So, here's a discussion on Asari, AY's, etc.

Beyond the first paragraph or two, this article isn't about women, but about queer people. But here are my thoughts anyway, since you asked.

To start with, the absence of female turians (and salarians, sort of, although at least they look the same) from the first two games, and their rarity in ME3, feels very lazy to me. Even after they finally designed female turians, they still didn't bother putting some female turian NPCs around the Citadel. A modder managed to do it, so I don't buy that Bioware couldn't.

Pretty much every aspect of the asari seems designed to appeal to straight males. That much is also obvious to me.
From the article:Yep, also obvious. "Wise woman" I don't see as an issue, though, since older men typically play advisory roles as well.


This is where my disagreement with the article starts, because I don't understand why this is a problem.


And this is a horrible thing to say about Samara's other two daughters, who are not monsters by any stretch of the imagination and did nothing wrong. It's understandable that Samara would want to take responsibility for the daughter that did turn out to be a monster.

Also, this article jumps around like crazy.


I'm guessing what the article is getting at here is that they think the Ardat-Yakshi are a poor representation of lesbian relationships. As someone who is not queer, I never saw it this way and probably would never have seen it that way if I hadn't read this article. I would be interested in seeing whether anyone identifying as queer shares this interpretation.

Same with the next paragraph. I never saw it that way, but I'm not queer, so I might be missing something.


There's literally a monastery full of them.



I feel like this completely ignores the fact that Morinth is a literal serial killer.


WTF


They are seriously comparing queer youth to a serial killer??


...because she's a serial killer. Anyone she has sex with instantly dies. There are no ways for her and her lover to take precautions to keep the lover safe. Morinth knows this, and she does it anyway.

I started to type more, but deleted it because again, I'm not queer. If I'm therefore missing something in this comparison, I'd like to know. But to me, it's beyond absurd to compare Morinth (who seems to delight in killing and who knows exactly what harm she is causing) to a queer person being persecuted by a society full of bigots. 


I don't want to invalidate the author or anyone reading this who sees themselves in this analogy, but I really, really don't get it.

Should have changed the title to "psychic sex vampires" (phrase from the article itself).

Ardat-Yakshi, Morinth, AIDS, Morinth, Morinth, AIDS, Ardat-Yakshi, Morinth, serial killers, monsters, Morinth.

If there is a core thought in author' mind, it is not about "asari-women".

I read the article and it's complete crap.

"Male and female have no real meaning for us." "Think about it Shepard. If we were not able to mate with our own species, we would have died out long before we ever mastered space flight and left our homeworld." - Liara T'Soni

Asari are not women. They are not female. They are an alien species that happens to look similar to human females. There is no "queer culture" among the asari. Seeing them as an all female race is an anthropocentric view.

As far as the Ardat-Yakshi go, since it is a genetic disorder, the fact that after 2500 years of advanced spaceflight there is no treatment for it other than being confined to a monastery (kind of like leprosy was during ancient times) or death is horrifying. This can't even be justified by "they're of great shame." No excuse. Gene therapy should be available. Genetic enhancement is available to every Alliance Soldier.

But I forget that technology stood still. Once the archives were discovered, there was no need to use brains and advance. Aethyta was put there to show the stupidity of it all - "When I suggested that we develop our own mass relays, they laughed the blue right off my ass." Humanity advanced to the level of the rest of the galaxy immediately upon the discovery of the Mars Archive.

But we know the Ardat-Yakshi were nothing more than a plot device used for creation of abominations for the Reapers in ME3. Remember we're dealing with Bioware's writing team, not logic.