Scope of Gay Option

This is a pretty basic question, but does Gay Option only cover when there is one same sex romance option among otherwise het ones? That seems to be the definition used on the Playing With page, but it's not in the actual description and wouldn't fit the page image. However, that does strike as a more defensible definition than simply "gay romance in a game".

The existence of this trope is a reflection of society changing.

At first, games with relationships were Hetero only.

Then a few developers started adding a Gay Option. Generally only one, and in some cases it was harder to access than the Hetero choices. The presence of the option was very significant, as it was out of the norm. Controversy would occasionally erupt over those options, with the more conservative elements of society upset over their inclusion.

Eventually pretty much all games w/ relationships had one, and to stand out there has to be multiple. Having just one can cause blowback now for the opposite reason as the prior stage - the more progressive segments of society (who were happy to have even one previously) feeling cheated by the inadequate choices.

That doesn't really answer my question about the definition. Does Gay Option only cover when there's only one or can it cover multiple? Different parts of the page seem to indicate one or the other.

There can be multiple. Tropes Are Flexible

Edited by PrincessPandaTrope on Sep 24th 2020 at 12:55:20 PM

Ehh, I'm not so sure about that. You wouldn't really call something the "Gay Option" if there's 5 other potential gay routes you could take; then it just becomes an option. I think the idea here should be that it's different from the norm.

So should the page be rewritten to reflect that fact? For example, should the "inversions" be removed?

Edited by TheMountainKing on Sep 28th 2020 at 8:10:08 AM

Yeah, I think Gay Option should have just one 1, at most 2 (and only if there are many potential love interests). I think the inversions "all the routes in this game are gay, and there's one straight option" are valid, but it's the "games offering an equal-ish number of male and female options" that strike me as aversions and not actual examples.

I agree.

Thirded. If it's one option amongst several heteresexual ones (or a small number against a much larger of heterosexual ones) then yes, it counts as a Gay Option. When it starts expanding to a relatively large proportion of the cast then its starts becoming something else.

I assume this emerged from the recently-discarded Token Gay Option draft? I was willing to yard the idea since "gay option is significantly less fleshed out / treated as less legitimate than the straight options" is a good angle. Not sure if that's already implied in Gay Option on its own.

Yeah. This was a longstanding confusion for me, but that draft brought it to the forefront of my mind.