Major Themes: SEX

[delaun]

Major Themes: SEX

Not Intercourse.

I was listening to the interview with Mike Pondsmith (pretty sure that's right) and he mentioned that gender was fluid, and I got to thinking how would that effect the world? I mean the world hasn't become this giant utopian society where class, race, and gender don't matter so what does it mean when you can change these things? Racism didn't disapear in Star Trek (cosmetic surgery was able to change things greatly.) and it was even more pronounced in Shadow Run (new races just mean more things to hate). So since we're not being diplomatic about it what does it really mean?

In terms of game play I hope that playing either gender is a viable option. I'll be sad if I can't play my cybered out chika killing everyone in her path, Preferably with a bunny girl package installed. Is that something that you can swap in game? Will NPC's know/care that I've swapped genders? How will other NPC's react to you based on your gender. Lets face it. We do NOT treat men and women the same. We never have and I sincerely doubt we ever will.

Maybe even exploring this topic while braindancing. I think it would be really cool to have our Max officer braindancing a prostitute trying to find out what is going on in the streets and have it be a giant juxtaposition from the reality that the players have grown to know and understand thus far. People live different lives and what sex you are has a major roll to play in that.

What is your imput?

 

[onosendai7]

When any woman may kick your sorry butt for a wrong word (how cybered is she ? Is she shipped for knows Tae Kwon Do ?), you'd better bet that men and women are more equal in 2077 than they are now (heard about Molly ?).
Beauty is commonplace and affordable.
Exotics genre are also available.

So I frankly do not expect sexism in any CP game. Man or woman, who cares ? As long are you are a pro, no one will check.

 

[delaun]

When any woman may kick your sorry butt for a wrong word (how cybered is she ? Is she shipped for knows Tae Kwon Do ?), you'd better bet that men and women are more equal in 2077 than they are now (heard about Molly ?).

If what you are getting at is that cyberware is the great equalizer then what about guns? They take little to no skill to use (though to use well is a different story) they are easy, VERY easy to come by and regardless of body shape, size or athleticism are the deciding factor in many fights. That hasn't changed sexism in modern day. Why would cyberware be so different?

 

[Garrison72]

The closest we have from them is 'seriously, don't worry about customization.' I personally give it a strong chance we can play as either gender. But still no official confirmation.

 

[deathntaxes]

Fluid Gender categories is definitely a major social dimension impacted by body modification. Look @ how surgery and drugs are allowing gender re-assignment therapies.

Obvioulsy this shouldn't get too cartoonish i.e. six penises and shit, but there should be a lot of more fluid gender categories and NPC responses/general acceptance of different gender norms. This should play out in the types of relationships depicted.

However - A mature approach to this topic shouldn't just be stuck at a heteronormative contextualizaiton of sexuality/gender. Gender is much more complex then hetero/homo sexuality and male/female.

Men & Women will exist of course, but what about Gender categories that don't engage with either? Queer, Gay, lesbian, transgender, transexual, blah blah blah. There's a lot more stuff to depict then women who are stronger then men and men who act "effeminate". I hope we get a splash of many different types of gender dynamics reflecting the ability to define & create New gender types through cyber , drugs, and gene splicing.

 

[Overdosing]

So I frankly do not expect sexism in any CP game. Man or woman, who cares ? As long are you are a pro, no one will check.

Why not sexism on both sides of the spectrum, at least?

 

[Garrison72]

Eh, I expect all sorts of sexism, racism and all around nasty shit in CP 2077.

 

[delaun]

Why not sexism on both sides of the spectrum, at least?

Don't see why there shouldn't be. But, it doesn't have to all be about sexism. A persons sex is much more than what bathroom they go to. I don't expect there to be a giant part of the game dedicated to this but it would be nice for them to broach the subject. If a persons sex is fluid what does it mean to be male or female?

 

[blank_redge]

Obvioulsy this shouldn't get too cartoonish i.e. six penises and shit...

brb; getting six prehensile Mr. Stud implants.

Urotsukidoji ftw! =D

 

[Sardukhar]

brb; getting six prehensile Mr. Stud implants.

Urotsukidoji ftw! =D

Check out Kiroshi - they have a special on Mr. Studd, 15% off with the package deal for cybereye mounting!

 

[blank_redge]

...package deal...

...heh.

 

[Sardukhar]

Double entendril. Nice.

 

[username_3658409]

Not up to speed on the 2020 lore, but using implants takes mental affinity and fitness, no?

Although people like to deny it, there are differences in how the male and the female brain operates. Obviously there are degrees, but a classically "male" brain will exhibit a greater adeptness at using single, more complex modules, while the female will have a greater ability to handle multiple modules simultaneously at a lesser capacity. Depending on how much you can modify your cortex, and how commonplace these modifications are, some stereotypes will still be around.

"you have the situational awareness of a little boy"

"a chick can hack faster than you"

As such there may still be gender specific jobs, such as a female-dominated warfare suite contingents (such as today's fighter pilots, and maybe the future's drone cluster overseers or something.) and still male dominated hard academia cores.


But the physical appearance and sexuality IMO will be completely arbitrary, with virtually no difference between a natural and a transsexual, other than their statistical position on the brain-gender-spectrum.

 

[i-Lo]

Not up to speed on the 2020 lore, but using implants takes mental affinity and fitness, no?

Although people like to deny it, there are differences in how the male and the female brain operates. Obviously there are degrees, but a classically "male" brain will exhibit a greater adeptness at using single, more complex modules, while the female will have a greater ability to handle multiple modules simultaneously at a lesser capacity. Depending on how much you can modify your cortex, and how commonplace these modifications are, some stereotypes will still be around.

"you have the situational awareness of a little boy"

"a chick can hack faster than you"

As such there may still be gender specific jobs, such as a female-dominated warfare suite contingents (such as today's fighter pilots, and maybe the future's drone cluster overseers or something.) and still male dominated hard academia cores.


But the physical appearance and sexuality IMO will be completely arbitrary, with virtually no difference between a natural and a transsexual, other than their statistical position on the brain-gender-spectrum.

Given it's a game and not macro-gender study and experiment, I see no possibility of either positive or negative discrimination in either base functions or in the ability to progress being dependent on gender (more so if at some point changing gender is possible). All of the base statistics will be tied to class the player chooses at the beginning. I see it to be system akin to Dark Souls.

 

[onosendai7]

If what you are getting at is that cyberware is the great equalizer then what about guns? They take little to no skill to use (though to use well is a different story) they are easy, VERY easy to come by and regardless of body shape, size or athleticism are the deciding factor in many fights. That hasn't changed sexism in modern day. Why would cyberware be so different?

What I am saying is that your character, be it a girl, a man, or "I-don't-know-what", is a member of a community. This comunity respects proficiency. Your job is to steal, kidnap or murder. You're not expected to be "fleur bleue". You have a reputation to take care of. If you are badass enough do deal with the most feared security teams, I don't know why there should be any relevance of sex. That so good looking professional is really able to kick your butt, so you'd better behave.

CP 2020 P&P is not a social study but a RPG. CP 2077 will not be a social study either. And your remark about weapons is not relevant, being so peculiar to USA and some third world countries where guns are easily available. Guns are not so easy to get in most parts of the world.

 

[Sydanyo]

Double entendril. Nice.

Tendrils? Urotsukidōji, multiple Mr. Studds, and now plants... What's next?

 

[Sardukhar]

Not up to speed on the 2020 lore, but using implants takes mental affinity and fitness, no?

Nope. How -many- you can pack in is a factor of emotional robustness, surgical advantages and raw luck. But using them is the same.

 

[delaun]

What I am saying is that your character ... ... is a member of a community. This community respects proficiency.

CP 2020 P&P is not a social study but a RPG. CP 2077 will not be a social study either.

What you are saying is that in the cyberpunk dystopian future the sex of a person is simply doesn't matter. That the only thing that does matter is a persons ability. I am disagreeing with you. People tend to as a rule separate themselves into groups. Boys and Girls, Jocks and Nerds, Wealthy and Poor, in some Caribbean cultures they go so far as to distinguish between shades of brown a practice also practiced by the Japanese many years back. To assume that something as fundamental as a persons sex plays no role in how you are treated seems foolhardy to me. It may not be sexism, but there is a significant difference. Thousands of years have passed in human culture and while the roles may have changed over time they have not gone away.

As far as cyberpunk being or not being a social study I again have to disagree. Cyberpunk 2020 as a PnP RPG wasn't made like GURPS. It wasn't a generic ruleset that you could build your own world off of, it was a living breathing world with prominent figures and places. If you wanted to you could break things down and try to analyze why the authors chose to do things the way they did or you can look at the world itself and try to figure out the patterns and motivations behind the actions they've done. Look at modern day comics. People spend hours arguing over the methodology of characters and whether different writers have done justice to a fictional character. Countless people have written off Star Wars Ep. I, II, and III because they felt that it deviated from the world established in episodes IV, V, and VI. Now I'm not saying that the topic of sex needs or even deserves to be explored fully in the game, however, I would like to have it explored on the periphery. It is a significant issue in today's world and I'm sure that it will have an impact on the world for many many years to come be it a dystopian future or a utopian one.

As a side note your comment about guns being pointless strikes me as silly. The idea that fire arms are only made readily available in the US and third world countries dumbfounds me. if that were true organizations like the Yakuza (Japan), Triad (China), IRA, Mafia (Russian or otherwise), and the countless number of street gangs would seem down right silly wouldn't they? Walking around threatening civilians with box cutters and whistles? Not to mention that any country that allows hunting has a means and method of selling legal fire arms to it's populace and those legal fire arms can easily be passed off to friends and family for recreational use. Guns are everywhere, it's not just the "trigger happy Americans" and the third world countries.

 

[wisdom000]

What question is being raised here?

While it hasn't been officially confirmed, it's pretty obvious that you will be able to choose either male or female characters.... I am not sure what else you could require. The ability to switch back and forth.... this isn't ranma.... sure you could do that, but who the hell would? The humanity loss for each subsequent procedure would begin to escalate pretty rapidly... and its not like the effects of hormone therapy are instant... or something you want to mix and match... this week I want to take estrogen, next week I want to take testosterone....

What you would end up doing is destroying your body utterly...

If you are that bloody confused just get a full conversion body, and put your groin on a quick change mount.... Other wise, just pick the outward appearance that suits you and go with it.... In Fallout 3 and New Vegas you could change your appearance, including your gender, mid game. Nothing was said about it, no one noticed, no one cared. In Saints Row 2, you could switch genders at any point, again, it wasn't treated as an issue. These games dealt with it just fine. IN SR3, switching genders earned you the transgender trophy....... this is a game that handled it poorly, and in a juvenile fashion.... but then again everything about SR3 was juvenile frat boy crap.

The best way to treat the subject maturely, imho, is not to make a big deal out of it in the first place... treat the whole thing as just another option. Anything else is just going to come across as either pandering, or juvenile.

 

[ghostlee]

I do think brain dance would potentially alter gender relations significantly. Being able to experience the thoughts and emotions of the opposite gender would finally break down some walls. Looking forward to seeing gender sensitivity programs wherever have to braindance PMS as punishment for sexism in the workplace.

On the other hand... So much porn would be generated through braindance, and porn objectifies gender. Not a good basis for gender relations shifting to nuance and understanding.