Character Gender/Sexuality (my take)

[yeetthesalsa]

I know there was already a thread made on this, but this is my take on it..
Gender
The option to choose pronouns for the character would be cool. These are the options I personally think should be provided (feel free to make suggestions if you disagree)

Pronouns
[*] she/her
[*] he/him
[*] they/them
[*] Other [Please Enter ____/____]

Gender Identity
[*] Woman
[*] Man
[*] Non-binary
[*] Other [Please Enter _______]

Body Type
[*] Feminine
[*] Masculine
[*] Neutral/Androgynous (Not sure if that’s the correct terminology, but feel free to let me know if there’s something better to use here)

Clothing/Expression
[*] Feminine
[*] Masculine
[*] Neutral/Androgynous (Once again, not sure if I’m using the right terms for this)
[*] All

I feel like the stuff for using the bathroom and if you can get others pregnant/get pregnant or neither from The Sims 4 would be cool to include

Sexuality
I feel like for this it gets slightly complicated, but these are the three options I’ve came up with..

Attraction Option 1
“(Character Name) feels romantic attraction towards..”
[*] No Characters
[*] All Types of Characters
[*] Feminine (Expressing) Characters Only
[*] Masculine (Expressing) Characters Only
[*] Neutral/Androgynous (Expressing) Characters Only
[*] Woman (and Non-binary??) Characters Only
[*] Man (and Non-binary??) Characters Only

Ok, so to clarify, I’m not sure what to do about non-binary/other gender identifying characters when it comes to sexuality because I don’t want to accidentally otherize them. I’m just not 100% sure how to include them properly.

Another option that may bypass this issue would be

Attraction Option 2 (so far seen as the best of the three)
“(Character Name) identifies best as..”
[*] Aro (No romantic attraction)
[*] Bi (Attraction to their own gender as well as other genders/expressions)
[*] Pan (Attraction to all genders/expressions)
[*] Gay/Lesbian (Attraction to their own gender and/or expression)
[*] Straight (Attraction to genders/expressions other than their own)
[*] Queer (Attraction to anyone.. not specifically defined so they can date whoever they see best fit)

The only issue with this option would be possibly over-labeling.. The goal is to not make it overwhelming.

Attraction Option 3
Kind of going off the model on The Sims here.. essentially they can date anyone they want to as a sort of “open-sexuality”. Maybe there can be an included option to not have any attraction (a sort of all-or-none situation) so people can opt. out and it would be more inclusive of aro/ace people.

Let me know what you think and if you have anything you would add, fix, or change!

[altaa-ira]

This looks a neat suggestion! To me, there’s nothing to be changed but on the other hand, I’m not the expert by any means in this field. …and that neutral/androgynous body type may be a bit problematic because by default, no para has visible genitalia due to the teen rating (to clearify, I don’t refer to any trans-related by this, please check my edited text in my topic).

I really see the potential in having separared romantic and sexual orientations although, as earlier mentioned, it would need the separated romantic and sensual interactions. Maybe some of them could be the part of the both classes? It would mean some interactions would be purely romantic and everything else either “romantic/sensual” or just “sensual”. To prevent the hassle, romantic/sensual -interactions would not be automatic and it would be up to the player if they wanted their para to use them. But how about vice versa: can the para always and automaticly accept them?

[bailey]

I’m a bit confused by this example

Attraction Option 1
“(Character Name) feels romantic attraction towards..”

[*] Feminine (Expressing) Characters Only
[*] Masculine (Expressing) Characters Only

[*] Woman (and Non-binary??) Characters Only
[*] Man (and Non-binary??) Characters Only

How are the top and bottom options different? Like why is being attracted to ‘masculine characters’ separate from ‘man characters’?

[yeetthesalsa]

quote altaa.ira post_id=243 time=1563918609 user_id=152:

This looks a neat suggestion! To me, there’s nothing to be changed but on the other hand, I’m not the expert by any means in this field. …and that neutral/androgynous body type may be a bit problematic because by default, no para has visible genitalia due to the teen rating (to clearify, I don’t refer to any trans-related by this, please check my edited text in my topic).

I really see the potential in having separared romantic and sexual orientations although, as earlier mentioned, it would need the separated romantic and sensual interactions. Maybe some of them could be the part of the both classes? It would mean some interactions would be purely romantic and everything else either “romantic/sensual” or just “sensual”. To prevent the hassle, romantic/sensual -interactions would not be automatic and it would be up to the player if they wanted their para to use them. But how about vice versa: can the para always and automaticly accept them?

Thank you! As for the body type I understand what you mean.. I wasn’t really thinking of it being genitalia-related but more-so like flat chested vs not, broad shoulders vs not, more defined hips/curves etc. Maybe all of those things could be on a slider instead? Not really sure how they could approach the topic correctly.

And I agree with you but like you said, there’s a teen rating which makes it more complicated when it comes to what would be considered sexual/sensual since it would be limited (I mean The Sims have the “woohoo” option but that’s as far as they can go with the teen rating) Also it might be more complicated to do in coding and also for game play to have the differentiation between romantic/sensual interaction, especially because everyone has different ideas of what qualifies as each and there’s a lot of overlap. That’s kind of why in my second option for describing sexuality I merely used prefixes instead of putting “sexual” after it. I figured that would make it lean more romantically without explicitly saying it. Hope this makes sense!

[yeetthesalsa]

quote Bailey post_id=246 time=1563919720 user_id=164:

I’m a bit confused by this example

Attraction Option 1
“(Character Name) feels romantic attraction towards..”

[*] Feminine (Expressing) Characters Only
[*] Masculine (Expressing) Characters Only

[*] Woman (and Non-binary??) Characters Only
[*] Man (and Non-binary??) Characters Only

How are the top and bottom options different? Like why is being attracted to ‘masculine characters’ separate from ‘man characters’?

I can see why that would be confusing and that’s why I wasn’t sure if I would go with that option. Essentially my idea behind it was because some people are attracted to a gender expression rather than a gender identity. For example, someone could be bisexual, but only find attraction towards feminine presenting/expressing people, regardless of if they identify as being a man, woman, non-binary etc. That was my take on it anyways. Thanks for your input! 🙂

[userafw]

I seriously miss the system of turn-ons, and turn-offs from Sims 2. What if it were expanded to let the player choose the turn-ons and turn-offs, and the turn-ons or turn-offs included things like “identifies as man”, “identifies as woman” “identifies as non-binary”. Also, there should be more than 3 turn ons, and more than 1 turn-off. Also, maybe there could be something like a “deal-breaker” that automatically ends a relationship, like cheating, or lying, or spending too much household funds on certain things (like entertainment or clothing) in a certain limited time frame.

[rose-black-vampire]

I like more the option 2 i think is more clear and easy way to set the character.

[altaa-ira]

quote yeetthesalsa post_id=248 time=1563920135 user_id=257:

Thank you! As for the body type I understand what you mean.. I wasn’t really thinking of it being genitalia-related but more-so like flat chested vs not, broad shoulders vs not, more defined hips/curves etc. Maybe all of those things could be on a slider instead? Not really sure how they could approach the topic correctly.

Good points! Isn’t that system how it works in TS4? I’d like to hear how the players liked it: is it useful to have separated masculine (always going to type “male” instead, so horrible…) and neutral/androgynous body type.

I really hope the code structure is made understandable so the script modding (when supported) for the separated romantic and sexual orientations would be simple – and in the case these are not included otherwise. It would be the very interesting system to attempt for creating. #thenerdstrikesback :geek:

[sydwil23]

This what I suggested in the server on Discord! We need this!

[rbolton]

quote userafw post_id=265 time=1563941292 user_id=275:

I seriously miss the system of turn-ons, and turn-offs from Sims 2. What if it were expanded to let the player choose the turn-ons and turn-offs, and the turn-ons or turn-offs included things like “identifies as man”, “identifies as woman” “identifies as non-binary”. Also, there should be more than 3 turn ons, and more than 1 turn-off. Also, maybe there could be something like a “deal-breaker” that automatically ends a relationship, like cheating, or lying, or spending too much household funds on certain things (like entertainment or clothing) in a certain limited time frame.

I agree that we should bring back turn-ons and turn-offs, but having more than 3 total seems a bit too much for me. Maybe we can have 4 for chemistry: one deal-maker, one minor turn-on, one minor turn-off, and one deal-breaker.

[abii]

I think it’s really important to have genders other than male/female and it shouldn’t be that difficult to implement so I don’t know why the Sims haven’t done it yet.

[Eclipsed_Skye]

I agree with having a variety of genders or sexualities to implement in the game, though I feel like the pronouns should be limited to she/her, he/him and they/them. Being able to input your own pronouns would get confusing and I feel like there’d be at least a few people who misuse that system, besides it might also be complicated for younger audiences who decide they’d like to play Paralives (of course I understand it could help widen that horizon of identification for them, but it might get convoluted). Being able to input your own gender I think should be enough to ensure all identities get represented.

Other than that, I agree that option 2 would be the best way to set attraction between Parafolks.

[Ami]

I think players should be able to toggle these options/events on or off. Say younger children play the game, maybe their parents don’t want them exposed to such things at whatever age they are. Say you’re playing, but you don’t want to bother with it. This is an unpopular opinion, but if the development and content of Paralives is heavily influenced by the community, everyone should have a say in it.

[SmallestPolarBear]

i don’t think we should choose a body type of gender but instead be able entirely trough sliders to make paras have any apparence

[Megy]

I really like this idea! I think it’d also be interesting if parafolk could have a neutral looking body type but you could use sliders to make them look the way you wanted. Idk tho.

[Amazing_Star]

I think that there should be some predefined sexualities – heterosexual (heteroromantic), homosexual (homoromantic), bisexual (biromantic), pansexual (panromantic), demisexual (demiromantic) and asexual (aromantic). You would also have option for own sexuality – you could choose to which gender(s) your parafolk has romantic and sexual attraction, you could also choose if parafolks is interested in masculinity or femininity , For example, , there is sexuality called Nowomasexual and somehow I don’t expect it to be in game by default (but you know, Alex could suprise us) – as nowomasexual, you feel attraction to men, non-binary people, masculine aligned non-binary people, feminine aligned non-binary people, unaligned non-binary people, agender people, only Binary women are exception. With custom mode, you would be able to do this

Also regarding genders, some default option could be – genderfluid, bigender, agender, intergender and gender neutral.

I might actually recommend this site, if you wanna know more (I honestly spend there these few days a lot, because of my school project)
https://lgbta.wikia.org/wiki/LGBTA_Wiki

• This reply was modified 11 months, 2 weeks ago by  Amazing_Star.

[Rammgrrrl]

I like attraction option 1 the best, but I think it should be more like a checkbox (as in, you can check all that apply) that would include men, women, and non-binary, maybe with options based on gender expression. There should also be a “none” option for asexuals. It might also be nice to differentiate between primary and secondary attraction (in other words, how well do they have to know each other in order for attraction to form?), but I don’t think it’s fully necessary, as long as you can control what decisions they make (I hate it when my Sims autonomously flirt with those they’re not already in a relationship with).