D&D/Cinco Sex and Race
Put some thoughts on a Discord server:
was actually going to sleep last night thinking about whether it’s dissonant to have racism/nationalism but not sexism in my home campaign but along similar lines i feel like sexism generally requires women to be relegated to a private sphere that makes them less prevalent in the world (even if the PCs are exceptional) unless the campaign is specifically about sex and that public/private division
I don’t know. Maybe I need to self-criticize about this. It’s like I subvert race and sex in D&D orthogonally: I handle race in a realist way which problematicizes the way it’s taken for granted and used as a short-hand for moral nature in fantasy, usually flipping the monster lens onto “races” usually considered good or normal (while emphasizing the symbolic or social basis of that lens); whereas I handle sex by eliminating patriarchy and placing women in socially prominent roles, whether ‘good’ (world-protagonistic) or ‘bad’ (world-antagonistic), though I usually cast men as fodder so I don’t feel bad about them.
The rationale I gave above represents my real thoughts on some level, but it feels deeply unsatisfactory (to me, at least). Lots, or most, of the literature I read or write is concerned with sex except for my tabletop storytelling. Why don’t I want to broach that topic in an interactive, collaborative context? To speak for myself, I don’t think it’s that race is a more deserving or interesting topic. Rather, maybe it’s easier, either personally or because race is already central to fantasy (and in that context, it’s easier to approach directly)? There’s also an unevenness, since I think most Tumblrina D&D or tabletop games in general tend to be blind to race and sex (or “empowering” non-hegemonic sexes and races rather than exploring conflict with the hegemonic).
And maybe that’s what it comes down to? It feels more fun to subvert the D&D race war, and it feels more fun to assume women rather than men are the default? I mentioned on that same server that I hope one day to experience John B.'s legendary midwife campaign because that seems like a great premise to actually explore and inhabit those themes by giving them the full focus. But I don’t know. Maybe my campaign could also explore those themes; I’ve been reading Patriarchy and Accumulation on a World Scale by Maria Mies—which I wanted to write about anyway because it’s really good—and unlike other texts which suppose continuity between “classical” and “modern” patriarchy, Mies is interested in the latter’s particularities (specifically the proletarianization and housewificization of women) and historical development. Maybe it’d be interesting to explore a world where women are in the process of being forced into the private sphere, especially considering the deaths of legendary female figures and the degeneration of their projects, and explore what it looks like to overcome it. And that’ll be a cool way to explore some of the characters being sex workers etc!
Second Wave Feminism D&D where the door to the megadungeon is just off the basement laundry room
ReplyDeleteFor what it's worth, I don't think it's dissonant to handle different topics differently, whether you mix things up over time or not.
ReplyDelete"Lots, or most, of the literature I read or write is concerned with sex except for my tabletop storytelling. Why don’t I want to broach that topic in an interactive, collaborative context?"
This question makes me a bit uneasy even though l think it's good to consider. My experience is that it's easy to accidentally trap myself into a framing that if I can't completely understand and explain my own desires and behavior, they're illegitimate and should be ignored in favor of some theoretical thing I "should" do instead. A holdover from fundamentalism, I suspect.