Hi!

First of all it's always great to see a little evidence in discussions about this sort of thing. Thanks for kicking it off!

So, the commonalities for these traits are actually overridden in the assembly because every colonist has to have one, but they're similar there. The rate for asexual will naturally be lower because relationships are rolled first, and if a pawn has a past relationship I reroll the trait (I do know asexual people in relationships, but it's rare).

As regards your numbers- my first point would be that self report, particularly when it's on the topic of sex or sexuality, is notoriously bad at this sort of thing. A great example is a paper in the Journal of Sex Research that showed that women report a much lower average number of partners than men if both think someone might see the figures, and men and women converge on the same average if they think they're hooked up to a lie detector:

https://www.amherst.edu/media/view/239672/original/Alexander%252B%252526%252BFisher%252B%2525282003%252529.pdf

Additionally, there is plenty of evidence for, at least in part, a social construction of sexuality, (for a nice brief of the ideas of constructivism and essentialism read the following paper).

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00224499809551913

The fact that the percentages for a given sexuality drift over time strongly suggests that sexuality is not entirely a fixed essential. That drift could be self report biases, cultural differences in self-identification (which I think would be true for the self-identified straight men I've known who have sex with men), but either way I feel that I can justify the rates for a far-off scifi planet in the distant future not quite matching a survey of the US today.

I am, however, planning on turning them down a little for reasons of balance- I want asexuality and bisexuality available at a high enough rate that the people who want them there can roll them with not too much difficulty, but I agree they're presently a little higher than they should be.

On to faithful and philanderer- so the commonality numbers here do not directly indicate percentage chances, as in an exhaustive list the important thing is their weight against other traits. They are set as somewhat rare traits (though I can't remember what I modelled it on?), and I agree that all the evidence says cheating happens more frequently. My reasons for setting them low are

1) the game balance issue that you mention- everyone would be miserable if half the colony cheated.
2) colonists will still both be faithful and cheat without them, it's just a little less likely than it was before I fiddled with the numbers,
3) promiscuity, as opposed to cheating, is something I would like to deal with in a further update. I plan, in particular, on having casual hookups for single colonists and (I basically have it, but can't for the life of me get them to go back to their own bed afterwards!) and dates as a social joy activity for established couples.

How difficult would it be to have a polyamorous trait? Would it be something you would be interested in doing in the future? I can't seem to find it but I read a few years ago that around 20% of couples in western countries have some sort of nonmonogamy in their relationship.

@Deadmort, I'm interested in introducing poly relationships, but I'm not sure how I'd do it and it's a medum-term goal. My more immediate aim for updating this mod is to introduce dates for couples, then casual romantic encounters for single colonists (I can actually get this to work, but can't get them to go back to their own bed afterwards!).

Yeah, that's understandable. I can imagine the bed problem being even worse with poly relationships. I suppose a modular bed system could work for poly pawns if you can solve the current problem.

A 10x10 Thrumbofur waterbed item mod would sort your polyamoury sleeping arrangements right out. And your casual romantic encounters. And, frankly, your entire colony morale.

@Deadmort: Poly could be fixed with either migration between couples beds, or depending on the style of the relationship with larger beds as Bruxy says.

@Bruxy: Haha! Yeah, a trashy communal sex bed would sort some problems out, but I think I might still have trouble getting them to go back to their own afterwards.

TL;DR: At least in GB self-identification as hetero or ♥♥♥♥ instead of bi (or other) --- even when the self-reported facts (Kinsey scale, same-sex sexual experiences) clearly say one is bi --- is very common. The self-reported hetero/♥♥♥♥/bi/other classification is vastly overreporting hetero, and underreporting bi.

(all ages:) ~9% self-report to be in the middle of the Kinsey scale, but only 2 percent label themselves as bi, 17% admit same-sex experiences, but only 11% self-report as anything other than hetero.

=====

Thundercraft: "only 5.5% of women and 2% of men identify as bisexual"

A YouGov poll [in 2015-08][yougov.co.uk]:
GB adults, n=1632.
The 18-24 year old group, asked what "best describes your sexuality: Hetero, Gay/Lesbian, Bisexual, Other, prefer not to say" answered 83, 10, 2, 2 and 2%. (All ages: 89, 6, 2, 1 and 3%)

However, when asked to place themselves on a scale between 0 (completely heterosexual) and 6 (completely homosexual), the answer for all ages was for 0-6, no sexuality, don't know: (0:) 72, 9, 6, (3:) 2, 1, 1, (6:) 4, (no:) 1, (don't know:) 3.

Hmmm. So while 89% say they are hetero, only 72% are completely hetero.

Looking at the 18-24 year group: (0:) 46, 22, 13, (3:) 3, 4, 1, (6:) 6, (no:) 1, (don't know:) 3.

Hmmm. So 20% place themselves in 2-4, which is closer to 50/50 bisexual (3) than to totally hetero or totally ♥♥♥♥, and yet only 7% of them see themselves as not either hetero or ♥♥♥♥.
(And 43% place themselves at 1-5, 52% as 0 or 6 (and the rest none/don't know) ...)

It gets even more wired:
5% of those (all ages) that place themselves at 6 (totally homosexual) see their sexuality best described as heterosexual(!).

Of those who place themselves at 6 (totally homosexual), but label themselves as heterosexual, asked if the right person of the same sex came along at the right time:

• could they be attracted? 55% 'Absolutely not' (and 45% 'Maybe'),
  
• could they have a sexual experience? 31% 'Absolutely not' and 69% 'Very unlikely'
  
• could they have a relationship? 31% 'Absolutely not', 20% 'Very unlikely', 50% 'Maybe'

Of the ones who see themselves as hetero, 11% had same sex sexual experience; by Kinsey scale: (0:) 6%, 23%, 52%,(3:) 68%, 74%, 79%, (6): 94% (NOTE: the values for 3, 4 and 5 are not statistically reliable since too few people fell into that category, so they can at best show a rough trend.)

Of those who self-describe as gay or lesbian, only 93% had a same sex sexual experience ...

On poly:

• Just because you can be romantically attracted to multiple people does not mean you are in multiple --- or even one --- relationship at any time. You can be single, just like everyone else.
  
• Just because you are romantically involved with someone, that does not mean you have or want sex. Plenty asexuals have romantic relationships ... [1]
  
• Just because you are involved with one or more partners does not mean you are involved with their partners. From the simple "I am hetero, my partner is hetero, so my partner's partner are the same sex that I have ..." to the equally simple "That person doesn't do anything for me ...".
  A V is much more common than a triangle.
  
• Even when you are involved with some (or all) of your partner's (or partners') partners, you --- or other participants --- may not like threesomes or group sex.
  
• Even when you and your partners love group sex, do you all only like group sex?
  
• And even if you only ever want group sex, this does not mean you will sleep in the same bed. Even bog-standard heterosexual marriages have partners who snore too loud or move too much for the other one to sleep, or sleep well. Or one partner may need a lot of space on the bed, almost a whole double bed for one person --- there simply is no space for a second person. Of course the chance for one partner being that way is larger when there are more partners.
  
• The sexuality lived between any two partners in a poly relationship may be incompatible to one or more of the others. If you e.g. like spanking your partner (who is happy to be spanked), but their partner cannot see that ... well, no threesome with spanking. Doesn't mean you and your spanking partner won't have spanking, and your partner and their partner won't have whatever sex they like ... just not together at the same time and place.

Thus I think that migration between beds is not a bad idea, and a double bed may well work for three.

On the other hand, an extra large bed may also be good for those who, while not (necessarily) in a relationship with each other, still want group sex ...

(and maybe some sex can be done like some other group activity, a party or a marriage or horse shoes, where the people go back to their beds afterwards (not necessarily immediately) ...


[1] plenty people are also not interested in romantic relationships. That includes plenty asexuals. This also includes the kind of person who loves sex and has a new sex partner every few days, but never anything longterm.

Hi Antonin! Yep, I saw the YouGov report. I'm not suprised at the numbers there. Self-identification has a range of issues, really. There are plenty of academic examples of self-identified straight men who have sex with men (MSM)- in fact, social stigmas associated with the terms gay and bisexual are why the term MSM exists!

On your points on poly/romance in order:
- Yes, of course poly people can be single. If I do include it, poly relationships will evolve and break down as other relationships do, but will not be limited to a pair of people. The consent of current romantic partners will be sought when adding a partner, or it will be cheating.

- I am very much aware of this, but I think that such a drastic separation of sex and romance may be more complexity than most players are after. It would neccesitate the introduction of, say, Heterosexual/Homoromantic, Asexual/Heteroromantic &c &c, where I think people are in general pretty happy with the current additions and many may be put off by too much content on top of what is there presently.

- Absolutely. Probably covered in 1), which will not, in general, generate triangles. Where it does, it will naturally evolve from individual decisions, that is A partners with B, B partners with C, A separately (but with consent of B) partners with C.

- Covered above.

- Covered above.

- Vanilla rimworld has the mood debuff "Want to sleep with my partner", which without a pretty strong rewrite would apply to all romantic pairings. Admittedly I'm now tempted to introduce a "snorer" trait that disturbs the sleep of other people in the room.

- Absolutely! Though I will certainly not be modding the specifics of colonists' sexual activities into RimWorld.


In general, yes all of these complexities are parts of human romance and sexuality, but I doubt I'll be able to do them all justice and keep things balanced and simple, if I'm able to find the time to do them at all. Some non-sexual romance, such as dating, is something I will aim for in a future update, and at the other end of the spectrum I'd like to have casual sex with no romantic attachment as a joy activity. Over the longer term, I may try to introduce basic poly relationships, with a poly trait allowing for additional partners (with the say-so of the previous ones). I'm unlikely to ever take it as far as sexual encounters involving three or more colonists.

Originally posted by Antonin:

The self-reported hetero/♥♥♥♥/bi/other classification is vastly overreporting hetero, and underreporting bi...
[snip]
...So while 89% say they are hetero, only 72% are completely hetero.

I will admit that sexual orientation is not always a clear black and white. There does seem to be a grey area. How we use labels and how we try to categorize people is a matter of perspective. One or two gay (or straight) experiences may not necessarily make a person bi. (I believe some call that "experimentation.") Having an usual dream does not say much about orientation. And having a very limited experience in romantic feelings or sex makes for a poor sampling to judge something like that.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that fringe cases and exceptions to the rule do not necessarily invalidate the results of the many polls that have been conducted. While there is a real stigma for coming out, I still think the most accurate way to determine this is by how people identify themselves in anonymous polls.

(People tend to be more forthcoming over the internet, particularly when given a semblence of anonymity. It's called the "online disinhibition effect[en.wikipedia.org]" - look it up. Compared to a public setting, people are much more willing to admit their true orientation if they can reply anonymously.)

Also, I want to point out that this is only a game. For that matter, there is only so much complexity that Romance Diversified can simulate and only so much complexity that players would tolerate.

AFAIK, traits such as Straight, Bisexual, and Gay can only be yes or no answers - either a pawn has the trait, or they don't. There's no room for borderline cases or grey areas. As such, I still refute that estimate of 72% for Straight - at least for the purposes of a game where there is no room for a grey area.

@SeveralPuffins Absolutely -- it's a game. And not one where observing sexual acts are a Major Selling Point, nor it is a totally trruthful simulator of human relationships! I just wanted to throw in some facts, as some people think poly equals a non-stop group sex orgy with lube being delivered by the crate and sex toys taking up half the house.

There is already a "masochist" trait, which would work well with a "sadistic" trait ... right?

Speaking of a "snorer" or "very loud snorer" trait --- how about a "smelly/stinker" trait (body odor, smelly flatulence, ...) :-P It may even work with some animals (better hope your sense of smell is gone if you bond ...)



@Thundercraft There most certainly is a grey area.

You write: "One or two gay (or straight) experiences may not necessarily make a person bi.", and indeed, a lot of people who have sex experiences in prison, military, boys- or girls-only boarding school, ... (where usually the only available partners are of the same sex) will not have same sex encounters when the opposite sex is available, nor see themselves as anything other than heterosexual.

So there is a very strong disconnect between self-applied label and (self-reported!) behaviour --- and what we see in the game Rimworld is behaviour, not self labelling. A pawn who has homosexual encounters ... well, has homosexual encounters, full stop, and will be observed behaving in that way by the player, no matter if the pawn self-describes (e.g. via a trait) as hetero, gay/lesbian or bi.

You don't even need such traits as "Straight, Bisexual, and Gay", you can just as easily have traits like Kinsey-scale-0, -1, ... -6, which can be yes/no but are much finer graduated. Or you simply have traits like "same-sex attraction (romantic)" and "... (sexual)" with values of say, 0-100%; and that easily allows for all these gray areas. (We do have things like hunger and mood ... which are not binary "yes/no" and change over time, too, thus being even more complex.)

And you can refute all you want --- if it was about self-labelling, you would be right, but this is about externally observed behaviour ... observed by the player and their interpretations[1]. So really, what matters is behaviour, not self-label.


[1] If the player sees everyone who ever had an assumed heterosexual encounter (e.g. being a parent) as totally straight, no matter if they have only same sex encounters, fine; if they see everyone who ever had any same sex encounter as gay/lesbian, fine; if they see pawns who had both as bi, also fine. It's the player's interpretation.

Love your suggestions about Poly relationships... And I think in order to to simplify, we could just add non-monogamous as a trait? (no mood debuff for other dates, other partneships, maybe even compersion(=mood buff when partner(s) are happily dating/spending quality time with other partners))

@WASP103 How about "not interested in X (optionally: while Y)"?
X can be "same gender", "opposite gender", "much older", "much younger", ... and Y could be "in a relationship", "sober", "in pain", "in a bad/good/terrible mood", ... :-P

Of course you can fall in love while in a good, monogamous relationship and seeing yourself as very monogamous ... and in a small colony, you cannot avoid people that much. Which can have lots of interesting outcomes, from "breaking up" to "just good friends" to "avoiding" and "silent suffering" and "burying oneself in work" and "being absent from the coloby for much of the time, wandering around or 'doing the hunting' and other away jobs", or "cheating", or triggering breakdowns and murderous rage or suicidal behaviour ... same as any poly relationship, really, when your partner(s) veto.

Lots of drama to be had, it's a staple of lots of stories, books, films, telenovelas, police procedure shows, talk shows, etc etc etc ...

ouch.

How about "avoiding Drama" and "processing" as well? ;)

Avoiding drama? Sounds too much grown up and not enough daytime soap opera.

What are the poor storyteller AIs going to do when they try to produce drama for you and the pawns ... simply do not cooperate: no break downs, no getting drunk on moonshine, no getting blind from the moonshine, no running around stark naked in the wilderness, breaking a leg and getting half-eaten by hungry locals (fauna or tribes or whatever) before being rescued by their friends, except the one that spurned them (who will have another breakdown of remorse when they see what their spurning did) , and the long long way back to half-life, with one arm, one leg, one lung, one (blind) eye, until the colony has managed enough funds to get bionic replacements ... but the implantation causes an infection to which the poor pawn ultimately succumbs, whereon the spurning pawn starts wandering the countryside, right into the path of some raiders, and is left unconscious, bleeding into the grass, nibbled at by boomalopes while the colony, now short 2 members, gets nearly slaughtered wholesale by the raiders, but finally manage drive them off ... just to find that they are unable to get the doctor to the meds or to the wounded, as a manhunter is lurking outside the few still standing huts and the doc has no chance in a fight, every one else is down ... and no access to food, when suddenly a traveller ...

If it was "avoiding Drama" and "processing", none of that would happen, the raiders would be repulsed with little damage, the manhunting crazies be shredded and nobody would save up for synthetic eyes ... :-)

(and yes, that 'whacked badly, last standing character cannot go play doctor due to a manhunter, everybody dies as the doc tries to make a dash for it and is not fast enough' actually happened to me. What a legend! Now imagine "no drama" ...)