Monday, December 7, 2009

Human/Elf Same-Sex Sex Scene in Dragon Age RPG

In my discussion for today's Q+P+P Tea Time, I wanted to present a little bit about my own interests, work, and analyses of video games, particularly World of Warcraft, and to unpack some of the logics of race, gender, and sexuality in games. The current brouhaha over the male, same-sex sex scene in BioWare's Dragon Age provides a useful backdrop for my presentation:



Beyond the knee-jerk, neoconservative, religious right-wing responses over the game's promotion of homosexuality (and beyond the toothless claims by BioWare that the game is "just entertainment" and not meant to be "provoking" or "promoting"), the sex scene raises certain questions:

--Dragon Age is a game that highlights player "choice" and an immersive game world all about "choice;" the player then must "choose" to engage in the flirtation/romance. In a gamic and cultural context where the "choice" of homosexuality/queerness is not even on most menus, how might we read this game as an opportunity for imagining a queerer world? How might (see questions below) these "choices" be as essentializing, binary producing, or stereotypical?
--The sex scene ends with a discussion about "love" versus "sex," about "romance" versus "gratification." Does this fall into the stereotype of queer male promiscuity while simultaneously reinforcing the normative logics of coupledom and monogamy?
--The racial difference is important to consider. What role does the human male play? What role does the elf male play? And given the stereotypical taxonomies of fantasy race, elves are often feminized. Why does this self-professed assassin and sexual opportunist get figured as "bottom"?
--Finally, a more challenging question, where does the player him/herself play into this scene? How does the player's body and erotics and desires fit into the circuit here? What happens when a heterosexual player "chooses" to queer his character or to seek out the queer sex scene (even out of curiosity)?