The silly thing is, people don’t seem to be using it to be anti-homosexual as such, but just as a buzz phrase without even thinking about what they are saying. To the extent that I overheard in General chat the following exchange:

A: Can someone lend me 5000g to learn epic mount?
B: Do some dailies to earn it. Its something that you really should do yourself the first time. Asking someone else to pay for it for you is like paying for a hooker….its just so gay.

what?

Its never really bothered me what the sexual orientation, gender, colour etc of the person I am playing with is, as long as they aren’t acting like an idiot.

What has been worrying me more is the large amount of people that seem to find themselves compelled to refer to any combat where one side lost significantly as being “raped”. While I find it a little insulting to hear people using “gay” as an offensive term, throwing out terms like “rape” for some casual event that may have happened in a game truely sickens me.

Where does the player that is sensitive to such comments go from there? Sure, they can ask people not to keep using the term as it is a distasteful usage of it, but that tends to fall on deaf ears. They could explain why they personally find it a sensitive issue, but who wants to be the person that is seen as the whiney sensitive one that made all the group feel uncomfortable?

Holy crap, I just sprayed coffee everywhere. THIS is pure win!!! The one I actually used once to the tank in a team was “Well I guess you don’t want my gay bubbles saving your ass then, huh?”

I am a little more militant. I don’t fight over the “gay” comment so much in Trade or General chats, but if I’m in a party I will always speak up if it gets out of hand. We have a strong but small Guild that is a fairly sheltered environment, comprised mostly of gay men, but some straight men and women as well. We make “gay” and “straight” cracks, but the difference is, we’re all friends and there’s no ignorance or bigotry involved.

I will ALWAYS, always report people that use fag, faggot, or any other derisive discriminatory or racist term. And when the customer service reps tell me “Just use ignore” we have a discussion on how that only exacerbates the problem…

Great post!

-RBK

Some of my closest friends over the years have been gay, and I’m Jewish. I don’t think I’ll ever be comfortable with racism and bigotry in chat, and I’m glad to see Blizzard take this stand, but your attitude and grace make me want to relax a bit, and take WoW chat a little less seriously. And the purse thing… well, that’s just so fucking Jewish.

I cant applaud enough your cavalier approach towards the joking and kidding around about sexual orientation. I like to kid about it too, but sometimes need to strive for calm and tolerance when the gay jokes get a little rough. I think it helps that i am a female and considered “only” bi. But you will see the gaming fur fly when I get told (and it happens more often than it should) that my GF and I are only gay because we secretly want men to think we are hot. >.<

But lolwut stories aside, my favorite comeback to hearing someone say something like, 'omg, that's so gay" is to smile and calmly say, "Why Thank You =)".

cheers!

Too Funny…. I love it….

It may sound strange, but I appreciate the less ‘in your face’ attitude you have towards that. I followed you for your priest knowledge, ideas, experience and blog. I respected you for those reasons … such personal details being less relevant.
Not that there’s any problem with ‘outing’ but it makes me wonder ‘does that really matter that much?’. Unless I’m trying to use Twitter and this wow community as a dating network, I doubt it.

Still, ‘gay jokes’ are common even in my friend circle. Calling eachother gay is part of our group’s humor… the gay friends in the group joining in
I can’t help feeling they are fundamentally different from the trade-channel jokes though. I guess… underlying respect does come accross despite the jokes IRL.

Underlying respect is tricky to get accross over the internet. Does it mean sexual references in names are, by definition, insulting? Perhaps not, but while one joke can be part of your groups humor and be ‘understood as just a joke’, it may come accross quite differently to other people. In fact, the same reference could even feel different to the same person, depending on who it comes from.

I can understand Blizzard reacts to this. I’m happy they are being more severe about it. I guess some people may find themselves limited in their self expression but I recall gaming communities roughly 14 years ago where such jokes were considered “not done” and it didn’t stop them from being fun, engaging and social.

Anyways, enough emo stuff.

Kidding aside, it’s no secret that our guild can seem offensive & crude to outsiders, but we all know there is a huge differance between believing in stereotypes & laughing at them. All the joking is just that – joking. We’re comfortable enough with each other to do that.

Derevka is no more ashamed about being gay than I am being female. It’s who were are, but it’s not ALL we are. We both have layers & colors beyond that – THAT’S who we are.

I’m well known for shocking comments & jokes, but I think it’s pretty obvious I’m joking. But enough of this – I have to get back in the kitchen and get Derevka & Ranedor a sandwich before I get beat.