Cybersexy, I actually wrote the piece before I became involved in many MMO communities, so it’s definitely oriented toward non-MMOs. As for men playing as lesbian women, you should check out the Second Life Herald pieces I linked to from a recent post, which are about just that.

If the issue for lesbians in mmo games is men not roleplaying them realistically, I could buy that argument. But I’ve never heard that argument from a true lesbian (and I have met a few online), so it’s hard for me to feel sorry for them.

I really like the idea Sarah gives, that the trend should be to characters being essentially bisexual (I first typed biosexual). It’s been a long source of frustration that conversation options are straight to a fault.

Heterosexuality is usually imposed on your character whether you’re interested in a romantic plot twist or not. This definitely makes me think of Knights of the old Republic. The only ‘romantic’ interest if you play a female is Carth. He is really sleazy on you, I actually had to yell at him to get him to leave me alone. He acts like he was just joking around and never mentions it again.

The female player character gets to be hassled by Carth, it’s telling that you aren’t given the option to initiate any flirting yourself, it just happens to you whether you like it or not. This was unsurprisingly not the case when playing a male character. A male player character is also frustrating to play though. I often choose female characters simply because I can find it hard to relate to the male we are supposed to play.

My sister when playing nwn and kotor used game hacks to trick the game into thinking her female character was male so she could play a homosexual. The problem was, the conversations aren’t just limiting, they are sexist.

If game writers wrote characters as bisexual, they might have to face up to the fact that their writing is sexist.

On a forum for a (then) in development game, fans were asking the developers to include bisexual options. It seemed like the developers just wanted that problem to go away. A developer said they wouldn’t include bisexual options because then they’d have to make every character bisexual or add lots of work. I don’t think they said why they wouldn’t allow homosexual options, but other fans jumped to their defense saying the couldn’t because they were making a game that kids would play. O_o

People want their kids to grow up with the same crap in their heads that they have.

Sorry, ranting.

I hope we see more games that allow for us to choose for ourselves. It’s kinda liberating when they do.