To be honest, I partly understand the desire people have for more varied romance as far as races, but at the same time some of the posts I'm seeing about it are verging on the kinds of racial fetishization I see in the real world. For instance people who fetishize Asian women. It's a form of objectification and it's really not flattering to be on the receiving end of it. But then again, DA dwarves, elves and qunari are not real like Asian women are, so the real world effects of fetishization do not apply to them, I just think it's worth noting...
It's not the option to have non-human romances that concerns me (hell, I love them), but how flirting options seem to have been much more objectifying and dehumanizing toward male elven romances so far, while the same flirting tactics have not been tossed toward human romances.
In real life, using objectifying and fetishizing come-ons toward a person who is part of a minority (like Asian women) will not yield a good response. Some people do, but most people don't like being treated like toys waiting to be played with. Particularly not those from a minority who are often objectified anyway.
If you're a woman and you recently met this cute guy on the street, and he said something like, "There's always a use or two for a pretty woman," would you respond favorably to it? Most likely not!
If you're an African American and recently started seeing or flirting with some really charming white person, and they said, "There's always a use or two for some handsome ******" How quickly would you punch the person who said it?
In the game, elves are a discriminated minority who get degraded and objectified very regularly, particularly by human characters. So you get a city elven companion who turns out to be romance-able (particularly Zevran and Fenris), and the relationship is shown to be more overtly sexual than human romances. The PC, who was written to be human in mind, gets much more aggressive flirting options, and options to say things like "There's a use for a handsome elf." Heck, if memory serves: with Hawke, in order to romance Fenris at all, you HAVE to give sexually aggressive lines and comment on "the use for a handsome elf" at least once to get the romance going.
And he and Zevran respond favorably to it! (Double points that they both have sexual abuse in their past.)
What person from a privileged majority says something so objectifying and fetishizing toward a person from a degradated minority, who likely has been treated with less dignity in the past, and thinks that's okay? Nothing says "I respect your mind, personality, and autonomy" quite like implying they're objects or playthings waiting to be used. And what person from a minority who often gets degradation hears a degrading comment like that from someone they recently met and thought, "Oh yeah, baby. Tell me more!"
Oh, whatever. I know most people here are going to say, "Whatever, elves aren't real, it doesn't have any real-world applicability, so who cares if the PC says something racially insensitive and the character responds favorably to being objectified and fetishized?" I'm about done.
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