I am not in the closet, and haven't been for many years. I'm queer as a three dollar bill (and female, if my readers haven't actually met me. The whole "Jeremy" thing is a long story.) But I was thinking last night about what I'd say if someone asked me if I'm out to my community.
The answer is... not really. I mean, I don't hide it - I'd be hard-pressed to do so convincingly anyway, and I have no desire to. But it's just a non-issue at work, and it's never come up. (Well, confession time. When I told my L2 forum suitor who played a male Light Elf "I prefer my women a little more butch," I meant it literally. Sorry.) The more I thought about it, though, the more I felt that it was *important* that it was a non-issue - that it *shouldn't* come up.
I think it comes down to this: players are not sex objects. At all, period, regardless of orientation. Some of the most cheerfully lecherous men I know are CMs, but when they're working, they're working. It's a different mode, and sex doesn't come into it at all - and so sexuality doesn't. (I'm not making claims about what happens in the privacy of people's heads - or even my head - just that the actual communication between a CM and his or her players is outside of all sexual considerations.)
And this is important, because we have a very specific relationship to our players. The somewhat tortured analogy I made in my head last night was that we are, in many ways, like priests. The players come to us, share their troubles, their concerns, and - you'd be surprised how often - their sins, and we intercede with the dev team on their behalf. It's a very particular sort of intimacy, and it's really very impersonal in many ways - they don't need to know anything about what kind of single malt I drink or whether I favor UT or Texas Tech, but they do need to believe in my relationship with my dev team and my willingness to act on their behalf. The minute a players starts to believe that a CM is interested in them for some out-of-game reason, that relationship breaks down. And when it does, word gets out - this is the internet, after all - and that relationship breaks down on a much larger scale.
So, am I out to my players? Well, they have Google, and I'm sure they can find this post or other evidence. But the real answer is, it doesn't matter. It just doesn't come up.
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3 comments:
I love this post Jeremy. It's well written and completely relevant. :) Thanks!
Well said Jeremy. I don't hide anything about my RL from players either, but it's definitely out there on the interwebs if they choose to find it.
People are a lot more tolerant of other people's views when they are left as a non-issue. It becomes just another part of the way that person is and nothing more is thought of it. I'm a practicing Roman Catholic that is very often in non- or even anti-religious circles and everyone is fine with that. Now, if I started putting up "Accept Christ" posters at my desk and telling people they *need* to accept that I am religious, well, then it becomes an issue to people, but that would be because I made it one.
What helps in your case, Jeremy, is that you're cool to hang out with, knowledgeable about your field, and a great CM. You could probably tell people you eat puppies and they'd be cool with that.
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