Obsidian accused of transmisogyny in Pillars of Eternity

[J Tyran]

If anyone wants to talk about the GAME I'm down for that. That's what everyone wanted, right? Less "politics", more games talk? WHOOPS, my eyes rolled right out of my head.

Applicable for both sides, we let greedy scammers and ideologues take advantage of us. Some of us paid money or let those ideologues use as support for their agendas, others made it worse by over reacting and getting used in a different way. Now everyone that just likes games are faced with the entire community tearing itself to pieces, worse still neither side are really cognizant of whats going on as they are to busy trying to get their points across.

 

[ZiggyE]

Pillars of Eternity gaming topic? Couldn't even stay on the front page. Pillars of Eternity drama topic? 5 pages and counting. Woop. Carry on, warriors.

If anyone wants to talk about the GAME I'm down for that. That's what everyone wanted, right? Less "politics", more games talk? WHOOPS, my eyes rolled right out of my head.

Imagine a world where this controversy was ignored by everyone as "meh", as it should have been. Or imagine a world where this controversy never existed in the first place.

Bliss.

 

[kael013]

The assumption of trans-misogyny is reached by assuming extra information. The original conclusion was reached by assuming the other individual in the poem is actually transgendered...there is nothing stating that they were.

Considering someone who presents themselves as a woman but has male genitalia to be trans is less assuming extra information and more coming to a reasonable conclusion about why someone with male genitalia would be presenting themselves as a woman. Whereas assuming that alcohol was involved is a clear example of adding extra information since there is nothing in the poem to base it off of.

Cross-dressing + drunk. That's what I got out of the poem. "The last woman he bedded turned out a man" can imply a cross-dresser or that Firedorn just couldn't tell the difference between a woman and a very feminine-looking man. Also "bedded" means he actually fucked 'em. Pretty sure a sober man can tell the difference between a dick and a vagina.

There. An interpretation with no trans, no prejudices, no cause for outrage. Just an idiot dying for being an idiot.

Only if you assume, by reading the poem, that the individual that Firedorn bedded was a transsexual at all.

Right, the reasonable thing is to go out of our way with apologetics to find an alternative explanation for the sole sake of proclaiming that the joke is absolutely not offensive. And, if we need to assume extra details about the story like the character being a drunkard, so be it because not doing so would mean that the joke might be offensive and the PC police might have a point and we can't have that.

But apparently that makes me an apologist. I'll tell you a secret: the poem NEEDS the reader to add in extra information. What does "woman turned out a man" mean? Transsexual? Cross-dresser? Was Firedorn too drunk to tell the difference between a woman and a feminine-looking man? It doesn't say. Ergo, all interpretations are equally valid.

 

[Neurotic Void Melody]

Can we show this person some Frankie Boyle stand up, pallleeeaaaaaassse???
I would say more on this matter, but this looks like a joke. Seriously. Or...not? I dunno. There are enough people in this world connected to the informatiowebs, that there will always be some twazzleflaps getting their flaps in a twazzle because some fiction is making them uncomfortable. I love uncomfortable. It is their to help us analyse why it is so. Art uses manipulation of emotion to get us to think more.
This?...this is just some carry-on humour that is hardly worth the effort of me typing this ramble. Sort of cute really.

 

[J Tyran]

Well, no.

I was responding to this, "The implication that trans women are gay men trying to trick straight men into having sex with them?" which is not what I believe to have been implied here. Just because the guy slept with someone he thought was a woman...doesn't mean that the 'woman' in this instance was attempting to trick him into it.

Mistaken identity, plus epic amounts of alcohol, plus a micro penis, plus clever clothing positioning, plus a dark room, and divide that by a penchant for the back door and this...look, I realize this is a lot of 'but maybe if'...but it didn't actually happen. :/ And there are trolls and werewolves and shit. Just roll with it.

Lets just be honest here - do you think that the intention of the joke are the exact series of conditions you provided above (which still overlooks some indicators - "mistaken identity" requires a lot of separate conditions), or just a joke at the expense of trans people?

How, may I ask, do YOU know that? You're claiming to me that, out of all 7 or 8 billion people on the Earth, not one of them has ever done such a thing?

Its just a paranoid delusion thought up of by a bunch of heterosexual men who live in perpetual fear of having their sexuality questioned, and I'm not going to entertain the thought of its relevance or significance.

By the same token, it's definitely not something common, nor would I even suggest it was something that happened more than once. Ever. Nor do I think that's what happened in this poem.

So then why defend the point?

See, I didn't get the "There's men pretending to be women to have sex with straight men and cause them emotional distress" bit from the poem.

The man in the poem killed himself out of shame. That is the exact words used are "crying in shame".

This shares a blatant real life parallel regarding the suspicion of transgender people.

Why would it have to be based around

"The implication that trans women are gay men trying to trick straight men into having sex with them?"

The poem made no mention of that, I would suggest that without adding anything extra to the poem he simply had some kind of sexual encounter with either a cross dresser or transexual and then the mental trauma made him commit suicide after he found out.

Adding in that it must imply that it was a gay men trying to trick a straight man into sex is unnecessary.

 

[FirstNameLastName]

By your logic theres no expectation to disclose that you have herpes simplex II as long as you're not currently having a visible outbreak.

Well, see one is harmful, and one isn't. Herpes is harmful, a penis is not. You might not like a penis or a vagina, but so what? Its a physical characteristic like eye colour, body hair, and facial hair, not a disease.

Just out of curiosity, if someone (who doesn't have any STIs) fucked a woman who was passed out, what harm would she suffer, since penis isn't in itself, harmful?

 

[Yan007]

This is why we can't have nice things.

The Pillar's world is a dark place, or did you miss all the baby and mother murdering?

This isn't there to set up a dark atmosphere. This is there as a joke. It's there to make people laugh, and it ties into a culture and a set of conceptions that leads to a depressingly high number of violent murders and suicides every year.

This weird phenomenon you are experiencing is called life. Some people experience it differently than others. For some, humor helps them face what makes them uncomfortable.

The pseudo-intellectual finger-pointing game is starting to tire me and this constant barrage of attacks on petty first-world problems deeply troubles me when put in contrast to much greater issues at home or abroad (cancer, obesity, ISIS,dictatorships, slavery, child soldiers and so on).

I'm sorry, but your hurt feelings because not everyone will be your friend and support your life choices is one of the last things I care about.

 

[ZiggyE]

Why would it have to be based around

"The implication that trans women are gay men trying to trick straight men into having sex with them?"

Because there's this thing called "reality", the place where we all reside, the backdrop for all of our decisions made. Its also the backdrop for the joke. See, a joke like this relies on person having some working familiarity with the culture from where it comes.

I'm a straight man and I'm not under the impression that trans and gay people are trying to have sex with me. Is it just because I'm ugly or maybe only progressives have these thoughts?

Though if a transwoman or a straight man did try to trick me to sleep with them, I'd probably find that uncomfortable.

 

[Pr0]

By your logic theres no expectation to disclose that you have herpes simplex II as long as you're not currently having a visible outbreak.

Well, see one is harmful, and one isn't. Herpes is harmful, a penis is not. You might not like a penis or a vagina, but so what? Its a physical characteristic like eye colour, body hair, and facial hair, not a disease.

[quote[]The status of a circumcision isn't generally a deal breaker for most people, surprise penis can be a deal breaker, for a woman or a man.

There's still no reason for there to be a moral imperative the same way there is with STIs. A majority of people have a problem with it - so what? If they have a problem with it, they should be upfront about it. Ask their potental partner before getting in the sack with them.

And you keep going back to the victimization argument of being assaulted for being transgendered, even while responding to a post where I specifically state that its not appropriate to assault people for anything.

Yet you're still saying that disclosure is an onus upon trans people. If its an onus upon them, then they share the blame when somebody has an outlandish reaction.[/quote]

Yes the onus is on them. They know they are leading someone down a path without giving them all the relevant information. If I'm your general heterosexual man, and lets say you're a transgendered woman who I find extremely attractive and have no reason to believe you are anything but a woman....why would I even bring up "Do you have a penis?" as a point of conversation? It simply wouldn't come up as a topic of conversation. There are plenty of transgendered women out there that give no outright visual impression that they are anything but a woman, and thats great, I'm very happy for them, but again, it comes back down to surprise penis. Lets be honest, it would just be rude to do that to anyone. So why not disclose these things before they can become a serious emotional issue or an issue that could spiral into violence?

 

[Beliyal]

Pillars of Eternity gaming topic? Couldn't even stay on the front page. Pillars of Eternity drama topic? 5 pages and counting. Woop. Carry on, warriors.

If anyone wants to talk about the GAME I'm down for that. That's what everyone wanted, right? Less "politics", more games talk? WHOOPS, my eyes rolled right out of my head.

Imagine a world where this controversy was ignored by everyone as "meh", as it should have been. Or imagine a world where this controversy never existed in the first place.

Bliss.

Imagine a world where trans folk weren't subjected to insane amounts of discrimination and threats which raise their suicide rate 25 times [http://www.livescience.com/11208-high-suicide-risk-prejudice-plague-transgender-people.html] more than cis folk. Or imagine a world where they weren't being mocked, assaulted and even murdered in greater percentages than cis folk only for being what they are. Maybe in that world, anything potentially transphobic wouldn't be a controversy. I would like that world, where everyone would just shrug and laugh at a joke.

Bliss indeed.

To be honest, I didn't get the transmisogyny vibe from the poem, but then again, I'm not trans. I don't know their experiences or what they are going through. If they say this poem makes them uncomfortable, it's not my place to tell them to shut up or get over it. Sometimes, things affect people in different ways. Things we don't care about are deeply offensive to others or are making them uncomfortable by reminding them of unpleasant things in their lives. Unlike a joke, a transgender person is an actual living person, so I don't really feel sorry for several words grouped together for an attempted comedic effect, while I might feel sorry for a living person. I will hope that people will one day learn that compassion towards others trumps their divine right to say whatever jokes or shit they want without facing any repercussions.

Captcha: good luck. Captcha being a sarcastic little shit.

 

[FirstNameLastName]

By your logic theres no expectation to disclose that you have herpes simplex II as long as you're not currently having a visible outbreak.

Well, see one is harmful, and one isn't. Herpes is harmful, a penis is not. You might not like a penis or a vagina, but so what? Its a physical characteristic like eye colour, body hair, and facial hair, not a disease.

Just out of curiosity, if someone (who doesn't have any STIs) fucked a woman who was passed out, what harm would she suffer, since penis isn't in itself, harmful?

You mean the violation of a person's right to autonomy? I'm not going to sit here and explain why violating somebody's rights is a bad thing, you're not six years old and neither is anybody else here on the forum.

So you understand that physical harm isn't the only type of harm there is? Good. Would it not be safe to assume that many people would feel violated from finding out they slept with someone who used to be the same sex as they are? If this isn't a widespread feeling, then why would there be so many violent reactions to it?

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

Lets just be honest here - do you think that the intention of the joke are the exact series of conditions you provided above (which still overlooks some indicators - "mistaken identity" requires a lot of separate conditions), or just a joke at the expense of trans people?

lets just be honest here, do you think the person who wrote that poem has anything against trans (male or female), or are we making a mountain out of a molehill here?

Its just a paranoid delusion thought up of by a bunch of heterosexual men who live in perpetual fear of having their sexuality questioned, and I'm not going to entertain the thought of its relevance or significance.

I'm not even sure what the exact parameters are on searching for information like that..but one quick google search came up with LOTS of porn links for just that..."straight guy tricked" and alot more that are probably offensive, so I won't list them. so just letting you know that stuff like that does exist out there, apparently enough to make lots of porn on it for.

Also, isn't that what everyone wants? is for others to respect their sexual preferences? so why wouldn't you offer the same to hetero-individuals?

The man in the poem killed himself out of shame. That is the exact words used are "crying in shame".

This shares a blatant real life parallel regarding the suspicion of transgender people.

and? there are tons of reasons why people "cry in shame" of things, doesn't mean it has to be phobic of anyone or any idea. A joke existing does not make the author or anyone phobic, some of the nicest and most chill/progressive people I've ever met have told me some absolutely horrific jokes before, does that somehow completely change anything else about their demeanor? (slightly off topic on the last bit, don't feel the need to respond to it if you don't want to.)

 

[ZiggyE]

I will hope that people will one day learn that compassion towards others trumps their divine right to say whatever jokes or shit they want without facing any repercussions.

So what you're saying is people shouldn't say things that might offend others? I'm sorry but everything can be potentially offensive to someone. If you seriously believe people shouldn't be allowed to say things in order to protect the feelings of others then you should take your fascism elsewhere.

 

[Pinky's Brain]

just a joke at the expense of trans people?

Most of us don't give a shit about trans people, they don't impact our lives for the most part (except as SJWs on the internet). What makes the joke funny is the overreaction of the guy having accidentally had gay sex, the other guy is a prop not the butt of the joke.

Yeah a stereotype of a trans person is used in the joke, but there is no malintent there ... would the world be a better place without the use of stereotypes in humour, maybe ... a lot less funny though.

Spoiler

 

[Tsun Tzu]

Lets just be honest here - do you think that the intention of the joke are the exact series of conditions you provided above (which still overlooks some indicators - "mistaken identity" requires a lot of separate conditions), or just a joke at the expense of trans people?

I'm being honest when I say that I don't believe it to be 'a joke at the expense of trans people.' Hell, it could be argued that there isn't even a trans person in the poem.

And that's a bit of a false dilemma there. It doesn't have to be 'the exact series of conditions,' I was just throwing out possibilities. It's open for interpretation, obviously, or we wouldn't be having a row about it.

Its just a paranoid delusion thought up of by a bunch of heterosexual men who live in perpetual fear of having their sexuality questioned, and I'm not going to entertain the thought of its relevance or significance.

So...ya don't know? Cool?

So then why defend the point?

Why not?

Just because I don't think something is common doesn't mean I don't think it's possible or that it couldn't potentially be occurring in this specific example. I mean, I don't think it is, but ya know what I'm driving at.

The man in the poem killed himself out of shame. That is the exact words used are "crying in shame".

This shares a blatant real life parallel regarding the suspicion of transgender people.

Er. I think we're having a bit of a miscommunication here.

You said,

What it is saying is that "there's men pretending to be women to have sex with straight men and cause them emotional distress".

And I'm disagreeing with your interpretation that that's what the poem is suggesting. I didn't assume malice on the part of the 'woman' in it. I just viewed it as, funnily enough, a miscommunication that led to unintended results.

The guy offing himself afterward just speaks to his own insecurities and...well, that's the extreme part of the joke. It's the bit that's beyond the pale and meant to be so over the top ridiculous, by way of his reaction, that it's funny.

I just didn't assume a negative to begin with is all.

 

[NerAnima]

...all that's left are the rest of the forum community...

The silence from the peanut gallery isn't because we have all sorts of fascinating insights held back by the flood of usual bile. We've said all we have to say.

Pretty sure you're kinda one of the people I was talking about along with myself...

And like you said, there's bile here, and from my experience that drives away people that actually want to talk about it more often than not because it's too much trouble to come in here and probably get jumped on by the usual people instead of, you know, having a conversation. That thing we used to have before transphobia became hip to say and claim about a whole slew of things.

This. Everything about this. I wanted to talk about this, I wanted to learn more, I wanted to have a legitimate talk about this with someone.

Not anymore. After looking at the shit-slinging, and the repulsive bile being spewed, I don't care. I would have liked to know about this, but after looking through almost 4-5 pages of this, I don't want to know.

Personally, I find it funny; I feel no personal shame or guilt about this, I like Dark Humour, and this is pretty dark.
So sue me.

 

[kael013]

Well, see one is harmful, and one isn't. Herpes is harmful, a penis is not. You might not like a penis or a vagina, but so what?

Psychological distress can be harmful.

[quote/]There's still no reason for there to be a moral imperative the same way there is with STIs. A majority of people have a problem with it - so what? If they have a problem with it, they should be upfront about it. Ask their potental partner before getting in the sack with them.[/quote]
Why should it be on me to ensure that my partner is honest? I'm into BDSM. I ask my partner if they have a problem with that and, if they do, we work out what we'll do instead. Having them learn about my preferences by me putting a blindfold on them is disrespectful to them as a person as it disregards their preferences.

[quote/]If its an onus upon them, then they share the blame when somebody has an outlandish reaction.[/quote]
Not really. Everyone who has an "abnormal" fetish/preference/orientation/whatever should be upfront about it. It shows that you care about the partner and reduces awkward situations in the bedroom. If the other person has an outlandish reaction, that's mostly on them for not being open-minded enough to end the situation gracefully. However, people also usually show their preferences pretty early, so it's a tad on the "abnormal" person as well for letting the situation get that far to begin with.

"Hey darling. *insert pick-up line*"
"Heh, you're cute, but I'm a transsexual. Is that a problem?"
That's not difficult.

 

[Scars Unseen]

I'm not sure why I just read 5 pages and change of this shit. It's the same people saying the same things as in every other similarly themed thread. I can't really bring myself to care what happens either way, honestly. On the one hand, I don't understand the outrage over a poorly written poem that can only be found by trudging through a pointless easter egg. On the other hand, it's a poorly written poem that can only be found by trudging through a pointless easter egg, so what have we really lost if Obsidian removes it?

Granted, according to one of the devs on the stickied tech support thread [http://www.reddit.com/r/projecteternity/comments/30iccp/hi_all_pillars_dev_here_for_technial_support_and/] on the ProjectEternity subreddit, they don't have the ability to add strings(with the implication being that they don't have a way of altering them either), so it might take some effort for them to make any changes, warranted or no. But I'm sure that with sufficient time they could... oh yeah, now I remember why I was reading this topic... I can't play the game right now because of a character breaking bug [http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/72923-psa-game-breaking-bug-affecting-everyone-including-you-temporary-fix-for-party-members-only-currently/] that I'm waiting on Obsidian to hotfix so my party won't be crap. I certainly hope that Obsidian has their priorities straight enough to fix their game before trying to find a way to alter obscure text that has a slight potential for offense to a small number of people.

And that's about as much enthusiasm as I can contribute to the thread.

 

[J Tyran]

Why would it have to be based around

"The implication that trans women are gay men trying to trick straight men into having sex with them?"

Because there's this thing called "reality", the place where we all reside, the backdrop for all of our decisions made. Its also the backdrop for the joke. See, a joke like this relies on person having some working familiarity with the culture from where it comes.

Really?

By your logic theres no expectation to disclose that you have herpes simplex II as long as you're not currently having a visible outbreak.

Well, see one is harmful, and one isn't. Herpes is harmful, a penis is not. You might not like a penis or a vagina, but so what? Its a physical characteristic like eye colour, body hair, and facial hair, not a disease.

Just out of curiosity, if someone (who doesn't have any STIs) fucked a woman who was passed out, what harm would she suffer, since penis isn't in itself, harmful?

You mean the violation of a person's right to autonomy? I'm not going to sit here and explain why violating somebody's rights is a bad thing, you're not six years old and neither is anybody else here on the forum.

Someone being willfully ignorant of whether or not they might be inflicting mental trauma and distress on someone isn't a violation of their right to autonomy? It can even be classed as sexual assault. If someone has sex with someone and they didn't disclose their birth gender it can "vitiate" (thats the legally used word) consent, its based around the "their must be reasonable belief that consent is and would have been given".

Those laws are used to protect people from unwanted sexual encounters, no I don't want transgendered people locked up but they really need to think about consent even if that means avoiding casual encounters so I am trying to stress how important this is. Does that suck? Yes, having to go through life with that on top of all the other issues is terrible but inflicting emotional pain, distress and trauma on people isn't justified exactly like those in distress lashing out with physical or verbal abuse isn't justified.

 

[Beliyal]

I will hope that people will one day learn that compassion towards others trumps their divine right to say whatever jokes or shit they want without facing any repercussions.

So what you're saying is people shouldn't say things that might offend others? I'm sorry but everything can be potentially offensive to someone. If you seriously believe people shouldn't be allowed to say things in order to protect the feelings of others then you should take your fascism elsewhere.

No. What I am saying is that, if you say something that turns out to be offensive, perhaps consider apologizing and respecting the person you (accidentally or not) offended. What I see in this thread is opposite of that really. I see people rallying to mock sensitive SJWs who just wait on the internet all day to see something "offensive" to cry about and to install a fascist censoring dictatorship. A true irony here, people are exaggerating about people who they think exaggerate.

I am proposing an option that perhaps something is truly offensive to some people and we all sometimes say offensive shit without thinking or without even knowing the effect of our words. We can go down the path of "Get over it, sensitive pansy SJW fascist!" or down the path of "Oops, I apologize, I didn't know this might be a problem. I will make an attempt not to do it again." The latter is preferable to me.