Sexuality in Mass Effect

[Tarkand]

Heh, technically sleeping with an Asari isn't 'gay' even if you're a woman. Yeah, Asari all look like chick, but they don't actually have a male counterpart... they're not female really.

TBH, I'm more worried about the apparent lack of female Turian/Krogan... they obviously exist in the game setting, but we never see any.

 

[Mother Yeti]

Than again, the 'gay' characters have always been bisexual. They never made a truly gay character so far... so it's really more of a cope out I guess.

This is a very good point.

 

[atalanta]

Garrus really? That's kinda... hmm, I don't know. Do girl actually find him attractive?

Yes. Yes, they really do :3c I wanted Tali and Garrus to be romance options in ME1, now they are, I am well pleased.

To me, it's actually silly that they are homosexual relation in those games: from my understanding, homosexual are like 10% (or less) of the population, so the odds of two homosexual being in a group of 5-9 people are pretty damn low. Doubly so that they'd fall in love anyway.

Well... it's also a bit silly that you're the only person who can possibly save the galaxy, and that your super-top-secret mission for an incredibly well-funded organisation has to go out and scan planets for useful materials. And it's a bit silly that you can accidentally have teammates fall in love with you just by being nice to them (I accidentally led Kaiden on, then I had to blow up a planet to get rid of him. Awkward.), and it's silly that every member of the opposite sex on the ship desperately wants to bone you and will fall head over heels at the first possible opportunity.

 

[Mother Yeti]

Please don't say stupid things. It makes me want to end all humanity even more.
It is not "homophobia" to simply say, "Hey, gay guys. Guess what. You are not always going to be represented in every story every time. Deal with it."
Garrus is not gay, that was already established. Bioware simply decided not to bother this time and guess what. As it is their story set in their universe with their characters they have every right to do so.
And you are asking them to cram a gay option in. Seeing as how Shepard was obviously not gay in the first one it just makes no sense whatsoever for him to suddenly swap. Not unless they brought him back wrong...

It arguably IS homophobia when a game allows one to roleplay a character of any gender or sexuality, except gay male. I get that you're probably a teenage boy, and therefore you like to think of yourself as super-jaded and wise beyond your years and that anyone who doesn't agree with you is stupid, but just step outside yourself for five seconds and think about what I'm saying.

My point about Garrus was that he's an alien and therefore shouldn't be attracted to humans in the first place. I can't imagine Turian women look anything like humans.

I took issue with the word "cram" because it implies that a gay male option could not fit organically into the Mass Effect story. Why a gay female option does, you have yet to explain.

This has nothing to do with Bioware's "rights." They have a right to make whatever game they wish. And I, who pay good money for their products, have a right to point out what I see as discrimination. And you have a right to make whatever point it is you're trying to make.

And finally: Please explain why it is that Shepard was "obviously" not gay in the first game. Was it because he didn't speak with a lisp and listen to Lady Gaga?

 

[Lord_Panzer]

Having a relationship aspect in the first place is essentially fan-service.
Having the ability to have a lesbian relationship is essentially more fan-service.
Having the choice of making a male character have a relationship with another male character is essentially fan-service that wasn't included.

Why not? Who knows.

They're obviously not anti-gay, given that you have the option in Dragon Age. It was included in that game, and wasn't included in this one.

Big fat whoopty-do.

 

[Guitarmasterx7]

TBH sex in Mass Effect (and videogames in general) is kind of just a selling gimmick, so it doesn't matter too much. I fucked Miranda, Jack, AND Tali, the only one of which I actually made a point to fuck being Tali, just for the sheer weirdness factor, but the fact that I was able to nail Jack and Miranda without even trying says something about the design of how the relationships work (Jack is female BTW for those who haven't played the game.)

Ok, so now, rewinding back to my first point, sex is a selling point, and judging by the amount of times I hear "******" as a derogatory on xbox live, the main demographic is strait males, here it's catering more to strait males who jerk it to videogames, so pretty much, horn dogs who don't know how to interact with real women. So you have to offer strait sex obviously to sell and it to those who want a game with porn attatched, but to hook those who JUST want to buy the game for the sex, lesbian sex is pretty much a definite sale.

Now, to fit these two together, your main demographic here is strait males who may or may not be homophobic. Getting Jack and Miranda to jump on Shephard's man-muscle pretty much just amounted to being nice to them. So hypothetically if you could do other guys, it would probably work about the same way. Assuming the player doesn't intentionally act like a total dick to everyone, the situation would arise where friendly conversation with Thane would turn into homoerotic sexual advances, which would be a bit offsetting if you weren't gay and/or trying to bone them.

Also, can you romance all of the female options as female Shephard, or just Jack? Because Jack makes it known that she exercises sex liberally and doesn't really care about gender. None of the male characters make any indications to being gay, so it might just be for consistency's sake.

 

[WayOutThere]

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.

Oh you can? I think I'll play as a female Shepard and pursue a homosexual relationship just to see how awkward things get

Even if you WANT to play a gay ManShep, you're simply not allowed.

I don't see any reason for not including the option of a gay male Shepard. It is a bit odd that they included a lesbian Shepard but did not see fit to go that extra step.

 

[Mother Yeti]

Having a relationship aspect in the first place is essentially fan-service.
Having the ability to have a lesbian relationship is essentially more fan-service.
Having the choice of making a male character have a relationship with another male character is essentially fan-service that wasn't included.

Why not? Who knows.

They're obviously not anti-gay, given that you have the option in Dragon Age. It was included in that game, and wasn't included in this one.

Big fat whoopty-do.

But WHY wasn't it included? That's the question of my OP. "Who knows" isn't a particularly worthwhile answer.

 

[Mother Yeti]

you called me homophobic which is just pure stupidity

No hatred just totally indifferent to them as long as they keep their bullshit to themselves.

If a gay person revealed himself to you (therefore not keeping his "bullshit" to himself) you'd hate him. But you're not homophobic. Seriously, kid, how you manage to make it through the day without your head exploding is beyond me.

And I have already explained why a gay option would not fit. Now listen closely because I will not hurf blurf...

But why was there no gay male option in the first game?

 

[Inco]

you called me homophobic which is just pure stupidity

No hatred just totally indifferent to them as long as they keep their bullshit to themselves.

But if a gay person reveal himself to you you'd hate him. But you're not homophobic. Seriously, kid, how you manage to make it through the day without your head exploding is beyond me.

And I have already explained why a gay option would not fit. Now listen closely because I will not hurf blurf...

But why was there no gay male option in the first game?

There was..
My friend actually has one and has imported it to ME2.
I want to find out want happens on that part.

 

[RelexCryo]

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.

After Dragon Age, which allowed the PC to fall just about anywhere on the sexuality spectrum, I was sort of hoping that Bioware had come to understand that their audience is not entirely male and not entirely hetero. But no, apparently not. And as a gay girl gamer, I think that really sucks.

What do you think?

I'm unhappy that neither one of the two genders can get banged by a tentacle monster. But I don't complain about it, because I know I am in the minority. The reality is that most of their gamers are heterosexual males who apparently don't like tentacles, which means tentacle fetishists and homosexual men are somewhat left out.

Realistically speaking, homosexuals and bi sexuals are still a very small minority. Cramming in every sexuality regardless of whether or not it's a minority isn't practical. Outright oppressing gays, and simply not including them in games, are two different things. I have a very, very long list of fetishes which I constantly see under represented in games and movies, or worse, criminalized. But although I am unhappy with the underrepresentation, I don't think game makers are really obligated to add tentacle sex scenes to their games.

I don't think gamemakers who want to make a game with ordinary sex are obligated to add my fetishes, nor do I think that game makers are obligated to add gay sex scenes. There is a difference between oppressing a minority and simply not including them. If Mass Effect came out and said that God hates gays and they should burn, then yeah, I would be pissed.

 

[Jadak]

The issue of gay men aside, I do think they went a bit far with the female side of things. Garrus? Thane? WTF? The Asari at least have some resemblance to human females, but reptile boy and bark face? No thanks.

 

[Me55enger]

Stab in the dark here, with the dull hope that lurking somewhere in the shadows is what i was aiming for in the first place.

"Gay Girl Gamers" as you so eloquently and alliterately coined is a target market so small, that the games developers would have more commercial success building a game for dead giraffes.

Nothing personal, you're just a group of people too small to register in the industry.

 

[Mother Yeti]

Stab in the dark here, with the dull hope that lurking somewhere in the shadows is what i was aiming for in the first place.

"Gay Girl Gamers" as you so eloquently and alliterately coined is a target market so small, that the games developers would have more commercial success building a game for dead giraffes.

Nothing personal, you're just a group of people too small to register in the industry.

But GGG's are catered to by Mass Effect, since FemShep can be played as LesbianShep. So by your own reasoning, if Bioware will cater to my tiny demographic, surely they can cater to gay male gamers, who by virtue of being male are probably far more numerous.