Same gender romance discussion

[copperjack]

I remember around the time Mass Effect 3 came out there was an interview with the guy who wrote Sam Traynor. He was talking about how he'd wanted to write a really great lesbian character and had been concerned about being respectful and realistic. His first draft for her story made the whole thing revolve around her issues with coming out and being a lesbian in the military. He showed it around and thankfully someone said "Hey dude, you might want to rethink that," so instead of that we ended up with a great character who plays strategy games, buys really expensive luxury toothbrushes, and just happens to be a lesbian.

 

It does kind of weird me out sometimes in discussions about SGR when it turns out that most of the people participating are straight women. Allies are great and it would make things a few orders of magnitude harder to accomplish without them but then you find out that these women only play gay male characters and talk about how sexy they are and so on and it's a little uncomfortable. For some reason I don't see it as much with straight men, although there is the odd one who wants plays as a girl because they like the view from behind and then want lesbian romance options because they feel gay playing as a straight girl. Probably in games straight men are just less likely to support SGR?

[Tatile]

Strange, because most of the accusations against SGRA content is "it's just teenage boys wanting to watch girls kiss".

 

Possibly it's because of the difference between *ahem* how men and women consume relationships in media? We're talking with generalisations here, but it's studied to be typical that men are more interested in the physical side, and women with the emotional. That's likely going to be due to the ways in which women and men are couched to approach relationships, but just because it's socially constructed, doesn't make the findings inherently false.

 

I'm reminded of a lot of posters who query why anyone would be interested in the romances in this game, as "you don't see anything", due to the Fade to Blacks. I'm fairly sure those would have come from male posters (though, of course, I'm sure the majority of posters on the forums are male anyway.)

[Seireeni]

It does kind of weird me out sometimes in discussions about SGR when it turns out that most of the people participating are straight women. Allies are great and it would make things a few orders of magnitude harder to accomplish without them but then you find out that these women only play gay male characters and talk about how sexy they are and so on and it's a little uncomfortable.

 

It's probably, at least partly, because of this japanese anime/manga genre yaoi. Seems to make some young women/girls think that all gay men are somehow especially cute, while they actually are just like all the other people. (Not to mention the "fangirls". They seem to be obsessed about "shipping" two males of their series of choice. Haven't yet found a series where they weren't doing this. That's weird. And I don't have any idea what causes that.)

 

(To clear the reputation of straight females, at least I'm here and defending your cause because I want more options to RP with my characters. Let me decide if they are straight or not, not the game.)

[copperjack]

I suspect the people who are against SGR have never actually talked to anyone who is for it and assume that most players are straight men. After a few years of experience I now tend to assume that anyone supporting SGR is actually a straight woman unless they say otherwise. That's held true for other forums I've been on, no idea what it's like in this thread though.

 

It's amusing when people seem to think the romances are all people wanting to see pixel sex. When they had something approaching actual sex scenes in Dragon Age it was really disturbing, for me at least. Watching two CGI characters go at it is the last thing I want, I'm just in it for the story. I love having fade to blacks, it prevents awkwardness.

[Tatile]

It's probably, at least partly, because of this japanese anime/manga genre yaoi. Seems to make some young women/girls think that all gay men are somehow especially cute, while they actually are just like all the other people. (Not to mention the "fangirls". They seem to be obsessed about "shipping" two males of their series of choice. Haven't yet found a series where they weren't doing this. That's weird. And I don't have any idea what causes that.)

 

(To clear the reputation of straight females, at least I'm here and defending your cause because I want more options to RP with my characters. Let me decide if they are straight or not, not the game.)

 

And for those who don't consume yaoi, there's stuff like Glee and Will & Grace that perpetuate stereotypes of gay men being inherently fun, cutesy, comedic fashionistas. There might also be the link that, unlike straight men, gay men are perceived to be less threatening to women, which might give them a natural attraction (like Gay Best Friend trope.)

 

The shipping thing has been addressed a few times...

 

Ok, this femslash and the white gaze: http://eshusplayground.tumblr.com/post/67443005341

But, it is noted in quite a few places (that, naturally, I can't find now *rages*) that a lot of shipping that takes place is between cis white men, not what I'm thinking of now, though

 

I remember an older Sherlock fan talking about his distaste with the constant Holmes/Watson shipping for the latest BBC drama, and he spoke of how it was nice to see two men with a strong friendship, but not a romantic relationship. I think some of the shipping might come down to society's over-bearing presence of romantic relationships in all our media - you rarely see a friendship between a man and a woman that doesn't get some sort of sexual tension inserted by the narrative (one reason why I'm hesitant about a Black Widow film, because I want her to be really good friends with Hawkeye, not some sort of forced, awkward love affair.)

 

Now, some shipping is from queer people wanting representation in a medium that ignores them - the same with other queer head- or fancanons. Now, this isn't the same thing as straight people shipping queer characters*, as that has airs of appropriation and attempting to define identities onto people, rather than people defining their identities for themselves. The latter is a natural reaction to being excluded from something you're still expected to consume.

 

I don't ship existing characters myself - partly because of a respect for the author and the characters themselves, partly because I can't be bothered. It's much more fun to create my own characters, and they have their own stories. Yes I'm arguing for SGRA content with existing companions to be introduced into this game as standard, but that's not because I particularly want to see my Agent getting smoochy with Vector (nice as that might be), but because it should be in the game anyway - it's 2013, we're better than this.

 

Does anything of that make any sense? I think I went a bit... all over the place...

 

 

*Edit: They keep censoring the damn plural of queer. It's really getting on my ****.

 

SMALL BIRDS.

Edited November 23, 2013 by Tatile

[copperjack]

I don't really care if people want to ship characters or whatever, it's not necessarily hurting anything. It's the reducing people down to their sexuality that's annoying, or (and I'm talking about outside of video games here) supporting people's issues so you can get off to them. There have been several instances of girls saying they support gay marriage so their favourite tv characters can get together, which is just completely out there. If the only reason you're supporting something is for gay/lesbian ****, then yeah, that's not on.

 

We could really use more movies where the male and female leads don't get together during it. This actually really surprised me but Dredd is a great movie for that. They go through an entire movie with the tough male lead and the young, blonde female rookie and there is never an ounce of romantic tension at all. It was great, I hope they do the same thing with the Black Widow movie.

 

Slight change of topic, but I find the rising use of "queer" kind of off-putting. I know some people want to use it to define themselves and that's okay, and it can be handy as a catchall term to avoid the alphabet soup, but especially using it as a noun instead of an adjective bugs me. "He's a queer" or "they're ******"... I don't think that we've really come far enough along for it to be used like that.

[Seireeni]

And for those who don't consume yaoi, there's stuff like Glee and Will & Grace that perpetuate stereotypes of gay men being inherently fun, cutesy, comedic fashionistas. There might also be the link that, unlike straight men, gay men are perceived to be less threatening to women, which might give them a natural attraction (like Gay Best Friend trope.)

 

The shipping thing has been addressed a few times...

 

Ok, this femslash and the white gaze: http://eshusplayground.tumblr.com/post/67443005341

But, it is noted in quite a few places (that, naturally, I can't find now *rages*) that a lot of shipping that takes place is between cis white men, not what I'm thinking of now, though

 

I remember an older Sherlock fan talking about his distaste with the constant Holmes/Watson shipping for the latest BBC drama, and he spoke of how it was nice to see two men with a strong friendship, but not a romantic relationship. I think some of the shipping might come down to society's over-bearing presence of romantic relationships in all our media - you rarely see a friendship between a man and a woman that doesn't get some sort of sexual tension inserted by the narrative (one reason why I'm hesitant about a Black Widow film, because I want her to be really good friends with Hawkeye, not some sort of forced, awkward love affair.)

 

Now, some shipping is from queer people wanting representation in a medium that ignores them - the same with other queer head- or fancanons. Now, this isn't the same thing as straight people shipping queer characters*, as that has airs of appropriation and attempting to define identities onto people, rather than people defining their identities for themselves. The latter is a natural reaction to being excluded from something you're still expected to consume.

 

I don't ship existing characters myself - partly because of a respect for the author and the characters themselves, partly because I can't be bothered. It's much more fun to create my own characters, and they have their own stories. Yes I'm arguing for SGRA content with existing companions to be introduced into this game as standard, but that's not because I particularly want to see my Agent getting smoochy with Vector (nice as that might be), but because it should be in the game anyway - it's 2013, we're better than this.

 

Does anything of that make any sense? I think I went a bit... all over the place...

 

 

*Edit: They keep censoring the damn plural of queer. It's really getting on my ****.

 

SMALL BIRDS.

 

Gay men are also stereotypically thought to be more delicate and more interested in talking about their feelings, things that many women would like to have in a straight man but what straight men at least stereotypically don't have. (Probably also part of the "Gay Best Friend" trope.)

 

Anyway, now when I think about it, there aren't that many close male/female friendships on the media. Of course, it's sometimes hard to say what's close - could you say that i.e. The Doctor and Donna were close friends? (I'd say they were friends, and neither had any romantic interest towards the other.)

Though, unless you count flirting with no intentions to anything deeper as sexual tension, I think two people in Criminal Minds make a great exception to this.

 

Also, as a friend of mine pointed out some time ago, friendship is also looked at in a different way nowadays. If the original Sherlock Holmes short stories were published now for the first time, people would certainly think Watson has a crush on Holmes. Watson adores Holmes, and makes all the times all sorts of comments about how amazing and great he is. Back then, I guess it was pretty "normal" to think about your friend like that. Today, it would definitely be viewed as Watson having deeper feelings towards Holmes.

[Joushigun]

Gay men are also stereotypically thought to be more delicate and more interested in talking about their feelings, things that many women would like to have in a straight man but what straight men at least stereotypically don't have. (Probably also part of the "Gay Best Friend" trope.)

 

Anyway, now when I think about it, there aren't that many close male/female friendships on the media. Of course, it's sometimes hard to say what's close - could you say that i.e. The Doctor and Donna were close friends? (I'd say they were friends, and neither had any romantic interest towards the other.)

Though, unless you count flirting with no intentions to anything deeper as sexual tension, I think two people in Criminal Minds make a great exception to this.

 

Also, as a friend of mine pointed out some time ago, friendship is also looked at in a different way nowadays. If the original Sherlock Holmes short stories were published now for the first time, people would certainly think Watson has a crush on Holmes. Watson adores Holmes, and makes all the times all sorts of comments about how amazing and great he is. Back then, I guess it was pretty "normal" to think about your friend like that. Today, it would definitely be viewed as Watson having deeper feelings towards Holmes.

 

Re: Sherlock Holmes- Even back then, the fact that Watson and Holmes were so tight was unusual- especially since Holmes was a bachelor and Watson kept forgetting who his wife was. It's kind of like the oddities that surround President James Buchanan and William R. King. The two lived together even though Buchanan was supposed to have married a woman. The two may very well have been romantically linked and some of their correspondences appear initially to be friendly until put into context and it's realized that they were far from typical even for friends at the time.

 

Watson's affection for Holmes was atypical even for the Victorian Era. Whether or not they were homosexual in nature- that's hard to tell.

 

I would say that we have a tendency to focus on romance and sex in our society right now, and that creates some problems.

[Seireeni]

Watson's affection for Holmes was atypical even for the Victorian Era. Whether or not they were homosexual in nature- that's hard to tell.

 

Ah, thanks for clearing that up - my friend just made a remark how, to him, seemed that in the literature from 19th century, friendship could include more "caring" than friendship nowadays (and that annoys him). Not sure if he was right or not, my experience from literature of the whole century only includes Sherlock Holmes novels, Dracula and Frankenstein, so I really can't say.

[Tatile]

To the Doctor and Donna - they were the best of friends and it was amazing.

 

Sherlock and Watson may have been a poor example of their historical narrative, but the person who I paraphrased was speaking of the modern adaptation and its modern audience (who might not be versed in the original text.)

 

To Copperjack, you have a point about the word 'queer' - I've been seeing it used in LGBT&etc. circles for brevity, and I do suppose it's word reclamation. That in mind though, it's probably something I should stop using.

 

And yes, seeing people support same-gender marriage because they want to legitimise their OTP makes me want to punch them in the face. These are basic human rights, not fantasy lands. (These are also, possibly, the same sorts of people who pour out in support for stuff like marriage and unisex bathrooms because they're "fun" and "quirky", but not about housing benefits, unique legal protections and the nitty, gritty stuff. Not reproductive rights protections (a few countries still enforce mandatory sterilization for a gender change to registered on a birth certificate) - but they'll support gay couples adopting because it's "cute" - not addressing the intersection of race narrative with perceptions of homophobia... I could go on...)

[Joushigun]

Ah, thanks for clearing that up - my friend just made a remark how, to him, seemed that in the literature from 19th century, friendship could include more "caring" than friendship nowadays (and that annoys him). Not sure if he was right or not, my experience from literature of the whole century only includes Sherlock Holmes novels, Dracula and Frankenstein, so I really can't say.

 

No worries. It is more common that the work then was more inclusive of friendships, but Sherlock Holmes was a bit atypical.

 

I like the word Queer at times because there's a lot of us who don't really fit LGBTetaletaletal.

[copperjack]

I like the word Queer at times because there's a lot of us who don't really fit LGBTetaletaletal.

 

It can have its uses sometimes, especially as a replacement for the ever-growing acronym but honestly I just wish people would find a different word. It's not a very accurate descriptor when used for individuals and it's got way too much baggage attached for a lot of people to be comfortable with it thrown around casually.

[Joushigun]

It can have its uses sometimes, especially as a replacement for the ever-growing acronym but honestly I just wish people would find a different word. It's not a very accurate descriptor when used for individuals and it's got way too much baggage attached for a lot of people to be comfortable with it thrown around casually.

 

I understand. I do sometimes wish that we didn't need a label.

[Rabenschwinge]

What I wonder regarding this topic is, after Makeb, where do we go from here.

 

I must admit that, even though I would like some more lesbian romances, I never liked the romances in SW:TOR in the first place, so the whether or not there are same gender romances is not much of an issue to me.

 

Still, I do wonder what new companion characters there might be in future. How much of a priority it is to introduce new companions, because, well, overall there is a lot of them already, even though they are usually limited to a single one class.

 

It didn't occur to me that BioWare had any intention of adding same gender romance options to already existing characters.

[Tatile]

It didn't occur to me that BioWare had any intention of adding same gender romance options to already existing characters.

 

It was something mentioned by Bioware writers of days gone by, that they had companions already in mind for the SGRA content. That was during the Guild Summit, in 2012. That still yet nothing has happened (Makeb only just barely counts, but considering we are never, ever, going to see Cytharat or Lemda again, it's hardly a win for us) in the two years since release.

 

Frankly I'm surprised Bioware have left the topic open (actually, I'm not, they've completely forgotten we're here), as they have no intention of ever communicating with us, or releasing the content.

[Rabenschwinge]

Well, that's a shame. I would really like to see more companions with some depth. Not because of the possibility of same gender romances, but for the diversity. Give the players some choice over who they take on their ships and who they don't. Despite the sheer amount of companions if you take all classes together the companions aren't really SW:TORs strong side imho.

 

As for the Makeb romances: I found it pretty cute - I find those romance options better if they aren't so horribly predictable but surprise you a little, which is probably why my favourite romance in the game so far is such a mini romance (of the female Chiss Imperial Agent in the class story in Hoth). So, it's not really perfect, but it's certainly better than nothing at all.

[Tatile]

I might seem a bit pessimistic about the state of the content, but given it's been over two years, with no information (expect for Mr. Musco's "Yes it's true we decided not to give each faction equal romances, we'll do so in the future!! LOL YEAH RIGHT") and no interest from Bioware, that I find it hard to stay optimistic.

 

Particularly that, given we're having a new PvP-only expansion and that after that we should be getting more info about the future of the game, but no amount of PM'ing on my part has had any response, or interest, not even a "Please stop contacting us, you lifeless freak."

 

:/

[timidobserver]

Haven't been in this thread in a while. Just tagging in to add my feedback. I think this game desperately needs more heavy content. They should definitely put a hold on this until after the next full expansion.

[Tatile]

Haven't been in this thread in a while. Just tagging in to add my feedback. I think this game desperately needs more heavy content. They should definitely put a hold on this until after the next full expansion.

 

So, indefinitely then? Thanks. It's not like a "full expansion" would have story content or anything. Because story content isn't real content

[Kioma]

They've 'put a hold on it' since before release. There's no realistic reason that an update containing what you vaguely describe as 'heavy content' (which I take to actually mean 'content that I want') can't also contain SGRA content updates.

 

As Tatile says the evidence points to the developers simply not wanting to add it in but, on the same note, not wanting to actually come out and say that. We're now well past the point of taking things on faith. If they want us to believe something different then they need to start providing evidence. Makeb was barely a start. Cute, yes, but nothing more than that.

[Lesaberisa]

Just think of all the daily areas and reputation grinds we'll miss out on if they actually follow up on what they promised, though! So many resources would be wasted... Edited November 27, 2013 by Lesaberisa

[timidobserver]

So, indefinitely then? Thanks. It's not like a "full expansion" would have story content or anything. Because story content isn't real content

 

Not indefinitely. Maybe they could include it with the expansion after the next expansion. They really need a meaty expansion that goes well beyond the little bit that Makeb has.

 

They've 'put a hold on it' since before release. There's no realistic reason that an update containing what you vaguely describe as 'heavy content' (which I take to actually mean 'content that I want') can't also contain SGRA content updates.

 

As Tatile says the evidence points to the developers simply not wanting to add it in but, on the same note, not wanting to actually come out and say that. We're now well past the point of taking things on faith. If they want us to believe something different then they need to start providing evidence. Makeb was barely a start. Cute, yes, but nothing more than that.

 

By Heavy Content, I mean major content like expansion level content that people would pay and return to the game for. This includes new advanced classes and planets.

 

Though in response to your implication that they just don't want to do it, if they don't want to add it in I can't really begrudge them that. It is their game. Though, if there is significant demand from current and potential subscribers, I'd say that they should look into it. However, I am against the idea that it should be added purely for the sake of equality.

[Palar]

You think they're going to do a "full" expansion with what you described?

 

... And I thought we were insanely optimistic.

[Kioma]

However, I am against the idea that it should be added purely for the sake of equality.

 

Any particular reason you're so firmly against equality in this matter, or is it mainly that it won't add anything to the game that you, personally, care about?

[faclonlord]

Haven't been on the forums since release. Good to know some topics never die...

 

I do feel the need to point that BioWare is not the only player here. Both EA and LucasArts are involved, and have a much longer history of LGBT erasure than does BioWare.

 

Perhaps some of the resistance is coming from them, now?