World of Warcraft®

As others have said, it almost entirely depends on race.

Night elves, it would seem, are popularly depicted as being... flexible. This makes some logical sense, given that, even with a minimal non-druid male population, those on the Long Vigil probably got tired of parcheesi after a few hundred years. Blood elves might carry on this tradition, or they might not. Like several other races, there aren't many blood elves left, so some degree of encouragement is probably given to those relations that have the potential to bear children.

Draenei... well, popular opinion (meaning, if I see another pregnant #*@@!@# draenei death knight, I'm going to eat a goddamn baby) is that they're pretty open to things, but... they're arguably one of the most depopulated species on Azeroth. Heteronormativity is probably enforced purely to ensure survival.

Humans are The Mario of races, so it goes either way. Whatever you want, basically. Stormwind humans are probably pretty fine with it, Gilneans maybe not so much, given how tradition-bound and xenophobic they are. Other nations, I have no idea. Lordaeron's shtick was religion, but we have no idea what the Holy Light's stance is on homosexuality - given how progressive it is when not being worshipped by Scarlets, I'd say it doesn't have one.

Gnomes, I'd say they simply wouldn't care. There's the argument of their depopulation, but they apparently breed like rabbits. They don't really have hard-set traditions, and it's frankly hard to imagine gnomes being intolerant of anything other than maybe leper gnomes.

Dwarves... hm. Frankly, there's nothing to go on here. My instinct would be to say they might frown on it, since dwarves (in other settings, and possibly Azeroth) often are described as not reproducing very often, meaning that using the few occasions you can to do so is probably pretty important for the survival of the species.

If you're noticing a recurring pattern, good. Races that have population or reproductive issues are more likely to be less welcoming of homosexuality, because making sure there -is- a large next generation is very important.

Forsaken don't get nasty. End of story. They lack every single biological function that would be required. This probably kills most of their sexual and romantic drives, though see humans.

Orcs, eh. I could see it, I guess. They're not in danger of depopulation, certainly, and there's nothing about their culture that would really suppress it. A throwaway quest from pre-Shattering barrens implies that the Horde was fairly sexist before Thrall came along, though, so it may hold similar attitudes about homosexuality.

Trolls... probably. Like gnomes, they're implied to breed like rabbits, and it sort of fits with their unrestrictive culture, I guess. There's not much Darkspear troll culture to go off of, though, so... it's unclear. On the other hand, they're a tribal society with massive population issues (the smallest population of any playable race). It could go either way.

Tauren; very unclear. Their romantic traditions are almost never mentioned, though some of Cairne's comments in the Shattering imply that it's considered normal for young tauren to be interested in the opposite sex. Other than the Grimtotem, they're pretty accepting of new traditions (Sunwalkers, Cenarian druidism), so... maybe.

Goblins. I'm not even going to go there. Quote: they're totally into that.

12/27/2010 1:08 PMPosted by Nukeleo

OMG It ate my post.

So I'll sum it up: The Night Elves and Draenei have no societal inclination towards homosexuality. It does not help them in their goals of saving the world/universe, it isn't necessary for companionship as, while both enjoy loving relationships, they're perfectly capable of deriving joy from friendships and more importantly there's no reason to believe they'd openly accept it. We as humans tend towards whatever we enjoy because we live for so short a time. They do not. Their views are going to be different. Not to say they'd be openly against it.

Dwarves, Orcs, Humans, Worgen and Tauren all seem like they'd be rarer to deal with it but again not likely openly shun it. Well, possible, but not as common as simply being quiet about it.

Gnomes, Goblins, Blood Elves, Trolls and Forsaken all have much more varied ideals and societal acceptances.

Rather than argue, Imma ignore this guy

12/27/2010 2:04 PMPosted by Sorrowrunner

Rather than argue, Imma ignore this guy

...Why argue? I mean, we're running off of Blizzard's own ideas, right? So given the societies they've shown us we have no reason to believe Night Elves and Draenei DON'T have rigid values that they seldom stray from. It's why so many of them fulfill a stereotype of holy soldiers, shadowy assassins and nature's defenders. It's the way they are. They don't seem to change much at all in short periods of time. In all the years I've played I've only now encountered one NPC that behaved outside of this without being a dangerous target for execution and she was regarded by other NPCs as reckless.

They display rigid, structured societies where homosexual activities are very rare if existent outside of the outliers (us, the weirdos that travel the world and see/do things others can hardly dream of).

As I said before other races... aren't so structured (or freakishly long lived).

We are not really running off of what blizzard gave us, ultimately we are speculating. Wildly speculating in fact about what we think about societies and how they would handle something beyond heterosexual orientations in it's individual members.

At the end of the day, it is purely an aesthetic taste and conjecture based on whatever we theorize largely out of thin air.

As for actually playing a Homosexual character i think we have quickly gone over the important pitfalls people make and do's and don't aspects of it.

Whatever individual cultures think about homosexuality, I believe homosexuality would exist in all of them, much like real life, except undead who don't really have a sexual drive. We can debate all day about what individual cultures think of this, but in the end it's totally based on speculation and preconceived notions.

12/27/2010 1:22 PMPosted by Verric

Humans are The Mario of races, so it goes either way. Whatever you want, basically. Stormwind humans are probably pretty fine with it, Gilneans maybe not so much, given how tradition-bound and xenophobic they are. Other nations, I have no idea. Lordaeron's shtick was religion, but we have no idea what the Holy Light's stance is on homosexuality - given how progressive it is when not being worshipped by Scarlets, I'd say it doesn't have one.

In Twilight Highlands in the Crucible of Carnage there a Gilnean man who has multiple shirtless manservants under him, walking around and serving him. Lmao, I love Blizzard for doing that. <3

When it comes to the orcs and trolls, I'd honestly say that open homosexuality in either culture would probably be similar to open homosexuality in our world, when... I'm honestly not sure of the exact word, but when it was heavily reviled by the entire population almost. What I mean to say is, while the orcs do not have large problems in their population, by entering into a union that won't continue their family line, it could be construed as shaming your family line but forcing it to stop.

Now, this could lead to two things: the first being that the character hates themselves for this, and they force themselves to shun that side of them for their entire life. The other option I could see is them doing the whole 'Find a (fe)male mate, bare children, go to the Silvermoon Male Brothel on the weekend'.

For the trolls... I think, while relationships with mates of the opposite gender are encouraged, I believe the multiple mates tradition still holds, which means that trolls could openly explore their sexuality as long as they continue to produce offspring with their other mates.

Forgot to add, when it comes to the Draenei... I could see homosexuality being looked down upon a lot. Mostly, as said, for the fact that they do have a low population.

Personally I think that you shouldn't think about specific cultures attitudes to non-heterosexuals if you're going to rp a gay character. That would be pure speculation and you could easily follow stereotypes that are not necessarily true, such as-

"Warrior cultures (orcs, trolls, etc) would not be accepting because they value testosterone fueled manliness" Not necessarily true, male homosexual does not always equal effeminate in all cultures it is simply a Western stereotype.

"Night Elves would be cool with it because they spent 10,000 years with a massive gender imbalance" So? None sequitur argument, we know very little about Night Elven culture beyond 'magic is bad, nature is good, we are the master race, women are traditionally soldiers and priestesses and males traditionally druids'. You have no idea about how they view same gender relationships.

"Humans/Draenei wouldn't like it because they are pious" Again, non sequitur. The abrahamic religions may be anti-gay but that does not mean that all religion is, especially a fictional one that we know little about.

You don't know how these cultures view same gender relationships because Blizz hasn't elaborated. Making these cultures take a position on this is, in my opinion, a form of godmodding. I think that you should forget about wide racial culture and focus on much smaller groups of individuals. A family could be accepting in an unaccepting culture or unaccepting in an accepting culture, an individual tauren spiritual leader could believe that homosexuality is natural or an affront to nature.


Please note: the quotations aren't about anyone, they're just some positions I thought of.

To add onto Oldaz's fist point as well, the Spartans did promote homosexual relationships in their soldiers I believe up until the Spartan's wedding, mostly to bring the warriors closer together and such. But they did still marry and have a wife to continue their familial bloodline.

I gotta say, Blizz should seriously consider publishing a book detailing many facts of the different racial societies, cause now i'm very interested in it.

I want to offer my two copper and reinforce what several have already said. So long as your characters sexuality isn't their primary defining feature, I see no reason why it shouldn't work. To me, sexuality in WoW RP should, for the most part, be largely incidental.

Homosexuality in RPing is much like other quirks about character concepts I have a particular stance on. Something similar to being a Half breed. Only on a rare occaision should the idea be brought up, I have no problem with gays in a RP or real life environment, but if they are just openly being flamboyant (or the *female who is fond of another female* equivilant) then that is just seeking attention...desperatly, and it gets on my nerves.

I really can't say a whole lot about each race's stance on the matter simply because we have very little to work with. We can only take what we know and compare it to a real life situation and take a wild guess.

Also to a poster above me mentioning pregnant Draenei Death Knights (this is off topic, btw) you are right as in...wouldn't Death Knights lose the ability to procreate when they die? So the whole notion of the idea is completly, for the lack of a better term, wrong? This goes for any race being a Death Knight.

EDIT: For censor.

gonna RP a homo right away

12/29/2010 12:10 AMPosted by Kaezer

Homosexuality in RPing is much like other quirks about character concepts I have a particular stance on. Something similar to being a Half breed. Only on a rare occaision should the idea be brought up, I have no problem with gays in a RP or real life environment, but if they are just openly being flamboyant (or the *female who is fond of another female* equivilant) then that is just seeking attention...desperatly, and it gets on my nerves.

I really can't say a whole lot about each race's stance on the matter simply because we have very little to work with. We can only take what we know and compare it to a real life situation and take a wild guess.

Also to a poster above me mentioning pregnant Draenei Death Knights (this is off topic, btw) you are right as in...wouldn't Death Knights lose the ability to procreate when they die? So the whole notion of the idea is completly, for the lack of a better term, wrong? This goes for any race being a Death Knight.

EDIT: For censor.

OT: To get into the Death Knight debate would be many, many posts. Suffice to say, exactly what form of corruption necromantic energies have on the body is unknown, besides that only a few races actually have a chance at being non-undead Death Knights, but rather soulless necromanticly charged super weapons.

Some Death Knights sold their souls for power without truly dying, in this case we have something of a 'living' Death Knight.

Many men were druids, let's say roughly 30% of the male population? Let's say half of them slept at any given time a large number of females without mate for hundreds if not thousands of years at a time.

Each soldier is given a special partner, for Maiev is was Naisha (this is pretty much where the argument began, she is way too obsessed with her partner). Since military structure and architecture is half oriental and half greco-roman people have assumed that, like the Spartans, they were encouraged to take their partnership to another level so that the sentinels would fight harder to protect/impress their lovers. There's more argument to it than 'lol lots of sweaty womenz with no men, i bet they has secks'. Night elves shouldn't be real %!!!#%@s, like Spartans they should also be encouraged, once their tour of duty is over, to come back and find their soul mate.

Who's to say that magic doesn't allow for crap like that (the futa and why the hell isn't that censored)? Magic, trinkets and potions and likely gnomish technology, as gnomes would be more into that than goblins, let you change race, change size, change sex temporarily changing the external body structure of a women doesn't far-fetched at all.

And about death knights, we are dead, once you pick up that shiny rune weapon your life force is slowly drained and replaced with necromatic energies, this is why few of us look living and why none of us have our original eye color, except for blood elves who get to look sort of like high elves again, except our eyes are far more foggy than shiny.

12/26/2010 4:22 PMPosted by Iralius

Now, you can still make the argument when it comes to Night Elves that they began to... broaden their horizons, as it were during the 10,000 years they've been alive.

And Draenei have been around...

... Far, far longer than 25,000 years.

I think it is entirely reasonable to assume that homosexuality would exist in Azerothian societies (the people of Azeroth are people, after all). Which societies are more accepting of these relationships... it is left to us to interpret. And my interpretation will be different than what someone else interprets. For instance, I think Trolls are extremely hedonistic people, and they have a "whatever goes" sort of culture. Of course, another player will totally disagree with me, and insist that Trolls would exile or even execute any homosexuals found within their ranks.

That said, I concur with what Eldamar stated above, in that the vast majority of homosexual relationships that I have seen are in the form of griefers who do their scenes in emotes and /say, for the sole purpose of attracting negative attention upon themselves by ruining other people's RP. And/or they are female characters who are actively looking for other female characters to ERP with, just so they can act out juvenile sexual fantasies.

Just a quick note, but at Star's Rest in Dragonblight there IS an instance of one of the Sentinels there flirting with the other. Poor girl doesn't seem particularly interested in the attention though.

http://www.wowpedia.org/Sentinel_Sweetspring

Sentinel Sweetspring grins at Sentinel Amberline across the camp, waggling her long eyebrows suggestively.
Sentinel Amberline huffs with annoyance, glaring briefly at Sentinel Sweetspring before turning away with her nose in the air.