Lesbian gamers… Boys and girls, wouldn’t you like to know more? Shucks, I sure did. That’s why I put together this piece for Killer Betties, which went up yesterday, called “Girl-on-Girl Gaming: Exploring Communities, Questions and Concerns of Lesbian Video Gamers”. Do check it out. It’s an in-depth look at the issues surrounding gaming girls who, well, like girls - complete with quotes from real live lesbians (Watch out, they may be living in a town near you!). While I won’t promise hot girl-on-girl action, I do promise an intellectually stimulating read on the role of these doubly-alienating gamers from mainstream gaming culture. Okay, maybe I should just promise hot girl-on-girl action. Step right up, see the show, HOT HOT HOT, XXX, so on and so forth…
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September 7th, 2005 at 10:31 am
An interesting enough article, but I have to say, I don’t understand what peoples sexual orientation has to do with gaming. This seems to be another case of minority groups purposefully segregating themselves when there really isn’t any need. One of the great things about gaming, especially online gaming, is that we all start out (more or less) equal, no one knows anything about anyone else (at first anyway), and the idea of seperating yourself from other people purposely, and feeling the need to draw attention to the fact that they’re “gay gamers” seems a bit silly. I don’t feel the need to go around making sure people know how hetrosexual I am, and I don’t understand why you would do this if you were gay.
September 7th, 2005 at 10:46 am
Any and every artistic medium can be regarded from a variety of perspectives, not the least of which being sexuality. Just as gender issues come up in the world of video games, so to do issues relating to the depiction (or, most of the time, lack thereof) of homosexuality in games.
I can’t speak for gay gamers - I’m largely heterosexual myself - but I don’t believe the point is to segregate themselves as much as it is to become a supportive community, showing that there are gay gamers even when they don’t have a voice.
You don’t think about your heterosexuality often because it’s largely considered the norm, but in a crazy awesome parallel universe, where gays rule the earth and overwhelm video games communities, you would sure as hell want to know if there were any other hetero’s out there, just so you wouldn’t feel like you were the only one.
September 7th, 2005 at 11:22 am
some valid points, and I can understand peoples desires to find a group of similarly orientated people to talk to/game with/whatever, and I can appreciate that some games do merit relevant discussion on their depiction of different sexual orientations. But as far as I can see (and I am happy to be corrected on this), most games have absolutely nothing to do with sexual orientation and don’t touch on the subject.
I guess the point I’ve been trying to make, I hope without causing any offense to anyone, is that there seems to be a tendency for the gay community to try and seperate themselves from the rest of any given portion of society, whether this being through non-gays being made to feel unwelcome in gay clubs/pubs (I myself have been refused entry to a gay club before now for not being gay - I was quite shocked by this as most of the clubs I tend to frequent have a fairly even mixture of sexualities and the idea of not letting someone in based on their preference seems pretty outrageous), or through people feeling the need to form gay-gaming groups. Obviously this isn’t representative of the gay community as a whole, and I just wish this sort of thing could be dropped in favour of more important matters at hand - in this case, gaming! I don’t care who’s on the other end of whatever online game I’m playing, and I don’t understand why anyone else would either.
Sorry if I’ve waffled here, just trying to explain my way of thinking on this properly…
September 7th, 2005 at 2:21 pm
Rob, I think you’re right that gay gamers shouldn’t be exclusionary, but as a non-homosexual (you, me, whoever) I think it’s hard to make judgement calls without being in that position. Above all, gaming is about having fun, and if you don’t feel safe and welcome in a community, there’s no way you’re going to have a good time. The same thing goes for women and their gaming groups. Everyone is hoping for acceptance, eventually - whether or not that’s a good thing.
September 8th, 2005 at 11:16 pm
Bonnie, your last comment above almost made me not reply. I mean, what can I add? What you say echoes my sentiments perfectly.
Making games that are fun for as many people as possible without excluding anyone who might want to play is where we want to be. Likewise marketing games…marketers need to be conscious of who they might be pushing away with a particular advertising approach.
The tough part is going to be making the game *communities* more inclusive. My first thought is that communities frequented by pubescent teenagers will be prone to “exclusion”. I remember my early teens as a terrible time, and my only crime was being too obvious about being smart. Kids of that age are often viscious, cruel little animals, and the communities they form often seem to reflect this. I avoid the first person shooter and console game communities for this reason.
How do you fix the maturity level problem? The only thing I can come up with is to congregate with “mature” (not old) gamers. And sometimes the easiest way to be sure of acceptance is to join up with other people “like you”.
The problem is, if all you interact with is people like yourself, you become disconnected…and that’s how we end up hating each other.
September 9th, 2005 at 7:10 am
And the online medium exacerbates that problem. There’s no way to know for sure who’s part of any given community, and no way to screen it. The internet opens up lots of opportunities for acceptance in that it puts everyone, in some ways, on an equal footing. At the same time, it renders everyone faceless; people say things, discriminatory things, they would never say face-to-face. So the medium really facilitates both sides of the problem.
October 30th, 2007 at 8:11 am
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