Many thanks to our very first Guest-Blogger!Sarah Powers is a freelance writer and mom of two. She lives in Arizona and blogs at Powers of Mine.
One of the objectives behind this here Friendfactor blog is to help straight friends of gay folks lighten up a little. Don’t worry about not knowing what to say or asking a silly question. Just say something, or go ahead and ask, and if it’s done in the spirit of friendship, it’s all good.
Usually well-meaning adults have these kinds of hang-ups in the first place because we’re worried either about hurting someone’s feelings or about looking stupid ourselves. But if there is one demographic who I can promise you does not give a crap about looking silly or making someone else uncomfortable, it’s KIDS.
Show me a preschooler and I’ll show you at least one parent who has experienced the agony of loudly stated observations like, “Mommy! That lady has a baby in her tummy!” (when ‘that lady’ is a stout 55-year-old) or “Hey! Is that guy a football player?” (because he happens to be black) or “Is that a man or a lady?” (and you’re not actually sure of the answer yourself).
As a parent in these moments, it’s easy to want to shove the nearest handful of goldfish crackers into the mouth of your precious offspring. I believe, though, that while doing so saves on a little short-term embarrassment, it also deprives both child and parent of a valuable opportunity for discussion.
Here are some ideas for parents and friends of curious little minds on how to answer kids’ questions about gay friends and family members (or just your average same-sex couple holding hands on the street):
■Make it okay to ask. Always. No matter how inappropriate or embarrassing the comment or question (Hey! That lady is dressed like Daddy but she has huge boobs!), answer it. Yep! Isn’t it cool how men and women have so many choices about how they dress and who they hang out with?
■Keep it age-appropriate. A three-year-old isn’t thinking about sex when she asks about a classmate who has two daddies. Find out what she’s curious about, and use the opportunity to share simple things about what you believe: A lot of grown-ups fall in love with somebody and choose to get married and have kids. Sometimes it’s two mommies or two daddies, and sometimes it’s one of each like in our family.
■Don’t assume that generalizing means bias. Comments like, You can’t marry your friend Lucy – she’s a girl. That’s weird! don’t mean a child is homophobic – only that his worldview is limited. Give him a break; he’s FIVE. Don’t overreact, but do use it as a chance to say things like, Actually, you guys are lucky that when you get to be grown-ups you’ll get to marry whomever you choose to love!
■Prep your gay friends. If you’re worried about your little chatterbox saying something in the company of your gay friends that will leave everyone staring into their latte foam, have a little pow-wow first. Just say, Hey, Ava is really curious about people and the world right now. I think she’s started to notice that your relationship is different than others she’s been exposed to, so just a heads up if she asks you some questions.
■Lighten up. Chances are, you’re going to be embarrassed once or twice on the parenting journey. Guess what? You’ll be the one embarrassing your kid in ten years. Wanting to raise open-minded and sensitive future citizens is one thing; drilling them on socially acceptable LGBT terminology at the dinner table is another. In this case the most important thing you can do is to model kindness. To everybody. All the time. End of story.
Preschoolers’ brains are primed to notice differences (remember that Sesame Street jingle? One of these things is not like the other…): colors, shapes, numbers, patterns, and, yes, demographics we’re not always comfortable discussing. Is the message we want to send that observing and discussing (and the next step, accepting) differences in people is somehow wrong? That while we teach tolerance in schools and pay lip service to equal rights, that simply pointing out an obvious difference, without any judgment or disrespect, is around the same place on the taboo continuum as passing gas in public?
Because that’s what they’ll learn. They’ll learn not to ask questions or make innocent observations. They’ll hear us say that differences are to be celebrated, but see in our flushed and hurried expressions that we don’t actually want to talk about them in public. They’ll learn that they’re supposed to accept, but may never really understand what it is they’re accepting. And then we’ll be right back where we started, in a forum like this one for people who want to support their friends but are afraid of saying the wrong thing.
So, let’s leave the next generation better of than we are, shall we? Let’s teach them to be sensitive and politically correct, but on top of those things let’s free them from the fear of saying the wrong thing by embracing their questions and answering them honestly right from the start. So that 25 years from now they won’t need the Friendfactor blog; they’ll just need their friends.
Reposted from Friendfactor.
Showing posts with label homophobia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label homophobia. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Friday, September 23, 2011
FOX News Doctor Says Chaz Bono Wants to Cut Off Shiloh Jolie-Pitt’s Breasts
Posted by Booty The Unicorn on Sep 21, 2011, reposted by keystothecloset.blogspot.com
Even Bill O'Reilly is having a hard time swallowing what Dr. Keith Ablow is serving up.
Speaking of bullying… Fox News medical correspondent, Dr. Keith Ablow, is officially turning his hateful obsession with Chaz Bono into a full time job.
I mean, claiming that the simple act of even watching Dancing With the Stars this season will transform otherwise heterosexual children into transgender salsa dancers – that’s some part time hate. You can make statements like that, but still find time to walk the dog, catch up on correspondence, and enjoy a glass of merlot at the end of the day.
But telling Bill O’Reilly that Chaz Bono is personally calling Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie and asking to speak with their five-year-old daughter, Shiloh, to instruct her to cut off the breasts that she won’t even have for another decade – that type of hate is a full time job.
Ablow is obsessed. These types of comments don’t just up and fall out of someone’s mouth over a bowl of Cheerios. Homeboy has clearly been simmering and stewing in his steaming pot full of transgender loathing for weeks. That somebody assumed putting a man with a three foot mad-on on live television was a good idea if just bananas to me.
If you can stomach it, watch the words straight from the homophobic horse’s mouth in the video.
Even Bill O'Reilly is having a hard time swallowing what Dr. Keith Ablow is serving up.
Speaking of bullying… Fox News medical correspondent, Dr. Keith Ablow, is officially turning his hateful obsession with Chaz Bono into a full time job.
I mean, claiming that the simple act of even watching Dancing With the Stars this season will transform otherwise heterosexual children into transgender salsa dancers – that’s some part time hate. You can make statements like that, but still find time to walk the dog, catch up on correspondence, and enjoy a glass of merlot at the end of the day.
But telling Bill O’Reilly that Chaz Bono is personally calling Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie and asking to speak with their five-year-old daughter, Shiloh, to instruct her to cut off the breasts that she won’t even have for another decade – that type of hate is a full time job.
Ablow is obsessed. These types of comments don’t just up and fall out of someone’s mouth over a bowl of Cheerios. Homeboy has clearly been simmering and stewing in his steaming pot full of transgender loathing for weeks. That somebody assumed putting a man with a three foot mad-on on live television was a good idea if just bananas to me.
If you can stomach it, watch the words straight from the homophobic horse’s mouth in the video.
Friday, August 19, 2011
Gays Are Us: Why LGBT Equality Is Not a “White” Issue
Martin Luther King Jr., speaks at a Selma, Alabama church in this January 1965 photo. King wrote in his "Letter from Birmingham Jail" that "injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."
By Rev. Dr. Dennis W. Wiley | August 17, 2011
At last month’s 102nd annual convention of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, a historic workshop focused on overcoming homophobia within the black community. As an African American, heterosexual, male pastor of a traditionally black Baptist church in the inner city of Washington, D.C., I was glad to see this legendary organization take this small but important step in its increasingly inclusive perspective on civil rights.
There are some, however, including the Rev. Keith Ratliff Sr., an NAACP national board member, who see no parallel between gay rights and civil rights. Expressing this conviction at a rally last May, he demanded that the gay community “stop hijacking the civil rights movement.”
This statement, subtly suggesting that “civil rights” is a black issue and “gay rights” is a white issue, implies that lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender, or LGBT, equality is not a priority for black people. This sentiment, particularly prevalent regarding the issue of marriage equality, is often expressed in a variety of ways, including, “This is not our issue,” “This is not a priority for the black community,” and, “We have more critical matters to consider.”
One of the problems with this “either/or” approach—that this issue is either “black” or “white”—is that it creates a false dichotomy between LGBT issues and other issues of social justice. Another is that it fosters a hierarchy of oppression in which certain matters are placed at the top of the political agenda while others are tabled.
The greatest problem with this approach is its failure to highlight how multiple forms of oppression are interconnected. This failure to “connect the dots” deceives black and other marginalized groups into believing that dealing with vital issues impacting our communities can, at best, be postponed indefinitely, or, at worst, be ignored completely.
The civil rights movement of the 1950s and 60s offers several examples of this type of failure to connect the dots. For instance, when Martin Luther King Jr. accepted the invitation to lead a nonviolent, direct-action, voting rights campaign in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963, white liberals criticized him for being an “outside agitator” and for moving too fast.
In his famous “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” he responded by first informing his critics that what was happening in Birmingham was directly connected to what was happening in his hometown of Atlanta. “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,” he wrote. Second, he replied that the word “‘Wait’ has almost always meant ‘Never’” and that “justice too long delayed is justice denied.”
Another example occurred when King spoke out against the war in Vietnam. Although his detractors failed to discern the relationship between the civil rights and peace movements, King was clear that the goal of his controversial stance was not only to save lives in Vietnam, but also to “save the soul of America.” In so doing, he connected the dots of what he called “the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism.”
Two other examples reveal King’s own inner struggle to detect the interconnectedness of various forms of oppression.. With regard to the role of women, the civil rights and black power movements were characterized by rampant sexism. Although women played pivotal roles in each, they were primarily relegated to subordinate positions and often treated as sex objects. This was not unusual because, throughout most of the 20th century, race consistently trumped gender as the primary social justice issue within the Black Church and community. Black women were expected (and usually consented) to suppress any notions of women’s liberation—often characterized by black men as a “white” issue—in the interest of black unity, racial solidarity, and the affirmation of black manhood.
This leads us to the other issue of oppression with which King privately agonized—homophobia. Like women’s rights neither King nor any other civil rights leader lifted up gay rights as a goal of the movement. Bayard Rustin, however, one of his chief nonviolent strategists, was openly gay. King staunchly supported Rustin’s role in the movement, despite objections from some of his closest allies, until 1960.
When Adam Clayton Powell Jr., the powerful, influential, and charismatic black pastor and U.S. congressman from Harlem, New York, threatened that year to circulate a false rumor that Rustin and King had been involved in a homosexual affair, King—much to Rustin’s disappointment—promptly accepted Rustin’s resignation. It was not until 1963, when King again stood solidly behind him, that Rustin was assigned the responsibility to plan, organize, and orchestrate the phenomenally successful March on Washington.
These examples of connecting, or failing to connect, the dots of oppression help us to understand that the quest for human justice, freedom, and equality cannot be fragmented. The layered complexity of human identity forbids it. To claim that we are for racial equality while ignoring women’s equality, or to insist that we support justice for the poor but disdain justice for LGBT persons, is to engage in a precarious game of self-deception in which the ultimate irony is that we ourselves become the inadvertent objects of our own rejection, self-hatred, and internalized oppression.
If Martin Luther King Jr. were alive today at the ripe old age of 82, I believe his consistently evolving consciousness would have removed his blind spots of 43 years ago. Just as he was a trailblazer in protesting the Vietnam War, I contend that he also would have been a pioneer in the struggle for women’s rights and LGBT equality. This is why so many of his former associates who are still alive—including Congressman John Lewis and the NAACP’s own Julian Bond—are unequivocal in their support of gay rights, including marriage equality. The same was true of his late widow, Coretta Scott King. They have understood that LGBT oppression is not some alien or superfluous concern that has little or nothing to do with other justice issues critical to the black community and that, in fact, it is a critical issue of civil rights.
The Reverend Dennis W. Wiley, Ph.D., is pastor of the Covenant Baptist United Church of Christ in Washington, D.C. He is a contributor to the Fighting Injustice to Reach Equality, or FIRE, initiative at the Center for American Progress, which explores the impact of public policy on gay and transgender people of color. This is his first of a series of columns in which he will discuss progressivism within the black church.
By Rev. Dr. Dennis W. Wiley | August 17, 2011
At last month’s 102nd annual convention of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, a historic workshop focused on overcoming homophobia within the black community. As an African American, heterosexual, male pastor of a traditionally black Baptist church in the inner city of Washington, D.C., I was glad to see this legendary organization take this small but important step in its increasingly inclusive perspective on civil rights.
There are some, however, including the Rev. Keith Ratliff Sr., an NAACP national board member, who see no parallel between gay rights and civil rights. Expressing this conviction at a rally last May, he demanded that the gay community “stop hijacking the civil rights movement.”
This statement, subtly suggesting that “civil rights” is a black issue and “gay rights” is a white issue, implies that lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender, or LGBT, equality is not a priority for black people. This sentiment, particularly prevalent regarding the issue of marriage equality, is often expressed in a variety of ways, including, “This is not our issue,” “This is not a priority for the black community,” and, “We have more critical matters to consider.”
One of the problems with this “either/or” approach—that this issue is either “black” or “white”—is that it creates a false dichotomy between LGBT issues and other issues of social justice. Another is that it fosters a hierarchy of oppression in which certain matters are placed at the top of the political agenda while others are tabled.
The greatest problem with this approach is its failure to highlight how multiple forms of oppression are interconnected. This failure to “connect the dots” deceives black and other marginalized groups into believing that dealing with vital issues impacting our communities can, at best, be postponed indefinitely, or, at worst, be ignored completely.
The civil rights movement of the 1950s and 60s offers several examples of this type of failure to connect the dots. For instance, when Martin Luther King Jr. accepted the invitation to lead a nonviolent, direct-action, voting rights campaign in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963, white liberals criticized him for being an “outside agitator” and for moving too fast.
In his famous “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” he responded by first informing his critics that what was happening in Birmingham was directly connected to what was happening in his hometown of Atlanta. “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,” he wrote. Second, he replied that the word “‘Wait’ has almost always meant ‘Never’” and that “justice too long delayed is justice denied.”
Another example occurred when King spoke out against the war in Vietnam. Although his detractors failed to discern the relationship between the civil rights and peace movements, King was clear that the goal of his controversial stance was not only to save lives in Vietnam, but also to “save the soul of America.” In so doing, he connected the dots of what he called “the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism.”
Two other examples reveal King’s own inner struggle to detect the interconnectedness of various forms of oppression.. With regard to the role of women, the civil rights and black power movements were characterized by rampant sexism. Although women played pivotal roles in each, they were primarily relegated to subordinate positions and often treated as sex objects. This was not unusual because, throughout most of the 20th century, race consistently trumped gender as the primary social justice issue within the Black Church and community. Black women were expected (and usually consented) to suppress any notions of women’s liberation—often characterized by black men as a “white” issue—in the interest of black unity, racial solidarity, and the affirmation of black manhood.
This leads us to the other issue of oppression with which King privately agonized—homophobia. Like women’s rights neither King nor any other civil rights leader lifted up gay rights as a goal of the movement. Bayard Rustin, however, one of his chief nonviolent strategists, was openly gay. King staunchly supported Rustin’s role in the movement, despite objections from some of his closest allies, until 1960.
When Adam Clayton Powell Jr., the powerful, influential, and charismatic black pastor and U.S. congressman from Harlem, New York, threatened that year to circulate a false rumor that Rustin and King had been involved in a homosexual affair, King—much to Rustin’s disappointment—promptly accepted Rustin’s resignation. It was not until 1963, when King again stood solidly behind him, that Rustin was assigned the responsibility to plan, organize, and orchestrate the phenomenally successful March on Washington.
These examples of connecting, or failing to connect, the dots of oppression help us to understand that the quest for human justice, freedom, and equality cannot be fragmented. The layered complexity of human identity forbids it. To claim that we are for racial equality while ignoring women’s equality, or to insist that we support justice for the poor but disdain justice for LGBT persons, is to engage in a precarious game of self-deception in which the ultimate irony is that we ourselves become the inadvertent objects of our own rejection, self-hatred, and internalized oppression.
If Martin Luther King Jr. were alive today at the ripe old age of 82, I believe his consistently evolving consciousness would have removed his blind spots of 43 years ago. Just as he was a trailblazer in protesting the Vietnam War, I contend that he also would have been a pioneer in the struggle for women’s rights and LGBT equality. This is why so many of his former associates who are still alive—including Congressman John Lewis and the NAACP’s own Julian Bond—are unequivocal in their support of gay rights, including marriage equality. The same was true of his late widow, Coretta Scott King. They have understood that LGBT oppression is not some alien or superfluous concern that has little or nothing to do with other justice issues critical to the black community and that, in fact, it is a critical issue of civil rights.
The Reverend Dennis W. Wiley, Ph.D., is pastor of the Covenant Baptist United Church of Christ in Washington, D.C. He is a contributor to the Fighting Injustice to Reach Equality, or FIRE, initiative at the Center for American Progress, which explores the impact of public policy on gay and transgender people of color. This is his first of a series of columns in which he will discuss progressivism within the black church.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
We Say Gay: Tennessee kids fight bill that would prohibit discussing homosexuality in school
Cory Doctorow at 5:34 AM Thursday, Apr 28, 2011 Posted at Boing-boing, one of my favorite sites, http://www.boingboing.net/2011/04/28/we-say-gay-tennessee.html/ & reposted at http://keystothecloset.blogspot.com/
Mary Robinette Kowal sez, "Tennessee is trying to pass bill SB0049. The "Don't Say Gay" bill would prohibit speaking about homosexuality at middle schools and elementary schools, while talking about heterosexuality would be fine ('(2) Notwithstanding any other law to the contrary, no public elementary or middle school shall provide any instruction or material that discusses sexual orientation other than heterosexuality.') Kids at my nephew's high school protesting it. The bill goes to vote tomorrow."
We say gay for the students who won't be able to. This site is dedicated to fight against the Tennessee state bill SB0049 (Don't say gay bill), which would make it a misdemeanor to talk about homosexuality in grades bellow 9th. That is an obvious insult to our first amendment rights to free speech as well as it is a major blow to those young people who are shunned by their own parents for being gay and soon will not be able to talk to their school about it.
On this site we have collected some facts about the bill. We check and update the site daily or as updates about the bill come in. If you would like to sign the petition against this bill or help the fight just email me at wesaygay@gmail.com
We Say Gay (Thanks, MaryRobinette!)
Mary Robinette Kowal sez, "Tennessee is trying to pass bill SB0049. The "Don't Say Gay" bill would prohibit speaking about homosexuality at middle schools and elementary schools, while talking about heterosexuality would be fine ('(2) Notwithstanding any other law to the contrary, no public elementary or middle school shall provide any instruction or material that discusses sexual orientation other than heterosexuality.') Kids at my nephew's high school protesting it. The bill goes to vote tomorrow."
We say gay for the students who won't be able to. This site is dedicated to fight against the Tennessee state bill SB0049 (Don't say gay bill), which would make it a misdemeanor to talk about homosexuality in grades bellow 9th. That is an obvious insult to our first amendment rights to free speech as well as it is a major blow to those young people who are shunned by their own parents for being gay and soon will not be able to talk to their school about it.
On this site we have collected some facts about the bill. We check and update the site daily or as updates about the bill come in. If you would like to sign the petition against this bill or help the fight just email me at wesaygay@gmail.com
We Say Gay (Thanks, MaryRobinette!)
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Once Agan: Jon Stewart, the Voice of Reason
Daily Show: Toemageddon 2011 - This Little Piggy Went to Hell
The media reports on a five-year-old boy with pink toenails like it's a story about incest or cannibalism. http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-april-13-2011/toemageddon-2011---this-little-piggy-went-to-hell
Reposted at http://keystothecloset.blogspot.com/
Monday, March 28, 2011
Dragon Age Writer On Characters’ Bisexuality
I am not at all familair with the world of gaming, but this post was passed on to me. The quote below is not interesting , but the response of the author of the game to the homophobic posting by a player, is well done.
"Homophobic (or at least stridently heteronormative) fans of Bioware's Dragon Age II are upset at the game's omnisexual characters, which offer players romantic dalliances regardless of their avatars' sex. After a player requested a "no homosexuality" option, one of the game's writers let him down firmly but gently. The real problem, of course, is that the romances are played out in game-engine CGI, summed up by QT3's Malcolm Tucker as 'cringe-inducing gamer-stigmatizing Uncanny Valley evoking boner-annihilators.' "
The response:
A peculiar accusation was made against Dragon Age II on the BioWare forums, in which a user accused the game of not properly catering for the straight male gamer. Honestly, I’d launched into writing this with the intention of factually reporting it, but just typing those words has made me want to start throwing chairs. What? Good grief, even if that were true, which it so spectacularly isn’t, wouldn’t it… but… good grief. Amazingly, one of BioWare’s writers, David Gaider, gave a calm, level-headed response where I would have said capital swears. He makes some interesting comments, as EG point out.
In Dragon Age II you’re able to form relationships with your companions. In order to cater for players choosing to play as, or indeed being, male or female, these characters are essentially bisexual. Some are overt about this, others you’d never know until you played again as a different sex. When I finally write my treatise on the game, I will have some criticisms to make of the way relationships are handled, but the variety, and offering of straight, gay and bisexual relationships certainly won’t be one of them.
The original poster said things that make my spine hurt, like,
He does point out that it’s a politely expressed ignorant opinion, before going on to criticise the behaviour of others in the (clearly heavily modified) thread. And then offers an eloquent explanation of the decisions made for Dragon Age II’s romance. I’ll paste the whole thing here:
This quote originally posted at http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/03/25/dragon-age-writer-on-characters-bisexuality/ was refered to in a blog posted by Boingboing. It was reposted at http://keystothecloset.blogspot.com/.
"Homophobic (or at least stridently heteronormative) fans of Bioware's Dragon Age II are upset at the game's omnisexual characters, which offer players romantic dalliances regardless of their avatars' sex. After a player requested a "no homosexuality" option, one of the game's writers let him down firmly but gently. The real problem, of course, is that the romances are played out in game-engine CGI, summed up by QT3's Malcolm Tucker as 'cringe-inducing gamer-stigmatizing Uncanny Valley evoking boner-annihilators.' "
The response:
A peculiar accusation was made against Dragon Age II on the BioWare forums, in which a user accused the game of not properly catering for the straight male gamer. Honestly, I’d launched into writing this with the intention of factually reporting it, but just typing those words has made me want to start throwing chairs. What? Good grief, even if that were true, which it so spectacularly isn’t, wouldn’t it… but… good grief. Amazingly, one of BioWare’s writers, David Gaider, gave a calm, level-headed response where I would have said capital swears. He makes some interesting comments, as EG point out.
In Dragon Age II you’re able to form relationships with your companions. In order to cater for players choosing to play as, or indeed being, male or female, these characters are essentially bisexual. Some are overt about this, others you’d never know until you played again as a different sex. When I finally write my treatise on the game, I will have some criticisms to make of the way relationships are handled, but the variety, and offering of straight, gay and bisexual relationships certainly won’t be one of them.
The original poster said things that make my spine hurt, like,
“Its ridiculous that I even have to use a term like Straight Male Gamer, when in the past I would only have to say fans.”But the crux of his argument was,
“In every previous BioWare game, I always felt that almost every companion in the game was designed for the male gamer in mind. Every female love interest was always written as a male friend type support character. In Dragon Age 2, I felt like most of the companions were designed to appeal to other groups foremost, Anders and Fenris for gays and Aveline for women given the lack of strong women in games, and that for the straight male gamer, a secondary concern. It makes things very awkward when your male companions keep making passes at you. The fact that a “No Homosexuality” option, which could have been easily implemented, is omitted just proves my point.”Imagine the news stories if BioWare had included a “no homosexuality” button. Anyway, we’re not supposed to be dragging some guy on a forum over the coals for what some may think are deeply homophobic remarks. Gaider’s reply is the interesting part of this story.
He does point out that it’s a politely expressed ignorant opinion, before going on to criticise the behaviour of others in the (clearly heavily modified) thread. And then offers an eloquent explanation of the decisions made for Dragon Age II’s romance. I’ll paste the whole thing here:
“The romances in the game are not for “the straight male gamer”. They’re for everyone. We have a lot of fans, many of whom are neither straight nor male, and they deserve no less attention. We have good numbers, after all, on the number of people who actually used similar sorts of content in DAO and thus don’t need to resort to anecdotal evidence to support our idea that their numbers are not insignificant… and that’s ignoring the idea that they don’t have just as much right to play the kind of game they wish as anyone else. The “rights” of anyone with regards to a game are murky at best, but anyone who takes that stance must apply it equally to both the minority as well as the majority. The majority has no inherent “right” to get more options than anyone else.
More than that, I would question anyone deciding they speak for “the straight male gamer” just as much as someone claiming they speak for “all RPG fans”, “all female fans” or even “all gay fans”. You don’t. If you wish to express your personal desires, then do so. I have no doubt that any opinion expressed on these forums is shared by many others, but since none of them have elected a spokesperson you’re better off not trying to be one. If your attempt is to convince BioWare developers, I can tell you that you do in fact make your opinion less convincing by doing so.
And if there is any doubt why such an opinion might be met with hostility, it has to do with privilege. You can write it off as “political correctness” if you wish, but the truth is that privilege always lies with the majority. They’re so used to being catered to that they see the lack of catering as an imbalance. They don’t see anything wrong with having things set up to suit them, what’s everyone’s fuss all about? That’s the way it should be, any everyone else should be used to not getting what they want.
The truth is that making a romance available for both genders is far less costly than creating an entirely new one. Does it create some issues of implementation? Sure– but anything you try on this front is going to have its issues, and inevitably you’ll always leave someone out in the cold. In this case, are all straight males left out in the cold? Not at all. There are romances available for them just the same as anyone else. Not all straight males require that their content be exclusive, after all, and you can see that even on this thread.
Would I do it again? I don’t know. I doubt I would have Anders make the first move again– at the time, I thought that requiring all romances to have Hawke initiate everything was the unrealistic part. Even if someone decides that this makes everyone “unrealistically” bisexual, however, or they can’t handle the idea that the character might be bisexual if they were another PC… I don’t see that as a big concern, to be honest. Romances are never one-size-fits-all, and even for those who don’t mind the sexuality issue there’s no guarantee they’ll find a character they even want to romance. That’s why romances are optional content. It’s such a personal issue that we’ll never be able to please everyone. The very best we can do is give everyone a little bit of choice, and that’s what we tried here.
And the person who says that the only way to please them is to restrict options for others is, if you ask me, the one who deserves it least. And that’s my opinion, expressed as politely as possible.”
This quote originally posted at http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/03/25/dragon-age-writer-on-characters-bisexuality/ was refered to in a blog posted by Boingboing. It was reposted at http://keystothecloset.blogspot.com/.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)