Sexuality in Mass Effect

[johnfistyadams]

Because sometimes its hard to tell what Shepard is going to say. Unlike Dragon Age and KotOR, the choices given are vague suggestions towards Shepard's answers. I ended up accidently flirting with every girl on the ship by just choosing the nice options when speaking. This is just kind of funny when it deals with hetero relationships, but it becomes uncomfortable when just trying to be friendly with Jacob leads to flirting.

The problem is that many people are pro-gay rights, but still are a little uncomfortable with seeing two people of the same sex kiss. I think Bioware decided it was easier to leave out the homosexual option and annoy gay people than to leave it and have Fox News up their ass about spreading the "gay agenda" and stupid shit like that.

 

[223]

Not only women (as this thread has shown, non-hetero men also play Mass Effect), but in the same way some straight men like the idea of female-female attraction, some straight women like the idea of male-male attraction. Ask your female friends.

I know that, and im sure there are a lot of homosexuals who play as well, but that still proves my point, like any company trying to make a profit they aim for the MAJORITY. I`m sure they try to please as many people as possible as long as it does not involve spending more money. I`m no programmer but I`m sure cutscenes cost a lot, and so does adding the necessary dialog and so on.

What I`m trying to say I guess is Bioware is souless corporation who`s only goal is MAKING MONEH ! As such it will not spend a penny more then necessary to develop a game. I`m almost positive that if they did include the option of male male romance (and same goes for all the other minorities left out) there would be no noticeable difference in sales but there would be a noticeable difference in production cost. Maybe not to us gamers, but corporations make sure to save every penny they can. There is no pro-gay agenda or anti-gay agenda, theres just Bioware wanting to make money.

 

[Fappy]

I have read the thread. Im just shocked that its still going and not in a hilarious way.

I was just thinking that.

 

[LiquidGrape]

And question, why do only women want to play as homosexual character's?

I call bullshit on that observation.
Me, Thane and a bottle of dry vermouth would nail that gaming experience.
(Notice the very clever pun in italic.)

Why?
Because it's roleplaying.
The very definition of the genre implies that you should step out of your shoes and engross yourself in the fiction.

And I don't buy that it would be costly or inefficient for Bioware to include same-sex romance.
When push comes to shove, a vast majority of the people involved with the production of video games are heterosexual males.
A vast majority of heterosexual males don't find homosexual romance appealing.
Homosexual romance is subsequently omitted.
For males.

- You don't have to be called Sigmund to follow that train of thought.

But frankly, I'm surprised that people are surprised.
Bioware are the closeted chauvinist-conservatives of the medium.
After all, we are talking about the people who basically censored a kiss between homosexual characters in Jade Empire; but saw fit to reward a hetero male character with a rather creepy ménage à trois.

 

[Drexler]

Not only women (as this thread has shown, non-hetero men also play Mass Effect), but in the same way some straight men like the idea of female-female attraction, some straight women like the idea of male-male attraction. Ask your female friends.

I know that, and im sure there are a lot of homosexuals who play as well, but that still proves my point, like any company trying to make a profit they aim for the MAJORITY. I`m sure they try to please as many people as possible as long as it does not involve spending more money. I`m no programmer but I`m sure cutscenes cost a lot, and so does adding the necessary dialog and so on.

What I`m trying to say I guess is Bioware is souless corporation who`s only goal is MAKING MONEH ! As such it will not spend a penny more then necessary to develop a game. I`m almost positive that if they did include the option of male male romance (and same goes for all the other minorities left out) there would be no noticeable difference in sales but there would be a noticeable difference in production cost. Maybe not to us gamers, but corporations make sure to save every penny they can. There is no pro-gay agenda or anti-gay agenda, theres just Bioware wanting to make money.

I don't thinks it's bioware wanting more money, it's EA wanting more money

 

[LiquidGrape]

At any rate, my comment was because the OP said something that sounded like only homosexuals would be homosexuals, and I was like, what??? so I don't think you understood that... There's no argument here, lol.

Oh right.
Sorry, I hate quoting people out of context.
My bad. My very, very bad.

 

[Benjeezy]

fail.

How is this considered a fail?

 

[Theron Julius]

meh it's just what Bioware wanted. None of the characters really seem to fit the gay romance option. I don't wanna be offensive, but I don't think Garrus, Thane, or Jacob would really get into being gay... Well maybe Thane, but even that is hard to really imagine him doing. I'm not saying it shouldn't have been in the game, I'm just saying that they would either have had to make another character or retrofit another character's personality for it to make sense.

 

[Spoonius]

Then again, the lesbian options wouldn't really make sense either. I don't know which female characters are available, but none of them seem gay (apart from Jack, she's definately a lesbian)...

 

[acer840]

I've never really tried to chase any of the romance options in the mass effect series, it seemed pointless to me. With the character personalities in the game, I couldn't see any of the male characters having a gay side romance story. Bioware decided that they didn't want it. Criticism rolls in. Play and enjoy (unless you didn't enjoy, then trade it in).

 

[Doug]

After a couple Mass Effect sessions, I got to thinking about the romance options. I'm sure this has occurred to others, but still.

A female Shepard can romance both sexes. You can roleplay her as straight, gay, or somewhere in between; it's totally up to the player whom she's into. A male Shepard, on the other hand, can only romance women. Even if you WANT to play a gay ManShep, you're simply not allowed.

To be fair, you can't really play as gay FemShep in ME2. Unless you count Kelly, who isn't really a full love interest.

But yeah, it does seem alittle odd we have all this open-ness in Dragon Age (set in Ye Ole Fanatasty land) but not in Mass Effect (the Future).

 

[Doug]

You really can do everything alse than male gay? Ok, a) that`s a good deal of options, but b)leaving just this one out is more than a little insensitive. I liked playing a gay male pen&paper-char and I think especially in Mass Effect that would be fun, too.

Well, not EVERYTHING else - you can't have a cross-dressing Shepard, for example. And to be fair to them, the only lesbian option in ME 2 is Kelly who isn't really a proper romance option.

But yeah, it does seem as if ME1/2 is lacking in male-male 'action', so to speak.

 

[Kortney]

Oh shut up.

"Hey wanna see some guys make out dude?"
"Naa not really my thing"
"OMFG HOMOPHOBE!!!!! YOUR DISGUSTING!!"
"..."

Seriously. Im not gay, I dont have a problem with gays (now I use this common argument which is mostly true anyway) and I have gay friends. What they wanna do is up to them but I dont particularly want to see it.

If you don't want to see it, don't role play your character that way. The OP was never asking you if you want to see two guys kiss, she was just pointing out the obvious imbalance there is in the game.

Wow, the amount of people who have completely taken her arguments the wrong way, and then "defeated" her by doing that is staggering in this thread.

 

[nubbas]

I think that the original question raised by Mother Yeti is a very valid one indeed. I for one am happy as a clam that sexuality in gaming is parting ways with the less then reality connected games from times past. I have vivid remembrances of "Sex games" for the Commodore 64 and I first learnt English to be able to enjoy the glories of pixilated eroticism in "Leisure suit Larry in the land of the lounge lizzards". These games were however never even close to a main stream culture or realism in any way. Bioware were taking some great steps to include something other then the ever so comfortable heterosexual norm. That's why it feels so odd and unmotivated that they should "pick and choose".

When we're all used to homo- and bisexuality as something just as obvious in gaming as heterosexuality it MIGHT be ok to use some of the above mentioned excuses that Bioware might subscribe to. But the fact of the matter is that us having this rather lively and from time to time constructive discussion about it all confirms that we're not there yet. Bioware KNOWS this, I can't imagine that they wouldn't.

If the only motivation that Bioware has is to sell copies of the game and not be subject to the hate of insecure players then so be it, it's they're full right. I seriously doubt that it's the good decision business wise and it positively reaks of double standard to have the comercially more unoffenceive lesbian option while omitting the male counterpart. Bioware has effectively botched a chance to lay the groundwork for a more enlightened perception of sexuality in gaming and even if they wanted to it couldn't be remedied with some man on man DLC.

-great topic Mother Yeti
-great games Bioware
-sad that so many have a hard time with these kinds of discussions
-to bad Bioware dropped the ball on bringing a modern view of sexuality to main stream gaming

 

[Uszi]

'Hey. I'm saving the galaxy... I should be allowed indulge in a little bestiality.'

On the one hand, I think that banging aliens just plays to the Captain Kirk in all of us, that once to travel to distant worlds and meet an intelligent race of aliens and then fuck 'em. I only played the first Mass Effect after it was in the 20 dollar bargain bin, and after I watched the Star Trek movie.

On the other hand, I do think that on some level Bioware is actually saying, "It is more acceptable to have sex with a different species then to have sex with members of the same specials."

meh it's just what Bioware wanted. None of the characters really seem to fit the gay romance option. I don't wanna be offensive, but I don't think Garrus, Thane, or Jacob would really get into being gay... Well maybe Thane, but even that is hard to really imagine him doing.

I don't know, Shepard and Garrus's "bro-mance" is a pretty close...

Sure, it is "Bioware's game." The point of the thread seems to be to ask the question: why do we find it more acceptable for people to role play a lesbian romance but not a homosexual one? Isn't it inherently a form of discrimination to do one and not the other? Are we really free to "role play" when the game arbitrarily eliminates some of our options?

Why

do you people discuss something this stupid on 14 pages.

How is it stupid? I would say it's a fairly contentious issue, especially among homosexual gamers.

And to be fair to them, the only lesbian option in ME 2 is Kelly who isn't really a proper romance option.

And while ME2 might have only 1 option, ME1 had Liara, which is about as proper a lesbian romance as you can get. And you could still bang the consort as a femShep, too.

*SNIP*

This.
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I'm not saying that Bioware should cater to everyone, and I do support the "It's Bioware's game!" argument. I just think that the omission of homosexual relationships given the inclusion of lesbian relationships is an interesting issue.

 

[Doug]

'Hey. I'm saving the galaxy... I should be allowed indulge in a little bestiality.'

On the one hand, I think that banging aliens just plays to the Captain Kirk in all of us, that once to travel to distant worlds and meet an intelligent race of aliens and then fuck 'em. I only played the first Mass Effect after it was in the 20 dollar bargain bin, and after I watched the Star Trek movie.

Prime Directive get out clause - section 3; "Interaction with the locals is allowed if they are REALLY hot".

On the other hand, I do think that on some level Bioware is actually saying, "It is more acceptable to have sex with a different species then to have sex with members of the same specials."

Well, to be fair, they did allow for a gay and lesbian relationship in Dragon Age...though the gay one was an elf, so dunno if thats in the 'alien' category.

meh it's just what Bioware wanted. None of the characters really seem to fit the gay romance option. I don't wanna be offensive, but I don't think Garrus, Thane, or Jacob would really get into being gay... Well maybe Thane, but even that is hard to really imagine him doing.

I don't know, Shepard and Garrus's "bro-mance" is a pretty close...

Maybe... maybe... yeah, I could see that happening. Though again, we're in Alien territory.

Sure, it is "Bioware's game." The point of the thread seems to be to ask the question: why do we find it more acceptable for people to role play a lesbian romance but not a homosexual one?

Societies double standards that have been instilled in us through peer pressure, TV, social norms, and so forth. Also, I heard the writing team from ME wheren't the same ones who wrote DA:O, so maybe they just can't write same-sex romance well.