Sexuality in Mass Effect

[Riobux]

Believe me, it's not. If it had a guy being with another guy, there would be uproar from not only the Christian masses and the mothers who feel it's teaching kids the wrong things, but you'd then get the homophobic people whining about how it's not natural. Although you'll never get a decent answer of why it's not natural, just "it just is!".

Jade Empire didn't, nor did Dragon Age.

No nudity. Although I do remember a quick whine that happened when Bully was viewed as being rated too low since you can kiss a boy on it.

Then again, it was Jack Thompson.

 

[dumbseizure]

The whole matter of having inter-character relationships does not matter at all, yet it is still included. Mass Effect is as much about character building as it is about sci-fi. If people just wanted to blow shit up, they'd be playing Gears of War or Halo. ME is touted as being mature and adult, so it would make sense that they would address something like this - especially when they have done so in the past, and especially when this is a game which is supposed to give absolute freedom to the player.


I doubt you are homophobic, but if every game you played featured only homosexual characters, would you not want at least one RPG which reflected your own sexuality?

You know, the fact that you can have sexual relationships with characters in a game doesnt really appeal to me one bit, and im sure alot of people would agree. I play a game for the storyline, the gameplay. If a game is fun to play, I'll enjoy it. Having a sexual relationship in the game is an option, its not part of the main storyline, hell it's not even part of anything in the game, I dont see why you are getting so worked up about the fact that you cant have a gay shepard. does anyone really feel the need to turn the characters theyre playing into an exact replica of themselves (gay or straight)? when i do character creation, i choose options that i think would be good for a character, i dont really see the need in choosing a sexuality for them.

(note: i'm not discriminating against straight or gay people in this statement, I have gay and straight friends and being around gay people does not bother me at all, i just dont understand everyones need for deciding a sexuality for a character in a game.)

 

[TylerC]

including bestiality.

Why aren't you complaining that EVERY SINGLE FEMALE isn't a lesbian? And FYI by saying, "It's weird enough that these aliens are sexually attracted to humans." You are saying that it is weird for a male to be attracted to another male.

Give me a break. Weak sauce, man, weak sauce.

Okay, first of all, bestiality? I'm 100% positive it doesn't include this in the game. When do you see Shepard getting in on with a Varren?

And are you serious? Weak sauce? How, because I destroyed you and your argument? You can't just go around calling people homophobic when you clearly have no understanding of the meaning, nor can you try to shoot down people's arguments because it's "weak sauce." That makes you look like a fool, espeacially when my statement quoted you.

To be clear here ... you say gender, but you mean sex. Sex is biological (what's between your legs), gender is social/behavioral/cultural (what's between your ears). A transsexual is something whose gender is different from their sex. So while the asari sex is not female as we understand it, their gender (from a human standpoint) is clearly female.

Now, this is full proof you are just making shit up as you go along. To be trans-gender is to undergo full or partial reversal of gender. The Asari have one gender, but since they resemble human females you get all bitchy. Fine, how about someone makes a mod so they all look like men and sound like robots. Would that make you happy?

 

[Lucifron]

Why does Mass Effect need a gay character? Mass Effect is not like Dragon Age were you create your very own little avatar; Shepard shares traits between all playthroughs. He has his own "face", voice, motivations and actions. Commander Shepard is not gay.

Because it's a Role-Playing Game. RPGs are all about having options presented to you and making your own decisions, not having your actions dictated. And Shepard most certainly does not share traits between all playthroughs. You can go from playing a black female Shepherd who was a bastion of righteousness in the original to playing a white, male Shepherd who eats kittens in lieu of Snickers in the sequel.

You can modify your face. You can modify your actions. You can modify your motivations. Hell, you can even modify your female character's sexuality - just not your male's, which is the point of contention.

Can you as a female have sex with any non-male character aside from an asari? If so, then there is no point of contention. The asari lack genders; they only appear female so that we can relate to them.
If not so, then it is simply Bob from marketing's fault. Most gamers are male. Most men are sort of turned on by two chicks doing each other, but many are more or less turned off by two guys. In short: gay men offensive, gay women good. Setting your game's poster-boy up as a gay man isn't a great selling point.

 

[RyVal]

Why does Mass Effect need a gay character? Mass Effect is not like Dragon Age were you create your very own little avatar; Shepard shares traits between all playthroughs. He has his own "face", voice, motivations and actions. Commander Shepard is not gay.

Because it's a Role-Playing Game. RPGs are all about having options presented to you and making your own decisions, not having your actions dictated. And Shepard most certainly does not share traits between all playthroughs. You can go from playing a black female Shepherd who was a bastion of righteousness in the original to playing a white, male Shepherd who eats kittens in lieu of Snickers in the sequel.

You can modify your face. You can modify your actions. You can modify your motivations. Hell, you can even modify your female character's sexuality - just not your male's, which is the point of contention.

Can you as a female have sex with any non-male character aside from an asari? If so, then there is no point of contention. The asari lack genders; they only appear female so that we can relate to them.

No, they only appear female so that BioWare could have an immediate response to any one who complained about it featuring lesbians. Don't even get me started on "The Asari don't count, they're monogendered!" That's a transparent cop-out. Furthermore, Jack - a human female - alludes to having lesbian relations.

If not so, then it is simply Bob from marketing's fault. Most gamers are male. Most men are sort of turned on by two chicks doing each other, but many are more or less turned off by two guys. In short: gay men offensive, gay women good. Setting your game's poster-boy up as a gay man isn't a great selling point.

But giving the option for it will not affect anyone but those who purposefully choose to use it. BioWare has done it before: Jade Empire and Dragon Age (although he was a bisexual, so again, a bit of a cop-out). Neither of them exploded into controversy or suffered poor sales because they had the option to have a gay character. They are one of the few game developers who have actually done it, which then makes it annoying when they randomly decide to drop it, since it is not like you can just wait for the next game with homosexuality.

 

[Lucifron]

Snip

On the other hand, it most definitely doesn't hurt sales to not include gay males at all, and Bioware saw no reason to go out of their way to make Shepard magically homo/bisexual in the sequel to Mass Effect. That's probably the most reasonable argument, come to think of it.

 

[I Max95]

i dont think people completly understand that liara is NOT a woman nor a man asari are non gender they have mind sex

 

[Jory]

I don't really get what all the fuss is about. If you want your Shepard to be gay then say he's gay. You don't need a couple dialogue trees and a "Sex" scene to tell you what your character is. Its called role playing.

Completely and utterly this. He can be what ever you like. I can pretend my Shep has Dyslexia and an addiction to Apple Crumble. I'm not complaining that there is no apple crumble in the game to eat.

(Though maybe I should)

[ /tortured analogy ]

 

[Mr_Paisley]

I don't think you could legitimately claim Bioware is ignorant to the gay community. Mass Effect allows a woman to be with a woman, and I understand, they didn't allow for a man to pursue a relationship with another man. HOWEVER, as you said, Dragon Age pretty much lets you align yourself with whatever sexual orientation you'd like.

It'd be one thing if ALL of their games only allowed female characters to be gay, but that's not the case, sooo I'm okay with Mass Effect not offering EVERY combination of gay/bi/straight we've enjoyed thus far

 

[snow]

Snipsnip

No I understand what it means, but again how can you be so sure that was their intention?

 

[Shycte]

Discussing an aspect of a game people find interesting = Telling Bioware what to do
Caring about something you don't care about = Whining
9 pages of discussion = Nobody cares about this
Shycte = Someone who posts useful comments

What's it like Opposite World?

I would make that 9 pages of you and RyVal going YMCA, but if that is what you want to call disscussion then I really don't want to see what you're going to do when you ARE trying to whine.

Besides, I said that no one wanted to hear you whine, not that nobody cared. [sub]You obviously do[/sub]

And how is not my post useful? I made my case clear to everyone. Maybe you just don't get the complicated words I used. Like "homophobic" and "solid". Really complicated.

"Going YMCA." Glad to meet a young man of such class. Again, if you don't want to hear what you perceive as "whining," go somewhere else. You're not the first to call me stupid for caring about what I care about, and you won't be the last, and it's not going to make me stop posting.

Anyway, your thesis is that I'm telling Bioware what to do. I would submit that I'm simply offering a criticism of a video game. This happens without comment about a thousand times a day on these forums, and yet when I do it it's because I'm an asshole who doesn't know her place. There's a disconnect there, Shycte.

If you were to say, "Hey, why did BioWare do X?" I would replay "Well it is because X".

Even tough it's pretty obvious that you have been proven wrong you still continue with your agenda. That is why I call it whining.

And I'm not calling you stupid, I'm just saying that you clearly don't now when to end.

 

[Brad Shepard]

i dont think people completly understand that liara is NOT a woman nor a man asari are non gender they have mind sex

im glad someone understands this.

 

[r0botosaurus]

I don't really get what all the fuss is about. If you want your Shepard to be gay then say he's gay. You don't need a couple dialogue trees and a "Sex" scene to tell you what your character is. Its called role playing. Bioware didn't feel like making a gay squadmate so Shepard has no dudes to bang. End of story. Its never implied what his/her sexual orientation is. Hell my main male Shepard has banged an Asari (which is asexual) and a quarian. I'm sure that is far more controversial than banging another dude.

In this aspect, the ability to have sex with aliens isn't controversial in the least. Why? Because they look female. All Asari appear female, and the only Quarian you can have a relationship with is a female. Bioware took the easy way out by hoping they wouldn't cause another media blitz with their sex scenes, so they didn't even bother to try to make homosexual/bisexual characters. They allowed female Shepard to be a lesbian, but didn't allow male Shep to be gay. The only reason I can see for this is because Bioware is afraid they might scare off mainstream gamers, which really shows that they don't have much confidence in their game. If they knew their game was fantastic no matter what, they wouldn't mind putting in a few more sex scenes, as the rest of the game would be good enough to pull in mainstream gamers.

 

[Ascarona]

You can become a lesbian with a FemShep?!?! Crap, now I really wish I had chose a chick for my character .

 

[MoganFreeman]

Bioware isn't trying to persecute homosexuals. They are just writing to the audience. The game is created and played by an dev team and audience consisting mostly of typical, hetero-normative males.

I don't agree with the decision. But, I don't see anything malicious in it.

 

[Unguarded Toast]

When one think about it, homosexual sex is probably the sex in it's 'purest' form, meaning that it can impossibly be motivated by the breeding instinct. Knowing that few are still driven by that, I hope you do realise that it was not ment as the main point. What though is the main point, is that you have to remember the fact that, as stated, none of the 'lesbian relationships' involves any direct sexual intercourse. It mainly is about emotional love, and I don't quite see how that can be viewed as a bad thing to include.

Then of course, there's the fact that there's no homosexual male relationship options. If this is to be viewed logically, it does appear to me as if at least Liara is driven to 'mate' with Sheppard both due to the love she feels for him/her, and that she feels like she wants to mate with them. Seeing as females are generally the reproductive gender, it would lose the aspect of honoring through off-spring that skillfully has been preserved as it is now. (Seeing as male sex would point towards a more raw sexual desire rather then stated above).

I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. Sex in it's purest for would be Male with a Female, because the goal is reproduction, you can't reproduce in same sex sex. Not saying that there is anything wrong with that, but I believe sex feels good so we know to keep doing it...to keep reproducing. If it didn't feel good, I'm sure most people wouldn't even bother with it, and in that case you wouldn't have homosexual sex.

Seeing as this probably can't be solved with facts, it has to come down to impressions. And I belive the common, if one were to ponder it, view is that lesbian sex is so much easier to make sensual and emotional. Male on male, however, does to most have a more raw impression to it, and given that, it would be much easier to make a sensual homosexual scen, if it was between two races that both appeared to be what we classify as a female.

 

[DancePuppets]

I can see why some people may find it annoying that you can't play a gay male player character, but in this case maybe it just didn't fit with the story that Bioware wanted to tell, whereas in Dragon Age they felt that having a gay male party character made added to the story. I just doubt that Bioware did it for discriminatory reasons; they've proved that they're better than that. So I think that in this case its a bit unfair to have a go at them.

 

[Mother Yeti]

Discussing an aspect of a game people find interesting = Telling Bioware what to do
Caring about something you don't care about = Whining
9 pages of discussion = Nobody cares about this
Shycte = Someone who posts useful comments

What's it like Opposite World?

I would make that 9 pages of you and RyVal going YMCA, but if that is what you want to call disscussion then I really don't want to see what you're going to do when you ARE trying to whine.

Besides, I said that no one wanted to hear you whine, not that nobody cared. [sub]You obviously do[/sub]

And how is not my post useful? I made my case clear to everyone. Maybe you just don't get the complicated words I used. Like "homophobic" and "solid". Really complicated.

"Going YMCA." Glad to meet a young man of such class. Again, if you don't want to hear what you perceive as "whining," go somewhere else. You're not the first to call me stupid for caring about what I care about, and you won't be the last, and it's not going to make me stop posting.

Anyway, your thesis is that I'm telling Bioware what to do. I would submit that I'm simply offering a criticism of a video game. This happens without comment about a thousand times a day on these forums, and yet when I do it it's because I'm an asshole who doesn't know her place. There's a disconnect there, Shycte.

If you were to say, "Hey, why did BioWare do X?" I would replay "Well it is because X".

Even tough it's pretty obvious that you have been proven wrong you still continue with your agenda. That is why I call it whining.

And I'm not calling you stupid, I'm just saying that you clearly don't now when to end.

What, exactly, have I said that's been "proven wrong"? The goal of this thread is discussion. If you don't want to talk about it then don't talk about it, but I will ask that you refrain from personal attacks on me. I apologize for doing so to you.

 

[Mother Yeti]

I don't really get what all the fuss is about. If you want your Shepard to be gay then say he's gay. You don't need a couple dialogue trees and a "Sex" scene to tell you what your character is. Its called role playing.

Completely and utterly this. He can be what ever you like. I can pretend my Shep has Dyslexia and an addiction to Apple Crumble. I'm not complaining that there is no apple crumble in the game to eat.

Sure, but our fundamental gripe is that the game gives you its blessing to roleplay a gay female Shepard (by allowing lesbian romance options) but the same is not true if Shepard is a man.