Homosexuality in ME3

[Zhukov]

Did you say homosexuality in Mass Effect?


I believe the customary phrase is, "I'll just leave this here..." You have to watch it right through for the full effect, and no, it's not fake.

Moving on, well...

*shrug*

It really doesn't bother me. Y'know, being optional and all. Most of the objections I have seen (and I stress "most") appear to originate from people not wanting to have 'teh gay' in their game.

Besides, this means my forbidden love for Grunt can finally be expressed.

.......I think being F***ed by a Krogan would be painful...at best

Love does not bow down to such trivial matters of logistics!

 

[GigaHz]

I am all for acceptance of different romance options, but when something is clearly tacked on to appease interest groups/fans, it's clearly tacked on to appease interest groups/fans.

How is it that you determined something like that? Snuck into Bioware and looked at their files? Really seems like a baseless accusation.

It is a baseless accusation. It's like watching an ad that features one of every minority and thinking "I wonder if they did that intentionally?".

But, being that I work with content producers on a daily basis, people DO consider these things intentionally because they are following some imaginary PC quota. It is not usually done by the producer, but one of the higher ups or a committee. This is how most modern businesses function. It's how to be as inoffensive to as many people as possible, so more people will buy your product.

Whether or not this kind of thinking actually works is another debate all together and I'm not looking to get into it.

 

[GigaHz]

I dont buy the "demographic" argument

also uhhh..dont those two staments kind of contradict each other?

also...can you tell me Liara wasnt contructed to apeal to a certain audience? and Tali's romance wasn't pandering to the fans?

You don't think that straight males like lesbians or bi sexual women?

Who do you think this game is marketed towards, if not Young, Straight Males? Be honest.

Personally, I don't understand Tali's appeal at all so I can't answer that question. Maybe a fan of hers will.

 

[Vault101]

Did you say homosexuality in Mass Effect?


I believe the customary phrase is, "I'll just leave this here..." You have to watch it right through for the full effect, and no, it's not fake.

Moving on, well...

*shrug*

It really doesn't bother me. Y'know, being optional and all. Most of the objections I have seen (and I stress "most") appear to originate from people not wanting to have 'teh gay' in their game.

Besides, this means my forbidden love for Grunt can finally be expressed.

.......I think being F***ed by a Krogan would be painful...at best

Love does not bow down to such trivial matters of logistics!

you can be hung like a Krogan
go down like a lepard
but you'll never fuck better than comander shepard...

 

[Vault101]

I dont buy the "demographic" argument

also uhhh..dont those two staments kind of contradict each other?

also...can you tell me Liara wasnt contructed to apeal to a certain audience? and Tali's romance wasn't pandering to the fans?

You don't think that straight males like lesbians or bi sexual women?

Who do you think this game is marketed towards, if not Young, Straight Males? Be honest.

Personally, I don't understand Tali's appeal at all so I can't answer that question. Maybe a fan of hers will.

Reading into that I pretty much got "yah but it caters to THIS group so theres no problem....but there is a problem if it caters to another group"

or fan-service is fine if its for the "young white males" but putting in some gayness that could possibly be apealing to another isnt ok

 

[GigaHz]

Reading into that I pretty much got "yah but it caters to THIS group so theres no problem....but there is a problem if it caters to another group"

or fan-service is fine if its for the "young white males" but putting in some gayness that could possibly be apealing to another isnt ok

It sounds terrible to admit to but yes, it isn't ok. Simply because it goes against the intended demographic.

What if the writers of the Twilight movie adaptations wanted to appeal to the males who were dragged along to see it with their girlfriends? Their solution is to completely rewrite Bella into a super slut that is now a little bi-curious. When she's on screen, she's shown with as little clothing as possible and her dialogue is reduced to 'I'm bored, lets just have sex.'

Some males might love that, but obviously the fans of the franchise would be seriously offended. Especially because it doesn't fit with how her character was portrayed in the recent films.

It's a bit of an extreme example, but you get what I'm trying to say.

That said, the video Zhokov posted seems to hint that maybe Shepard could have been secretly gay. Or that line was used just to but down Liara lightly. Still, a good find.

 

[Veebs]

Honestly, it depends on how they handle it. I can see it being going terribly or great. It adds an option to expand upon a character that you are supposed to create, if you want him or her to be homosexual then so be it, if you see him as heterosexual then hey, let him go have sex with a woman or something woman-like. I don't really see where the controversy is, like most people have said, you're already able to romance aliens, why not a man? If anything that's more normal, about 8% of people are homosexual, I'd wager far fewer would like to sleep with a Krogan or Turian. Should they have done it sooner? Well yeah, but I like the fact that the option is there.

 

[Programmed_For_Damage]

Perhaps Shepard was gay from the beginning but he never had any opportunity to express it; Garrus is straight, Jacob (the priiiize) is straight, Thane is straight, Wrex and Grunt are straight, Mordin is god knows. The only one I'm unsure about is Kaiden. Perhaps in ME3 they have a Zevran-like (although hopefully not as flamboyant as Zevran) character that encourages Shepard to come out of the closet.

Mind you none of this affects me either way given my Shepard is straight, but I do think homosexual males deserve equal footing given you can have lesbian encounters.

 

[Vault101]

Reading into that I pretty much got "yah but it caters to THIS group so theres no problem....but there is a problem if it caters to another group"

or fan-service is fine if its for the "young white males" but putting in some gayness that could possibly be apealing to another isnt ok

It sounds terrible to admit to but yes, it isn't ok. Simply because it goes against the intended demographic.

What if the writers of the Twilight movie adaptations wanted to appeal to the males who were dragged along to see it with their girlfriends? Their solution is to completely rewrite Bella into a super slut that is now a little bi-curious. When she's on screen, she's shown with as little clothing as possible and her dialogue is reduced to 'I'm bored, lets just have sex.'

Some males might love that, but obviously the fans of the franchise would be seriously offended. Especially because it doesn't fit with how her character was portrayed in the recent films.

.

......

nope, still dotn buy it "its the demographic" is just anotehr way of handwaving any issue, I'm fine with fanservice as long as its not distracting or hampers my enjoyment

and no, because that that would reduce twilight into some kind of smutty porn...not that bella is much better than you descirbed (as bad as twilight is at least it likes to pretend it has some kind of story)

to apeal to male aduiences...no...to apeal to more peopel you could actually make the charachters and story of twilight GOOD

but I think twilgiht was a bad example

see the thing is..NOTHING CHANGES..nothing not a god damn thing, your shepard is a manly man that screws women? then he will stay that way, are peopel offended that you can play as a female? NO am I offended that defualt shepard is the very embodyment of "blandy McBland" game hero? NO

if you "somhow" manage to accidently initiate a gay relationship (again somthing that owuld seem hard) then suck it up and re-load a save

snip.

theres always room for charachter developemnt, and by judging my femsheps interactions with ashley it doesnt seem like such a huge leap of logic

 

[Vault101]

From memory, the biggest complaint people had was that their Shepard might be "accidentally" homosexual.
That is, the player might inadvertently click dialogue options "a bit too friendly" and spark a love interest where it's not wanted.

.

Completely off-topic, but I laughed so hard at this video . . .

I really find it hard to sympathise with that

"ahhh! no I might have to see the gaynes! ahhh! noooo! poor meeeeeee!!!! *sob*" I wonder how people would react if I was like that with some girl on girl

ok I know that seems hard but thats how It seems,

your suposed to be MEN for crying out loud, REAL MEN! can stomach the sight of anything!....ummm sorry

as for the video..it was kind of funny but felt a little random and lacking direction

 

[Vault101]

Why must every scifi writer insist on putting homosexuals in the future? Homosexuality goes in and out "of style" (for lack of a better term) through the years. There were entire cities of homos and bis circa 2000 B.C., and they died out. The number of queers also rose around 100 B.C. and dropped a century or two later. There is a fare chance that it will just drop "out of style" in several decades. Its a theory, anyway.

1. I wasnt aware they were

2.wouldnt that depend more on the culture and weather or not its "accepted"? rather than being "ina and out" of style, oh sure your more likley to give it a go if its prevailent in culture

 

[Vault101]

Perhaps Shepard was gay from the beginning but he never had any opportunity to express it; Garrus is straight, Jacob (the priiiize) is straight, Thane is straight, Wrex and Grunt are straight, Mordin is god knows. The only one I'm unsure about is Kaiden. Perhaps in ME3 they have a Zevran-like (although hopefully not as flamboyant as Zevran) character that encourages Shepard to come out of the closet.

Mind you none of this affects me either way given my Shepard is straight, but I do think homosexual males deserve equal footing given you can have lesbian encounters.

those lesbian encounters werent exactally "real" more of a loophole situation (except for kelly chambers..no Idea whats going on there)

now not being able to les it up with Miranda/Tali I can understand...but Im 99% it was originally intended to be possible with ahsley

also I heard that thane was ment to be a possible gay roamnce option..but anyway

 

[GigaHz]

Pretty sure ads and stories are rather different. It's easy enough to just tack something on for an ad as opposed to writing up the romance and implementing it in a game.

Though seriously, going by your later posts about appealing to demographics, where's your complaint there? It's the same thing. It would be hypocritical to ignore one in favor of the other and really just betray that you want it to appeal to one demographic over another.

It's just a personal gripe.

If people are open to the idea of something that was clearly introduced for its own sake, all the power to them.

I choose to look at it as superfluous, that's all.

 

[Zydrate]

I do wish we had the maximum amount of options. They kind of fixed that for Dragon Age 2, where all but three were romance-able, one of them being your character's sibling.
But DA2 is newer than ME2, as far as I know?

Still, I would have liked Tali or Ashley to be an option. Don't much care for Ashley (Especially the whole "WTF Shep" in ME2. I'm in a pro-human group, why aren't you proud?)
And Tali. The voice, man. The voice.

So Liara is all I have. The good news is, I like her character. It's one of the better homosexual relationships in media today. They even have a couple of disagreements in ME2, emulating a real couple working through a real problem. Minimal pandering.

That's what I think, anyway.

I also noticed in your 4th post in this sequence(Holy quadruple posts Batman!), that you mentioned Thane as a possible love interest? I found him so... uninteresting. I forget about him all the time until people mention him.

People liked his mystique. I didn't. The fact that his character will die in a year actually made me not bother with him at all. Why care about a character that I'll never see? Considering he wasn't even one of my favored teammates.

 

[GigaHz]

Superfluous to what? The story? Such a comment would apply to the other romances just as easily. Those were clearly introduced just to appeal to people. In fact most of the entire thing was introduced to appeal to people. Still, I'm pretty doubtful they did it for its own sake. It's part of an existing thing they have, romances. Simply expanded.

Well yeah, that's exactly it. I believe all of the romance options are Superfluous. They have to be, none of the relationships are canon. (Just don't say that too loudly around hardcore fans)

All I was trying to say before was that the options that I had explored in the previous games hadn't indicated any homosexual interest in the male Shepard character. Deciding to include these options in the last game of all places, comes off as just a little more tacked on then it needs to be. Take from that what you will, that's just how I view it.