I had a sudden encounter with homophobia in the relatively recent past. It kind of came out of nowhere, and, ironically, I didn’t know about it until afterwards. Dealing with it, however, reminded me that it’s still out there, even amongst gamers, who I think of as some of the nicest and most accepting people there are.
I was involved with a gaming event recently. I don’t want to cause a scene, point fingers, or have people guessing. Suffice to say it was a big game with a lot of players that I was involved with. All of a sudden, we realized that two other people who were involved were gone. We assumed they’d had other obligations, their absence didn’t stop the game from going, and so we played on, oblivious. It wasn’t until later that someone said that they’d left because they were uncomfortable with all of the open gay couples that were also involved.
When I heard that, I felt like I’d been gut-punched. Had I seen some PDAs from the gay couples? Sure, I had. But no more than I’d been seeing from the straight couples. Could this be true? We did some digging, and innocently asked the person who’d invited them if he knew why they’d left? Had they been having a good time? He said he hadn’t spoken to them, but, without us asking if they’d been uncomfortable, their friend mentioned that he thought that one of the people who’d left was homophobic, and he suspected that’s why’d they’d gone.
Hearing such a thing just makes my stomach ache. It gets me mad, sad, and confused at the same time. So since the fallout is fresh in my mind, I thought I’d ruminate over the subject, as painful as it is to me and many others.
First off, the word homophobia is pretty silly. Taken literally from the Greek, it means “fear of the same”. What it has come to mean, of course, is a wide-ranging category of negative attitudes towards homosexuals, lesbians, and so on. A lot of homophobic behavior I’ve seen has been anything but fearful.
A homophobe walking into one of my gaming groups, the LARP I help run, or just about any other local gaming anything in the Boston area is likely in for a shock. My normal gaming groups include homosexuals, bisexuals, lesbians, crossdressers, transgender individuals, and so on. Gaming, in our area, at least, seems to draw a tremendously diverse crowd. Which is probably why this incident came as such a surprise. My brain wonders how anyone with any experience in the local gaming community can have missed this fact so completely.
The worst I can remember encountering to date has been a sort of “I’d rather not talk about your social life” vibe, which I’ve never had an issue with. When I sit down to play a game, I’m there to play the game. I’m not interested in discussing my sexuality or my players’ sexual orientations. I’m more interested in discussing whether or not Kidalis Havengard’s cousin has indeed turned to the cult of the Elder Elemental Eye, whether Tilly Thistleshanks is ready to take on the massive fey crocodile that ate his father, or if Al’lan Malkier can have Olaf Feyskorn hold his sword, then swing Olaf around by his ankles in order to have reach. (That last one’s still a no, by the way, Jacob.)
I know some of the people I game with, both LARPing and tabletopping, are more conservative than I am. Heck, one of my best friends at The Isles has had a “NObama” sticker on his car since before the 2008 election and considers himself a Fundamentalist Christian. I don’t care about that. I care that he’s personally a really nice guy, and that he’s a good roleplayer with a lot of great plot ideas. He knows I’m gay and married, he knows my husband, and we all get along just fine. That’s the kind of benign “You live your life, and I’ll live mine” sort of attitude I’ve become used to from the gaming community.
Speaking only for myself, romance, no matter what flavor, makes me smile. If I see a couple kissing, whether they’re two men, two women, or a man and a woman, I smile and look away, politely. I’ve seen all of those permutations take it too far, of course, and I’ve either left, or, if it seemed appropriate, asked them politely to perhaps continue once they have a room.
I want to give the people who left the benefit of the doubt. Maybe one of the gay couples was taking things too far, and they didn’t feel comfortable. Maybe rather than cause a scene, they took themselves out of the picture. But part of me worries that they simply left because they didn’t want to be around “those kinds of people.” And that makes me wonder if there are others at our games who are feigning a benevolence they don’t feel. If they are, they’re doing a damned good job of it. Most of the people I roleplay with – LARP, tabletop, online, etc – are like family to me. A whacked-out, dysfunctional family at times, but family none the less.
If there’s a hidden discontent, I’m not sure what I’d hope for. Would I hope they’d just quietly remove themselves like the folks did that I’ve mentioned? Not at all. I’d want them to tell me, to open a dialogue, to see if there’s some substance to what concerns them and not just some cultural or religious reflex kicking in. After all, good old HPL said that the most powerful kind of fear is the fear of the unknown. He may have been talking about cosmic, tentacled horrors rather than sexual orientation, but the fact is that we tend to be afraid of what we don’t understand. Maybe if there were more open, friendly conversations with a real intention to bridge understanding between people, we could put the ghost of homophobia to rest for good.
Maybe.
About GGG
Excellent post. I have nothing more to add than that – you’ve already said everything which should be said, and far more eloquently than I could. Kudos, Andy.
I think you should always assume positive intentions. No one knows why they left and no one knows of they are homophobic. They could have left for any number of reasons and if they were uncomfortable at least they were politely uncomfortable. I think sometimes we make the mistake by applying our biases when we have an unknown. Did anyone call and ask them?
I had a similar situation that someone assumed I left because there were a lot of PDA at the only LARP I have ever been to. It wasn’t that at all. My wife passed away three years ago and she was Chinese. If I see a white/asian couple, it makes me miss her terribly so and I start to cry so I left because of that. but I had to defend myself against a charge that didn’t fit.
Thanks to @McNutcase on Twitter who corrected me…I originally had homophobia as Latin and with a different meaning. My article above has been edited to be, y’know, right and all.
@greywulf: Thank you very much.
@Kenny: I can understand why your own experience would make you sensitive to this. The point of my article isn’t about the people in question. It’s about homophobia in general, and the feelings that got stirred up. I myself don’t even know the people involved, didn’t notice they were gone, etc. All I have to go on so far is what I’ve been told by the person who invited them. Like I say in my article, I am really wanting to give them the benefit of the doubt. I hope that I will hear differently, but I have no way of contacting them, except through their friends, so I’m waiting. In the meantime, some powerful emotions got woken up, and they resulted in this article. Whether this was homophobia or not, it’s not the first time I’ve encountered homophobia in my fellow geeks, and, sadly, I doubt it’ll be the last.
Even if it is true, I think it’s unfair to call it homophobia. If someone’s uncomfortable with a situation or their surroundings and leaves rather than causing a scene you can’t really berate them for it.
@Anonymous: The act of leaving the event if they were uncomfortable vs. acting out, being insulting, etc. is commendable. But if they leave because they’re not comfortable being around gay people? That’s homophobia. Polite, maturely handled homophobia is still homophobia. Merriam-Webster defines homophobia as “irrational fear of, aversion to, or discrimination against homosexuality or homosexuals.” Homophobia doesn’t have to be violent, or loud, or disruptive.
@GGG in answer to @Anonymous: I agree that homophobia isn’t great, and that their leaving is a problem – but if they’d left because they were asexual and uncomfortable around PDA, both hetero- and homosexual, would that have left as bad a taste in your mouth? It occurs to me that life is full of discomforts, some good and some bad (the bad defined in this case as “small-minded”), and that trying to distinguish what is good and bad is difficult. Your response to that discomfort is really what defines a person – both the immediate response (quietly leaving) and the longer-term response (hopefully, introspecting, realizing why you felt discomfort and deciding to not be like that any longer).
At the end of the day, a polite response like leaving quietly is a MASSIVE step in the right direction for a society as steeped in intolerance as the Western world. That said, as I opened with, yes – it isn’t great. But we can hope that this leads to something better.
I agree with Johenius that I’d rather see an intolerant person leave than throw abuse. And I especially don’t want them throwing stones. If someone’s views are strong enough that they can’t stay in a room with people holding hands, then I doubt they will be convinced by conversation. As a society we have to stop intolerant actions, but we cannot stop somebody’s beliefs. I don’t like that they left, but they have the right to do so.
Of course this will be really awkward if it turns out not to be homophobia. If I had an emergency and had to leave suddenly, I’d be offended if somebody thought I was homophobic over it.
@Johenius: I really don’t disagree with anything you say. If people feel the need to leave, it’s absolutely their right to do so. If they left because they were uncomfortable around any PDAs, I’d think of them as being kind of ridiculous, but it wouldn’t leave a bad taste in my mouth. Why? Because, to my knowledge, asexuality hasn’t led to violence, bigotry, and hatred any time in the recent past. Unless you count religious fundamentalist views on sex in general, but that’s really another article on a semi-related topic I have no intention of getting into right now.
@Philo: Again, I agree. They had the right to leave, and I applaud them for making a mature, polite decision as to how to handle the situation, but I don’t have to like that they felt the need to leave in the first place.
As far as any concern on whether or not the event was homophobia, I don’t want to get into particulars, but I can shed a bit more light on things. Apparently the reason homophobia came up was due to the folks who invited them receiving a post-event text containing some “very disrespectful” comments from the folks who left. On the whole, I’m glad I don’t know the exact words used, and I don’t intend to pry further.
Why let it bother you? It doesn’t matter if they left because they were unhappy with the couples being homosexual vs. any other aspect of their personality. They left, you giys bearly noticed…that’s a win for all.
You can’t make people like you, whether it’s because of your sense of humor, sexual preference, or if you might be competely irksome.
I’d like to second @Black Campbell when he says that you can’t make people like you. Also, you can’t make people think the way you do.
You can’t deny someone’s right to believe as they do.
You can believe homophobia is wrong, but you can’t force that belief on someone else. If they left without fuss, simply excusing themselves, you can’t ask more than that.
Just so we’re clear on this : I’m not condoning any kind of abuse, exclusion or even just being rude. A very hard thing about being understanding is understanding that others will not be.
I encourage you to fight for equal rights but don’t fall into the trap of mind control.