Strange Tomato (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
strangetomato) wrote2009-05-14 10:52 am
strangetomato) wrote2009-05-14 10:52 am
Entry tags:
A whole lot of isms, but mostly heterosexism.
Given that this Sunday, May 17, is the International Day Against Homophobia, it's interesting that I was recently called out for being heterosexist. To my face, by a lesbian. I was pretty embarrassed. (Not that it would be any better to have this pointed out in another way, but I felt pretty careless.)
I had designed a quick little poster for a community Seniors Appreciation Day event, and all of the clip art used on it (yeah, go ahead and laugh at the clip art, but my job isn't as a designer - there's no time or money to make it nicer) featured elderly male/female couples.
In my defense, I was lucky to find anything that showed seniors being happy and doing anything besides sitting on a couch at home (no joke - many of them actually featured graveyards). We wanted dancing and eating and having fun AND elderly people, and I barely found that. There's literally nothing that tackles ageism AND heterosexism. It seems like you can only tackle one of these issues at a time (though there was a little racial diversity in there, I'll give them that much).
It's amazing how easy it is to be heterosexist. Unlike homophobia, you do it by default, by doing nothing. I like to think I'm pretty good about this stuff, because I actually think about it most of the time and even point it out to other people when they say something that assumes the world to be straight (you get mixed results when you suggest that someone's baby might actually grow up to be gay, let me warn you, true though it may be). So if I can do it by accident, then you can too. If you're constantly vigilant about it, then I salute you, but it can be tough to get it right all the time.
To relate this back to sims, it's got me to thinking about portrayals of LGBT characters in sim stories, just like any other media. I've read some interesting articles and posts on this topic recently (relating to different fandoms, but same difference), and it really is worth considering. I try to write about characters first and foremost, and so they have flaws and make bad decisions and all that, but I do try to be conscious of the messages my stories are sending, whether intended or not.
As for homophobia, I did make a very conscious decision to include that in my sim world, as much as I love the idea of a world without it. My sim world simulates the world I live in, and that includes most of its problems too. Also, there's no way to examine something if you ignore its existence, and I'm very interested in exploring gender/sexuality in my characters. It's something of a theme in my story, I suppose, if you want to put that much weight on it (which is probably a bit of a stretch).
So how do you feel about this as a creator or reader of sim stories? Feel free to discuss it in the comments, if you like.
Also, go ahead and critique the way I do things in relation to this topic, if you want to, so I can further consider and examine them. I know I could always fall back on "it's just a sim story," but I don't actually believe that excuses me in any way. I'm putting content out into the world, so I'm engaging in the way things are portrayed, even though it's a small and very specialized audience.
I had designed a quick little poster for a community Seniors Appreciation Day event, and all of the clip art used on it (yeah, go ahead and laugh at the clip art, but my job isn't as a designer - there's no time or money to make it nicer) featured elderly male/female couples.
In my defense, I was lucky to find anything that showed seniors being happy and doing anything besides sitting on a couch at home (no joke - many of them actually featured graveyards). We wanted dancing and eating and having fun AND elderly people, and I barely found that. There's literally nothing that tackles ageism AND heterosexism. It seems like you can only tackle one of these issues at a time (though there was a little racial diversity in there, I'll give them that much).
It's amazing how easy it is to be heterosexist. Unlike homophobia, you do it by default, by doing nothing. I like to think I'm pretty good about this stuff, because I actually think about it most of the time and even point it out to other people when they say something that assumes the world to be straight (you get mixed results when you suggest that someone's baby might actually grow up to be gay, let me warn you, true though it may be). So if I can do it by accident, then you can too. If you're constantly vigilant about it, then I salute you, but it can be tough to get it right all the time.
To relate this back to sims, it's got me to thinking about portrayals of LGBT characters in sim stories, just like any other media. I've read some interesting articles and posts on this topic recently (relating to different fandoms, but same difference), and it really is worth considering. I try to write about characters first and foremost, and so they have flaws and make bad decisions and all that, but I do try to be conscious of the messages my stories are sending, whether intended or not.
As for homophobia, I did make a very conscious decision to include that in my sim world, as much as I love the idea of a world without it. My sim world simulates the world I live in, and that includes most of its problems too. Also, there's no way to examine something if you ignore its existence, and I'm very interested in exploring gender/sexuality in my characters. It's something of a theme in my story, I suppose, if you want to put that much weight on it (which is probably a bit of a stretch).
So how do you feel about this as a creator or reader of sim stories? Feel free to discuss it in the comments, if you like.
Also, go ahead and critique the way I do things in relation to this topic, if you want to, so I can further consider and examine them. I know I could always fall back on "it's just a sim story," but I don't actually believe that excuses me in any way. I'm putting content out into the world, so I'm engaging in the way things are portrayed, even though it's a small and very specialized audience.
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The conflict-avoidance is strong in me, but I often think I should leave a comment saying something like, "I hope you're going to warn for heterosexual sims, too," and I think I have to suck it up and start saying something. I mean, it's not a huge thing, in the scheme of things, but it's the little grains of sand that add up to a beach that stretches on for centuries, you know? The little things are what inures us to the point where the big things, the horrific things, have a place to happen.
Personally when I started out on my own story I pretty much went with, "It's a happy fluffy utopia where no one is a jerk!" because I just didn't feel like dealing with it in my happy melodrama fun time. But as I kept going I slowly realised that, nope, it's not going to happen that way. Because there were little things, little hints, and as I dug deeper it became so much more messed up, more like out here. It's like background radiation that seeps into everything and affects my people in such seemingly small ways, but it's constant, and it adds up, and they fight against it admirably, but it wears them down. It makes them brittle. I don't know if I'll ever tackle it head-on in the story itself, but it's there, in the background, informing everything.
...Anyway. I think I've only commented here once before, because, uh. I'm sort of intimidated by you because I think you're pretty neat. I just wanted to say thank you for opening up such a discussion here, and to wave my little "Me, too!" flag.
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XD I did that when I was younger! I don't anymore because it doesn't matter to me and if it matters to you well... oh well.
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I agree.
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The conflict-avoidance is strong in me, but I often think I should leave a comment saying something like, "I hope you're going to warn for heterosexual sims, too,"
Oh man, that makes me want to write something quick and stupid purely so I can have a warning like:
WARNING: Sims having heterosexual sex in the missonary position on a bed with the lights off.
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Pixel_and_bean and I did something kind of like that back in the day (while we were both doing the GUCCI--group uglification challenge). We were annoyed by terms like "buttsex" (or the horribly spelled, "buttsecks") so we made a point (for our own amusement) of noting what type of sex was being had at all times. My favorites were "pussysecks" (used to refer to hetero sex) and "fistysecks" (could be for anyone--how inclusive!!).
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Because really. I think "work safe" or "not work safe" is enough. D:
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(I am now trying to think of what gentile could be "translated" to. I totally love the idea of Llamish, though!)
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And personally, I don't know why warnings have to be on stuff at all, but I will compromise and use "NSFW" if there are pictures of an adult theme.
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That would be so awesome.
We should start up a community for that exact purpose, people writing sims stories with warnings longer than the story.
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Hmm. . .thanks for the idea.
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I just have to word it the right way, though.
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I've also been thinking about the big flurry of Sims 3 viral marketing and how we should do a challenge for SST members to do stories that take on the Sims 3 advertising content in the game (like sweet little Mr. Humble). It would be fun, and a nice antidote to the whole thing (which I'm not really a fan of at all).
We need to revive the SST comm. For real this time (and not just for a permanent account).
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I'm definitely going to make a "we welcome sims 3 stories" post, too.
I like your idea. It's going on my list (definitely slated to go up right as sims 3 starts sinking in).
(oof, I felt your jab there *snicker* Yeah, I'm a whore and would have "sold out" storytellers to gets me a paid account. I have no shame! NONE!! *is teasing*)
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We need to have a meeting (in a post or in chat), and see what Lamia says about it all, get some new routines in place.
(*snicker* Hey, it was tempting. I cant argue with that. I'm glad we didn't really have to make a choice. It saves us from looking like dickheads.)
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I'm up for a modly chat (or even a locked post).
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I can understand a warning for some things, specially for age restrictions and work places (like violence, nudity, adult topics), but I simply can't understand the reason in warning for gay/lesbians in any kind of story (adding M-preg in sim stories too!! that makes me so mad!!)
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But in all seriousness, I do wonder if maybe those warnings, my own and others, are very real ingrained conflict-avoidance? I know you said you like to avoid conflict too, but I really do wonder how much of it that is? I can only speak for myself, and I know anecdotes don't count for much, but even living in one of, if not the, most liberal state in the U.S., I'm used to issues of sexuality being buzz words for starting huge fights. I'm also from a religious conservative family, like to the point that my grandmother told me to my face that gay marriage was equivalent to murdering someone on a church alter. And even for something as important to me as gay rights, it's also something that life has taught me to be careful about choosing my battles over, which I know hurts a cause I claim to support, but at the same time supporting that cause could get me disowned by a huge portion of my family, and I don't think I could handle that.
While I do intend my warnings to be tongue-in-cheek, I guess part of it might be a carry over from real life. And it's got me thinking. And I do wonder for how many people that's true for? I don't know.
Of course, the whole point of the comment being not to not point out that "warning" for gay sims is pretty icky, but rather that it might not necessarily be a case of latent homophobia or heterosexism (like I interpreted your comment to mean; if I'm wrong, I'm sorry), but rather it might be a latent defense mechanism. Even though the response might be the same, the underlying cause could be different and that should be kept in mind? Because the solutions for both problems are going to be different. If that makes any sense. I don't know, I'm rambling. :(
Of course it just might be a carry over from other fandoms where your warnings really are expected to be as long as your story. Warning: Gay sims, straight sims, sex, no sex, colors, bad words, nice word, words, punctuation, clothes.... :x
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I mean, I would roll my eyes at somebody who does get offended or grossed out by gay sims, but they still deserve the opportunity to bail beforehand rather than being unpleasantly surprised mid-story.