True, but honestly this is one of those pick your battles type things. I'd rather put all my energy into getting more rights (marriage, adoption, ect.) then worrying about every idiot who uses gay as a derogative term.Arachon said:
GayGamer.net has a lot to answer for
- Thread starter ThePlasmatizer
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Should have just called them "blond space marines," or "teen space marines". Much better usage of the terms and still maintains the negative connotations, right? Hell, the latter even denotes an element of conformity and clique status-- perfect for cookie-cutter games with no narrative content or depth.
It's unprofessional to say you're bored of hypermasculine characters who are so very obviously gay? Gay is not an insult. It's a word. Yes, you can use it to mean 'defective', but, now hold onto your seat, this might shock you, it can also mean 'homosexual', which was very clearly the intent in the post.Father Time said:
I personally don't see anything wrong with saying you're bored of seeing gay space marines. You get the two main characters. You see their power armour. And suddenly it's a bromance. You just see it coming. If games suddenly started featuring only female characters, would we dare say 'I'm bored of seeing all these women'...something I never thought I'd write, but still...? Or do we risk feminist attack because we're being offensive to women?
Think about it. What other word could the guy have used? He could have said homosexual, but that takes too long. He could have said 'flaming' but that would probably have caused even more. Hell, 'fabulous' would have been amusing, too, but the thought of Marcus Fenix with fashion sense...kinda scares me.
I don't see it as offensive. He was referring to games, such as Gears of War, where the close bond between two overly-macho (read: probably compensating for something) characters naturally leads people into thinking that they may be More Than Just Friends. Unless the people who design these games are morons (which, admittedly, I could believe about GoW), they're certainly aware of how their characters look to the average gamer, and thus are probably playing the homoerotic subtext for laughs.Miumaru said:
I disagree with it being a small demographic. It's common slang now among kids, teenagers, and even those of us who're a few years out of their teens to use a phrase like "Oh, that's gay" when something bad happens. It's not indicating that gay people are bad, it's just an alternate usage of the word; if I look at a ruler and declare "Oh, that's straight!" I am not implying that all heterosexual people are plastic measuring devices a few inches long.Valksy said:
I can see your point of view, but I still have to disagree. When your average 14-year-old dies on Halo and mutters that it's "gay", he won't even be thinking about homosexuality. He'll be thinking "Damn, that sucks". Very few people actually make the connection between the seperate uses, I think, and it's not the only example. Take 'sucks'. It pretty much means the same as one usage of 'gay' in one context, but in another, sucking can have certain positive connotations, ifyouknowwhatImeanandI'msureyoudo, nudge nudge wink wink etc.Valksy said:
It's misleading, certainly. Having only seen the thread title, I was going to make a post along the lines of "Yes they do, they ought to stop drawing lines in the sand. We shouldn't really need to have specific sites for gay gamers or girl gamers or fat gamers or brown-eyed gamers - wouldn't it be easier just to be gamers? We're already a maligned subgroup, we shouldn't be splitting ourselves into ever-smaller communities based on who we like to stick our dicks in".latenightapplepie said:
It'd never happen, though. There are people who want to be able to say "I'm gay, and I play videogames!" or "I'm a girl, and I play videogames!" as a mark of pride, when the correct response should be "So what? Is it going to make any difference to the way you play games?"
This reminds me of when I was in university back in 2001 and a bunch of students were protesting over wasted resources - a bunch of old textbooks that got destroyed or something. It was a stupid protest. Anyway, in the middle of it a member of the Queer Collective (seriously, that's what my university's gay club was called) got up and snatched the mic away from the protect leader leader. What he said basically amounted to "gay people are supporting this protest, so if it doesn't get results it means you're discriminating against gays".
I don't have an issue with gay people (blah blah blah I have gay friends usual defensive diatribe here), and I get that they're still fighting back against decades of oppression, but it really annoys me when hyperbolic gay activists get involved with an issue and make it all about gay discrimination regardless of how unrelated it was before they got involved.
Now this issue, the gay space marine comments... I can see why it would cause some offence, but that's not what the issue was really about. Anyone who played Gears of War would have recognised the Brokeback Mountain references in the achievements. Why can't some guy make a passing joke without being crucified for it?
I don't have an issue with gay people (blah blah blah I have gay friends usual defensive diatribe here), and I get that they're still fighting back against decades of oppression, but it really annoys me when hyperbolic gay activists get involved with an issue and make it all about gay discrimination regardless of how unrelated it was before they got involved.
Now this issue, the gay space marine comments... I can see why it would cause some offence, but that's not what the issue was really about. Anyone who played Gears of War would have recognised the Brokeback Mountain references in the achievements. Why can't some guy make a passing joke without being crucified for it?
Uhm. Ok. Let's look at the ways he could have meant his comment:ThePlasmatizer said:
"The industry is obsessed with homosexual space marines"
In this case Wootini is an idiot. The only game with a homosexual space anything is Katamari Dyamaci, and that's not a marine.
"The industry is obsessed with stupid space marines"
In this case Wootini equates gays and their lifestyle with stupid and he just insulted an entire sexuality. Likewise, Wootini is an idiot.
Now, anybody who thinks this specific case is a big issue in itself is an idiot - and GayGamer.net clearly suffers from bad journalism (which shouldn't surprise anyone) not extrapolating this one case to show what is disturbing, namely that developers, like gamers, freely and openly associate gays with stupid. Either way, it's not GayGamers at fault here for anything but being inept.
Actually most of them are there just because its nice to meet people like you and struggling with the same things you've struggled with in your life who also share a common interest with... (well I'm not sure its the same with girl gamers but I'm sure its not easy playing halo with all those prepubescent boys)SonicWaffle said:
Do I think I'm any different from any other "gamer" not really, buts its nice to talk to some other gay people as I have no gay friends out in the real world.
I don't really see that gaygamer.net has anything to answer for. They upset you by wondering out loud if using anti gay language to become more popular with people who don't like gays is anti gay? Oh no, they are taking their freedom of speech too far and need to be held accountable.
In the United States, "gay" still commonly refers to homosexuals. It is also used to refer to something people do not like without intending to imply homosexuality. Surely, we should be able to acknowledge the difference and quit giving a damn.
Still, for those people who use the word "gay" as a pejorative, understand that many of us do take offense at the use of "gay" as an insult in the same way that Jewish people or Romani take offense to the derogatory use of "jew" or "gyp". Whether or not you intend to, you cause offense and the polite thing to do would be to stop.
I realize that we don't live in a polite society and the internet is particularly guilty of being a haven for rudeness. If I wasn't willing to deal with it, I would stay off of internet forums. Still, I will judge you. People judge you for how you speak and write and they always will. If you don't care (and you probably shouldn't), then go right ahead and speak however you like. What does it matter what strangers on the internet think of you? Just know that some of us (perhaps even many of us) will assume that you are rude and insensitive and will be far less inclined to listen to anything you have to contribute to a conversation no matter how insightful it may be.
It's all a part of the infinitely complex game of human interaction.
Still, for those people who use the word "gay" as a pejorative, understand that many of us do take offense at the use of "gay" as an insult in the same way that Jewish people or Romani take offense to the derogatory use of "jew" or "gyp". Whether or not you intend to, you cause offense and the polite thing to do would be to stop.
I realize that we don't live in a polite society and the internet is particularly guilty of being a haven for rudeness. If I wasn't willing to deal with it, I would stay off of internet forums. Still, I will judge you. People judge you for how you speak and write and they always will. If you don't care (and you probably shouldn't), then go right ahead and speak however you like. What does it matter what strangers on the internet think of you? Just know that some of us (perhaps even many of us) will assume that you are rude and insensitive and will be far less inclined to listen to anything you have to contribute to a conversation no matter how insightful it may be.
It's all a part of the infinitely complex game of human interaction.
This is pretty much what I was trying to say, but better.Wutaiflea said:
My name is Paddy. It's a slur used against Irish people, along with Mick. Does it bother me? Not even slightly, despite the fact that my father and most of my family are from Ireland. It, like gay, has more than one usage.Arachon said:
This is understandable, sure, but it's still fencing yourself off. I'm a member of the Escapist usergroup for people with Aspergers, but it's only a small group in a subsection of the site. It's not a seperate website, AspieGamers.com, which is overtly for people on the autistic spectrum. I'm not an Aspergers gamer, I'm just a gamer, and that's my issue with these sites for gay gamers or girl gamers; you're still just a gamer. Not a special type of gamer, just a person who enjoys playing video games.Timmehexas said:
You can have mine if you want. They do shitty stuff like borrow your copy of Red Dead and then move house so it's packed away in a box somewhere, or borrow your Buffy comics and fail to return them. It's so gay.Timmehexas said:
It's POLITICAL CORRECTNESS GONE MAD!
You can't even say you enjoy licking gravy off of faggots these days without people assuming you mean those English meatball thingies.
You can't even say you enjoy licking gravy off of faggots these days without people assuming you mean those English meatball thingies.
I don't believe I ever use or have used the word gay as a synonym for bad, I have been on the other end of hateful intent but for different reasons and oddly enough not responding to it with a knee-jerk "OH MY GOD! I'm so offended!" speech tends to work 99% of the time.Valksy said:
The problem I see with gay people (and before you complain, no I'm not saying gay people are a problem) is the attention seeking, don't get me wrong i'm not trying to tar all homosexual or bisexual people with the same brush, but there are some things that don't need to be shouted from the rooftop, we get it, you're a guy who likes guys or a girl who likes girls or an undecided who likes both, fine be proud of it, but don't go out of your way to call attention to it.
I'm fine with letting gay people marry, i'm fine with letting them adopt or have children, i'm pretty much fine with giving gay people all the rights they want and crave, but my problem comes from society as a whole, we are slowly degrading into a race who constantly split hairs, fight over the slightest provocation and go out of our way to call attention to the fact that what person A said, really made person B feel bad for a whole second before they brushed it off and went about their day, as stated in my last post, it's not just the gay community that do this, blacks, whites, asians, religious nuts, non-religious nuts, nuts in general and the average televised mother are all guilty of the exact same thing.
And this whole topic was started over what would boil down to a "sticks and stones may break my bones" argument in a school playground.
We seem to be regressing into our childhood as a race constantly wanting to run to teacher at the merest slight against us or something we believe in, it's just that as we grow up, teacher doesn't do the job anymore so instead we run to the media and the lawyers (and internet forums)
Only if you let it separate you, if I call myself a gamer do I separate myself from the rest of society? Nope but its nice to go somewhere where people have a few things in common with you, and see where you're coming from when you complain about your parents not understanding gaming culture. Isn't that basically the same reason most people would join a site like gay-mers?SonicWaffle said:
When there are so-called sandbox games that STILL only allow you to court someone of the opposite sex then yeah, actually, that affects you specifically as a gay gamer. Maybe I'm slicing the pie wedge just a bit thinner by patronizing a site that deals with issues that come up as a gamer but there's specific issues that come up when you're gay still. Is that stupid? Yes. Shouldn't it be different? Yes. But until it is, there's my site for people like me to talk about things that are applicable to me.SonicWaffle said: