Long before I was out as a gay man (I don’t recall a time when I wasn’t “out” as a gamer), I remember a conversation with my friend Jeff. We had been playing Dungeons & Dragons together regularly for some time, and the players were various friends of ours. At some point, the conversation took an odd turn.
“Do you think Mike is gay?” he asked, meaning another of our friends.
For a moment, I had a panic attack. Why was he asking me? Was it because he thought I was gay?
“I…um…why would you think that?” I asked, trying to be nonchalant.
“Well, he always plays female characters.”
I never found out if Mike was gay (not that there’s anything wrong with that!), but the stereotype of it haunted me for years. See, I’m about as gay as they come, and I almost always play male characters. My husband, also pretty gay, almost always plays male characters. But I’ve also known gay people who play mostly women, straight guys who prefer female characters, bisexual guys and gals who tend to pick one or another…
The point is, there doesn’t seem to be a stereotype to follow.
Another odd stereotype I’ve hit during games is the idea that gay guys tend to play foppish or effeminate characters, or characters who are themselves gay. Currently, I’m playing two characters in regular games.
One is Rukh, a huge, bearish half-orc paladin, who I think of as being kind of hunky. But I know Rukh thinks of his human mother as being the pinnacle of beauty, and I’m sure he’s pretty darned straight. My halfling rogue, Toby, is fairly disinterested, or at least feigns disinterest. I suspect he’s straight, but it really hasn’t come up.
On the other hand, my favorite character of all time, Skittle, the mouse pooka from my friend Whitt’s game of Changeling: the Dreaming, is definitely gay. And Will, the bard NPC I’ve been playing for 5+ years in my LARP, The Isles, is bisexual, leaning towards gay. These were both games where role-playing has been more intense, personal, and pervasive than in my recent D&D games, and I know how these characters swing.
Now, maybe it’s me. After all, I’ve been told that I don’t “act gay.” (If I know the person well-enough, my standard joke is that I could have gay sex in front of them, if that would help put things in perspective.) I know what they mean, though; I’m not terribly effeminate, and I don’t act like the wacky gay neighbor in various sitcoms. The fact that I have a deep, basso-profundo speaking voice tends to throw them, too.
I don’t actually live up to a lot of gay stereotypes. I don’t have a lisp. I don’t call many people “girlfriend”. I have fairly terrible taste in clothing (thank God my husband doesn’t). I don’t really enjoy going clubbing (although I do like to dance). I don’t drink; I don’t smoke. What do I do? (Yes, that was an Adam Ant reference. So sue me.)
Well, I do love Broadway shows. That counts, right? And I weep openly at movies, especially Disney animated features, those manipulative bastards! And I’m sexually attracted to men. That’s the defining one, after all. Is that enough for me to hit my gay quotient? I just don’t want to lose my toaster oven. (And yes that’s an Ellen reference. What’re you, keeping score?)
If I have a point, buried somewhere in this morass of jokes and references, it’s that in this, as in so many other things, the stereotypes break down. We often play characters in role-playing games to have a turn at being that which we are not or that we cannot be. I’ve played a foppish bard in a game of D&D, sure. I’ve also played a shy wizard who slowly wooed a lady warrior. I’ve played a rogue who dallied with all manner of ladies. I’ve played a blunt barbarian whose idea of romance was a nasty grin and an inappropriate comment. I let the nature of the character inform my role-playing, rather than thinking, “Oh, wait…I’m gay. Better have my fighter flirt with the stable-hand instead of the bar-maid.”
When I create a character for a game, I’m a gamer first and a gay man second.
How About You?
Do your RPG characters reflect your gender and/or sexuality or do you decide on a character-by-character basis?
About GGG
The stereotype/myth that a guy that plays female characters is gay is probably one of the oldest in gaming. I’ve been gaming since 1978, and dealing with that myth since 1979. I like girls. I like playing girls as characters. My wife (Geek’s Dream Girl’s own c) says I play a pretty darn good female character, too. I also play male characters. It depends on my mood at the time of character creation really. One of my all time favorite characters is a female halfling bard NPC I use in the solo game I run just for c. Rachael is such a fave of mine that two weeks ago I had her tattooed on my right arm. Not the name, but the actual character image.
I guess my point is, gamers are gamers and their real-life sexual preferences have very little to do with their gaming preferences. When you ended your column with the line about being a gamer first, gay man second, that’s about the best way you could describe it, and a similar line, phrased to suit each gamers gender and preference, should describe us all.
While I usually play female characters (straight or bi – I don’t recall ever playing a lesbian), I like to play male characters as well. Those male characters have been everything from an incredibly shy/sheltered half-elf ranger who was totally devoted to his wife, to a salty old sea dog of a human wizard with a peg leg and gruff demeanor to match, to a bishounen-esque drow summoner who liked the boys as much as he liked the girls. One of my GMs is starting up a Star Wars d6 game soon, and I think I’m going to play a male Tagorian.
In my experience, when a girl plays a male character, people may tilt their head and say, “That’s different,” but no one questions their sexuality. I haven’t had that happen to me, at any rate. I wonder what the difference is.
Amusing that you picked a WoW poster for the header (or perhaps that was E’s doing?) – from what I gather, the major reason men play women in that game is because female characters get tons of free stuff from besotted fanboys.
Of course, not that I’ve ever see it happen. My big butch female orc hunter has sadly gone without any romantic interest or legions of followers. Except for that one gnome. He was… an odd little man. o_O
On the topic in question, I think it’s fair to say that we all play characters that appeal to us, but the fault of the stereotype is a very narrow definition of “appeal”. We only play characters that match our sexuality! We only play characters we’d want to sleep with! We only play characters who are like us! Who we’d like to be like! And on and on and on. Of course, that’s all very silly. Every character appeals to us in a different way… and heck, we even want different kinds of appeal based on our mood! Hence why I have a stable of badass warriors, perfect diplomats, versions of me, and a good selection of bishies to swoon over.
So in other words, yes, I agree that the idea of making judgements about a player’s sexuality (heck, about a player’s *anything*) based on their character is silly. About all you can judge is that, for whatever reason, the player likes the character, goshdarnit!
@c: I sometimes think the reason why women-playing-men is acceptable while men-playing-woman is not (or is a sign of “gayness”) is because… I dunno, some men seem to fear the idea of feminization? That by having a feminine aspect, they’re somehow being less manly? Whereas the same is not true for a woman (i.e. girls can have “masculine” elements but aren’t really considered less of a woman for it). To those men who think that playing a woman, or being “womanly”, is bad, they should check out my bishonen article. ;D
I personally have never played a male character in D&D. I started a male character on Wow once, but I got bored with him after 20 lvls. My husband on the other hand does lean towards female characters. For online gaming he says if he is going to be looking at his character a lot then he should like the way it looks (and I agree). In real life games he has played both and just likes to mix it up. I admire his ability to play just about anything because I have struggled at role playing (my first campaign was closer to roll-playing) so making the switch has been hard if I can’t for my character. This is what I think causes this stereotype because most non-gamers aren’t able to create a character and role play. Thus if you have a character it must be like you. But in reality being able to be someone else is one of biggest appeals about gaming because you can be anything (gender, sexuality, personality, physically, ect).
I don’t think I’ve ever actually encountered the notion that men playing female characters do so because they’re gay.
This certainly doesn’t match my experience–only two of the 10 or so gay roleplayers I know regularly play female characters, while I know several straight dudes who play nothing else.
As far as the taboos against women playing men, I think it’s a “That Guy” problem. Everybody’s played a game with That Guy, or knows somebody who has. That Guy probably doesn’t interact very much with actual girls, and his characterization of one is painful to see–full of stereotypes and sexual frustration and general creepiness.
I think women playing men is more readily accepted because there’s never really a “That Girl” problem.
Do your RPG characters reflect your gender and/or sexuality or do you decide on a character-by-character basis?
I grew up as a writer before I started PnP rpgs, so I’ve made a number of characters who are different from me, because to me it’s very interesting exploring how someone with a different mind-space would respond to things. Some of those characters share my gender, and some do not. It never bothered me, nor did it cause any trouble at the tables I played with.
I started making exclusively female characters after my boyfriend I and started gaming together as a couple. We always make our characters very close, and he has no interest in making a female character. I don’t think he’d have a problem if I made a dude sorcerer to be BFFs with his paladin, but I suspect our new gaming group wouldn’t be nearly so open-minded.
Hmm. This makes me question my relationship with my gaming group, and whether I want to spend 10-hours every weekend with people I apparently consider close-minded bigots.
When someone brings that stereotype up and if they aren’t talking about how dumb it is, I tend to tune it out.
One of my guy friends almost always plays a female character (a female gnome exactly, and it’s a long story, so don’t ask) but he’s definitely straight. I’m also a gay gamer and I’ve only played one gay character in all my time playing RPGs, a tough paladin of St. Cuthbert who loved the male cleric of St. Cuthbert in the part ever since childhood, but would never admit it. I, like most people, let the character’s personality and concept define what is it’s sexuality, not me.
I’ve always based character creation on a cool concept or the dice (which usually leads to a fun concept). If the concept lends itself better to a female then a male… so be it.
Haha, I’ll play just about anything under the sun! (That sounds almost wrong, but…)
Female, male, gay, bi, straight… whatever the character tells me, I run with. I prefer playing bi characters because of the flexibility (sue me for saying it… it’s a perk!), and because I better understand them, but I can play anything without getting unhinged.
I join shyDM in being a writer first, RPGer later, and I can attest to the fact that when creating a character in a short story, it’s the voice that comes out first, not the gender/race/sexual orientation. I happen to like writing from a male voice, so most of my protagonists are male, but this doesn’t mean I want to be a man or am attracted to women.
I’m currently playing my first RPG and, contrary to my literary voice, found that the voice of my halfling bard was female and, thanks to a couple of nice illustrations and figures, dark-skinned (I’m about as white as they come). I like that I chose a female, becuase I usually create male characters on the page, and I think that my writing and RPGing are complimentary in that way. I’m learning that to really appreciate any role playing, just like fiction writing, you have to let the characters and world take over and run the show with limited direct interference of out-of-game presumptions. And if you can’t, and they don’t, it’s not as worthwhile of an experience.
I can also say that while I have not had the pleasure of seeing GGG play a game of D&D, his husband kicks all kinds of monster butt as a dwarf monk who occasionally wanders into a brothel if time permits – definitely a gamer first and foremost.