Zero Punctuation: Papers, Please and Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons

[Mr C]

I really enjoyed Brothers, it is a bit of a novelty, but I loved how it's story is told visually. It also has a great set of achievements that reward exploration and experimentation.

Need to play Papers, Please.

 

[JimB]

The problem is that it treats pre-op MtF transgender people as unambiguously male, implying that the only thing that defines that person's gender identity is their genitalia, which then implies that the person's feelings toward herself does not matter, which taken to its logical conclusion says that transgender people are not actually transgender as their personal image means nothing (whereas in reality the 'man trapped in a woman's body' thing is literal).

Except Yahtzee isn't the one taking that stand. The politician is.

The politician in the joke is not a hypocrite because he is exclusively having sex with women.

Then why is there no mention of sex with post-op transsexuals?

Regarding the lying, at no point does the joke say that any of the women he has been sleeping with have had a sex change since.

I'll concede that the detail could have been cut to keep the joke snappier, but I don't think the joke would have any basis at all if the people the politician had been sucking off actually did have their surgeries.

Also, you are assuming that all trangender people plan to have a sex change.

My grasp of the terminology regarding transsexual matters is weak, so this could be a misunderstanding of mine, but why would you describe them as "pre-op" if an operation is not planned as part of the future? How can you be pre-op for an operation you never intend to have? It would be like saying I, a cisgendered person with no intention of ever reassigning my gender, am pre-op.

 

[cpukill]

Jokes against transsexuals were completely unnecessary and completely offensive.

I agree.
However, this videos does not contain any jokes *against* transsexuals, only a joke against hypocrites that happens to also contain a transsexual person.

"No trannies"
hm?

The point of that was obviously "they are very discriminatory" not "fuck transexuals"

Amazes me how many people don't get this. Especially in the Facebook comment section. I pointed this out, and the he/she I was replying to decided to delete my comment.

Point out failure to use basic logic, silence the heretic!

 

[DarkhoIlow]

Nice joke about EA right at the end there Yahtzee, got me chuckling quite a bit. Also the whole episode was very well done especially on the Papers Please part.

I have played it and I couldn't believe my eyes that I was quite immersed in it. It has this strange feeling very similar to "one more turn" that Heroes games give me. Here was just "one more day" scenario.

I can't say anything about Brothers yet, but I have heard good things about it and hope they will release it on PC soon.

 

[Sticky]

I had to re-watch the video to find the one-off transexual joke people are melting down over. It happened so fast and was such a short visual gag that I'm still not sure if he's referring to transexuals or just that specific imaginary politician or homosexuals in general.

I find it more disturbing that I was hoping for meaningful discussion on what may be the best political critique video game made in the past ten years but instead find people still arguing about an ambiguous joke clocked in at 300 milliseconds long that isn't actually clear if it's 'hateful' or not. I feel our priorities may be skewed in a "Ship of Fools" sort of way.

I'm not going to say that the issue shouldn't be important to you, but I will say that I think the discussion is detracting from something that is vitally important in the message itself. It would be like not reading 1984 because one of the pages had smeared ink.

You mean like how important paperwork is more often than not handled by over worked and under paid bureaucrats?

That's a good takeaway.

I was referring more to how the concept itself, the concept of restrictions we impose on other people for our safety, being taken to the extreme like it is in the game. Where we, as a modern society, employ the same exact methods and regulations that are portrayed in Papers, Please; but still find it strange or unnerving to see the same tools being used in a slightly different atmosphere.

As I said before, I feel Papers, Please is as much of a statement on the history of Soviet rules and regulations as it is a statement on the modern infrastructure we have set up for security. That it wears two masks which only become visible after some discussion on the facade it puts on of being a simulator of eastern bloc bureaucracy.

When the frightening implication should be that it isn't just about Soviet-era politics. It's just as much of a frightening look at our own society as it is a society of antiquity.

EDIT: If the discussion is to be about bureaucrats, it is a good point of discussion about how we assign blame and responsibility to the lowest members of our political totem-pole. How people who work these jobs because they must put food on the table are held accountable for the utterly futile task of keeping everyone safe 24/7. And a look at our respective punishment of these workers and the travelers who must deal with them because of political situations and happenstances that they could not possibly control or prevent.

Like I said, Papers, Please is probably one of the best political commentaries ever put into Video Game form. I'm hoping people remember it as such instead of a paperwork simulator.

 

[gjkbgt]

I am open to the possibility that it isn't boring.

Well that's a start.

Sorry must have been someone else
Might have been wishful thinking on my part I'd love to same someone like that

 

[Zombie Badger]

The problem is that it treats pre-op MtF transgender people as unambiguously male, implying that the only thing that defines that person's gender identity is their genitalia, which then implies that the person's feelings toward herself does not matter, which taken to its logical conclusion says that transgender people are not actually transgender as their personal image means nothing (whereas in reality the 'man trapped in a woman's body' thing is literal).

Except Yahtzee isn't the one taking that stand. The politician is.

Actually the politician is taking the opposite stand, saying that his sex partners are women and thus he is straight. He is correct in this.

The politician in the joke is not a hypocrite because he is exclusively having sex with women.

Then why is there no mention of sex with post-op transsexuals?

The crux of the joke is that the politician is actually gay and a hypocrite. Regardless of why he is having sex with these women, the fact remains that they are women, and thus the politician is neither gay nor a hypocrite.

Also, you are assuming that all trangender people plan to have a sex change.

My grasp of the terminology regarding transsexual matters is weak, so this could be a misunderstanding of mine, but why would you describe them as "pre-op" if an operation is not planned as part of the future? How can you be pre-op for an operation you never intend to have? It would be like saying I, a cisgendered person with no intention of ever reassigning my gender, am pre-op.

This may be a mistake on my part, forgetting to specify non-op as well, however I think it more likely that you are attributing a depth to the joke that is not there. Yahtzee did not pick transgender people for the joke because of a deep meaning it gave it, he picked the old closeted politician joke and changed part of it to something he thought would get a chuckle, as is his custom. The problem is that he failed to notice the implications of it. I seriously doubt that the thought of non-op transgender people crossed his mind as he was coming up with the joke (a lot of people seem to think that all transgender people who have not had sex changes are planning to have them), and that he was just thinking of pre-op transgender people as a cheap joke, just as I doubt he puts huge amounts of depth into a joke about Nazi's sanding a baby's face off with a cheese grater.

I wonder what Yahtzee will think when he sees this shitstorm that has erupted from a small part of a joke he probably didn't give a whole lot of thought to.

 

[Lonewolfm16]

I usually enjoy Yahtzee's videos, but his joke about transgender people really fucking bothered me.

Why? Because my girlfriend is trans.

I've told her how much I love her on many occasions. I had to have an honest heart-to-heart with myself, because I want to have sex with her and make her happy, but it will be a while before she can have her surgery (she wants everything, the HRT therapy and the SRS surgery).

So yeah, I decided that right now, her penis is part of who she is, and I want to make her happy. So yes, I would be willing to do that for her.

Obviously, I would prefer vaginal sex (I mean hell, she told me she not only wants a vagina for herself, but because she wants to "ride me so fucking badly", which made me blush). But it's funny... I don't like dudes. I like women. And even though my girlfriend wasn't born one, I see her as one, because she acts like one and sees herself as one.

So, I look at it like I'm sucking my girlfriend's penis. =)

Now, none of this has happened yet, because we are also long distance, so we have only talked over the Internet. But holy hell, every time I talk to her I get that warm tingly love feeling. Not just sexually aroused... it's more than that.

So yeah, I know this is the Escapist, and I know people will come out and call me gay for wanting to make my girlfriend happy because I love her. Don't care. I just wanted to say why Yahtzee's joke upset me.

Its not really a insult. More a observation. Sexual orientation is determined by attraction to certain genders. Heterosexual/straight=attraction to the opposite gender, homosexual/gay=attraction to the same gender, bisexual=attracted to both genders, pansexual means pretty much the same thing, but is more inclusive. If you are sexually attracted to a penis and male then you are gay/bi. Not a insult, not a judgement, simply how it is. I do question something though, would you be willing to date someone physically male, who also identified as male? If not, do you consider gender to be something more than physical, and are only attracted to people with a "female" personality or mannerism? Isn't that a little arbitrary?

 

[Zombie Badger]

Its not really a insult. More a observation. Sexual orientation is determined by attraction to certain genders. Heterosexual/straight=attraction to the opposite gender, homosexual/gay=attraction to the same gender, bisexual=attracted to both genders, pansexual means pretty much the same thing, but is more inclusive. If you are sexually attracted to a penis and male then you are gay/bi. Not a insult, not a judgement, simply how it is. I do question something though, would you be willing to date someone physically male, who also identified as male? If not, do you consider gender to be something more than physical, and are only attracted to people with a "female" personality or mannerism? Isn't that a little arbitrary?

"If you are sexually attracted to a penis and male then you are gay/bi."

The penis part does not actually matter (all MtF transsexual porn is consumed by straight men). The only thing that matters in describing something as gay or straight is the genders of the people involved. The penis has long been seen as an integral part of the male gender, but that is not the case (If you lose your genitals in a freak accident, your gender is unaffected). To this day, however, this view persists, not only in the subjects we're discussing but in that some people will still see a genitalless man as less of a man because of it.

 

[Lonewolfm16]

Its not really a insult. More a observation. Sexual orientation is determined by attraction to certain genders. Heterosexual/straight=attraction to the opposite gender, homosexual/gay=attraction to the same gender, bisexual=attracted to both genders, pansexual means pretty much the same thing, but is more inclusive. If you are sexually attracted to a penis and male then you are gay/bi. Not a insult, not a judgement, simply how it is. I do question something though, would you be willing to date someone physically male, who also identified as male? If not, do you consider gender to be something more than physical, and are only attracted to people with a "female" personality or mannerism? Isn't that a little arbitrary?

"If you are sexually attracted to a penis and male then you are gay/bi."

The penis part does not actually matter (all MtF transsexual porn is consumed by straight men). The only thing that matters in describing something as gay or straight is the genders of the people involved. The penis has long been seen as an integral part of the male gender, but that is not the case (If you lose your genitals in a freak accident, your gender is unaffected). To this day, however, this view persists, not only in the subjects we're discussing but in that some people will still see a genitalless man as less of a man because of it.

Sexual attraction is a matter of physical reality, not gender identity. If I asked a lesbian to have sex with me, and she declined because she was not attracted to men, and I responded that I identified as a woman, what difference would it make? My physical characteristics (which are male) are what she is not attracted to, which pronoun I use or how I dress, is irrelevant. As such, it would be logical to judge sexual orientation on physical sex, not gender (though I somewhat dislike that these are no longer synonyms for the purpose of these discussions, but oh well, doesn't harm me in any way). If you find male characteristics attractive (the penis is included, and a major part of this) then you are gay or bisexual. If you are willing to date people who are physically male, but identify as female, and females who identify as female, but not males who identify as men, then it would logically follow that you are bi/pansexual and just oddly discriminatory.

 

[JimB]

Actually the politician is taking the opposite stand, saying that his sex partners are women and thus he is straight. He is correct in this.

If you take him at face value, anyway, which I don't, but then, I don't expect we'll ever agree on that point...which probably sounds really passive-aggressive of me, but I just mention it as a precursor to dropping the topic. No judgment of you is intended; I just don't see a lot of value to arguing about the mindset of a third party as he crafts a joke the premise of which we disagree on, y'know?

I wonder what Yahtzee will think when he sees this shitstorm that has erupted from a small part of a joke he probably didn't give a whole lot of thought to.

It kind of makes me want to find the forum topic for, uh, I think it was one of the Resident Evil reviews that he ended with the line, "Not that they would know anything about work, the lazy nig--[ending theme music]" to see if a similar outrage erupted. That probably sounds like a thinly veiled accusation of hypocrisy--"If you're offended at this joke, then you're required to be offended at that joke because all offensive jokes are one hundred percent equal in intent and execution!"--but I'm just curious.

 

[snowfi6916]

I usually enjoy Yahtzee's videos, but his joke about transgender people really fucking bothered me.

Why? Because my girlfriend is trans.

I've told her how much I love her on many occasions. I had to have an honest heart-to-heart with myself, because I want to have sex with her and make her happy, but it will be a while before she can have her surgery (she wants everything, the HRT therapy and the SRS surgery).

So yeah, I decided that right now, her penis is part of who she is, and I want to make her happy. So yes, I would be willing to do that for her.

Obviously, I would prefer vaginal sex (I mean hell, she told me she not only wants a vagina for herself, but because she wants to "ride me so fucking badly", which made me blush). But it's funny... I don't like dudes. I like women. And even though my girlfriend wasn't born one, I see her as one, because she acts like one and sees herself as one.

So, I look at it like I'm sucking my girlfriend's penis. =)

Now, none of this has happened yet, because we are also long distance, so we have only talked over the Internet. But holy hell, every time I talk to her I get that warm tingly love feeling. Not just sexually aroused... it's more than that.

So yeah, I know this is the Escapist, and I know people will come out and call me gay for wanting to make my girlfriend happy because I love her. Don't care. I just wanted to say why Yahtzee's joke upset me.

Its not really a insult. More a observation. Sexual orientation is determined by attraction to certain genders. Heterosexual/straight=attraction to the opposite gender, homosexual/gay=attraction to the same gender, bisexual=attracted to both genders, pansexual means pretty much the same thing, but is more inclusive. If you are sexually attracted to a penis and male then you are gay/bi. Not a insult, not a judgement, simply how it is. I do question something though, would you be willing to date someone physically male, who also identified as male? If not, do you consider gender to be something more than physical, and are only attracted to people with a "female" personality or mannerism? Isn't that a little arbitrary?

Gender isn't physical. Sex is. When you refer to someones sex, you are referring to their physical parts. When you are referring to gender, you are referring to the non-physical.

Cisgendered means you see yourself as the gender you were born as. Transgender means you see yourself as the opposite gender.

Like I said, I'm not attracted to cis-males. I know this because one of my friends who I met at Bronycon is really handsome, but I wasn't attracted to him because he is strongly cis. And no, I don't think it's arbitrary.

Let me ask you, once my girlfriend gets her vagina, would that make me less gay in your eyes?

Who you are attracted to is based on gender, not sex. Therefore, I am attracted to the female gender, regardless of what physical parts they have. It's just that most of the time the person's gender matches their sex. In my case it doesn't.

Look, I honestly love her more than anything in the world. I know that she will never be able to have a uterus or ovaries even after her surgery, and we won't be able to have children together unless we adopt. But that's okay. As long as I'm with her.

Like I said, think what you want. =)

 

[Antari]

Picked up Paper's Please a while ago, great game! Good to see it get a boost.

 

[Zombie Badger]

[Sexual attraction is a matter of physical reality, not gender identity. If I asked a lesbian to have sex with me, and she declined because she was not attracted to men, and I responded that I identified as a woman, what difference would it make? My physical characteristics (which are male) are what she is not attracted to, which pronoun I use or how I dress, is irrelevant. As such, it would be logical to judge sexual orientation on physical sex, not gender (though I somewhat dislike that these are no longer synonyms for the purpose of these discussions, but oh well, doesn't harm me in any way). If you find male characteristics attractive (the penis is included, and a major part of this) then you are gay or bisexual. If you are willing to date people who are physically male, but identify as female, and females who identify as female, but not males who identify as men, then it would logically follow that you are bi/pansexual and just oddly discriminatory.

The thing with classifying gay and straight attraction based on physical characteristics is that things get interesting when you involve pre or non-op transgender people in that they possess characteristics of both genders. And yet men who are interested in MtF transgender people identify as straight and would never find themselves attracted to men. Even if you just judge by physical characteristics, pre/non-op transgender people have more physical characteristics of the gender they are transitioning to. Due to this, I (as a gay man), would not consider having sex with a woman (regardless of her genitals) but would consider sleeping with a man (regardless of his).

 

[MeisterKleister]

Actually the politician is taking the opposite stand, saying that his sex partners are women and thus he is straight. He is correct in this.

I think you are making too many assumptions here. The only things said in the video are:
-A politician claims he is not gay.
-He fellates a "pre-op transsexual".
The implication being that he is attracted to this and gay, at least to some degree.
I also think you might be committing a fallacy here by trying to categorize people as simply as either "gay" or "straight" and "male" or "female", when the lines aren't that clear and can also vary according to definitions.

The crux of the joke is that the politician is actually gay and a hypocrite. Regardless of why he is having sex with these women, the fact remains that they are women, and thus the politician is neither gay nor a hypocrite.

I think you do make a good point, however I think the way you use the word 'gay' is not entirely correct. It's generally equivalent to the word 'homosexual', referring to the physical sex of a person.

Anyway, I think the video does not provide sufficient information to determine that the politician is definitely not gay. Or not "gay" according to Yahtzee's definition.


Edit:

The problem is not the politician. The problem is that it treats pre-op MtF transgender people as unambiguously male, implying that the only thing that defines that person's gender identity is their genitalia [...]

I totally disagree that this is the case. As I see it, Yahtzee merely implied that "sucking a penis" is "kinda gay". Saying nothing about the person being fellated, their gender or gender identity.

 

[Zombie Badger]

If you take him at face value, anyway, which I don't, but then, I don't expect we'll ever agree on that point...which probably sounds really passive-aggressive of me, but I just mention it as a precursor to dropping the topic. No judgment of you is intended; I just don't see a lot of value to arguing about the mindset of a third party as he crafts a joke the premise of which we disagree on, y'know?

Fair enough, there's no point debating if one of us doesn't see value in the debate. It's been fun.

It kind of makes me want to find the forum topic for, uh, I think it was one of the Resident Evil reviews that he ended with the line, "Not that they would know anything about work, the lazy nig--[ending theme music]" to see if a similar outrage erupted. That probably sounds like a thinly veiled accusation of hypocrisy--"If you're offended at this joke, then you're required to be offended at that joke because all offensive jokes are one hundred percent equal in intent and execution!"--but I'm just curious.

I doubt you'd find as much, that joke was made at Yahtzee's own expense rather than someone else's.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

You know, all this fuss over that one joke has reminded me of something else Yahtzee once said.
"A society where anyone can make jokes about anyone else and everyone laughs is a truly tolerant society. Political correctness charged censorship only serves to engender resentment and distance between social groups."

Lighten up! Besides I'm pretty sure it was more of a joke about ultra-conservative homophobic politicians than it was about gays and/or transsexuals.

 

[Dangit2019]

Jokes against transsexuals were completely unnecessary and completely offensive.

Got a laugh out of "Ironically", but then that was followed up almost immediately by a bad transgender joke.

Spoiler: ITT:

Transgenders don't get fucking shielded from jokes any more than Call of Duty fans. Suck it the fuck up.

 

[Lonewolfm16]

I usually enjoy Yahtzee's videos, but his joke about transgender people really fucking bothered me.

Why? Because my girlfriend is trans.

I've told her how much I love her on many occasions. I had to have an honest heart-to-heart with myself, because I want to have sex with her and make her happy, but it will be a while before she can have her surgery (she wants everything, the HRT therapy and the SRS surgery).

So yeah, I decided that right now, her penis is part of who she is, and I want to make her happy. So yes, I would be willing to do that for her.

Obviously, I would prefer vaginal sex (I mean hell, she told me she not only wants a vagina for herself, but because she wants to "ride me so fucking badly", which made me blush). But it's funny... I don't like dudes. I like women. And even though my girlfriend wasn't born one, I see her as one, because she acts like one and sees herself as one.

So, I look at it like I'm sucking my girlfriend's penis. =)

Now, none of this has happened yet, because we are also long distance, so we have only talked over the Internet. But holy hell, every time I talk to her I get that warm tingly love feeling. Not just sexually aroused... it's more than that.

So yeah, I know this is the Escapist, and I know people will come out and call me gay for wanting to make my girlfriend happy because I love her. Don't care. I just wanted to say why Yahtzee's joke upset me.

Its not really a insult. More a observation. Sexual orientation is determined by attraction to certain genders. Heterosexual/straight=attraction to the opposite gender, homosexual/gay=attraction to the same gender, bisexual=attracted to both genders, pansexual means pretty much the same thing, but is more inclusive. If you are sexually attracted to a penis and male then you are gay/bi. Not a insult, not a judgement, simply how it is. I do question something though, would you be willing to date someone physically male, who also identified as male? If not, do you consider gender to be something more than physical, and are only attracted to people with a "female" personality or mannerism? Isn't that a little arbitrary?

Gender isn't physical. Sex is. When you refer to someones sex, you are referring to their physical parts. When you are referring to gender, you are referring to the non-physical.

Cisgendered means you see yourself as the gender you were born as. Transgender means you see yourself as the opposite gender.

Like I said, I'm not attracted to cis-males. I know this because one of my friends who I met at Bronycon is really handsome, but I wasn't attracted to him because he is strongly cis. And no, I don't think it's arbitrary.

Let me ask you, once my girlfriend gets her vagina, would that make me less gay in your eyes?

Who you are attracted to is based on gender, not sex. Therefore, I am attracted to the female gender, regardless of what physical parts they have. It's just that most of the time the person's gender matches their sex. In my case it doesn't.

Look, I honestly love her more than anything in the world. I know that she will never be able to have a uterus or ovaries even after her surgery, and we won't be able to have children together unless we adopt. But that's okay. As long as I'm with her.

Like I said, think what you want. =)

So, are you not attracted to people until you hear what they identify as? If you see someone naked, you have so sexual stimulation until you have heard whether the person likes being called he or she? If I was to show you a picture of a naked woman (or someone physically female, to be clear) and then asked you if you found the picture sexually arousing, then revealed that the person in the picture actually considered themselves male, would you stop being attractive? If it was later revealed that I lied about that, and she was actually cis, would you start finding her attractive again? What if someone identified as female, despite being physically male, and then later decided they were actually wrong about it and were actually male? It has happened before. If your girlfriend announced tomorrow that she was wrong about her gender, and was actually male, would you stop being attracted to her? This all seems really really arbitrary to me. If someone asks you if you are interested in sex with them, and your answer is "that depends, do you think of yourself as being male or female?" then your sexuality is really really bizarre to me. This is why I think orientation should be determined by biological sex, not gender. Gender is intangible, sex is very real and determinable, and I think this fits better with how sexuality works. Sexual arousal is largely physical, more concerned with certain signs of attractiveness that trigger arousal.

As to your question, yes, that would make you less gay in my eyes (though it seems to me that your sexuality is best described as pansexual, gay would be exclusively attracted to the same gender). I believe I have fairly solid logic behind that. Plenty of people are able to be aroused by paintings of attractive, naked women. And hentai/draw porn exists, and is fairly popular. Why is that? Doesn't our ability to be aroused by inanimate things disprove gender being a part of sexual attraction? No, of course not. If I look at a drawing of a attractive woman, and am aroused, its because I am straight. I see something that looks like a attractive woman and the parts of my brain responsible for arousal respond. I am not aroused by porn on a computer because I am attracted to pixels. As such, if you find someone attractive when they look just like a woman (cis woman that is) that is because you are straight. Or bi/pansexual.

Finally, I would like to make a point about gender. I understand that gender dysphoria is a very real mental disorder. There is some research to suggest those who have it possess brains more like the gender they identify as than the gender they physically are. But I find the idea of gender being separate from sex as odd. Sex is physical, determined by chromosomes and expressed as actual physical differences between the respective sex. But what is gender? Seems to me to be entirely a social construct, more useful for determining things like what pronoun is used, or how one is expected to dress than a unbiased observation of physical reality. I am genuinely curious, what is gender, if it is unrelated to physical sex?

Finally, I would like to apologize if I have offended you, as it was never my intention. I wish you, and your girlfriend, the best.

 

[Lonewolfm16]

[Sexual attraction is a matter of physical reality, not gender identity. If I asked a lesbian to have sex with me, and she declined because she was not attracted to men, and I responded that I identified as a woman, what difference would it make? My physical characteristics (which are male) are what she is not attracted to, which pronoun I use or how I dress, is irrelevant. As such, it would be logical to judge sexual orientation on physical sex, not gender (though I somewhat dislike that these are no longer synonyms for the purpose of these discussions, but oh well, doesn't harm me in any way). If you find male characteristics attractive (the penis is included, and a major part of this) then you are gay or bisexual. If you are willing to date people who are physically male, but identify as female, and females who identify as female, but not males who identify as men, then it would logically follow that you are bi/pansexual and just oddly discriminatory.

The thing with classifying gay and straight attraction based on physical characteristics is that things get interesting when you involve pre or non-op transgender people in that they possess characteristics of both genders. And yet men who are interested in MtF transgender people identify as straight and would never find themselves attracted to men. Even if you just judge by physical characteristics, pre/non-op transgender people have more physical characteristics of the gender they are transitioning to. Due to this, I (as a gay man), would not consider having sex with a woman (regardless of her genitals) but would consider sleeping with a man (regardless of his).

I point you to my below post (below yours, above this one) that I wrote before reading this, as I think it covers what my thoughts on the matter are fairly clearly. And I am somewhat interested to see how you respond to some of the questions I asked. Switched to compensate for the fact that the person I was talking to was straight and you are gay.