Concerning Sexuality Choices in Video Games

Life is Strange 2 Episode 3: Wastelands

After finishing the second Life is Strange game, I delved briefly into different playthroughs (I can't totally remember why, maybe to figure out some choice routes, maybe just plain curiosity) and was struck very suddenly with dissatisfaction at how others had approached it all. Obviously, I was always going to favour my choices because they were mine. They reflected my values and preferences and were indicative of the ways I had super-imposed myself onto the main character, but I began to see then just how differently others had done so. 

I started drafting a much more accusatory version of this post some time ago, but the further I dove into things the more I felt my arguments to be unspecific and ill-conceived. It went something like this: a straight man tasked with the choice between a male and female love interest will very often choose the woman, valuing the gender relation between himself  and the NPC over the character's resulting identity.  I still think there's something to this mind you, but that it's better framed differently. A straight man who is generally accepting of queer people is only willing to perform that acceptance in ways that are passably straight. Beneath his display of care is a quiet disgust with the possibility of himself being queer. Re-reading that, it's not news, but it was extraordinarily frustrating to see it manifested again. When the player-character is a woman, he stumbles through a short acknowledgement of how important and sweet it is to see "this kind" of representation, but that same sweetness flies in the face of  a same-sex romance between men.

It's important to note that there are several factors at play here. I've not seen nor played many games wherein a male lead can romance a man, but that's precisely the point. They don't make it because the available audience for such a thing is far smaller. Lesbians are acceptable, of course, because that's twice the women to gawk at and they're kind-of-almost straight men anyways, right? Certainly closer than a queer man could ever be in the eyes of his heterosexual counter-part. In an equally frustrating way, a queer female lead allows straight men to retain a comfortable level of masculinity as the sapphic relationship, however misunderstood by them, is more open in its novelty than the alternative. To play as a woman means he must either accept the woman's role in a straight relationship, which he has been socialised against for its un-manliness, or enter a same-sex relationship wherein he lacks understanding of the dynamic entirely. Without precedent knowledge, he might impose his own experience and construct a reality for himself where he is "the man in the relationship" thereby affirming his identity through the same-sex romance option. We can assume, then, that his trouble is not a dislike of heterosexual dynamics, but the thought of playing a less dominant role within them. To justify this as learned insecurity, while fine for context's sake, is to call internalized homophobia by another name.

What follows is a significant leap in logic, but one I feel important to expressing my vehement distaste for this whole affair.  Enter Leon Kennedy of Resident Evil: Requiem. He's longstanding, held close to the hearts of players by nostalgia, and now, aged into a burlier, weathered version of himself. Almost every youtuber and streamer plays up a reaction to him on first appearance without issue and this is partially because the idea of being attracted to a man as a man is just so terribly funny. The response suggests a separation in comfortability between romantic and sexual attraction that manifests itself in public perception of queer folks on the whole. Same-sex couples are routinely sexualized and in this context, the player delegitimizes their own attraction by framing it as lacking in emotional intimacy. It's unserious and therefore non-threatening in comparison to the choice in love interest, so we get the sense that thought-based attraction is okay, but action is condemning. Something in the realm of catholic school teachings in the 2010's— you cannot change that you're gay, but you can remain righteous if only you do not act like it. Where the player seats themselves is also playing a part here, in that attraction to the player-character might be self-flattery, but the former is not. It's a great deal of deniability for the representation they so love.

All that to say the pattern among streamers sits in the back of my mind. I'm willing to admit my reactions aren't totally fair. I expect people to signal acceptance before baring myself to them, but it's hard to feel happy about it when I so clearly see the limits of their kindness. I do not and will not celebrate the tolerance of straight folks though I recognize my good fortune in receiving it, and the solution is not to simply play games myself because the problem is not that I can't find a playthrough I like. The only conclusion I could come to borders on embarrassing to write. As the invisible man living in your mind, every action towards progress is positioned in relation to a history of inequity. So shame forever dogs the step of my YouTube history and I stay at a gentle simmer.