The first time I heard ?I?m getting my shit pushed in!? during a multiplayer match of Battlefield 3 was from the mouth of an acquaintance in Party chat. I assumed he and his friends were laughing at how ridiculous it sounded, because robbed of context it did sound pretty funny.
I?ve since come to realise he was parroting and mocking scripted dialogue from within Battlefield 3?s multiplayer, and somehow this homophobic content has escaped the notice of the video game press for nearly three months.
I try to be very sensitive about homosexual prejudice in culture but even I didn?t realise the implications of this dialogue until I started paying concerted attention to it.
The Operation Metro map in Battlefield 3 is a close-quarters environment, which means players spend a lot of time in close proximity to their teammates. Once I started paying attention I realised that when I was playing as the Americans on the Operation Metro map I was being pummelled with a torrent of ?I?m getting fucked up the arse over here!? and ?Fuck, I?m getting my shit pushed in here!? from all directions while my team waded through the meat grinder. That?s because the problematic dialogue seems tied to the suppression mechanic that blurs visuals and reduces accuracy when enemy bullets are coming close to but not hitting a player.
The connection to the suppression mechanic is the key to unpacking these statements. A soldier is taking close fire from the enemy, which means he?s in trouble. He wants to convey that to his squadmates, so he uses the metaphor of anal sex to indicate he?s being attacked and needs help. It?s assumed that his male squadmate will interpret a reference to anal sex as a negative statement because the squadmate would find anal sex repulsive by default. The homophobia is implied. I don?t think it?s intentional. I think DICE wants this dialogue to sound gritty and lend to the illusion that players are actually fighting in a war.
