[DitV] Homosexuality and perceived heavy-handedness

[sirogit]

Me and my brother were having a little arguement about the setting of Dogs in the Vineyard as it stands effected by the events of the last town I ran, Lakepoint.

He said that I, in the creation of the scenario made a value judgement of  having homosexually be infalliably a good thing, as evidenced by A) Having a nice character be homosexual B) Not outright displaying the homosexuality being caused by a traumatic expierience.

Here I thought I was presenting questions: There's this relatively normal  girl that's attracted to another girl, and not because she fell on her head, and yet the King of Life discourages homosexuality. Does feeling this way make her a bad person? Does her being a good person and her love make her homosexuality right? Is her love somehow different than the homosexuality discouraged in the book of life? Should she be made to follow the word of the Book even if it's reasons aren't clear?

Wheras brother thought I was handing him answers: She's nice and she isn't queer because she's being abused or something. So her, or any homosexuality couldn't possibly be wrong. I'm not making value judgements, I'm being given them by you.

I'm thinking that my brother jumped to a conclusion there and he actually made a meaningfull value judgement.

Secondly, I think that his stipulation, that the setting as presented in the books is set up so that there is no such thing as a nice person who just decides to be attracted to another girl, is just wrong, and completely un-present in the book, but I'd really like to hear other people's opinions on that.

[TonyLB]

A person can be nice, and non-traumatized, and sinful.  Judging those people is part of what the game is about.  If your brother only wants to judge obnoxious or obviously broken sinners then he's a wimp.  

He is, in fact, objecting to the fact that you didn't spoon-feed him an answer by making homosexuality clearly a defect that goes along with other defects.

[Bankuei]

Hi,

He said that I, in the creation of the scenario made a value judgement of having homosexually be infalliably a good thing, as evidenced by A) Having a nice character be homosexual B) Not outright displaying the homosexuality being caused by a traumatic expierience.

So by NOT loading a homosexual character up with the usual negative stereotypical traits, your brother saw you as painting it as a good thing?  Sounds more like projection on his part.  Take out homosexuality from the example and replace it with any other ethnic or religious identifier and you'll see what I mean... ("You're showing nice Jews again, stop trying to ramrod your views on me!").

I think Vincent's example in the book of who the players see at fault and who they see as "good guys" would be worth looking at in this case :)

Chris

[Eero Tuovinen]

Actually, in the real world your brother is quite right. The anti-homo folks do think that homosexuality is always a result of something bad, or results in something bad. Either way it's a part of badness, and thus wrong. The religious arguments are always in minority. Talk with any homophobic, and most likely you'll hear generalized arguments about family values, diseases, psychological trauma or something. For all of these homosexuality is a cause or consequence, and only rarely does anybody judge homosexuality for what it is. How could you, after all? Would make you look rather idiotic, worrying about what people do in their bedchambers. And yes, this means that homophobics can't deal at all with happy homos on a personal basis; they have to believe that there's something wrong there.

So when you depict happy, good homosexuals, you're a priori deciding on the matter if the other party discerns homosexuality in the real world through it's negative accompaniments. You're in effect stating that all these arguments about the causes and consequences are wrong. Yeah, this means that a homophobic thinks that there really isn't any good homosexuals in the real world. By giving him one you're taking the game straight into fantasy. It's the same thing as if you'd just given him a nazi, but, you know, he doesn't hate jews. "A nazi who doesn't hate jews?" asks the player in disgust, thinking that you're just spouting pro-nazi propaganda.

Of course the problem is in his thinking, but that's a difficult thing to negotiate. The most equable solution would perhaps be to let the Dogs "find" some traumas they can ascribe the homosexuality to. This way the player can invent whatever explanations he needs to believe that the phenomenon exists. In principle this is one half believability ("She can't be lesbian without some kind of childhood trauma, so there has to be one.") and one half ongoing judgement ("I can't deal with the matter without ascribing it to a childhood trauma.").

The hardline philosophical solution, by the by, would be that the GM is in charge of positing these moral conundrums, while the players have to answer them. The GM is not limited to only real-life situations, he can hypothetise about non-existing conditions. Thus, if your brother is of keen intellect, he can just take this as a fantasy scenario: if there were such a thing as healthy homosexuals, what should be done about them in a moral society? But this only works if he's willing and able to entertain scenarios he doesn't think possible in reality. Then again, a roleplayer who cannot...

The actual case: yeah, your brother is making a value judgement by stating that the fact that she's happy and nice makes it all OK. The conundrum in this case wasn't about dealing with traumatized people, it was about homosexuality, pure and simple. If he thinks that the situation is self-evident, well, that happens to the best GMs. I myself offer players more self-evident bangs than the other kind. I suspect that most do this. I wouldn't think that this is a reason for any big argument, it just means that your brother has a logical mind.

As for the book: I can only see it as supreme dogmatism (and homophobia) if someone can read DiV, take note of prostitution, theft, murder and witchcraft, but still think that the Faithful are uncapable of homosexuality. Isn't that like saying that homosexuality is worse than murder, the Faithful wouldn't do it? It could be an aesthetic notion, but I think that the setting gets only better the more aberrations are possible. In no case is that setting description in there meant to mirror the actuality, only the ideals of the society. I don't understand that angle at all.

[Eero Tuovinen]

Oh, a practical idea: why not revisit the town at some point and show the consequences? Could be interesting if the homosexuality would cause something horrid. Your brother's problem was that all these byproducts and fringe effects of homosexuality were ignored, so perhaps they were all just hiding under there?

[Ben Lehman]

I think that it might be useful to think about what it means to sin, in the context of Dogs in the Vineyard.  A sin isn't wrong because it is something that we, as the players, necessarily think is morally wrong.  A sin is a sin because it disrupts the fragile social fabric of the small colonial settlement.

It shouldn't matter if homosexuality is right or wrong, or if it is caused by trauma or not.  What matters, in the case of the Dogs setting, is that it will disrupt society.

yrs--
--Ben

[ravenx99]

It shouldn't matter if homosexuality is right or wrong, or if it is caused by trauma or not.  What matters, in the case of the Dogs setting, is that it will disrupt society.

(Hi, I'm Carl, and I've only recently read Dogs, and can't wait to play it.  It's all Ginger Stampley's fault, you know.)

From a fundamentalist PoV, a sin is a sin because the holy writings or church doctrine says it is.  Yes, most sins are "wrong" because they disrupt society, but sometimes the holy writings say a particular sin is "wrong" because it's simply unnatural... it is not the way things the creator meant them to be.  Or sometimes it's a sin simply because God said "never do X" and to disobey is sinful, even if doing X itself would cause no harm otherwise.  But simple disobedience will disrupt society at some level, so I have to agree.

Of course, in Dogs, the real problems come in not just because sin can disrupt society, but because it gives demons a foothold.

But let's ask this about the "good" homosexual girl.  Supposedly there is no pride there, simply an honest love.  But doctrine says that no carnal love between women is righteous.  Doesn't she know the church's doctrine?  If she does, then she knows that homosexuality is a sin.  And if she chooses to engage in homosexual acts knowing this... then isn't that pride?  The belief that her love overrides doctrine and she deserves to have something others are not allowed?  Isn't that just about Dogs' definition of sinful pride?

In this context, I don't think we can say that the girl is "good" unless she is entirely ignorant of the doctrine concerning homosexuality.  Which undermines the initial complaint... that the GM has declared homosexuality to be "good" because a homosexual is seen as "good."  But we can't see her as "good," because she has deliberately denied that a particular doctrine applies to her.

If we honestly believe that the girl is ignorant of doctrine and has no pride, we simply have to inform her of the proper doctrine... if she renounces her unnatural love and asks for forgiveness, no harm done.  If she doesn't... pride rears its head, and the girl is clearly living in intentional sin from that point.

When I first read about pride being the root of all sin in Dogs, I was skeptical.  But I see now that this really is the case.

[Lxndr]

The original post only stated that there was an attraction, not any act on that attraction.  If the girl is simply attracted, and is not acting, has there been any pride, or any breach of doctrine?

At least, that's what I was getting from it.  Did I miss something?

[Judd]

I'm putting aside what I personally think of your brother's thoughts for a moment in order to say that:

These conversations, about morality, religion, judgement, right and wrong are the beauty of Dogs in the Vineyard.

The game has this hand-grenade effect.  Whenever I play it with friends and we are all together the following day there is this inevitable explosion of talks  concerning morality, villainy and judgement.

Beautiful.

[ravenx99]

The original post only stated that there was an attraction, not any act on that attraction.  If the girl is simply attracted, and is not acting, has there been any pride, or any breach of doctrine?

If she hasn't acted on it, how do the Dogs know about it?  (Whether she's acted or not isn't entirely clear to me from the original message, but I assumed that she had been caught somehow, because the player knew about it.)

Attraction is a temptation.  Fantasizing on that attraction can be a sin, but the Dogs aren't going to know about it unless she confesses it... either to renounce the sin of impure thoughts, or to make some inquiry as to the acceptability of such thoughts.  But I can't see her talking to the Dogs about it from a position of pride, and especially in a way that would lead a player to state the GM is making homosexuality "okay" in the eyes of the church.

Whether it's a breach of doctrine depends on whether the girl rejects or entertains impure thoughts, and that's going to be a private matter unless she confesses it.  (Since entertaining such thoughts would be sinful, it could lead to demonic attack, which would encourage acting upon such urges.)

And to answer a question from the original post, I've only read through the rules one time, but I've not encountered anything that I can recall which implies that sinners can't be "nice" or otherwise "good".  Committing a sin does not make one evil... all are guilty of sin, even the best of the Faithful, to some degree.

[Lance D. Allen]

The best situations, if you ask me, is when good people do bad things for the best reasons, with the worst results.

If it's cut and dried, you judge the wrong-doers, admonish the good folks, kiss some babies, hand out mail, and ride off into the sunset.

How boring would that be, if that's all that ever happened?

I don't think that's entirely the issue here, though. It's possible that a GM can impose his views on morality in the way he presents things. It's even easy to do unintentionally. I don't know that this is what happened here, but I do know this; Unless the players want their Dogs to be wrong in a judgement, then no matter what the GM feels is right or wrong, what the Dogs judge is the will of the King of Life. Your brother is accusing you of railroading him in a game that makes it impossible unless you ignore the central precept of the game.

All he has to do is declare her the worst kind of sinner, no matter how good and pure you might possibly portray her, and yea, it is the Will of the King that she be so denounced.

Perhaps if you explain that, make it utterly, undeniably clear, the issue will go away.

[Brendan]

A sin is a sin because it disrupts the fragile social fabric of the small colonial settlement.

Oh.

Thanks!

[Danny_K]

A sin is a sin because it disrupts the fragile social fabric of the small colonial settlement.

Does it say that anywhere in the text?  I don't recall seeing that.  It might be equally (or more) interesting to say that X is a sin because the King of Life says it is, and any rational reasons we can think to support it are beside the point.  

If a Dog keeps running into situations where what he thinks is right conflicts totally with what the Faith teaches... he or she has the choice of continuing as a Dog, in bad faith; or quitting as a Dog, and maybe even quitting the Faith.  [/quote]

[Ben Lehman]

A sin is a sin because it disrupts the fragile social fabric of the small colonial settlement.

Does it say that anywhere in the text?

Yes.  It's in the subtext.

yrs--
--Ben

[Joshua A.C. Newman]

A sin is a sin because it disrupts the fragile social fabric of the small colonial settlement.

Oh.

Thanks!

I would put it this way: the GM and the player have gone into this assuming that homosexuality is a sin in the fictional community because it's what the people there have been taught by the King of Life through the Book of Life and the Steward as His agent.

The Watchdog is not bound by that and is the King's will in action (if the player says so), so homosexuality is not a sin if the King tells the Dog that it's not.

Here's what I'd do: have another town with a similar situation later on where the homosexual character is a jerk. Not a criminal, but a jerk. He's ugly, he leers at the handsome young men, he's always the last one to the field and the first one in for dinner. Have his only sin be his homosexuality, but make it easier not to like him.

The question the Dog's gotta be asking (assuming that he gives a less favorable judgement to the second guy) is if he judged right the first time, or the second time. Cuz if it was because he thought the girl was nice, and he thought the guy was a jerk, then he's not doing his job. Being a jerk isn't a sin, so he's gotta have a talk with the King about what's right.

As for what Ben points out, yeah, it's true, but that's not how the townsfolk see it, and maybe it's not how the Dog sees it, but it's how the players all should look at it. It also makes it way easier to design a town with that in mind.