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Article by Vice: Mod repository Nexus Mods has removed a mod that was supposed to gender-swap the character of Dame Aylin from the game “Baldur’s Gate 3” in order to remove a lesbian relationship.
Contains spoilers for the second act of the game
I would bet dollars to doughnuts that it is, if only because I remember a time where these mods were removed from where they were hosted (pre-nexus mods) because they added lesbian content. They did it because they wanted to objectify women.
It’s the same kinds of people, if not for the same exact reason. (Objectifying women is the overall reason though.)
I hear you. The manosphere really took off after the Gamergate stuff, so it became cool to hate women even if you weren’t religious. So, I’ll grant you that it’s largely from the same kind of misguided, socially stunted men.
But I can’t help but hope that not all LGBT mod representation in the past was purely fetish material.
Oh of course not, I am just saying that these people often do things because they’re angry and lashing out. They’re almost always Conservative (in my experience) and the goals are the same.
What I find so… surprising isn’t the word… curious, is that these same people can do two things that are the opposite, but with the same goal. Originally, it was to make women into sexual objects – you’ve likely seen the 90’s movie trope of the ‘hot women kissing whoaaaaaaa!’ It wasn’t meant to be positive towards 2SLGBTQ+ people, it was meant to degrade women. (I dunno if anyone else remembers, but when I was in college in, sigh, the late 90’s, every 5th guy had a poster of two girls kissing – it was that ubiquitous)
Now, that same type of guy finds the thing to do is deny women, in that same situation, because now they aren’t objects. I can almost guarantee you the guy who made this mod is: White, in his 20’s, conservative, middle/upper class, listens to Joe Rogan/Andrew Tate type of stuff, and is into ‘Crypto’. Back in, sigh, the 90’s, these people still existed, they were just more accepted. The ‘boys will be boys’ people; think of a young person who now looks to Brett Kavanaugh as a role model.
My glasses are a lot rosier than yours I think. “Whoa hot chicks kissing” really didn’t bother to degrade women so much as not even acknowledge them; it was purely meant for male viewership (which were the predominant demographic for comedies, video games, etc.). Despite the Weinsteins of the day, I think most productions were market driven, plain and simple.
And while you’re certainly right about conservative, I wouldn’t be so sure about the rest of that demographic information. Baldur’s Gate 3 has broad appeal, for better or worse, and misogyny manifests from a lot of different factors. If not an over-generalization, it sounds like some personal baggage.
I mean, I doubt we’ll ever know the exact person’s specifics, but to answer your last comment: In a way, yes. I was friends with many of these people. I’ve been a computer ‘nerd’ since, well, the 80’s, and my fellow computer nerds. While definitely misogyny manifests from different factors, having spent a lot of time with people who have created/liked said content, my personal baggage here would lead me to believe that my guess is pretty dead on. Again, we’ll never know, but very similar things have been done, by people I knew who fit said descriptions.
I feel like I should post the ‘it’s the same picture’ meme here. What if (straight, white, cis) men are the predominant demographic… because it objectifies women? I know women who ‘weren’t gamers’ specifically because of how women were treated (or, as you alluded to earlier, ignored). Once things started to shift, they felt able to be included in gaming.
I think this may be a life imitates art imitates life situation.