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I think it's fantastic that Paizo is reaching out to a community that is largely underrepresented or stereotyped in mainstream media, but the way homosexuality is seems to be represented on Golarion seems to be far too idealistic, and often glossed over.
Unlike the heterosexual relationships in Lord of the Rings, which are highly complex and completely realistic.
Meh, it's obvious everyone in that movie is a pervy hobbit fancier.
I am sure at some level lesbian relationships are a bit safer to pursue than male homosexual ones. At least, I seem to notice more of the former in genre fiction.
However in the most recent AP there is equal representation. at the very least nowadays they seem to be comfortable portraying both types of relationships.
Exactly. Lesbian relationships are more mainstream and less threatening than gay male couplings..and fantasy fiction that pretend to be progressive in depicting gay relationships often cop out and go for the safe route of having gay female characters instead.
Exactly. Lesbian relationships are more mainstream and less threatening than gay male couplings..and fantasy fiction that pretend to be progressive in depicting gay relationships often cop out and go for the safe route of having gay female characters instead.I am sure at some level lesbian relationships are a bit safer to pursue than male homosexual ones. At least, I seem to notice more of the former in genre fiction.
However in the most recent AP there is equal representation. at the very least nowadays they seem to be comfortable portraying both types of relationships.
That's probably the case for a lot of genre fiction, and media in general. But what I was trying to say was that I don't think that's the case with Paizo. That is, I don't think that any imbalance toward female vs male homosexual characters in their products is a case of them trying to be less threatening, or trying to go the safe route, or be more mainstream. (If you read the bit from Wes Schneider that I linked to, you'll see he even discusses this issue.)
And again, does anyone have actual numbers to compare? I'm curious as to where they're at at this point in this regard.
Would it be fair to say that there are more gay men than gay women in the world, but far more women subscribe to being bisexual ?
Does that hold true in Golarion as well ?
And you seem to forget one thing, female homosexual relationship is a classic of straight male fantasies, one where they think they can participate, which in reality never happens, it's common in staight porn to have a "saphism" scene, not a male to male scene!
Edited my post (deleted some unnecessary stuff): Wasn't sure if that was addressed to me or not. If it was, I'm not sure what it has to do with I posted.
Well, it wasn't especially addressed to you, it was just about the discussion, I wanted to point out that there's more representations of female to female relationship in the medias because, gay females are a straight male fantasy and most deciders are straight males!
Ah, got you. I wouldn't disagree with that.
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And you seem to forget one thing, female homosexual relationship is a classic of straight male fantasies, one where they think they can participate, which in reality never happens, it's common in staight porn to have a "saphism" scene, not a male to male scene!
And a male homosexual relationship is a classic of straight female fantasies.
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Well, it wasn't especially addressed to you, it was just about the discussion, I wanted to point out that there's more representations of female to female relationship in the medias because, gay females are a straight male fantasy and most deciders are straight males!
I think that's an oversimplification. It makes it seem like the only reason this happens is that the person making the decisions wants some personal wank material. It makes it seem like the issue here is entirely in the minds of a few individuals.
I think there's more going on. One thing is that people are going to produce products that make them money, because capitalism. Making characters that appeal to your customer base is one way to do that. When your customers are mostly straight men, that means appealing to straight men. As another example of this, look at illustrations for tabletop game rulebooks. Much of it is clearly meant to appeal to a straight male audience. If you can appeal to the queer members of your audience while also appealing to the straight men who make up the dominant portion of your audience (by including lesbian and bisexual women as characters), that's good for the health of your product.
Another is that this is self-reinforcing. Someone wants to include queer characters in their product, so they look at how queer people are presented in fiction. They see woman-woman couples so that's what they write into their products. In this way, this phenomenon perpetuates itself.
There's also forces which push against gay and bisexual men being characters. For example, there are people who don't want bisexual/gay male characters in the campaign to hit on their (male) character. This is something I've seen expressed fairly commonly on the internet. Even though this is not a real threat, in this way, queer men are threatening to a lot of the audience. Or consider the people who have a visceral reaction to the thought of male-male sexual behavior. That's also a force pushing against the inclusion of bisexual/gay male characters. Including lesbian or bisexual women as characters sidesteps these sorts of reactions without refusing to include queer characters.
I say just call all creatures on the planet bi and be done with itI honestly do the same with elves, 'All elves are bi' is cannon in my games. I'm not sure how it started but now its so deeply ingrained in my understanding of elves I couldn't take it away!
That's just because even elves can't tell the difference until they are both naked, and it that point it's just more practical to get some then to get dressed again.
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Plus, elves have confusing names, like Lego-lass and Gay-Lad-Driel.
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Taking a step away from the confusion about slavery vs. queer people...
Reviewing some of the thoughts people have had about non-heterosexuals present in published game material, it has struck me how out of date the terms "homosexual" and "homosexuality" are. This is the year 2013 (almost 2014), yet cishets (and maybe non-cishets) are still talking about queer people like they're some sort of strange alien species known only through scientific observations as the elusive Homosexual sapien.
It comes off with the same creepy vibe that I associate to people using the term "female" to describe women. Like, it makes it seem like the speaker has never met a woman, but he will know her when he sees her long mane and distinct glossy nails.
Why do people dodge around the terms people actually use to identify? Why instead are we adopting these pseudo-scientific/objective-sounding terms? It is possible to update our language, and act like we live in the 21st century: part of modern sexuality is the declaration thereof, so let's not avoid the messy business in favor of reductionist heterocentrism.
Basically: What is it that people on Golarion use to identify sexuality, gender, etc?
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:/
I think we're reaching the point again where this is relevant:
** Alice Margatroid's Handy Dandy Guide to LGBT in Pathfinder **
Hi! If you're reading this you're no doubt here to discuss Homosexuality in Golarion. Welcome to the thread. I'm going to quickly counter some of the more common arguments we see talked about here in the interests of actually talking about interesting things from time to time.
** Why are LGBT people being included in Pathfinder?
** But I don't like LGBT people / They go against my religious beliefs / The whole topic makes me feel uncomfortable!
** But isn't this too controversial / political?
LGBT people would also hesitate to say the mere inclusion of reflections of themselves is political; being queer is not a political statement but simply a reality of life for many people.
** But isn't this really anachronistic / reflecting of modern views / out of place for a fantasy game?
Golarion is also not a typical medieval fantasy setting. After all, women are equal to men here; likewise, not every second person you know is dying of the plague or forced into subsistence serfdom. :) In many regards our modern views are indeed supplanted into the world, and this is just one example of many.
** But I just want to kill things and loot their corpses! When would *SEXUALITY* ever come up?
It's honestly just as simple as once in a while including a gay paladin and his theatre-owning lover. It doesn't have to be a big issue at all. Easy peasy.
And if you don't care so much about this stuff? No big deal! Just head back down to the dungeon and have fun.
** I don't want to have sex scenes in my game! That's not appropriate for children / makes me feel uncomfortable / just is kinda weird!
...If you look through history there are plenty of examples of LGBT people. From gay Spartan soldiers to the Hijra of India and numerous other examples in between, LGBT folk have existed in some form or another - although of course not considered in those terms....
Not to dispute the spirit of Alice's response, but the Hijra are a modern group of people. Referencing them as an "example" of a "historic" LGBT is kinda... awful. Not to mention the other terrible implications wrapped up in this instance of orientalist thought.
Who is Alice anyways? Scratch that, I don't care. And I don't want to detract from my earlier question.