Why can't we productively conversate about champion sexuality without there being so much negativity

Jacksin·9/21/2019, 5:38:14 AM·9 votes·4,062 views

I saw the asexual Nidalee thread and they went super in-depth and I appreciated it a lot. I don't agree, but I saw effort and a lot of lore exploration in-depth. I just don't understand why it got so many down votes.

Sexuality really isn't that big of an issue. I could say "Jax probably likes the tropical climate and enjoys certain regions of Runeterra more than others like South-West Shurima" I could give evidence and then that would be that. Why is sexuality so much different? People need to stop taking things so personally and stop being so emotional over speculation based off of evidence and personal interpretation of the narrative!

34 Comments

TekkenPlayer9/21/2019, 6:39:25 AM7 votes

Because theyre usually dumb topics and just mental masturbation threads if I were to see them.

Garen thinks Taric is great

"GaY sHiP confirmed?"

AlienPrimate9/21/2019, 5:46:25 AM6 votes

I don't think it really matters so discuss away. I do get annoyed by the people who say "x group isn't represented yet" or "when are we getting an x champion?" Let the people at Riot do their jobs while you do yours. Requesting a specific champion or asking why something doesn't exist is dumb.

4 Step Cadence9/21/2019, 12:52:48 PM4 votes

Well out right insulting and making baseless assumptions about people who don't agree with you is definitely not going to win you any points.

That whole thread had a "if you downvote/don't agree, you're X, and I'm offended by you" atmosphere to it(as does most shit involving Tumblr), and it made it incredibly hard to even remotely talk to or want to associate with that person. They were convinced that everyone who downvoted/didn't agree was a member of the majority(straight Cisgender people), and that they just downvoted the thread because they hate representation in media. Even better, they thought this bias towards people who don't agree with them was a personality and refused to believe that it was rude/offensive to make assumptions about people.

I talked to other people from SA&S, and they agree that that whole making baseless assumptions about people thing was a major turn off when it cam to the thread. Even people that agreed were like "yeah no if they're going to act like that, fuck that."

Lauchmelder9/21/2019, 10:18:31 AM4 votes

I don't care about champion sexuality if it's just a sidenote.

Xayah and Rakans for example are a pair, it's not just a sidenote. Their sexuality is a big part of their personality. What I don't care about (and don't really want to see because what's the point?) is weird sidenotes like: "Oh, Neeko is a lesbian btw".

If their lover doesn't bring anything relevant to their lore or character then just don't disclose their sexuality. If Xayah and Rakan were just hunting partners then their sexuality would be a completely irrelevant point of information. Take Varus for example. He exists as some weird being between a Darkin and a gay couple. The story explains what happened and it's good like that. (even though changing his sexuality "just because" was a horrible decision imo).

So basically: If their sexuality brings anything to or explains something about the character I'm fine with it. But otherwise, what's the point (goes for any kind of sexuality, before I get crucified here)?

Hotarµ9/21/2019, 5:50:15 AM4 votes

Uhh... did you even open the thread?

The majority of comments are incredibly respectful. 4 Step Cadence in particular was very polite and understanding in their responses. There have only been 2-3 comments that could be considered "negative" and even then that's a bit of a stretch.

Don't just pay attention to the votes. It happens, especially with a controversial title like that. Ignorant people are just going to downvote and move on, same as always.

NemeBro9/21/2019, 5:43:15 AM3 votes

[deleted]

GreenLore9/21/2019, 12:33:15 PM3 votes

I feel like a lot of people are simply tired of the whole "representation-topic", because it looks like it is everywhere in games, movies and other media.

And pretty much any discussion about sexuality tends to be associated with that topic, regardless if thats the case or not.

Camille Ferrøs9/22/2019, 12:12:28 PM2 votes

People in the community simply aren't ready to have that kind of conversation.

mrmeddyman9/22/2019, 6:15:18 PM2 votes

Too many people polarized in both directions. One camp of traditionalists who may not even be trying to consider other possibilities and another camp that demonizes the other side for not seeing it their way. Neither will move an inch and their is no productive discussion can be had. Because nobody is wrong or right. It's just different schools of thinking.
It's played out. Our media has turned the topic into a more incendiary topic than it really is to generate clicks. I'm just bored of it, it's lost most shock value and has become something exhausting that some would rather ignore if at all possible.
This is the League of Legends forums. It's a video game. Maybe people don't want to have that kind of heavy discussion, because they'd rather keep it lighthearted in their limited leisure time. If any kind of world shaking political mindset shift happens, I guarantee it won't be a result of anything said on this site. I know you want to believe that Jax eating a sandwich and taking it up the butt are on the same levels of mundanity, and I for one certainly don't care either way. But other people simply don't see it that way.
Life's too short. A lot of these discussions have deviated from securing rights (which I whole-heartily agree with and support ) to monitoring and sometimes censoring group-think and "ok-think". At that point who cares. Maybe I'm too practical, but after securing gay marriage and all the other kinds of marriage whats' left to campaign for? For people to accept it authentically in their hearts? It's a similar journey to the one African Americans went on. From enslavement to segregation, disenfranchisement to somewhat equal. At this point in 2019 there are still racist people who are gonna hate me for my skin color no matter what, but w/e dude. The fight for the most part has been won, time to let it lie and enjoy my life.

The opinions of others are not of value at all when it comes to mission #1: extracting some kind of meaningful joy, from this hollow existence we call life.

AbiwonKenabi9/22/2019, 7:59:02 PM2 votes

The issue with that thread wasn't the topic, but the way in which the poster went about it and the way they responded. Without getting into too much detail (I don't want it to seem like I'm tearing into the person, just discussing what turned me off of that post), the OP of that post went into great detail about what asexuality is and why they think Nidalee being asexual might make sense (which is fine, although it felt like they made a lot of assumptions), and the thing that really irked me is they assumed most people (cishet as they called them) wouldn't like or care about something like this and would disagree on the basis that they were "cishet". There's nothing wrong with being "cishet" just like there's nothing wrong with being asexual or "transhom" or anything in between. No one can choose this, and these people are as different from each other as anyone could be. Obviously some people care about this stuff, and maybe they don't agree based on other evidence.

The point is, these subjects easily become touchy, because as soon as someone doesn't agree, it puts them in a bad light even if they don't agree for reasons unrelated to their feelings on asexual/LGBT+/etc. For example, someone in that thread stated "since Nidalee was raised in the wild by cougars, wouldn't it make more sense for her theme and character to be sexual of some kind? Especially since in old lore she was one of the few that was established to have been in a relationship?" and this poster was basically told their opinion was wrong. Not disagreed, WRONG as if they don't want asexual Champions altogether.

The OP's evidence for asexuality was that "she didn't reciprocate Neeko's feelings" and as soon as I say "what if Nidalee just didn't have the same feelings for Neeko as Neeko did for her?" then I'm somehow against asexuality. And I don't like that. You will also occasionally see people who DO push back against the whole "representation" notion and are almost always rude about it. That is the problem with most posts of this nature. Tension become high very easily.

KFCeytron9/21/2019, 5:47:44 AM2 votes

It's "converse," by the way.

Hunkmenlordy9/21/2019, 3:07:31 PM1 votes

It's actually pointless to discuss this because riot can just define what they are easily, even if many people can still challenge it.

saphireflame1239/21/2019, 5:43:32 AM1 votes

Cause people hate on anything they find

Madjack019/21/2019, 7:25:21 AM1 votes

Seems to me that the topic about sexuality transcended beyond mere attraction and has intensively become socio-political.

Hence why there is so much hate, other than that of ignorant people who plagued the discussion with their stupidity since forever.