I do not see the need of a sex scene in a computer game regardless homo or heterosexual.
Promoting sexual acceptance is one, converting sexuality as a tool to attract attention is objectification and nothing more. May be I have to be happy that is was a male sex scene?
Still, we will see.

I'd heard about this but not seen it-- good for them. I applaud the lot of 'em. Of course, the standard joke for the scene is "it isn't gay if its with an elf," which is problematic on top of everything else, but is such a piece of meta-problem that it is almost a hilarious one.

Extra fun background information:

Mass Effect, a slightly older game by the same developer as Dragon Age, had a heterosexual romance option for your main character, and then a second "shared" romance option- an ostensibly sexless but obviously female alien (blue skin and weird hair, essentially). Essentially, there was a male-female option, a male-female option, a female-male option, and a female-female option.

I don't remember any cries of "eww, gross", but I do remember a few that called them out on not having a male-male option. Maybe this is their response?

Dragon Age is a game about the player's freedom of choice. So it's normal to have a gay scene - as one of the many things the player can choose. Gay relationships as part of a normal player choice can be found in another games too - Fable 2 and the Sims come to mind.

.....This makes me want this game very, very badly. I mean, I write slash fanfiction and I roleplay my World of Warcraft elf as gay so I guess I'm sort of the target audience here.

I find the line in the video about how pleasure doesn't come often and you should take what you can get to be a rather enlightened attitude about emotional as well as physical contact- that true connections are rare and ignoring them because they're the "wrong kind" is wasteful.

I, as a straight female, thought the gay sex scene was HOT!

Good for them! Sadly, I think that this kind of optional storyline is going to stay optional and rare. I can think of hundreds of games with male/female storylines that can't be skipped over (Final Fantasy, I'm looking at you). I'd be really impressed if the storyline wasn't optional. I'm forced to play as characters all the time with the opposite sexuality. Forcing heterosexuals to do the same, for once, would be a step in the right direction.

This character isn't gay. He's bisexual.

There is also a female bisexual character, (meaning you can have a female-female sex-scene) and two male NPCs who appear to be in a relationship together. I don't know that they ever come out and say "We're a couple" (and why should people have to define their relationship anyway) but their interactions heavily imply that they are.

You can also go into a brothel and choose a male partner, a female partner, or one of both.

The problem is to avoid adding unneeded for the plot and the story sex scenes.
Many books and movies have the same issue.
That's it.

As enlightened as BioWare seems to think it is the company is not above making jokes about misgendering trans-seeming characters:

Dragon Age: Gender and Sex Quandary
http://borderhouseblog.com/?p=269

This is the best thing I've ever seen.

Ok, that was hyperbole...but it's definitely the best thing I've seen TODAY.

I'm not big into gaming. I guess I knew that some games have more intense storylines than the silly, simple ones I play occassionally (like Spore, dumb racing/sports games on PS2 or Wii), but I hadn't considered that romantic or sexual relationships may be portrayed. And I certainly hadn't ever considered a game with dudes doing each other...in various positions...

Compared to the heterosexual (and less often female homosexual) sex scenes in movies, tv, etc, this is hardly obscene -- but I can't remember (outside of maybe Queer as Folk) EVER seeing such blatant references made to the actual acts during a male homosexual sex/love scene. (Is "blatant references" an oxymoron? :)) We're supposed to infer that these two guys had oral and anal sex. Most people know, at least in the back of their minds, that a lot of people (both gay and straight) do these things -- but, like I said, I can't remember it ever being put out there so openly about two men.

Because people go "ewwww." Lots of folks think about gay (male) sex the way they think about their parents having sex: it doesn't happen, or if it does, everyone is fully clothed and thinking of England.

I wonder how many said "eew", not because of the gay content but because the cg characters look gross and uncanny valley-like. That is my reaction, both for the gay or hetero scene!

I do not have any opposition to homosexuality. But perhaps these scenes are a bit too much for children under about fifteen years of age. You would not want to show erotic heterosexuals images for such children, nor homosexuality.

The sadness here is that children of this age do not draw their world view from books, paintings, not so much from television, but from internet and video games. I must wonder what of tainted americanised generation these things breed. It is great sadness. As if the human civilisation is declining as it is encountered with this all embracing american entertainment.

I'm playing this game right now, it totally makes my day that you can have a non hetero character. Also, the game in general is pretty awesome. The gender stuff doesn't make me want to stab my own eyes out for the most part. It is yay.

I remember playing ULTIMA - don't know which version - back when I went to school in the 90s, and even then, in the city brothel, you could chose both sexes and have amusingly pixelated intercourse regardless of your own biological sex. (Of course, afterwards, you'd find the prostitute had stolen money and belongings either way...)

Knights of the Old Republic had a storyline where both a male and a female character could fall in love with the RPG you were playing as...it didn't matter which gender your character was.

Ugh, I really love how people in the comment section of the article bring up the old "I don't mind gay people, but do they have to force it down out throats?"
Now, sweeties, they don't force. it. down. your. throats. That would be assault. Most people don't do that.
What is being shown is two people (in this case men) having sex. And that is something people do. Something that we straights talk about, refer to and occasionally (almost) have in public. In quite more graphic ways than what went on in this scene.
How come it is still so outrageous to see gay sex somewhere – do some people actually still quietly hope that it's really all about true soulmateship, glitter and pink roses?
I know, I know, but I can't help being amazed. It's like saying: "We know you're there. Here, we acknowledged you. Now go away."

The Sims series of games treats same sex relationships for player characters pretty much the same as heterosexual relationships, including allowing marriage. The only difference appears to be that children have to be adopted rather than conceived.
I don't recall seeing a NPC same sex relationship though.

I'd like to point out that the criticisms of Microsoft being homophobic were unfounded. They don't allow any reference to sexuality in gamers' names or profiles. They have many million members, and that's the only way that they can control homophobia. They've stated that they really regret that gay people can't show their gay pride, and they're working for a way to limit only homophobia, not pro-gay expressions, but for the moment they are doing their best.

Microsoft is one of the best companies when it comes to regulating homophobic speech. They take reports of homophobia very seriously, and they work really hard to make XBox Live a gay-friendly place, which includes *banning* paying customers. It's a huge undertaking, considering how homophobic their player base is.

It's really sad to see that they're still getting a bad rap for a misunderstanding.

I find it sad that the clip on YouTube was flagged as inappropriate by so many people. I have seen way more explicit youtube vids containing heterosexual interactions (including what I would consider mild porn) that have not been flagged.

As awful as it sounds, I think they're trying to reach out to a particular audience here: teenage girls. Many of my female friends are avid video-gamers of that age who also get seriously turned on by the idea of boy/boy pairings (they call them yaoi or slash).

It's nice to see reality seeping into more games. Of course some will still have the vapors but sooner or later (probably not in my lifetime) it will be no more strange to see two men/women having a relationship in a game (or movie,book, etc) than it is to see one of each.

Am I the only person bothered that this is marked NSFW, especially from a site dicussing sociology. I always associate NSFW with nudity and porn, possibly excessive swearing. Does anything in this animation meet that standard, I don't think so.
This dialog, this interaction, this level of exposure should be acceptable and pass without comment, NSFW surely flags it as unacceptable and using the warning too often almost concedes the debate to the prudish and bigotted before it even starts

That elf is manly, but he's no Dr. Ivo Robotnik.

What the hell is wrong with me I swear

I'm playing Dragon Age right now, and have played all of BioWare's games to date. They have a history of including options for gay romances in their games and not playing up stereotypes.

I think it's great that they realize there are more than straight teenage boys playing their titles and they seem to make the effort to have something that appeals to all sorts of characters you might RP. The characters themselves are also fairly deep, interesting, and don't reek of gender stereotype. Morrigan, (male only romance option) is a smart, calculating, powerful and sarcastic woman who looks for the most rational way to complete your missions. Alistair (female only romance option) is a sensitive, awkward yet humorous, faithful man who is coming to find himself as a person, and not intimidated by the player characters (PC) leadership skills even though he is the senior member of your order. Leliana (male and female option) is a competent and worldly bard, who is confident in her own personal beliefs. Zevran (male and female option) is the only one who could seem problematic, to me. He is very over sexualized, but one could argue in context of the game, it's not because he romances men but because he is from Antiva, a very liberal country within the game world.

Now I'm rambling. But, my point is that even though some aspects of the characters might be problematic to some, you can't argue that this isn't miles ahead of where most popular games are at in terms of sex and gender stereotypes. As a hardcore female gamer, this only makes me happy.

From the company's point of view it's likely just a way to broaden the target market and make more money. It's a good thing to have an option for gay players. For most players it provides a way to safely play with their sexuality.

I've always assumed that Bioware's (relative) open-mindedness comes from their vantage point as a company that makes games for the PC, instead of consoles. PC gamers expect options, more customization, and deeper storylines that follow the tradition of pen and paper games. I suppose the lines between PC and console games are beginning to blur with console systems becoming increasingly high powered these days, which is why we can see a game like this on the Xbox or PS3. Still, Bioware has never been exactly egalitarian in the past (I still refuse to play Mass Effect because of the exclusion of a male/male romance) but I'll be picking up this game, and that makes me very happy. I rarely get to play new games! The last, mostly sexism-free game I played was Nethack. (Which, by the way, I highly recommend to any women that are looking for a deep, impossibly difficult, old school dungeon crawler that doesn't make gender an issue. The enemies are even randomly generated by gender, so you get to fight female orcs, soldiers and whatnot. Get the Absurd graphic tileset and a sound mod and it's the best free game you'll ever play.)

I showed this article to a friend of mine who is much more video game oriented than I, and he immediately called shenanigans.
Apparently, Bioware released a game last year called Mass Effect, similar to Dragon Age with two possible lesbian sex scenes.
So here is my question: Are lesbian scenes more "acceptable" in mainstream media? Why?
The basis of my question is not this instance alone, it is in general. Girls kissing girls is definately a novelty in the media. Are people less threatened by two woman than they are two men?

I'd say that the industry of gaming has developed a lot by now, but it's still a challenge to find something actually entertaining.

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