D&D 5E D&D Promises to Make the Game More Queer

Libramarian said:

Does mainstream culture really "normalize" heterosexuality per se? Or is it more precisely monogamous pair bonding? If it's the latter, normalizing gay relationships without propaganda is a challenge because gay men by and large are not monogamous. About half of gay couples are openly non-monogamous. That's about an order of magnitude higher than the rate in hetero relationships. That's a huge cultural difference. Gay relationships in real life look different from hetero relationships, so depicting them accurately is not as easy as swapping out an NPC's wife for another man.

To consistently depict gay relationships in a misleading way that emphasizes their similarities to hetero ones and downplays their differences, for the purpose of "raising comfort levels" about gays and gay marriage, literally is propaganda. Relatively benign propaganda in my view, but still, that's what the word means.

I support the inclusion of gay characters in D&D products, but it smells a bit fishy when they always seem to be "more hetero than the heteros" -- e.g. you meet a pair of older gay men raising a child, etc. I would like to see them depicted in a way, at least once in a while, that acknowledges the fact that they're far more promiscuous and romantically hedonistic.

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You're repeated this stupid talking point several times. Do you have any functional idea of why homosexuals are less monogamous as a group?

Could it have anything at all to do with the fact that it was ILLEGAL for them to participate in the "pair bonding" tradition of marriage until 20-FRICKEN-16! AKA LAST YEAR? And that many States are still trying to strip them of that right? Do you have any idea what that does to the pysche and the desire for a stable, continuous relationshp when you are told you're a second-class citizen who cannot participate in our Western traditions?

No. You don't. In fact I doubt you understand what you're even arguing. I suspect you heard a talking point from someone and have been beating the drum ever since without actually doing any reading on the subject.

FrogReaver said:

Okay I think I get what you are saying. See, that's where mutual respect comes in. Unlike so many here you have it!

1. So what if I was to suggest that in order to respect that I may could learn to live with some of it. But what if I requested you be a little more concentious when doing that and try to keep it relatively short and simple?

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Public displays of affection (whether herero- or homosexual) should be relatively short, simple, or both so as to avoid becoming so over the top that "get a room" becomes an appropriate comment to make (again, regardless of hetero- or homosexuality).

Hugging? Fine.
Holding hands? Fine.
Those small touches on the arm, shoulder, leg, knee, and back that people do? Fine.
Kissing? Fine.
Prolonged cutesy talk back and forth? Ugh. You have a right to do it, but if I hear it go on for more than a couple seconds (regardless of whether the couple is hetero- or homosexual) I'm going to roll my eyes and quietly say horrible things about them in my head.
Making out? You should probably get a room.

Yunru said:

Honestly I just don't get gay pride parades. Are they for promoting an end to sexual orientation stigma, or they just "We're gay and proud"?

Because the former is a cause I support, but the latter is an example of "Good for you, stop waving it in my face."

I understand "coming out" to family and friends, but total strangers?

Of course if it's the former then... well I can't think of any other examples of that behaviour.

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False dichotomy. It's not an either/or, as far as I've seen. It's both. And more than both. The Gay Pride Parade in SF, the only one I've been to in person, is basically a big excuse for a party in addition to supporting diversity. Many of the participants aren't even gay. Participants included Righteously Outrageous Twirling Corps and Netflix.

shidaku said:

You're repeated this stupid talking point several times. Do you have any functional idea of why homosexuals are less monogamous as a group?

Could it have anything at all to do with the fact that it was ILLEGAL for them to participate in the "pair bonding" tradition of marriage until 20-FRICKEN-16! AKA LAST YEAR? And that many States are still trying to strip them of that right? Do you have any idea what that does to the pysche and the desire for a stable, continuous relationshp when you are told you're a second-class citizen who cannot participate in our Western traditions?

No. You don't. In fact I doubt you understand what you're even arguing. I suspect you heard a talking point from someone and have been beating the drum ever since without actually doing any reading on the subject.

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To be honest (and I could easily be wrong) I always chalked it up to the fact that a significant minority of men (gay or straight) are horn dogs who want to have sex with as many partners as they can manage. It's just that straight men tend to have partners (i.e. women) who don't want them to do that. So they either control their urges, or pretend to and cheat on their partners (or simply don't have a significant other and "play the field") whenever the opportunity presents itself.

Gay men are just more likely to have partners who share their desires than straight men, because their partners are other men. So they don't have to hide it.

(And yes, I know about swingers and open relationships. And that a certain subset of women also prefer multiple partners. This is all talking about different minorities within minorities.)

MechaPilot said:

Public displays of affection (whether herero- or homosexual) should be relatively short, simple, or both so as to avoid becoming so over the top that "get a room" becomes an appropriate comment to make (again, regardless of hetero- or homosexuality).

Hugging? Fine.
Holding hands? Fine.
Those small touches on the arm, shoulder, leg, knee, and back that people do? Fine.
Kissing? Fine.
Prolonged cutesy talk back and forth? Ugh. You have a right to do it, but if I hear it go on for more than a couple seconds (regardless of whether the couple is hetero- or homosexual) I'm going to roll my eyes and quietly say horrible things about them in my head.
Making out? You should probably get a room.

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I can go along with your list of actions. But I wasn't talking so much about what actions are acceptable but how much and how often and how long they are being done. Is it possible to meet halfway on that?

Before the thread is closed, I'd love to talk about myself for a minute and why I'm glad this thread lasted as long as it did.

Some of the things being said against the decision to include open LGBT characters (not just allusions). We're things that I said growing up. I fully believed them. "It's okay for gay people to exist, I don't want to hurt them, but I wish they didn't rub my face in it", or "I don't walk around saying, 'hi, I'm straight', so why do they need to advertise that they're gay."

Talks like this really helped me to open my eyes. Without getting political, read or watch some of Harvey Milk's speeches. Those were what started to turn me. Since people are assumed to be straight in American society (among other traits), not coming out serves those who would rather ignore their existence.

And this was before I realized that much of my issues with myself were because I am transgender. I came to the realization late in life. A lot of my previous views could have been echoes of true homophobia, or they could have been just me echoing the people around me.

Inclusive representation is important to those who are told that they shouldn't be there. To ask gay people to "not bring that up" because it makes some straight people uncomfortable is wrong. It only says that society doesn't want them to exist.

I thank you to everyone who was supportive of inclusion of LGBT characters in D&D. I hope there were silent readers who learned something. I hope there are some players out there who read those little character bits and get a surge of pride because there's someone like them in the game they like.

And I hope that those against it take away something from this thread. Maybe they'll think on it and gain a new perspective.


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shidaku said:

You're repeated this stupid talking point several times. Do you have any functional idea of why homosexuals are less monogamous as a group?

Could it have anything at all to do with the fact that it was ILLEGAL for them to participate in the "pair bonding" tradition of marriage until 20-FRICKEN-16! AKA LAST YEAR? And that many States are still trying to strip them of that right? Do you have any idea what that does to the pysche and the desire for a stable, continuous relationshp when you are told you're a second-class citizen who cannot participate in our Western traditions?

No. You don't. In fact I doubt you understand what you're even arguing. I suspect you heard a talking point from someone and have been beating the drum ever since without actually doing any reading on the subject.

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Are you having a stroke or something? I've only posted about this twice in the entire thread. If you want a response from me, chill out for a bit and make your point in a less inflammatory way.

If you don't want a response, please post without quoting me so I'm not notified.

Caliban said:

To be honest (and I could easily be wrong) I always chalked it up to the fact that a significant minority of men (gay or straight) are horn dogs who want to have sex with as many partners as they can manage. It's just that straight men tend to have partners (i.e. women) who don't want them to do that. So they either control their urges, or pretend to and cheat on their partners (or simply don't have a significant other and "play the field") whenever the opportunity presents itself.

Gay men are just more likely to have partners who share their desires than straight men, because their partners are other men. So they don't have to hide it.

(And yes, I know about swingers and open relationships. And that a certain subset of women also prefer multiple partners. This is all talking about different minorities within minorities.)

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I don't think I've ever actually met a homosexual person (who wasn't obviously a player, which is not limited to gays obviously) who didn't want to get married. But it was illegal. So they didn't. After a while, they just lost sight of that goal.

In any event, articles like the one Libraman linked are used for ONE purpose. To deny homosexuals equality. To paint them as a group of a sexual deviants who don't want to have marriage. Who don't want to have apple pie, America and freedom. Studies are studies. But the articles that wax on about them are almost entirely written for the purpose of getting it into people's heads that homosexuals as somehow "different" and when you get humans (who are on the whole, idiots) to start thinking a group is "different" then they start becoming okay with treating them as non-humans.

So really it doesn't matter what the cause is, what the reasoning is, what matters is understanding why the talking point is being repeated. We live in a seriously screwed up society when it comes to sex, where men and women are encouraged to both have lots of sex, and never have sex and talk about it all the time, and never talk about. So by all accounts: if homosexuals are having more sex with more people more often...aren't they winning? Because that's how screwed up our society is.

Libramarian said:

Are you having a stroke or something? I've only posted about this twice in the entire thread. If you want a response from me, chill out for a bit and make your point in a less inflammatory way.

If you don't want a response, please post without quoting me so I'm not notified.

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I don't really care if you respond. Your literal only contribution to this thread has been to essentially post the same thing twice. Which means you have an angle, and that angle isn't construction discussion, so I don't see why I should care about having a constructive discussion with you.

FrogReaver said:

Considering you already drove away everyone of a similar opinion to mine it's probably time you go ahead and finish the job. Congrats on the ideological echo chamber you just made!

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Thank you! That's very kind. Although I didn't just make it - I made it 17 years ago.

Please enjoy whichever forum it is you end up on which lets you to be mean to gay people. I won’t be visiting, though. As I've said before, when somebody leaves your community because you made an inclusivity statement, you can't help but feel you just gained something.