Women dig Garrus. Like they really dig Garrus. Despite being a bird-insect-alien with mandibles, women really want to bone the ever-loving heck out of Garrus.
I had one question: why?
So I asked. I asked a bunch of female Garrus worshippers why they were so comfortable boning an insect-alien in the virtual world. The answers were… eye-opening.
Garrus is a good guy
Garrus is a guy who wants to do good things, and has to do some bad things along the way to do so. Very appealing.
— Lauren
His father taught him to “do things right or don’t do them at all”, I’m into this very particular calibration.
— Tegan
He’s great because he’s not ego driven, he’s out for justice and always seems surprised when you show interest.
— Sophie
He’s really sweet and committed to causes he thinks are right!
— Milly
He’s a friend first
So I think the real seller for me was that he starts off as just a friend. In the first game they don’t try and sell him to you as a boyfriend or partner, he’s just a really good friend. So the relationship feels very organic.
— Liz
He is a genuine and caring friend, made all the better by 2 full games of companionship and support for Shepherd before it can become anything else. It’s only in Mass Effect 3 that you can make it clear you’re interested in him as more than a friend, and he’s incredulous and nervous at first. You have genuinely cultivated a relationship first with history, not defined by sexual tension or being a love interest from day one.
— Lauren
His voice
He’s got a pretty hot voice
— Liz
His voice-rasp-purr-thing is really cool.
— Lauren
For me it started with the voice, to be quite honest!
— Paris
He’s vulnerable
If I’m looking at it objectively, I probably liked that Garrus was a little bit broken. Christ, that explains so much about my past real world relationships. I really need to take a look at my life and my choices.
Garrus had been betrayed. He didn’t feel like he had anyone left. He had a bad-bitch scar. I wanted to make it better for him. Without pants on.
— Tegan
His cute awkwardness
When it came to romance, I genuinely loved Garrus’ awkwardness. It’s cute when a guy is kind of nervous around you. It’s endearing.
And shit, the guy rolled up John Cusack style with a Boom Box and cut sick on the whitest dad-at-a-wedding dancing I’ve ever seen. You have to respect the commitment.
— Tegan
The sniping date on the Citadel was just so cute and appropriate for these characters.
— Sophie
Also I think he’s just kind of…. Funny? Like he’s a funny guy? And being with an alien would be awkward at times, but garrus owns that awkwardness so it’s kind of… Cool?
— Liz
His character is confident but gets a bit bashful when you get to know him outside of Spectre business.
— Milly
It’s fun to bone an alien
There’s something really exciting about getting to be with an alien as well. It’s like this real unknown to explore, and the trust you already have with Garrus by the time that’s an option makes it feel safe.
— Liz
In the end, Garrus is a polite gentleman who slays in combat. And bed. What isn’t hot about that kind of duality?
— Tegan
He literally researches how to bone you
Trying to have sex with him (or trying to research how) is new, awkward, a bit embarrassing. Liking someone so much that you’ll try to figure out their physiology is actually something that can feel really important for some queer folks, or those of us that feel sexually strange. I mean, he has mandibles – he can’t even really kiss! Having someone that likes you so much, they’ll try to figure out how to make sex good for you — that is a really, really powerful and rare thing.
— Lauren
We went on a date and it was obvious he had no experience dating humans but that didn’t matter to me.
— Lisy
He’s confident
He’s confident in his job, loyal and fierce as a friend and squadmate, but unsure and gentle as a lover.
— Lauren
He’s charming
He’s very charming in a kind of dad joke way, a little cocky, even. Sort of like of Han Solo was a nerd.
— Liz
His writing hit my sense of humour perfectly and out of all the romances from the original trilogy, none really hit me emotionally like his did.
— Paris
He’s hot
His whisker-esque mouth and strong stature really made this human space hero hot under the uhhh helmet.
— Lisy
His hips
Those hips are perfect to hook your legs over tbh.
— Liz
He’s always there for you
In Mass effect people come and go a lot and Garrus is a constant. It’s comforting, especially when the game starts getting REALLY dark. None of the other romance options really offer that level of trust and consistency. Kaiden is an asshole in the second game, Liara goes MIA, Thane is great but he’s new to your story and not long for this world, and Jacob… Exists. Garrus is always there. When you’re being Shepard, you just know him the best.
— Liz
My romance arc with Garrus was great. In 1 and 2, I romanced Liara as FemShep. When Liara becomes Shadow Broker she hardens up and becomes a very different person. My Shepherd loved her, and was thankful for what she did, but the love between us had died. This made my relationship with Garrus bittersweet. He was the friend who comforted me when I chose to walk away from a relationship that didn’t fit anymore. It was my choice to say to Garrus I was interested. It felt new and powerful to have a character acknowledge my history with a mutual friend who had been my girlfriend, and then slowly and carefully try dating me and changing our dynamic.
— Lauren
Garrus was never my #1 squeeze in the series. My heart was with Liara; but he was always a constant in my ME experience and was just always ‘there’. His strength and his fearlessness made me become super attracted to him after having my heart broken by Liara and it all just fell into place.
— Lisy
Basically everything
I can’t speak for everyone, but for me, it’s a combination of voice, reliability and familiarity, ability, confidence and even the way he holds himself.
— Olivia
Also, finally. One of the women we spoke to for the purposes of this story has a pet snake called Garrus.
Meet Garrus.
This is Garrus, he is my danger noodle and has a calibrator in his terrarium
— Gin
When you name your snake after your video game boyfriend… that’s how you know it’s true love.
This story has been republished in advance of the Mass Effect: Legendary Edition, and subsequent Garrus thirst, that’s due out next month.
Comments
55 responses to “Why Women Want To Bang Garrus”
I was a lady & I lay with the blue face, then the yellow/green face then I dunno what happened in 3.
Yellow/green face was my favourite. Pretty sure he’s on acid.
Doesn’t Mordin tell you that drell secrete psychotropics from their body? It’s probably more accurate to say he IS acid.
So, seriously…nobody’s going to say it?
*looks around*
Fine, whatever. I guess I’ll be the one to say it.
……
cloacaUntil the game lets me brokeback a krogan this’ll have to do
I think a Krogan would literally break your back if you engaged in a mating ritual with it 😉
It isn’t great sex unless you end up with a shattered pelvis
Death by snuu snuu
Can I just officially go on record and say that as long I’m here Miranda is officially the worst character? OK? Cool. We’re cool.
(Disclaimer: I played a Femshep in ME3 and tried everything to bone Garrus after having him as a BFF with Maleshep in ME2, but the game wouldn’t let me because I couldn’t carry my save over, ffs)
100% fully agree with you Alex, never really cared for Miranda or Liara for that matter. Tali and Samara on the other hand….
The aliens were the only ones that ever really interested me, and Garrus is right up there.
All the come-hither humans (Miranda, barf!) feel like they’ve been written as strippers instead of being people that I might actually want to have a relationship with.
I’m ok with Miranda being a stripper, its not her winning personality that won me over…
Yvonne though ;P
this. i agree with this.
I dunno. Jacob and Vega both give Miranda a run for her money in the ‘worst character’ stakes. Also, now that ME:A is out, throw in Peebee – Mass Effect’s version of DA:I’s Sera. 4Edgy8U.
Yvonne Strahovski though! Yvonne Strahovski…
how dare you speak against Miranda. id bitch slap you if i was in the same room as you right now.
What was wrong with Miranda? I probably don’t remember those games in enough detail anymore however Miranda had a strong proactive personality. I feel the opposite – she wasn’t restrained by the nice girl stereotypes and became her own person. Furthermore Miranda was not fixed in her ways and changed the type of person she was as the story progressed. Depending on your choices doesn’t Miranda die saving Shepherd’s life?
Miranda almost ruined my perfect ME2 run where everyone survived. For some reason even though I did all the missions related to her she was never loyal and hence would’ve caused teammate deaths if chosen. And guess who kept fucking volunteering for every choice I had to make? No! Fuck off, Miranda.
Garrus was cool as a buddy – one of my favourite scenes in ME3 was shooting at targets off the top of the Citadel with him – but Kaiden will always be my FemShep’s one true space boyfriend.
Monogamous Kaiden high-five.
Kaiden was my ManShep’s true love. It took 3 games for Bioware to let me romance him, but it was worth it. He survived in the end, through everything, so I was super happy with my ending.
I’m a straight dude and even I want to bang Garrus. A character of this caliber is sorely missed in Andromeda.
Don’t worry – my mate is straight as they come and he wanted to bang Garrus!! Funnily I just wanted to have slow conversations and get to know him…
Wait!!! That’s just a slow shitty part from ME3 – carry on with the wanting to bang Garrus conversation.
This list isn’t just why women want to bang Garrus. I’m a totally straight male and I still wouldn’t kick him out of bed. He’s space Batman with a gun.
2010 they wanted to bang an vampire and a werewolf.
2013 they wanted to bang a zombie.
2017 why not bang an alien with a metallic exoskeleton?
To be fair they’ve wanted to bang Garrus since 2007.
@jiggle_counter To be fair, us Garrus fans have wanted to bang him since 2007.
My original trilogy character was a FemShep. I pretty much never bother with romance in any RPG, particularly when my character is female (being a guy and all) but I liked Garrus so much it was impossible NOT to romance him in ME2 … then I made some bad decisions at the end and got him killed… and then ME3 kept reminding me I got him killed with those weird dream sequences and bringing him up occasionally in conversation. The feels were real 🙁
Garrus was a great character and all. But to want to bang a fictional character that’s also non-human, are people joking around or actually being serious?
Help me understand this bizarre fascination.
Shrug. Think of the fixation that’s always been present with celebrities. To all real intents and purposes, as far as affects the average person’s life, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt might as well be fictional characters. Gamers arguably know game characters better than they know those two movie stars.
Well yeah, but Bradd Pitt and Angelina Jolie aren’t aliens that cause chafe.
Unless I’m being kept in the dark here…
That, or foreplay is dead and chafe is the new in-thing.
One word: damn!
“Sexual activity normal stress relief for humans and Turians. Still recommend caution. Warn of chafing” — Mordin Solus
That whole conversation with Mordin was the best. Apply salve.
Basically all of these reasons are why I went with Tali.
The main differences being instead of researching how to bone you, she researches how to bone you with a minimal chance of death (a risk she describes as totally worth it afterwards).
And instead of you confessing your affections first, she says more than she meant to, then backpedals and apologises and expects you to want to just remain platonic space heroes until you tell her otherwise.
Felt wrong seeing the photo of her in the room afterwards though, like she lost some of the mystery alien-ness when she was revealed to look very mostly human.
I went with Tali because I am an ass man.
Team Jack all the way.
YES. ME2 Jack anyway, wasn’t a fan of ME3 Jack.
That moment when she holds the barrier in ME2.
I liked ME3 Jack. It felt like you really helped her find a place where she could be happy.
I’m Commander Shepard and this is my favourite [EXCISED VERY VERY GRAPHIC SEXUAL CONTENT] on the Citadel
You want to do what with two Hanars and an Elcor? Disgusting. Tell me more.
*Elcor Voice* Passionate: Do it baby, do it.
Who doesn’t want to bang Garrus? :p
Damn straight! Give me some of that beak action!
WTF is with people banging the human women…? Thats like going to an ice cream parlor with 1000 selections and ordering vanilla. 6 full playthroughs of the trilogy and I havent so much as flirted with anything that wasnt alien.
The one time I did a female run it had to be with Garrus though. That man crush is still real and I have no shame about it!
My housemate at the time thought it was creepy how much I wanted to bang Garrus on my femshep playthrough.
I told her she just didn’t appreciate his true magnificence
Vanilla ice cream best ice cream; it’s the ice cream that you can always have.
The gripe should be about having to by monogamous in ME. My Shepherd in reality fosters polygamy – he has too much love and biotic strength for a single lover; a woman would die if she became the sole fixation of Shepherd. The Nomad wasn’t just Shepherd’s vessel, it was Shepherd’s harem.
In fact there should in fact be a little army of baby/young Shepherds out there for Shepherd foresaw a day where he would not be there and a new threat would rise. What better way to combat said threat than to raise his own genetic military force?
The Normandy, you mean.
But indeed; I’m on Team Don’tmakemechoose as well.
After ME’s Liara turned into ME2’s Liara I was a little heart broken, but it wasn’t Garrus I turned to after a bout of celibacy in ME2, nay, it was Samantha Traynor. Who proceeded to use me for my [femShep’s] shower. No regrets, that cut-scene was possibly the most awkward thing I’ve ever witnessed and it was glorious.
I never quite ‘got’ Garrus though, either as a friend or lover. In ME he was rather boring, in ME2 he was too emo and ME3’s nice balance between the two with some more emphasis on humour didn’t quite make up for the disappointing beginning and middle segments of his arc.
Tali was my closest friend throughout the series and I think I have the opposite feelings towards dating her to what others seem to have for Garrus – I tried playing a maleShep, more or less to date Tali, but it didn’t feel right, she was my closest friend, but that was the extent of our relationship. I wanted to have long conversations with her and watch shitty movies with her (sorry Tali, Fleet and Flotilla just isn’t my thing), but not get between the sheets with her. My love for Tali wasn’t a romantic one, just the sort that can only come from the closest of friendships and the fact that Bioware could write a character so well that that relationship almost felt (feels) real is just insane.
I am way too attached to Mass Effect, it’s a bit of a problem.
This was basically my Femshep’s feelings too
Would Garus really get the loves he gets IRL? A lot of the comments that the ladies have made scream “friend zoned”
This article should have an article written about it called “Why women don’t read Kotaku”
All the women, including myself, who contributed to the article either write for or read Kotaku. Nice try though.
Why even bother replying to a five month old guest’s comment?
They tried to recreate the awkward but sweet alien-love thing with Jaal in ME:A but it’s not the same… both have their good sides but… I’d pick Garrus over him. They also gave a bi-relationship with the female Turian Vetra, still not the same and kinda uninterested in her personally.
Garrus just grossed me out. I don’t care how sweet he is, the thought of getting into bed with someone who looked like his mother humped an anaconda made my skin crawl. I didn’t like *any* of the aliens and as I wanted to play a het female (heaven forbid), my options were just utterly uninteresting. Yet, maleSheps have a cornucopia of attractive human females to choose from. Totally freaking not fair. SO sick of this, especially since I just finished Fallout: New Vegas, which was not only misogynistic as hell but had absolutely NO sex options for het female characters. SO utterly sick of that.