Someone asked for elaboration on the diffs between straight and gay DnD, so go give the og tweet a RT (bc damn it good) and strap on

https://twitter.com/miraclerats/status/1265271847207219200
(Is this the correct way to handle this or should I have replied to the OG post? I'm bad at twitter etiquette :c)
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imo, there are a couple differences between cishet (straight) and "gay" D&D, most stemming from the same phenomenon
Freeform thread incoming

D&D is an icon of geek culture, and geeks are affected by toxic masculinity, so ofc that trickles down onto D&D
I'll elaborate:

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I think most of yall will agree when I say geek culture is cishet male-dominated. But they aren't the males that dominate "jock" culture (oft presented as their opposite): geek cis males are perceived as "betas"; men who don't fit the traditional tenets of masculinity

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A chunk of cishet male geeks embrace this and are secure in their expression as an alternative for trad masc
That's great! There are many ways to be a man!

Problem is it's still framed as an "alternative", implying macho is the "main" masc and geeks aren't """real men"""

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In taking this "alternative" framing, some go one of two ultimately related ways:

Some directly partake in trad toxic masculinity, presenting geeks as real men and trad masc men as cavemen.
Tables turned. Geeks rule the world in the information age. They're the alpha now

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Others play into this, but lampshade it as a self-dep joke bc, in the end, they are far from being the traditionally masculine physically strong & attractive "alpha".
This is, sadly, kind of just extra steps for placing masc men as the norm for what a "man" is/should be

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While this is not trad masc behavior, it doesn't subvert trad masc's toxic ideas of what a "man" is: it plays into them.

Both ways "reject" THE unreachable ideal media imposes on men itself, in different ways, but still maintain the pursuit fon AN ideal or standard.

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So the geeks who rejected macho as the ideal for masc DO emulate the pursuit for this unattainable ideal in ostensibly the same way

Physical becomes intellectual, aggro and competitivity for leadership and (het) sex is the same...
Trad toxic "hypermasc" behavior, but geek

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There's this great video by Pop Culture Detective that kinda talks about the same things in the context of TBBT.
I might have accidentally imitated what he says a bit too much, but it's a great watch.



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This is why gamers, Reddit, 4chan, and such are the way they are ig?
"Gamers" includes tabletop gamers ofc. Back to D&D:

Str8 D&D is more serious and competitive, more combat oriented, more minmaxed, and PCs often emulate the unattainable male/hero archetype media imposed

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Gay geek culture is a bit different, but first:

DISCLAIMER:
As someone who was in the cis gay male community I DO know gayness doesn't mean not glorifying toxic masculinity and the probs that come w it
Like, FUCK do I know that =A=
But that's a diff thread for another day

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Gay geek culture (GGC), to begin with, is a bit less cis male-dominated. This lessens the issues I mentioned earlier bc there's less toxic masculinity going around yadda yadda yadda.
I have been talking about men a lot, but I'll get back to that later, don't worry.

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Us gays™ tend to gravitate towards similar interests for some reason, so GGC seems to have more creatives: theater kids, artists, writers, you name it.
GGC men were faced with the same issues that "radicalized" cishet geeks, but in diff spaces, which leads to diff results

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Traditionally gay spaces have the same people that were bullied out of traditional groups, but they (mostly) encourage being proud of who you, as an individual, are.

That's the opposite of what cishet male-dominated geek culture does with the "alpha v/s beta" narrative.

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So, because it encourages people to be proud of who they are as unique individuals (I'm gonna say "as unique as snowflakes" to really drive the fucking point home uwu), GGC ends up leaving much more space for creativity and self-expression

Let's go back to D&D

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The moment this whole realizing I'm actually trans process started with creating a D&D character. A trans female human bard disowned noble who wanted to use Wish to physically transition and go confront her family "as herself"

RP lets us to explore/test stuff we can't IRL

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Another HUGE difference I see between str8 and gay D&D is that gay D&D's roleplaying aspect is closer to being the main attraction, because "in a world where you can be anything you want, why would you be what everyone is telling you to be"
It's very similar to furries!

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Furries are generally LGBT-positive bc, like, if I can be a neon-colored "folf" then why the fuck wouldn't I be MYSELF too.

Same principle applies here.

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What's interesting is that, if you think about it, you'll notice it's the same reason why straight D&D performs hypermasculinity!

Then... Straight D&D and Gay D&D are the same? Gasp!

I mean, I think it has been established that... Not quite. But see what I'm getting at?

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So, before I get into concluding this mess, I'll mirror what I said before about straight D&D. For completeness' sake.

Gay D&D is sillier and more cooperative, is more RP-oriented, cares more about character creation, and is often used as a tool of self-discovery

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Polar opposite! Yet it comes from the same strengths of roleplaying games!

Then, why is straight D&D the way it is?
I think I mostly went into it at the beginning of this thread, but: toxic masculinity in a cishet male-dominated geek culture

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Throughout this whole thread I mostly talked about toxic masculinity-borne issues.
I'll drop a hot take and say it's undeniable that this is a huge factor, and that can be seen in that "That Guy" in RPG horror stories is a cishet male almost every single time

BUT!

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This isn't because men are bad for being men, fuck no, that's stupid, why would you think that's the point I'm trying to make

Men are, of fucking course, also victims of toxic masculinity and the patriarchy and all that. MEN as a whole aren't inherently bad/guilty.

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IMO there isn't a real POSITIVE ideal of what a 21st century man should be.
That's the void that makes incels and redpilled fucks and the alt-right flourish and get recruits: If there's no ideal, you can craft a negative one and manipulate vulnerable ppl into following it

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So it turns out the straight D&D v/s gay D&D thing isn't really an opposition but different ways the same medium's strengths can be used or abused. Go figure

There's 1 last point I wanna make to wrap this thing up, but Twitter is making me Tweet All bc lomg thread, so w8

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So, at the end of the day... The whole distinction between "STRAIGHT" and "GAY" D&D is unproductive imo

Cishet male geeks can play what I just presented as "gay" D&D. A cishet male gamer can like roleplaying
And a LGBT gamer can like minmaxing and math and rollplay

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