Mass Effect: Double Standards on females

[Juno]

A British Board of Film Classification description page reveals some potential sexual prejudice in Mass Effect, although it's not the type you might expect. According to the description, players using a female character can initiate a sex scene "between her and male human or a female humanoid alien." Male characters, on the other hand, can only initiate sex "between him and a human woman or a humanoid female alien." If we're reading that right, it means the game allows for alien lesbian sex, but not any type of male-on-male sex. Furthermore, all non-alien sex has to be heterosexual.

The same-sex love issue is by now well-tread territory for BioWare -- most fans know by now that Juhani from Knights of the Old Republic is a lesbian and Jade Empire allowed same-sex romance for both genders. So why should it be different in Mass Effect? Does BioWare think that their audience will clamor for girl-on-alien-girl action while recoiling from man-on-man love? And why is lesbian sex only OK if it involves another species? Is this some sort of compromise to avoid a Bully-style controversy?

We'll have to wait until the final version of Mass Effect to see if the BBFC description is accurate, but as it stands now this odd double standard makes us wonder if the game will be a step forward or back for sexual politics.

Souce: http://www.joystiq.com/2007/09/18/ma...emain-vanilla/
BBFC: http://www.bbfc.co.uk/website/Classi...on=1#_Section1

I know this article is 2 days old but I did search Mass Effect and lesbians and found nothing.

What do you think? Did the BBFC misword it or is this really what it seems? While I hope this thread doesn't turn into a homophobe fest, I must say while it doesn't affect me, that it would be stupid to not include Male-Male in the final game. It would further the stereotype of gamers of being male only. I hope Mass Effect sort this out. I believe there should be either Male-Male and Female-Female or no same gender sex at all.

[Darth Daver]

I agree Juno. It is strange how on paper the game seems to be discriminating. I'm surprised that it's Microsofts game too, I thought they were more forward thinking than that.

Okay, well 90% of gamers playing ME will be male and 95% of us don't want to see gay scenes anyway. Les scenes, however, 100% of males want to see that!!!

[Mallhew]

Originally Posted by Tanis

Okay, well 90% of gamers playing ME will be male and 95% of us don't want to see gay scenes anyway. Les scenes, however, 100% of males want to see that!!!

No. It's the same 95% you belong to.

On the whole, however, I think the fact that the majority of gamers playing this game are heterosexual males justifies this decision. After all, it's not like they're giving the nix to homosexuality completely, they're just providing the softcore xbox porn they think the most people playing the game will want.

[Matthew]

Devs are lazy, didn't implement male aliens, QQ, PS3, etc

[Azt3k]

Mass Effect is now fapping material confirmed!!!

[Darth Daver]

They should've just made the aliens homogeneous.

[Juno]

Originally Posted by Mallhew

On the whole, however, I think the fact that the majority of gamers playing this game are heterosexual males justifies this decision. After all, it's not like they're giving the nix to homosexuality completely, they're just providing the softcore xbox porn they think the most people playing the game will want.

It doesn't justify it at all, it's descrimination. BioWare would lose nothing from not implementing it if they are already having female on female. I bet you there are way, way more gay gamers than you think. I remember a survey some guy sent out a while ago for gay gamers and he got back roughly 10x as many responses as he expected. Even GAF has a substantial gay community and we have at least one homosexual member.

Originally Posted by Tanis

Okay, well 90% of gamers playing ME will be male and 95% of us don't want to see gay scenes anyway. Les scenes, however, 100% of males want to see that!!!

Even if this was the case, why can't they implement it? BioWare would be fully aware that the target audience will be males but what would they lose for implementing male-male? Nothing and what would they gain? The respect of an entire community and a massive step towards gaming being considered a mature form of entertainment.

Originally Posted by xAztekx

Mass Effect is now fapping material confirmed!!!

Yeah, there's a topless scene.

[Azt3k]

Awesome!!

[Rainbow]

Originally Posted by Juno

It doesn't justify it at all, it's descrimination. BioWare would lose nothing from not implementing it if they are already having female on female. I bet you there are way, way more gay gamers than you think. I remember a survey some guy sent out a while ago for gay gamers and he got back roughly 10x as many responses as he expected. Even GAF has a substantial gay community and we have at least one homosexual member.

Not gonna give names, because at least one of them wants to remain anonymous that I know of, and the other one, well I don't know, but I know for sure of one gay guy here and one bisexual guy here, and of course there's me. But yeah, overall I'm sure there are more homosexual players than people might think, after all, how are people supposed to know if a player is gay or straight when you play against them (unless they just say it, but with all those gay bashing insults that are rampant in the online communities, I doubt anyone would actually say "I'm gay" to total random players on XBL).


And about Mass Effect itself... well I do indeed find it stupid that they'd include those sexual combinaisons... plus, where's the human female + alien male one? Clearly, they are lacking many possible combinaisons, and that's stupid. Either include them all or include just the human heterosexual ones... or even not at all.