Gender and Seduction

[onomastikon]

Right up front I'll say that the main gist of this post should be taken as at least slightly facetious, and I do not particularly care too much about the issue.

Nevertheless, let it be said that the "seduction" command being gender-specific seems really odd, and not merely in terms of a deeper (less bifurcated) understanding of gender identity. In fact, I'd like to leave that (to me: valid) argument completely out here.

It seems that a very significant portion of commanders in this game are not human, and in fact so far removed from anything vaguely ♥♥♥♥ sapiens sapiens to make the issue of their gender seem less relevant to seduction as that commander's shoe size or birthdate or favorite wine. Leaving aside for the moment the bizarre but perhaps nicely heuristic categories of "heterosexual" and "homosexual", it seems any interaction between, say, a demon, or a dryad, or an aboleth, or a dragon, or what have you would be primarily one based on charisma and not sexual activity (how do you even have sex with an aboleth if you are not one yourself). Whatever, what I mean is: Whatever it is that induces demons or dragons or trolls or humans to be seduced by entities not belonging to their own species must be something powerful enough to overlook the trivialities of gender, even assuming that half of these creatures could be said to have any (aboleth penis anyone?).

Thus, I suggest removing gender tags from the game altogether and letting seducers seduce whomever they can (perhaps, should this be necessary, increasing the cost of commanders with this ability, since they should now be more flexible, or slightly decreasing the chance of seduction success to balance) regardless of their "gender".

[✏pencils✏]

Give us bisexual commanders now, illwinter!

[DasaKamov]

Originally posted by 1337MechaHimmler:

Given the heterosexuality has been the standard, even in concepts of Gods, Demons, Dragons

Er, same-sex romantic relationships are pretty dang common in ancient legends and myths across the world, so your argument falls a bit flat.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_themes_in_mythology

Originally posted by 1337MechaHimmler:

It's safe to say there's no particular good reason to completely overhaul the system based on exceptions which probably wouldn't add up to even 1% of unit data.

I would dispute that, even based on a purely game-mechanics point of view.

One could argue that Seduction is an interesting (not super-effective, but interesting) way to "recruit" enemy faction commanders into a non-native faction, and as it is currently, there's only one nation in the entire Dominions world which has a possibility of Seducing female commanders: Marignon's Troubadours.

I'll add that the possibility of same-gender seduction has been proposed in the past, but it's (understandably, in the large-view of the game's development) been a low priority.

Also, Rule 34 of the internet proves that the "hideous monsters cannot seduce human women, and vice-versa" argument is completely false. ;)

[1337Dude]

Originally posted by LINUXoldrocker99:

This is a good discussion, and the first of the posts like this when some Gamergate twerp didn't complain about SJWs frequently, always because a game, like Tyranny, has strong female characters. The horror, the horror.

I had first heard that acronym as Single Jewish Women. Nope, it stands for Social Justice Warriors, and there's nothing worse that social justice. Right?

Jesus wept. As I said, Dominions players are grownups, and don't get in a snit over 'justice.'

I'm proud of this community.

Just a little curious - why is it that you first assumed or heard SJW as Single Jewish Women?

[DasaKamov]

Originally posted by 1337MechaHimmler:

Just a little curious - why is it that you first assumed or heard SJW as Single Jewish Women?

You durn kids *shakes fist* are probably too young to remember the "Personal Ads" sections of physical newspapers.

[1337Dude]

Originally posted by DasaKamov:

Originally posted by 1337MechaHimmler:

Given the heterosexuality has been the standard, even in concepts of Gods, Demons, Dragons

Er, same-sex romantic relationships are pretty dang common in ancient legends and myths across the world, so your argument falls a bit flat.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_themes_in_mythology

It wasn't that common. Pulling up a few examples out of thousands doesn't make something "common", nor does it displace something else as the standard.

Originally posted by DasaKamov:

I would dispute that, even based on a purely game-mechanics point of view.

One could argue that Seduction is an interesting (not super-effective, but interesting) way to "recruit" enemy faction commanders into a non-native faction, and as it is currently, there's only one nation in the entire Dominions world which has a possibility of Seducing female commanders: Marignon's Troubadours.

I'll add that the possibility of same-gender seduction has been proposed in the past, but it's (understandably, in the large-view of the game's development) been a low priority.

Also, Rule 34 of the internet proves that the "hideous monsters cannot seduce human women, and vice-versa" argument is completely false. ;)

Really the only thing I'm disagreeing with is that just because you know a few examples of something means that it's ubiquitous. From my experience people don't really wrap their minds around the statistics of what they're proposing before they say what they say. I've heard people claim that 20% of the population is gay because their friends are gay - and that's the same essence of the arguments being made in the thread.

Heterosexuality is a pretty safe "norm" to build this system around. Yes, the addition of gods and inhuman things complicates things but doesn't necessarily make the system useless.

I'm not opposed to a tweak. The system is clearly underdeveloped. And it's so much "under the hood", so to speak, that I've actually never directly interacted with it in my hundreds of hours of Dominions play. That's why I really don't want much, if any more effort, spent on it.

I'm not opposing it from a "we should ignore the minority" point of view, I'm opposing it from a "it's a waste of time, please fix or add something more important" point of view.

[Zymeth]

Seducers are in fact all-sexual and don't care if it is an aboleth, dragon, living potatoe or w/e.
But other commanders are the most likely hetero sexual "In fact [name] wasn't even remotely interested in the offer."
Would be funny if sexuality were actually randomized, but so far - I know it is not modable in a direct way. Which could be funny when it comes to sexuality of a seducer, but would be so unreasonable to actually do it in depth. I can imagine "I like only white, short haired with blue eyes", or "He must have at least 6 tentacles" (and many other tags like this.)

[Zonk]

BTW, something I must have reported a dozen times by now - the actual value of the seduction ability SHOULD be visible somewhere in game.
It's currently not, neither by hovering on the icon nor by clicking it, so the only way to know that some seducers are better or worse than others, outside of experience, is to look at the Inspector or modding manuals.

[CHOO CHOO]

Gender played an enormous role in mythology. But we're past such silly superstitions, and a distinction that's central to the perpetuation of our species is nowadays just an archaic social construct.

[Eerywax]

Homosexuality is a modern category; it is often essentialized and as such the behaviors of past persons who would today fit this category would likely not in the past (since the category didn't exist in the form we are using it here). One was not "a homosexual" for having same-sex, it was an action one took; classification as "action => you are a homosexual" became predominant under the medicalization of sex in the post-Enlightenment age (Victorian). Before this, while some behaviors were considered deviant (going beyond, but including, the sexual), the offender would be treated as the juridical subject of that crime; not a member of a category whose essence predisposes them to the action in question. As such, units would not in my view need to be homosexual to be seduceable by their same-sex: a tag that determines the possibility of an action follows that modern essentializing logic.

What's more, gender and sex do not determine orientation. Attraction is not necessarily based on "masculine/feminine performance" but can be wealth/status-based (for example). We wouldn't call that sexual because our model doesn't call sexual what isn't referring to masc/fem interactions. But that is exactly the point: not every culture has this model (far from it; though globalization arguably curtails the expression of many models). Yet the game is organized around that one way of proceeding.

Lastly, orientation is not based on species propagation. The organs that lead to it are; the actions that surround them, the rules, the postures and accepted objects of desire are not so pragmatic even in the West (where many people align their beliefs according to precepts vetted by Reason, and then look no further, thus in my view flying in the face of that organizing ideal and revealing it to be just another Truth among so many - alas I wax poetic).

So while I think an ideal (culturally varied as the game seems to want to aim for) rendition of seduction would not involve checking the two parties' sex, un-gendered (or orientation-neutral, or whatever) seduction in the game would be just as skewed: it would imply the troubadour or the dryad know exactly what a member of X culture responds to and, more importantly, is equipped to display/perform it. This is then an issue for those cultures that are hetero-normatively inclined. So how could the game represent all variations, short of giving each culture (nation) in the game a set of rules for which units can seduce them? (Here I just want to leave a note saying that while specifying an orientation for each unit of each nation would be insanely complicated, this kind of ascription of sexual rules/normality is not absent from the game; currently it simply defaults to the heteronormative, which is not part-and-parcel of the sexualities of many cultures that inspired the nations in this game).

IMO: Having only magical seduction in the game would represent an easier-to-accept representation of the mechanic (as in, not a normalization of any real life system of thought over others), if magical seduction meant the seducer could seduce anything (by showing the seduced what they desire - whatever that is). If, on the other hand, the developers want the Western debauchery-and-sin-laden theme of sexuality to be present in the game (satyrs, etc), such that it is purely carnal, genital desire that traps the seduced, then a system as complex as has been discussed above (each unit rolls for an orientation; orientation possibilities depend on culture, etc) would be the only way I see to skirt around shoehorning sexuality in an implicitly heteronormative paradigm, despite all the mythical variety in the game.

Originally posted by 1337MechaHimmler:

IMO it's completely bizarre idea to take an issue with a model that say - makes sense 99% of the time, and then suggest a model that makes sense 1% of the time. One day kids will learn that change just for the sake of change isn't progress.

Some people get really agressive about gender stuff and try to disqualify something based on what they accept to be true, and it sounds like you've encountered a lot of those. But the point isn't to replace a model that works 99% of the time with one that works 1% (which, even if it was reducible to a statistical number it wouldn't be 99% if one considers the various other dissatisfactions, not necessarily sexuality-based, that people have with a lot of what is normal today). Rather, the point I think should be a discussion toward a model that isn't as objectionable to the people who aren't in the norm, or doesn't rely on creating a normal type of subject to address. For the present case, in a game about mythologically-based characters, I think it's a lot less about minority representation (since minority/identity groups didn't really exist the way we know them now), more about questioning how/why the modern (Western) norm is implicitly used for a base of inspiring cultures that is so wide, and for an aspect of life (sexuality) so central to the organization of societies, that seems here to be under-explored or taken for granted to be Western.

Originally posted by 1337MechaHimmler:

I'm not opposing it from a "we should ignore the minority" point of view, I'm opposing it from a "it's a waste of time, please fix or add something more important" point of view.

I mean, it probably wouldn't take 5 minutes to remove the one check (or maybe more, but it can't be that many) in the game that refers to the 'female' tag.

[Ajidica]

Perhaps just make same-sex seduction attempts possible, but at a lower chance of success? Might actually make the Troubadours useful....

[MCreeper]

I feel that this thread will soon need to be closed. =\

[Althaea]

It's been fairly well-behaved so far, with one or two exceptions. I will say that I'm keeping a close eye on it, though.

On the subject matter itself, I will say I don't find the game's portrayal of seduction or sexuality particularly offensive. Very traditional, yes, but that is to be expected. It's all largely rooted in old mythology and tradition as seen through a somewhat more fantastic lens.

Of course, it needs to be remembered that the original poster's point of contention lies not with the portrayal of human orientation (other than as a side thought), but with the inhuman, such as Aboleths, who, in the current system, react no differently to a dryad than does any human male (bar Qedesim and Gift of Reason-affected Heart Companions).

[30to1]

cross species seduction is kinda weird.

on one hand, if you're gonna allow cross species seduction you should probably allow homosexual seduction. on the other hand, classic tolkien style fantasy isn't a place for socially controversial issues.

classic fantasy is super rigid in terms of gender roles and stuff. throwing in homosexuality would feel somewhat out of place unless there's specific lore

[Althaea]

Mind you, Dominions as a setting has very little to do with classic fantasy. There are a few gay units in the game at present. Arguably fewer than you'd expect, given classical Greek culture. I've heard that the historical Samurai had a few less-than-heteronormative traditions as well.

[oldrocker99]

Originally posted by 1337MechaHimmler:

Originally posted by LINUXoldrocker99:

This is a good discussion, and the first of the posts like this when some Gamergate twerp didn't complain about SJWs frequently, always because a game, like Tyranny, has strong female characters. The horror, the horror.

I had first heard that acronym as Single Jewish Women. Nope, it stands for Social Justice Warriors, and there's nothing worse that social justice. Right?

Jesus wept. As I said, Dominions players are grownups, and don't get in a snit over 'justice.'

I'm proud of this community.

Just a little curious - why is it that you first assumed or heard SJW as Single Jewish Women?

I heard it as Single Jewish Women about 40 years ago; I'm 70.