the case for banning homophobia

[satin 7600]

 

I’m here to have a quick chat about homophobia in roleplay – and why, in my opinion, it should be banned. I want to be clear, before I start, that a lot of the fingerpointing towards people who want homophobia to be banned does not apply to me; I am not progressive, I do not come from a liberal, left-wing background; indeed my family itself is conservative – not religious, but conservative all the same. I want no comments denouncing me as a braindead, sensitive child of the modern world, neurons fried by TikTok and radical left-wing social media; I am no such person. I would instead like to offer a good faith argument as to why I think any sort of narrative benefit that homophobia roleplay could ever hope to offer is outweighed by, well, all the negatives it brings.

 

I am perfectly aware that those who roleplay homophobia are not necessarily homophobic. I am also aware that barely anyone nowadays roleplays things akin to what was going on in late Rozania, where Savoyard crusaders were literally crucifying gay characters. That sort of thing simply doesn’t happen anymore, and rightly so. I can’t even recall the last time beyond that that I’ve heard of such a thing, and even then they were viewed as extreme by most.

 

However, I don’t think it’s by any means a bad thing to ban things that should be banned but don’t happen; proactivity when it comes to matters of server legislation is important, because it wards off those who might get tempted. But let us ask; what is the case for keeping homophobia?

 

Well, for one thing, it sort of provides narrative. The recent incident of the Four Princes post, I think, is a good example of why I’ve said ‘sort of’. The post itself, I am told by many Church fleepers, was entirely driven by OOC; such was echoed by other, more senior members of the Church in their responses in different threads and Discords – that it was basically looked down upon by them because it was done OOCly. I must admit, it’s always funny to see the Church accuse others of acting out of character, but that’s beside the point.

 

Another often-quoted reason I see stated as to why homophobia should remain unbanned is simply that it represents adversity; a challenge for people to tackle IRP, or a way for people who have to deal with homophobia irl to deal with it here.

 

But let us be clear. Homophobia has not been eroded and does not happen less in roleplay because of things that have happened in roleplay – instead, it has become OOCly looked down to roleplay homophobia because of the shifting demographics of the server, and is therefore looked down upon in roleplay due to the problem we have with self-inserts. In reality, getting the Church to change its position on virtually anything is near-impossible because all of the decisions are made in private Discord chats. Roleplay plays no part on this, at least where the Church is concerned, and it should stop pretending that it does. Whatsmore, in relation to the overcoming real-world homophobia - Lord of the Craft is not your therapy site. It’s an extremely bad idea to come here looking to resolve some real-life conflict; seek professionals instead of trying to get over homophobia in the real world on a minecraft roleplay server.

 

I think it’s important to look at this through the parental lens, too. Would you let your thirteen year old son join the server and start pretending to be homophobic with a bunch of strangers? I think not (at least I hope not). Also, imagine joining the server as a pink tag, walking into a town and seeing a bunch of people screeching about sodomy (as an NL recently told me happened in their town). It’s a bad look for the server, and this brings me to another point; any reflection of a real-world prejudice on our server makes us look crass and unimaginative. We can come up with better methods of producing narrative conflict, can’t we?

 

To be fair, the only group with any real excuse for being homophobic is the high elves, because of their low fertility rates; homosexual individuals could be perceived  as negatively contributing to society. But even this is bogus because elves have like ten children a month and have massive families, so that clearly isn’t adhered to and therefore isn’t an excuse to justify homophobia roleplay.

 

A final point I’d like to make is that people tend to point to homophobia as an example of medieval realism; that’s utterly bogus. We have tanks, magical robots, and mech-limbs. Homosexuality is, to be frank, far more realistic in medieval terms than any of those things – if you wish to battle for realism, do so on the fronts that actually deserve attention.

 

My position is clear: we should flat-out ban all forms of real-world prejudice from the server. It’s basically an informal rule, where the only holdout is homophobia for some reason – we don’t permit real-world racism, but we permit homophobia. Whether or not the Church falls under that category is something I’m a little unsure on; personally I don’t like Church homophobia roleplay because it can only ever be extremely lazy or purposefully overly traditional, but that’s besides the point. I would encourage genuine thought and discussion on this; my understanding is that Llir is planning to hold a community meeting on the matter, and I hope that this can generate some genuine thought beforehand. If you disagree with me, if I’ve missed something out, if I’ve made a mistake, please do say so. have a good day chaps

 

Also, I'm aware that I held a different opinion a few weeks ago, but I've changed my mind since last posting the malaise quote, that does happen sometimes and people can listen to constructive debate

 

Spoiler

@wowjive got you

 

 

[Haseroth 1740]

@BorinGet the popcorn please.

[Enlightenment 2295]

If you don't like people's rp, ignore them, simple as. Goes for any sort of rp you don't like!

[HugoAntero 1962]

always nice to see wowj support on long forum posts

[wowj 9747]

24 minutes ago, satinkira said:

@wowjive got you

thanks man

[Unwillingly 18096]

satinkira milking the hell out of both sides of the argument for maximum levels of rep farming, I respect it

I'm not tired of this conversation because the hype died down I'm tired of seeing people type massive essays and crawling out of their discord shadow council hibernation dedicated to justifying why homophobia is an ABSOLUTE NECESSITY for their RP because we all know that as soon as this stops being a conversation they'll disappear again

all I'm gonna point out here is that there is no "fantasy version" of homophobia (elves are a shy exception but we all know they aren't even close to being the biggest advocates for minecraft homophobia OOCly). you can be fake racist towards fake races. call elves dagger ears, call orcs barbaric savages, but homophobia on LOTC is often just the same regurgitated talking points queer people hear every day. we generally frown upon just being textbook racist towards farfolk characters, so if we draw the line at being racist towards one IRL minority group, why are we not consistent and drawing the line at being homophobic towards another IRL minority group

[Barbarus 1232]

[satin 7600]

1 minute ago, Enlightenment said:

If you don't like people's rp, ignore them, simple as. Goes for any sort of rp you don't like!

 

thanks to the church intervening and having executive authority in all types of human canonist rp beyond norland, its a bit difficult to ignore it

[Pancho 4197]

I only support IRP homophobia because it breaks up the consistent RP I usually do. As someone who RPs very gay and slightly homophobic chars, as long as it doesn't go to the point of killing chars for being gay I don't find it as an issue. There's a difference between simply saying ICly that its bad and your character doesnt support it and straight up witch hunting for it.

[Josif 544]

Josif approved.

[kujo_ 2510]

upvote me if you think racism is bad ❤️

[colovian fur 8360]

this thread is really gay

[Gemini 1737]

Rights???? To gay people????? Girl never

 

(for legal reasons im joking I love gay people)

[ydegirl 2357]

36 minutes ago, satinkira said:

Savoyan

its savoyard btw

[beetle 3315]

gay rights y'all

(also i love this post - this was a great read)