A Sanitary Simulation of Queerness
Gay love thrives and survives in the world of The Sims, even when it doesn't acknowledge the struggle that makes that kind of love a powerful thing.
Caspian, my Sim, had no intention of developing feelings for his good friend Travis up until he needed to rehearse for an upcoming acting gig. As far as my headcanon was concerned, their relationship was purely platonic—a friendship casually formed when Travis showed up at Caspian’s house to welcome him to the neighborhood, as NPC’s in The Sims 4 have the habit of doing.
They were hanging out at home when Caspian asked him to stand in for a romantic scene he needed to work on, which, to my credit, I didn’t realize involved some intense kissing. With script in hand, Caspian held Travis around the waist, tilted him back, and pressed his lips with all the aplomb of an overacting thespian. The kiss lasted about three seconds, after which little hearts started bubbling above their heads. When they recovered, a new pink-colored meter appeared at the top of the screen—the game’s way of signaling that both Sims had started developing romantic feelings for each other. New flirtatious interactions became available, which both parties seemed very much in the mood for.
I suppose Travis was gay now?
In The Sims 4, you are free to love anyone. Men can fall in love with other men, get married, adopt kids, and live a perfectly happy life in domesticity. Later games have also allowed players to assign clothing preferences for their Sims regardless of gender, which has been a welcome feature for non-binary fans who wished to see themselves in the characters they created. Romantic interactions between the same sex were just a given in the game, a feature that the developers at Maxis didn’t intend but nevertheless shipped with the release of the first title in 2000. This immediately became a core feature celebrated and enjoyed by its players, but, like most of the way the games manage relationship-building as a gameplay element, it has the tendency to feel safe and sterile. Love in The Sims is equal and free to all, but it also happens in a video game world without any of the struggles and consequences that give that kind of love its weight.
That’s not to say that The Sims wasn’t a good outlet for me to explore my sexuality when I was young. As a clueless teenager in the early 2000’s attracted to boys without yet realizing he was gay, The Sims became a way for me not so much to explore my latent queerness as play with it. It was a game that tickled my creativity, where everything I played, from the houses I built to the people my Sims chose to love, was the result of my unbridled imagination. I’d be glued to the monitor for long hours in my dad’s office (where the only computer in the house existed), often playing as Michael Bachelor, a pre-made Sim and the perfect specimen—single, brown-skinned, and as handsome as the game’s polygons would allow—for some romantic experimentation.
As the series progressed with numerous expansions and numbered sequels, The Sims’ social mechanics became more complex. On top of the relationship meter that went up and down as your Sims interacted with one another, new elements like aspirations, moods, memories, and sentiments added layers to the dynamics between each character. Two Sims that get into a fistfight usually end up with a permanently negative sentiment that sours their mood anytime they’re in the same room. At the same time, a very fun and eventful vacation is very likely to deepen the bond shared by a family of Sims. From an interpersonal level, The Sims handles the broad strokes of human relationships quite well, if portrayed a little comically. It’s when you pull back and look for the complex social mores and politics that complicate queer lives—and find them missing—that the game starts to feel reductive, even if it means well.
In the last few months, I tried getting into a bunch of BL shows since the trend crossed over from Thailand to the Philippines this year. I’m embarrassed to report that my attempts have all fallen by the wayside, not because they were bad; as lame as it sounds, I couldn’t stand the tension that constantly surrounded these gay couples’ narratives. After giving it some thought, I realized the feeling stemmed from a sort of defense mechanism about my identity that I’ve struggled to turn off, even long after I’ve gone and come out to the people who mattered. I couldn’t bear to watch Cai and Gav start falling in love, knowing full well where Cai’s guarded demeanor was coming from. I’d been there, after a fashion. Even fully formed relationships like Pete and Kao’s made me anxious, out of fear of watching something so beautiful and rare suffer the bruises of love that defied convention.
None of these external social pressures that complicate a gay couple’s relationship—the discrimination, the fear of the public eye, the opinions of family members—are present in The Sims. Its attempt at simulating reality, while full-featured and entertaining, is negated by the game’s sterilized approach to the human condition. Gay people can kiss, get married, have kids, and experience all of life’s ups and downs, but the real-life struggle that helps contextualize the importance of those milestones as defiant acts is missing. It pales in comparison to other media representations of queer relationships, where starring couples kissing in full view of the camera feels like such a huge victory, even when these acts trigger some of my past trauma as a closeted gay teen.
It makes you think about the value of good things, which become meaningful when you also recognize the bad experiences from which they emerge. The tenuous freedom of expression that the LGBT community has rightfully won today stands on decades of protest and violence experienced by thousands of other people who came before us. Even a simple thing as the circle of gay friends we enjoy feels all the more precious when you realize that it’s ultimately a bubble—a safe space that protects us from the bigotry and gender-based violence that continue to run rampant outside its confines. In that painful way, we acknowledge the harsh truths of being gay, lesbian, bi, or trans in this world while protecting, with all our strength, the few good things we’ve made of our lot in life.
For all its mechanical complexity, the relationship-building gameplay of The Sims is largely a color-by-numbers affair. The consequences of each interaction are clearly labeled: click this to make someone laugh, this one to find out what they like, and this one to piss them off. This artificiality also extends to the worlds that the Sims inhabit, where destinations look and feel like Japan, Hawaii, or the South American tropics, but are never explicitly marketed that way, instead filtered using imagined names and terminologies from the game’s fictional Simlish language. Recently, the developers removed a feature that involved Sims bowing in front of a shrine after fans pointed out that the activity evoked painful images of Japanese colonialism, especially among Korean players. All this is made in an effort to ensure inclusivity and respect for the game’s global player base. It’s obviously a successful formula, or the franchise wouldn’t have spawned almost a hundred titles in the mainline games alone if it didn’t strike a chord with its fans.
Despite its hesitations at being truly realistic, The Sims does allow for some fun emergent gameplay. Caspian and Travis have since gone through some memorable moments, like when they officially became a couple at midnight in the middle of a crowded city square ringing in the new year. I plan on making Caspian pop the question soon, so that I can start organizing the garden wedding of their dreams. The future looks happy for them both.
The Sims served me well when I was still unsure of the sensations in my body and had no one to make sense of them. It’s a safe and wholesome space that I’m sure has become a useful outlet for so many other teenagers out there feeling confused and looking for validation. No matter what you identify as, the game helps you paint the promise of a nice, varied, and fulfilling life. All I hope is that these players can cherish these beautiful, virtual gay lives of theirs while also seeking context and understanding outside the bounds of the game. As for me, I might give one of those BL shows another go. Even when their stories sometimes hit too close to home, it always feels good to be represented, warts and all.
A Sanitary Simulation of Queerness
Yeah because I've always wanted random townies to shout "Die fag!" while my Sim washes dishes in the bathroom sink. 🙄🙄🙄