What about the queer female gamers?

[WlknCntrdiction]

You always get a girl gamer at times who wants to be treated with respect and wants people to be aware that there are girl gamers too, no shit sherlock. That's what's annoying. Pretty muuh same thing here, OP wants some kind of recognition for the article not highlighting lesbian gamers, is it so hard to believe that there are in fact lesbian gamers? Or maybe we(and the majority of people who have a brain)don't give a shit

Why would people who devote an entire issue of a webzine to gay gamers not give a shit about lesbian gamers? That does seem hard to believe.

1. I don't have a career

Yet you're lecturing people on the 'real world'...

2. Don't confuse "doing something about it" with what the OP is doing now(the aforementioned "whaaaaaaaa!!!ing")which will solve nothing, this is one of those things that you ignore, you move on, you live a happy life playing video games, what you don't do is complain to people who don't give a toss because they have better things to worry and care about.

So why are you "whaaaaaaaa!!!ing" over other people "whaaaaaaaa!!!ing"? Do you think you are going to stop the tide of "whaaaaaaaa!!!ing" on the internet with your posts, that you're "doing something about it" by complaining?

Like I said--don't you find it strange to be complaining on the internet that people should do better things with their time than complain on the internet?

Wow, you really are the king of semantics. Have you never heard of a figure of speech before? And being trodden on and taken shit is from experience, why do you think I stopped taking shit from other people in the first place? Don't answer that, I'm sure you'll come up with something monumentally retarded in return.

people should do better things with their time than complain on the internet?"
You said it, which is why I'm not just "complaining" on this forum, I'm also alternating between eating, programming for my course and drawing too, I have other things to do in addition to my "complaining". At the end of the day though this doesn't affect me I don't expect he OP to really take heed of any of this, and I definately don't see how I'll make you see any sense, what with your incessant nitpicking and twisting of words and other general foolishness.

We're done here.

 

[Sovvolf]

I guess I only saw the point, it was a failed attempt at putting Ryu on the other side. To see some one take what there doing out of context and act rashly because of it, which is what I think Ryu's as done here taken what the escapist has done and taken it out of context.

Ah, okay. Well, one, I'd ask why you think she's acting rashly? The OP starts "As glad as I am that the Escapist's topic this month focused on gays in the gaming community..." which doesn't seem very 'rash' to me.

Two, like I said, there's a difference between taking out of context and just out and out misunderstanding like you did. I get your point but...you did something different than she was doing, so I think that's why your point got lost.

The main reason is failed wasn't misunderstanding, I understood it, the reason it failed was because she avoided my trap forcing me to blind fire, I was hoping she'd say some thing more offensive so that I could use that to better my point, she avoided that which forced me to do what I did and blatantly lose my point.

The thing that I found rash (this is my opinion however so your will probably differ) wasn't that it was put nastily but because the thread it's self seemed to me like it was aimed at saying "The escapist is sexist because it doesn't show female homosexuals". This doesn't show up so much at the beginning, but by about page 3 that's the feeling I got from it.

 

[cainx10a]

Spoiler

Not sure what to say here, as I'm relatively pissed at one aspect of this week article. Homosexuality in the gaming world seems to be a more touchy subject than race or non-whiteys as they are depicted in gaming. So, now that someone decided to bring gender to the table, let's dissect it this way, your favorite female lead, who was it? Lara Croft? Did she have any romance plot in her little adventures with a handsome male? Maybe she is gay. Who else? Give me names! Jade from Beyond good and evil? Maybe she is GAY. My character [xxxxxxxxx][xxxxxxxxxxx] from Warhammer Online is gay, she is into equally unattractive female avatars who are also gay.

It's not so much about gay women being misrepresented, the articles were about homosexuality or lack-of gay protagonists. I don't see why one gender should get more attention that the other. But let's face it, homosexual males have it "harder". It's ok when Liara is making out with Missus Shephard, but it's not if Mr. Shephard tries to make out with Aidan.

In a male dominated industry, we seem more welcome to having lesbians around than gays. So yeah, in this case, Gay Males are the one who really need the attention of the community in a sense, although personally, I don't care about the sexuality of my characters as long as Master Chief doesn't start to make bad attempts at flirtation with Johnson while I'm trying to fight one of those dooods with hammers. Damn, I like those doods with hammers. HAMMMERS!

well ya those guys who protest gay rights go home to jerk to lesbians and praise god

what would they do if lesbians were gone?

I am all for gay rights.
I am atheist.

Read my first paragraph carefully, at least, trying reading it more carefully than Rhuk did.
I asked whether the sexuality of Female Leads and Protagonists were put into question?

Was Jade gay, or straight?
Was Lara Croft gay, or straight?

My point still stand, Male Homosexuals are the one that are misrepresented. I don't think homosexuality, or sexuality of video game protagonists matters when the objective is to fight evil, and teabag your opponents.

my turn: read my post carefully

that was a shot against people who protest against gays but strangly not lesbians

i support gay rights but its amazing that people can be so 2 faced

Me bad, I was just a bit frustrated about Rhuk not reading my post properly.

 

[Phoenix Arrow]

Too late--in b4 rest of response.

You do realize this week there was an issue dedicated to gay male gamers, right? So this isn't complaining about people who like hammocks being represented. It's complaining about people who like hammocks being represented in a place where the representation of people who like futons is taken so seriously they devoted an entire issue of a weekly web magazine to it and brought in a guest editor from FutonGamer.com

Why are people in this thread arguing as if this OP is out of the blue and aren't giving any thought to the context in which it was made?

What? So you're just going to disregard the majority of my post in favour of a silly little analogy I made?
Ok fine. I do relise that a gay issue of the Escapist happened. But you've basically said "it's not okay that the Escapist are being different and have actuallly adressed some of the minorities that are usually overlooked because it doesn't relate to me". But, like I said, ultimately noone cares. Noone cares if you're playing a game with a gay or a lesbian or a transexual or whatever. Who gives a shit? Noone.
The Escapist are focusing on an overlooked minority as a different angle for their journalism. Great. Good on them. But what you're doing is saying that lesbians should have equality but they should also be singled out. It doesn't work that way. One or the other. I know what you're going to say, but I find it patronising when people single me out based on sexuality or whatever.
Example time. When I was at secondary school, I had my first and only boyfriend. Naturally, it got around. Got the piss taken out of me but that was to be expected. I could cope with that. What pissed me off was the people who fought my corner for me. I mean, I appreachiated the thought but come on. Somone said a little immature joke at me once and this guy goes "OMG that's so harsh. You should be ashamed of yourself picking on him like that. Come on, talk to me and I'll cheer you up". I found it emasculating (can't spell that word).
But I digress, my point is noone cares who you like to sleep with when you're playing games. It's not an issue.

Sorry if that post is a bit disjointed. Watching TV, a bit distracting.

 

[Zeryxis]

'k, here's the thing

[HEADING=1]NOBODY CARES[/HEADING]

Nobody cares if a woman is a lesbian, cause, quite frankly, it's hot. But gay guys are gross, even to straight women.

Straight men love gay women

Straight women dont love gay men

At least this is the tally from people I've known.

....I love gay men. A lot. hell most of my male characters are usually quite predispositioned to being homosexual, a few being bi. I admit im a bit less open about making lesbian characters, but hell, I'm only human. I dont' hate lesbians, but I don't want them hitting on me either.

back on topic -
point in case - everyone has preferences, and it's most often that male homosexuals are less accepted in any brand of society. Good point - you can call your gal pals "girlfriends" without being asked if you're a lesbian but guys can't call their guy buds "boyfriends" at all.

Double standards are a *****, yes, but we can't jump into everything at once. Babysteps ensure success better than shoving everything in their plate at once. Better to make reform at a comfortable pace than demand everything suit everyone's needs immediately.

I'm not telling you to stop asking, just understand that we all have to wait our turn. Demanding it all now only makes you seem like you're a whining child that wants everything their way.

 

[badgersprite]

Still at least no one ties you to a fence and beats you to death for being a lesbian.

You'd be surprised.

 

[WannaBlessedBe]

Okay, I'm not going to bother hunting through the thread to find posts to quote, but Ryuutchi, you YOURSELF admitted that the reason you started this thread was to pick a fight. You said something along the lines of 'maybe I needed a good fight'. But then you have the gall to say you didn't start this thread just to complain. Which is it? You can't have it both ways, dear.

 

[John Funk]

Did you try the one about Zelda/Sheik as FtM trans [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_222/6608-Dude-Looks-Like-a-Lady]?

To make things short: We have our editorial calendar publicly available on the site, and take pitches from pretty much anyone, choosing what we think are the most promising. If we don't have any articles about gay women gamers, that's... because if we were pitched any, they didn't quite measure up.

If we have a similar issue in the future (or for one of our editor's choice issues) you're more than welcome to submit your own article pitch about gay female gamers

 

[Phoenix Arrow]

I'm going to use it to show how your criticism isn't relevant. Especially because it's a criticism a lot of people are making.

Also because you said hammock. And that sounds way too much like banana hammock not to repeat. :-D


Okay, but in that case, why not recognize that some people won't feel emasculated and don't want to deal with it? Just like their approach is not necessarily the One True Way, your feelings are no more--or less--valid than theirs.

No, my analogy wasn't reaaalllly relevant. I've been drinking Cherry Lucozade all day and it's taking its toll. It is kind of relevant. I mean, female gamers are a massive minority, unfortunately. I always found it more fun to have a natter with a girl on an MMORPG or whatever than a guy. Partly because I had a female character which made guys hit on me, but that's another story and another feather in my "male feminism" hat, mostly though because I enjoy the company more.
Anyway, let's pull a number out of the air and say 1 in 15 people are of a differing sexuality. That's probably a similar amount to the number of girls playing games. Online games, at least. So let's bring it on home and say that therefore, by my totally official numbers, 1 in every 225 gamers are lesbian or female and genuinely bisexual, not just saying bisexual to be edgy. I mean, I know one lesbian gamer. Lovely girl. But that's the kind of tiny number we're looking at here. It wouldn't make any sense to have a lesbian edition because noone would read it. I mean, how many lesbians are there on here? A handful. Then there would be the group of people who either read it every week or would have a flick through just to see what's going down. Then I guess you'd have the kind of people who start threads on forums about why they're so shocked that girls don't like it when they're a pushover and/or stare at their boobs.

Lucozade hasn't totally worn off yet. Only the new cherry one has this effect on me. Original flavour I drink like it's orange juice.

Oh, and I know my opinion matters no more than anyone elses. But at the end of the day, it's my opinion and all I can do is share what I feel. And I feel that I don't want to be singled out for special treatment. I want people to be classed as a whole rather than be subdivided and subdivided down.
You could win a Miss World pagent with that last paragraph. xD

 

[Trivun]

Which article said that there should be games specifically for gay men? They all sounded to me like they were talking about the lack of representation, and how that affects the gay gamer, not that a gay character should be created only for gay gamers.

Pretty much all of the articles were arguing for more games geared towards gay gamers. You can say what you want, but that's the way I, and I'm sure many others, interpreted them. It's cool if you wanna defend the articles or whatever, we're each entitled to our own opinion. I just wanted to state that I found many of the points made to be patronising and ridiculous. I believe that characters should be left as intended originally by Japanese developers but I also believe that making characters gay for no reason other than to please gay gamers would end up feeling contrived and pointless. Unless it furthers the plot in some way or something.

I kind of interpreted the articles in the same way, but I feel that while it would be silly to have gay characters simply to please gay gamers, it's also silly to leave them out deliberately to please the heterosexual masses. Personally I have no problems with homosexuals in general. I'm a straight guy but willing to experiment and usually in games where you choose your own character, I'll sometimes play as a female character. There's nothing wrong with that. Likewise there's nothing wrong with characters being gay. It doesn't really matter. What would be interesting is if there were more NPCs who are gay, or you had the choice during the game. Mainly though, it's simply that the idea of sexuality is skirted around by the actual developers because it's unimportant. That isn't to say that there isn't any bias - what would all the fratboys who play Gears of War (note I'm not a fratboy but I still like that game, and so do many others) say if Dom wasn't trying to find his wife Maria, but rather his husband Jorge or something? I think it's safe to say there'd be an uproar, which is quite frankly undeserved. I wouldn't give a damn if it was a wife or a husband Dom was searching for in Gears 2. Likewise for any other game. Gay characters aren't important, any more than straight ones. It doesn't matter what the character's sexuality is, as long as the character is well rounded in all other ways (by which I mean mentally, not physically, you sick perverts ).

TL;DR: Basically it isn't important whether a character is gay or straight, regardless of whether they're the main character or not. I'll still possibly play the game anyway and it shouldn't matter what a character's sexuality is, whether male or female.

 

[badgersprite]

I'm going to use it to show how your criticism isn't relevant. Especially because it's a criticism a lot of people are making.

Also because you said hammock. And that sounds way too much like banana hammock not to repeat. :-D


Okay, but in that case, why not recognize that some people won't feel emasculated and don't want to deal with it? Just like their approach is not necessarily the One True Way, your feelings are no more--or less--valid than theirs.

No, my analogy wasn't reaaalllly relevant. I've been drinking Cherry Lucozade all day and it's taking its toll. It is kind of relevant. I mean, female gamers are a massive minority, unfortunately. I always found it more fun to have a natter with a girl on an MMORPG or whatever than a guy. Partly because I had a female character which made guys hit on me, but that's another story and another feather in my "male feminism" hat, mostly though because I enjoy the company more.
Anyway, let's pull a number out of the air and say 1 in 15 people are of a differing sexuality. That's probably a similar amount to the number of girls playing games. Online games, at least. So let's bring it on home and say that therefore, by my totally official numbers, 1 in every 225 gamers are lesbian or female and genuinely bisexual, not just saying bisexual to be edgy. I mean, I know one lesbian gamer. Lovely girl. But that's the kind of tiny number we're looking at here. It wouldn't make any sense to have a lesbian edition because noone would read it. I mean, how many lesbians are there on here? A handful. Then there would be the group of people who either read it every week or would have a flick through just to see what's going down. Then I guess you'd have the kind of people who start threads on forums about why they're so shocked that girls don't like it when they're a pushover and/or stare at their boobs.

Lucozade hasn't totally worn off yet. Only the new cherry one has this effect on me. Original flavour I drink like it's orange juice.

Oh, and I know my opinion matters no more than anyone elses. But at the end of the day, it's my opinion and all I can do is share what I feel. And I feel that I don't want to be singled out for special treatment. I want people to be classed as a whole rather than be subdivided and subdivided down.
You could win a Miss World pagent with that last paragraph. xD

The slight problem with that mathematics is that you assume lesbian gamers play in the same proportion that straight women do. Firstly, I'd wager that more women play video games than you think (it's just that you don't know that they're women). Secondly, from experience, I'd say that a disproportionately large proportion of female gamers are comprised of gay or bisexual women (ie more gay women play video games per capita than straight women). They still wouldn't be the majority of female gamers, but they'd easily make up a significant proportion of that supposed 1-in-15.

But, anyway, that doesn't matter. I think the point of the topic was that, since this issue of The Escapist was specifically geared towards gay representation in video games, there should have been more inclusion of lesbians in the articles, as opposed to just gay men. I mean, since they were already addressing articles to the gay gamer demographic, why not include the vast spectrum of gay gamers, rather than narrowing it down to that one specific group?

 

[Emperor Inferno]

Sorry, computer glitch, editing...

 

[Phoenix Arrow]

The slight problem with that mathematics is that you assume lesbian gamers play in the same proportion that straight women do. Firstly, I'd wager that more women play video games than you think (it's just that you don't know that they're women). Secondly, from experience, I'd say that a disproportionately large proportion of female gamers are comprised of gay or bisexual women (ie more gay women play video games per capita than straight women). They still wouldn't be the majority of female gamers, but they'd easily make up a significant proportion of that supposed 1-in-15.

But, anyway, that doesn't matter. I think the point of the topic was that, since this issue of The Escapist was specifically geared towards gay representation in video games, there should have been more inclusion of lesbians in the articles, as opposed to just gay men. I mean, since they were already addressing articles to the gay gamer demographic, why not include the vast spectrum of gay gamers, rather than narrowing it down to that one specific group?

First of all, maybe. I can't say I really hang out with that many lesbians. I mean, all the gay people I know are into some sort of gaming and all the lesbians I know don't. 1 in 15 was a rough estimate from the people I actually knew when I played FFXI, which is basically like going back to high school only paying a monthly fee and hitting shit with weapons. Not important really, just an illustration.
Anyway, you just ran straight at a point I've been making all along and narrowly missed it. The bold bit. You're right. But that's what I've been saying all along. If you're going to say why narrow gay gamers in to male gay gamers? Then why narrow gamers into heterosexual and homo/bisexual camps in the first place? That's what I've been trying to say. I find it silly to say that gay people have different opinions on things than straight people would, especially when it comes to gaming. I mean, politics and civil rights, for sure. But gaming... how is it any different?
Meh.
Long time since I've been able to have a ranty conversation with someone on these boards which I've genuinely enjoyed by the way. Thanks for that combination of various lesbians/people who like arguing.

 

[Emperor Inferno]

But gay guys are gross, even to straight women.

1) You don't talk to women much...do ya cheif.

2) As for the thread topic, yes, you're correct but don't start a crusade. Try and convince the escapist calmly to see it your way, and if they don't? Well who cares about those jerks opinions anyway. Put the question to the developers themselves, they have email addresses... blogs. Go nuts.

Edit: But anyway a quick other note, I'm a straight woman with about 5 gay friends ... all whom have hit on me repeatedly in the past... And one who...still does and I have to hide from on certain days. Butanywayahem, I'm certainly no stranger to the outlook of the otherside of the sexuality preferance.
But you are preaching to the wrong side of the chromosome party here... Getting men to understand what women feel is a task tried and failed by so many... It's almost pathetic, my advice is if you're really adamant about finding the whys and hows out over this topic is to do what I suggested before and get the developers themselves thinking.

1) As much as I can, yes, though I can be nervous and shy. Thanks for the baseless insult, by the way.

2) Crusade? Not my intention. I blythely stated something I thought based on my own experiences, and, just as FallenJellyDonut predicted, it started some flame. Hell, I've been quoted on that one comment about ten times, that's a record for me.

Then you don't know that many people, or you really have no clue. Or, perhaps, your community is extremely homophobic and caters to the popular stereotype 'a woman is hot with another woman, gay or not. a man is not'.

By the way, people DO care. You just might not be one of them.

They shouldn't care, though. A person's sexual preference has no effect on anybody. I've known a true homophobe, and he acted like he thought all gay guys were going to try to ass rape him if he gave them the chance. Happily, this isn't the case. They (homosexuals) are not hurting anybody, so why should anybody care?

And no, you're right, I tend to live in small or sparsely populated communities. Southerners and rednecks mostly, so you have a point.