I generally try to refrain from blogging about gay issues because, well, I'm tired of them. But, when surfing the web this morning during my lunch hour, I came across this little headline on the BBC-online: "Gay players win rights battle in Warcraft game world."
It would seem, from this BBC article (and I refuse to take the time to research this further), that one of the major characters on the Shadow Moon server created a guild called Oz. Not as in the prison, not like the country, but as in "the land of Oz." If you know anything about gay culture (which might be very different from the gay people you may or may not know), you know that Dorothy and the land of Oz are a huge ... umm ... obsession. To make things perfectly clear to those folks who aren't up on their gay culture, Shimmre (the character on Warcraft who began the guild), described the guild as being set-up to be welcoming and open to the GLBT community. (gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgendered ... otherwise known as the alphabet soup)
"She was threatedned with being banned from the game if she continued to advertise the Oz guild using such language."
Now, look, I actually applaud "Shimmre" for starting up the guild. She said she'd noticed a lot of homophobic comments in the gaming environment and wanted to do something to make GLBT folk feel more at home. No one is asking any of these players to identify as gay (so far as I can tell from this article). Joining the guild doesn't mean the player is GLBT or that the character they're playing is GLBT. It's essentially a promise to not treat GLBT folks poorly just for being GLBT. It's not promoting an "unhealthy" lifestyle; it's saying 'we're not gonna make fun of you if that's how you are.'
I used to play on MUDdog, an early early precursor to the kinds of online games that spawned Warcraft. I know that when you get a bunch of gamers together, they socialize. Eventually, Elspeth finds Skif, they talk about the game and then they start talking about their "real lives." They have a whirlwind internet romance and maybe they even start travelling across the country to meet each other in "real life." Maybe their characters get married in the game. Maybe they even get married in real life.
I've seen it happen before. And, I've seen it work.
So, when someone tries to say that "sex" should be kept out of the game, I'll agree with that. However, the point of an online game is relationships. Sure, most of those relationships are simple friendships. Some folks will find people they can't stand and become enemies in the game. Some of those people will carry that out into actually despising each other as people and not just characters.
Such is the nature of relationships.
But to suppose that simply identifying oneself as GLBT is to "advertise" your sexuality ... now there I will disagree.
If nothing else, it's simple truth in advertising. If Vanyel and Elspeth are chatting and discover they like each other, should Vanyel never tell Elspeth that he's gay? Telling someone that you really like on friends level that you just want to stay friends ... well, isn't that the running joke? How frustrating it is to hear, "Let's just be friends"?? To never identify yourself as gay is to eventually make everyone question your sexuality and it often becomes a much bigger deal than if you'd just said it at the beginning. People notice that Stefen never flirts with the girls ... that he hangs around with the other guys ... and they begin to gossip, hey, maybe he's queer.
When that detail stays hidden, it tends to bring out the worst in a lot of people. On the other hand, while Kyle might make all sorts of homophobic comments about the ambiguous Stefen, he might never say a word against the out Vanyel.
All of this rambling is just to say this: who freaking cares if there's a guild on Warcraft that advertises as gay-friendly? What damn difference does it make?
Now, if we're concerned with cyber-sex in the game, then fine. I've got issues with that whether the characters or players are gay or straight. (Unless the game is 18 and up and clearly marked where this type of thing is acceptable within the confines of the game. Then I still have issues, but I'll keep 'em to myself as they're my issues and shouldn't affect anyone else! ;) )
I'm just not sure why being honest about the fact that you prefer the company of the same sex makes people go crazy nuts. It's not like it's contagious. It's not like they're forcing someone to witness or participate in a sexual interaction.
And, I'm really not sure why this was so important as to be front-page news for the BBC!! Geez, it's just a frickin' game, folks.
Comments are open. (And always moderated, but unless they are spam or terribly abusive, I don't edit or delete them.)
Posted by Red Monkey at February 13, 2006 10:33 AM |
Never Underestimate the Power of Human Stupidity
| 
Stumble |
I didn't know this was an issue in the gaming world, Red. Everything you said makes perfect sense to me. Please excuse any typos--I can't read what I'm typing on this backgground. Probably an Opera issue.
February 14, 2006 10:41 AMotilius said:
isn't everybody in England gay anyway? just kidding, of course--don't burn the US embassy...oh, too late for that...
February 14, 2006 11:45 AMpresentstorm said:
Happy Valentine's day ender !!!! * Hugs *
February 14, 2006 9:39 PMPoonanny said:
Why would you write about that crap?
February 15, 2006 2:51 PMRed Monkey said:
why not? ... and why is it crap?
February 15, 2006 3:58 PM
Leave a comment
Dave said: