Unpopular opinion: Straight Male romance was shafted.

Well, to be honest, now that I know such a thing as "will" is impossible I know it is not rape, well not in common sense since there is no will vs will happening in any act, sex or otherwise. It is not rape not because there is consent but precisely because there is no will. But since I need "human concepts" to talk to humans, such as identity, will and so on, I resort to my "last conscience backup", the one I made before knowing will and identity are only brain misconceptions. And my "last backup" was radical feminism thus this "PIV is RAPE!11!". I could use other "backups" like humanism, psychoanalysis, christianity and so on... it matters not, all just illusions. I use the "last backup" because it feels more honest than saying things I believed 5, 10 or 20 years ago, but the thing is, I know that it is all just make believe, so whatever...

The funny thing though is that despite saying that I don't think that other people should be/think the way I want them to, people still got stuck into that sentence because it was offensive. Well, fear not, it is not and it was never a perception of mine, something I agree with in a personal level, it was merely an analysis of power struggles between genders in society from a materialistic point of view thus such things as "consent", "feelings" or "will" weren't part of the analysis. But back when I made that last "counscience backup" I still believed those things existed somehow (despite knowing they were scientifically and phylosofically impossible)and made a separate analysis from a personal point of view, so I had back there two world views, one political/material and another personal/subjective, I choose the "hetero sex is rape" because it would fit better my point that was that people (like me) have insane point of views thus it is better to not push them over others. But neither should the sane people do the same, live and let it live, right?

Perhaps, if you're into the "offended" thing my knowledge now is a lot more offensive, no being (and no thing) have a will. So we can go on playing RPGs in real life, pretending we are autonomical entities that somehow have a mystical energy called will coming from nowhere and changing the way the particles in our brains behave enough to change our thoughts and even actions but it is no more believable than santa claus, Flemeth or Captain James T. Kirk (in fact it is more possible for those entities to exist than such a thing as will).

Why go on such a lenghty speech about will? Because "being or not being" a rape matters because somehow people think they agree or disagree with something as if they/we existed, as if we were not just watching reality happen and deceiving themselves/ourselves into the dellirium that the way this body behaves is somehow caused by an entity called "self" with the marvelous magic unexplicable force of will that comes from beyond any reasoning.

So to end this histeria: Not only every sex act is a rape (where the rapist is neither of the involved but the causality of the universe), existence itself is a rape, and we create a make believe world, a place where "will" exists, even more impossible than the magic in Thedas or Forgotten Realms, to bear this truth. We are taught from birth to identify our conscience with our acts up until the point where we go completely schizophrenic we start believing "we" (as if we existed) will the thing our body does, while it is pretty obvious that it is just the laws of physics, there is no being, just the existential rape.

I'm not drunk enough to read that...

They should make a shapeshifter character and have it done with... then everyones happy

Only if you romance it youll have to live with the knowledge that its true form is a green scaly darkspawn blob

And here I thought we left this sort of stuff behind at the old bioware forums...

Oh my, this thread had it coming didn't it? 

I'm not particularly keen on Cassandra — she's a great character and has a lovely voice actress, but she's a bit too masculine for my tastes. Josephine is more up my alley and I'm happy with her romance, though I feel let down by the fact we don't see an ounce of skin below the neck except her hands.

That said, I don't think straight guys were "shafted." I can remember complaints going back to DAO that the existing options weren't appealing even when the love interests were very feminine. (Morrigan was a bitch, Leliana was crazy, Isabela was a whore, Merrill was a child, etc.) There's no way to appeal to 100 per cent of the fandom's tastes, and if neither Cassandra or Josephine float your boat, then you just have to accept that.

It's in the fandom's nature to constantly want what they can't have, though. People were desperate to have a qunari romance and then were somewhat ambivalent to Iron Bull. The same thing will happen if there's a "dwarven" romance in the next game; they'll be ignored in favour of that one really sexy werewolf.

My threshold for saying "Straight guys are being shafted" is when we're down to one and everyone else has a minimum of two, or when we get the special "transgender romance" as part of our two options to teach us a very special lesson about tolerance and shit.

Or the risk that you run if you are both Shapeshifters... where you might have thought you both were fooling around as wolves together in the woods, only to discover your partner was actually sleeping in their tent all morning.

And your friends wonder why you refuse to talk about that camping trip.

ya'll talking shit about Cassandra!?!