If everyone is bisexual, who's flying the plane?

Happy Pride everyone! For some reason, I decided this month’s post would be lambasting representation instead of celebrating something positive - I know, I know, I’m the problem, it’s me. And yet, I cannot fake my feelings nor what my brain wants to write about. So here it is - my video game pet peeve I share with, I’m sure, very few people.

There’s a phenomenon I’ve taken to calling boringwoke. This is mostly in reference to media that is so convinced that it needs to be socially perfect that it spends most of its time dodging perceived bullets instead of, you know, being interesting. This isn’t the pet peeve - this is an annoyance that I know many, many people share. There are threads all over Twitter and Instagram etc. about how so many books and TV shows these days are sanitized and everyone uses therapy speak constantly. I’m in good company. But there’s a specific version of it that has had me rolling some words around my mental tumble-box lately, and it’s related largely to video games. I’m going to try to articulate it here.

I don’t like when video games make everyone bisexual.

I know, sacrilege, coming from someone who is at the very least bi-adjacent (my own sexuality remains specific enough to be unlabeled - my usual response to the question is a little bit wouldn’t you like to know, weatherboy). Bi people love when people are bisexual. And I do too! I love bisexual characters, I love bisexual themes, I love when media even says the word bisexual (which, to this day, remains a rarity)! I love bi people and I love bi media. But my god, I do not like when video games make every single godforsaken character bi without basically any thought whatsoever.

I understand why some games make this choice. RPGs specifically are in a bit of a double-bind: if you allow a player to choose their gender and you want them to be able to accomplish as many romance paths as possible, it would make sense to have the majority of your dateable cast be relatively nonchalant about gender. In many games, this ends with most characters being what is called player-sexual, showing little to no care about the gender of the player. Characters are either explicitly bisexual or do not discuss their romantic pasts or histories in gendered terms. But while these mechanics make sense from a gameplay perspective, they often create a sort-of post-gender logic that is liberating to some, but to others (me) feels like eating dry paper.

What does it mean to be bisexual in a world where sexuality doesn’t matter? Apparently, not very much. When sexuality is a throwaway trait that seems to have no material impact on the lives of the characters, I don’t feel relieved or excited. Instead I feel as if I have been pandered to lazily. Perhaps this is my privilege as someone who does not feel the desire to escape from my own sexual experience – or at least, not in this specific way. But while I want more queer characters, yes, I want queer characters whose queerness has informed their character. I want queer characters who have struggled, who have grown to understand their sexuality in deep and compelling ways. I want queer characters who are silly and queer characters who are annoying. I want repressed queers and loud queers. I want all different kinds of queers, not just casual bisexuals who are down for anything with the right kind of hottie. And sometimes this means that I don’t get to romance the sexy man because he’s gay and I play pretty much exclusively as women (#feminism). And that’s fine! When I play a video game, I am not looking to have my cake and eat it too. I’m looking to play a fucking video game.

Settings where gender otherwise does matter to society are my least favorite culprits of this. Playing any Dragon Age game it becomes incredibly clear immediately that gender and by extension misogyny are alive and well in this universe. Thus, it follows, characters must have clearly defined opinions on gender, and sexual preferences. If gender is a structure, sexual orientation is a structure, and having a variety of different romanceable characters means that they would most likely have difference gendered preferences in romance. Except apparently in Dragon Age II, where the whole cast is playersexual and nothing matters.

Dragon Age II allows the player to choose their character’s gender, like many RPGs in its genre. I make my choices intentionally. When I play as fem Hawke, I want to experience the world of Dragon Age as a woman, with all of the negatives that entails. I am not looking for an escape from sexism in a game that is so clearly rife with gender roles - instead, I am looking for ways to navigate it that feel empowering. I want to be a woman in a position of power and I want to make character choices informed by that experience. If that means I don’t get to date my favorite character, well… oh well! (I’m never going to be able to date my favorite DA2 character anyway, since I have peak taste and only have eyes for Aveline.)

If I wanted to play a game where I don’t have to think about sexism, I would play one that is truly gender ambivalent – not fucking Dragon Age. Similarly, if I wanted to play in a post-sexuality world, I would play a B-tier cardboard cutout dating sim (I say, affectionately. I love my dating sims!). Or I would play, like, Paradise Killer, a game which is definitely guilty of the “oops-all-bisexual” phenomenon, but I give it more of a pass for taking place on a bunch of cyberpunk vaporwave purgatory islands where gender seems to be more of an afterthought. The setting does, to some extent, matter. I would not play Dragon Age, or Baldur’s Gate, or Fallout, or whatever other playersexual game has critics raving about inclusivity.

Maybe it’s cynical of me, but often times games seem to almost try to play the playersexual angle for woke points, or capital-r Representation. Like “wow, look at how many bisexuals we have!” Except that bi people aren’t the only queer people, you know? That’s what make these games peak #boringwoke. When I call for more queer characters in video games, I’m not just interested in having my own experience represented in the most milquetoast way possible. My own experience of queerness is, quite frankly, pretty boring. I’m already milquetoast! And you want to make it even more homogenous? Instead, I want to know: how many lesbians does the game have? How many gay men? Ace people? How interesting, important, compelling are they? How do they conceptualize their queerness? How do they get to talk about it? How does it show up on screen?

My main point is this: bisexuality doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Sexualities are not choices humans make, but the identities and orientations that we sculpt around our sexualities are impacted by our experiences and the cultures around us. It’s why there’s so much infighting about who gets to call themselves queer. Thus, if everyone is bisexual, no one is bisexual, because the concept loses all meaning. Homogeneity wins. Queerness ceases to exist. And that’s not a world I’m interested in exploring, regardless of the setting – high fantasy, vaporwave purgatory, or the literal fucking Sims. So maybe this is a good post for Pride month! Because despite my many jokes to the contrary, I do love queer people. And more than anything, I want us to exist.

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P.S. What I am interested in is a game where the whole cast is bisexual but none of them want to fuck you, regardless of gender. Not because romance isn’t a part of the plot, but because the player character is deeply unfuckable. Now THAT’s what I call representation!