m proud because I’m not gay and haven’t achieved anything” is obviously going to make that person look like either someone who hates homosexuals and has no concept of the hardship they face, or just someone with a very poor understanding of the word “pride”.
I’m not the gatekeeper of sexual expression.
I think that’s the smartest thing that’s been said this week.
Sure you can! You can feel pride in your own sexuality if it gives you self-fulfillment.
For gay people, I think the reason they have pride in their sexuality is because it’s their way of railing against the long-standing prejudices and vilification having told them they’re an abomination and something to be ashamed of. It’s just a way of building up one’s esteem again after it’s bashed away by society, and I can’t see how someone’s individual pride in themselves is harmful to anyone else in any way. Anyone or group of people who’ve never been represented in the same way as others in society is going to feel an overwhelming sense of pride when they finally feel as though they can be comfortable in their own skin for the first time in their lives.
Nobody is saying you can’t be proud about your sexuality too.
oh i dont know, maybe because homosexual people have been treated like utter shit most of human history. Get over it, if they want to be open about it, good for them. How in anyway does that punish you?
As straight people we cannot have ‘pride’ in the same definition that they do, we aren’t told by protest groups and religious groups that we are unnatural and unclean because we are attracted to the opposite sex. No one will group bash us in high school because we are straight. We don’t spend years of our lives continually questioning out very attraction to the opposite sex, attempting to hide it or make it go away.
“Pride” is their way of saying that they are gay and they’re okay with that. and that we should be okay with them too.
First off let me point out your final sentence “and that we should be okay with them too.”
Perhaps unknowingly you have actually just segregated humanity down the lines of sexual orientation. Initially you proclaim that because homosexuals have faced discrimination that they be allowed to take pride in their biological makeup, being that it is different to the majority. Then you make a statement that enshrines the key issue here – that there is a ‘we’ and a ‘them’
Food for thought perhaps.
However, you also presume that “no one will bash us in high school because we are straight”, among others. This is an assumption and i have witnessed aggressive behavior from both.
Finally, let me re-word your last sentence.
“Pride” is my way of saying that i’m straight and i’m okay with that. and that you should be okay with that too.
Is it socially acceptable to say? If not, why have a double standard?
Are you serious? For the very reason people have stated over and over in this thread. Straight people have never been subjected to mockery and bigotry due to their sexuality. Their pride is based on no longer being ashamed of their sexuality, something we made them feel for a very long time. In fact, it’s something some morons still try to make them feel ashamed of.
It’s the very same reason why there are programs to assist Aborigines in Australia and none to the same extent to assist Anglos. They were subjected to savagery beyond our imagination.
Seriously, it’s not that fucking hard to understand.
yes, you can be proud of being hetrosexual. like you can be proud to be Australian or male/female or any number of things that are out of your control, like homosexuality.
Gay pride isn’t meant in the way that you’re thinking.
It’s not “I’m gay and I’m proud”, it’s more, “I’m not ashamed of being gay” kinda thing.
When being gay is viewed quite negatively by many, it takes courage to stand up and say “I’m gay”. That’s the kind of pride that is meant.
It’s more about taking a stance against adversary (similar to “Black Power” in response to racism).
You can be proud of being heterosexual, but it doesn’t mean the same as being proud of being gay because there’s nothing deemed wrong with being heterosexual.
As a gay guy, I’m not a fan of the term “Gay Pride”, but I understand why it is used.
I look forward to the day where being gay isn’t an issue 🙂
Because even if people accept it within themselves, there’s entire chunks of society that don’t.
And that goes double in some other places.
Wow, this is going to spark a long, detailed, awesome and above all intelligent discussion into…
*checks first comment*
Well, fuck.
“Well, fuck”
That’s what its about right?
I dunno, I can kind of sympathise. Since E3 these kinds of issues and debates have struck up a lot of good conversation with a couple of reaches here and there… but I’m getting fatigued by reading about a massive controversy every day. I’ve realised I’m checking TrueAchievements more just to read about games, than coming here and getting the mix.
They are all important discussions to have, but sometimes you just don’t want things to always get heavy you know?
Edited for horrendous grammar.
There are plenty of ways to enjoy games without having heavy discussions, but I enjoy the fact that these conversations are taking place even if there’s some issues I just can’t be bothered getting involved in because it’s become tiresome.
That’s why I love the upvote button. If I agree or like the post, I upvote. If I don’t, I’m sure someone else does so just keep reading further. It really is tiresome at times when it’s just the same thing over and over and over. No progression of discussion just regurgitation. Yet not many bother to start from a different perspective. a lot of people alway believe their perspective is the way to go.
What needs to be looked at first is the way these things are discussed, rather than the things themselves.
Btw I Didnt read the article already feel like I’ve read a lot of it from reading previous related stuff.
They should introduce a checkbox where you can just click it and make a comment. Above the comment the checkbox would state ‘did not read article’.
Intriguing, kind of like how Steam now shows how many hours a player writing a review has spent in the game at the point of writing that review.
It minimised the troll reviews in no time flat.
I wonder whether that’s possible…
Would not recommend. Ruined my life. (988 hours on record)
A couple of interesting points raised in this article: people are pushing for gay characters to be included in games more often (alongside more female protagonists, people of varied ethnic backgrounds, etc.) but something we don’t tend to see often is prejudice because if you’re going to do something to appeal to the gay audience (or any other minority) the last thing you want to do is immediately upset that audience by having their digital representative called some kind of hateful slur. Everything is idealised. Shep is gay now? THAT IS WONDERFUL, EVERYONE IS HAPPY ABOUT THIS.
Really great characters came with flaws and imperfections that help them be fully realised as people. But videogames are generally still, while having deep, complex narratives, a pure form of escapism and distraction. Remember how much we hated Ashley Williams in ME1 because of her xenophobia? That xenophobia (which is perfectly understandable for a soldier a relatively short time after the First Contact war), her religious beliefs, these all made Ashley a much more interesting character than Liara’s little “no one respects me in Asari society because I’m only 300 years old” pity party, but those traits didn’t make her likeable.
A really amazingly bold thing to do would be have a gay character who is not accepted by society or their peers, who faces discrimination and hardship alongside it. I think it would present a really interesting character development opportunity, but I fear it would only have a fairly limited appeal which is, let’s face it, not conducive to sales.
Video games are still maturing as a medium. We’re in the fedora-wearing period, where we put on the nice-looking grown-up clothes and blather to anyone who’ll listed about how real men have “class” instead of “swag” while drinking a $9 bottle of sauvignon blanc and say sauvignon blanc as often as possible so people know we know how to pronounce sauvignon blanc.
We’ll figure it out eventually.
just no trilbies please.
But according to the dudebros plaguing Halo games, I am very very gay,
Also your mother gets around a bit.
I grew up with Wing Commander, and frankly the LGBTQ community is right. There should be more representation within gaming. The real question is why isn’t there? Heaps of games throw in a love interest or a double crossing from Russia with love style opponent. But very few of them actually cross the line to force the player into it. There’s multiple things that should change within gaming. The first is, more orientation choices should be provided to players, the second is maybe there should be a bit more homosexual love forced into gaming. Not just guy on guy but girl on girl as well. For some reason there’s very little lesbian interaction in gaming. I think a lot of that seems to be a fear that the developers will be labelled sexist for pandering to an all male crowd. But I think we see more homosexual male acts in gaming than lesbian acts when we look at more serious explorations of relationships. Female homosexuality shouldn’t just be left to the realm of two hot chicks banging because the teenage boy fanbase gets turned on by it, It should be explored as a legitimate relationship type like any other.
Yeah I cant agree with “forcing” more homosexual love in to gaming.
By all means have it as an option for sexual orientation in the game if it adds to the story line and the player wants that character, if not don’t leave things be.
Some people just want to play games for fun, let off steam, time out. Lets not ruin that.
I play games for fun…. I am strange I know…
To me these discussions are ones which I personally don’t want to get into purely because there is still a lot of bigotry and hatred out there and inevitably it shows through in these discussions and I end up getting annoyed.
However I think these conversations show that games are maturing beyond the normal shoot the mans style. Obviously there is still a place for that but the fact that gaming is now a pastime of such a huge variety of people (or perhaps they all now have more a voice) there is more demand for different narratives and themes in games. Its like movies and books and whatever else; there’s shooting people, theres hetero and homo relationships and intimacy, theres talking animals etc.
If media has something you don’t want to see or play or read then you do not see or play or read them. Simple. Its entirely reasonable to expect games to have the sort of diversity that all other forms of narrative media have.
I think this is an important article to mention that whenever I see Yannick’s name on the top of an article I think “Yannick the Yedgeyog”.
I blame Dexter’s Secret Lab.