Why is the issue of sexual orientation so explosive that the very act of saying the word "gay" or "lesbian" is sometimes against the rules? Bioware found itself on the wrong end of this controversy when a community manager gracelessly began locking threads that discussed the issue, and then claimed that there simply were no gay or lesbian characters in Star Wars. Maybe those words don't exist in galaxies far, far, away, but the characters often do: Bioware themselves created a game with a character who laid down with another woman as with a man.
Sony was a part of a similar controversy after the words "gay" and "Jew" were edited out of Home, the company's social online service for PS3 owners. And Microsoft made headlines when the company banned a player who self-identified as a lesbian, claiming any notice of sexual orientation was against the terms of service.
In some ways it's unfair to take the world of gaming to task for its immature handling of gay and lesbian issues. After all, it's hard to find a game that takes any kind of relationship seriously. This is an art form that knows how to show two people killing each other nearly perfectly, but seems to turn into a bunch of fifth-graders when dealing with a kiss, much less when that kiss is between two men or two women. It's clear that something has to give, although companies only seem to pay attention after receiving the wrong kind of attention for their policies.
This is for your own good
The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation contacted EA over the Bioware issue, and received an e-mail and phone call from the Vice-President of EA. His defense of the actions is interesting, and it highlights the problem even as it shows how sincere EA is in its efforts to "fix" it.
"Filtering the words 'gay' and 'lesbian' was clearly a mistake; but one made with the intention of providing a civil atmosphere for players—certainly including gay and lesbian players," EA wrote. "I hope that you and everyone associated with GLAAD understand that this was a mistake based on a sincere effort to filter hateful language off of our web site, and not to discriminate against anyone in the player community."
Taking away the very words used to discuss the issue would certainly lead to less discrimination, as it just pretends that gay and lesbian players don't exist. If we don't talk about the problem, if we take away the ability to even say the word "gay," we've very efficiently brushed the issued under the carpet. We've shoved gay players back into the closet, and installed a door with no key. Does anyone really believe that the word "lesbian" is hate-speech?
What does who you sleep with have to do with your gaming, anyway?
There is a nasty counter-argument that one often sees in this discussion: why not just keep sexual politics out of the world of gaming?
Taking away the very words used to discuss the issue would certainly lead to less discrimination, as it just pretends that gay and lesbian players don't exist.
"I feel that a lot of 'straight' people take for granted that everyone around them is also straight. They just assume that everyone feels the same way and enjoys the same things they do," Flynn De Marco, the Editor in Chief of GayGamer, told Ars. "This is clearly not the case. Being able to identify as gay or lesbian in an online gaming perspective has its positives and negatives. The negatives being obvious in that they face endless harassment. The positives are that maybe you can connect and play with someone else without having to listen to a litany of gay jokes and 'fag' insults," he explained.
"I would prefer to play with people of a like mindset as me, gay or straight. Wouldn't you?"
There is also the subtle change in context that happens when you censor a word: it risks creating the impression that the very act of being who you are in the game constitutes a threat to the community. The attitude behind the censorship seems to be that gamers who aren't straight need to sit down and shut up about it, but of course this is for their own protection.
"I think that in one way [gaming companies] are trying to avoid any controversy or use of the words as derogatory," De Marco noted. "On the other hand I think it shows an extreme short sighted-ness and a bit of ignorance as to who some of their customers or potential customers may be. Accidentally repressing GLBT visibility in forums, even with good intentions, only makes it safer and more acceptable to use hate speech. Visibility is key to equality."
Does gay and lesbian content need to be disclosed?
With same-sex marriage being a hot-button issue in the US at the moment—and some groups claiming that same-sex marriage could hurt the American family—what would gay and lesbian content do to the rating of a game? We reached out to the Entertainment Software Ratings Board and asked if game ratings differentiated between different kinds of sexual content.
"We've encountered the issue of same-sex content before—the boy-boy kiss in Bully being one example—and, as with any sort of suggestive or sexual content, there is always thoughtful discourse as to how best to address it from a ratings perspective," Eliot Mizrachi of the ESRB told Ars. "While there aren't any content descriptors that specifically identify same-sex content, our raters are trained to consider these types of elements within the context of the overall game, and to weigh those factors, among others, when deliberating about which rating and content descriptors would be most appropriate."
We also asked Common Sense Media how they dealt with gay or lesbian content when giving parents guidance on which games and movies are appropriate for their children. "Our philosophy is that all parents are different. We're here to make you a better parent," Marisa Connolly, Communications Manager of Common Sense Media told Ars. "We want to provide as much information as we can, just literally saying here is the content. Here is what goes on in the movie, how much, how explicit it is. Here's how much drinking, those sorts of things."
The content is noted, but like the ESRB, these issues don't affect the guidance on the media. "The idea is to be as objective as we can possible be, we say it's there, but we don't to my knowledge... if it's explicit, we would give it the same ratings as heterosexual activities. We do mention it because we do know that everyone parents differently."
Gaming needs to grow up, in more ways that just this one
"I definitely feel that the LGBT issues are part of the larger issue of gaming's immature treatment of sex," De Marco said. "I would also say that this applies to the US in general when it comes to sex. It's such a huge taboo here, when in other countries they are more worried about things like kids being exposed to violence."
The problem is that while gaming may treat sexuality as a whole clumsily, non-traditional sexual roles in gaming are treated borderline offensively. "At the same time, the immature treatment of LGBT issues goes way beyond the treatment of straight sex. Many of the 'gay' characters seen in games are pure negative stereotype, much like many ethnic depictions," De Marco claims. "People want to suppress or marginalize what they don't understand. Gaming reaches many walks of life, to be certain, but I think we all know that many games are taken in by impressionable young people who need to be taught that everyone they meet in the world is not a walking stereotype. It would be great to see the industry start taking some responsibility about the lessons it is teaching young gamers."
The problem is that we're so far away from having a reasonable discourse on the subject that the very words used to describe it are being treated as toxic in gaming and in official fora. Online gaming is a social activity where anyone can be anything they want, and people are free to explore new ideas and to meet new people. By limiting or even removing the ability to take part in, much less discuss at all, same sex relationships, we're putting an artificial barrier on expression and open communication.
If you can't be yourself in an online game or community, where can you? Gaming should be an escape, a diversion, and a safe place to play. It's certainly the first two things, but the third is a much harder trick. Simply forcing gay and lesbian gamers into silence, however, isn't the answer.
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