relationships | Polygamer

Polygamer #127: Helene Utterback on polyamory

Posted on July 20, 2022 by Ken Gagne

Helene Utterback is a practitioner and advocate of polyamory, or transparently having multiple romantic partners. As an alternative lifestyle to traditional monogamy, polyamory allows individuals to have various emotional and physical needs met by more than one person. It’s a form of romance rarely seen in video games, a medium that instead allows or encourages players to “romance” no more than one non-player character (NPC) at a time.

In this podcast, Helene and I chat about the communication tools and skills necessary to participate in polyamory; how polyamorous individuals work through feelings of jealousy, insecurity, and possessiveness; why society stigmatizes polyamory, leading it to be rarely represented in gaming; the game mods and expansions that allow polyamory to exist in games such as The Sims 4 and Stardew Valley; and how polyamory doesn’t reduce storytelling opportunities, but greatly expands it.

Stream the audio edition of this interview below or from Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, Spotify, Overcast, Pandora, Pocket Casts, iHeartRadio, TuneIn, RadioPublic, or the Internet Archive. Click past the jump for a transcript and links to resources mentioned in this episode.

Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:03:34 — 73.7MB) | Embed

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Polygamer #92: Bobbi A Sand of Transcenders Media

Posted on August 14, 2019 by Ken Gagne

Bobbi Augustine Sand is the game designer and author of Knife Sisters, a visual novel published by Transcenders Media. In Knife Sisters, players assume the role of Leo, a non-binary twenty-something exploring BDSM relationships and the occult. Players navigate this black-and-white world by choosing who to spend time with, what kink to explore, and how to respond to new situations, all while safely negotiating power exchange and communicating consent.

Bobbi and I start this interview by reviewing the basics, such as what BDSM, edgeplay, and polyamory are, where gamers can learn more about these subcultures, and how people interested in kink can find each other. We discuss the different sexual cultures of Bobbi’s native Sweden versus my own in the United States, how the game’s adult content made it difficult to market internationally, and the resulting challenges for its Kickstarter. And, of course, we talk about Knife Sisters: the different ways Leo and Mo express consent; whether Naomi would’ve chosen to be childfree; how Dagger’s rituals fit into the theme of power exchange; and what exactly Kylo Zen is.

Stream the audio edition of this interview below or from Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Overcast, Pandora, Pocket Casts, iHeartRadio, TuneIn, RadioPublic, or the Internet Archive. Click past the jump for links to resources mentioned in this episode.

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Podcast: Download (Duration: 56:39 — 26.8MB) | Embed

Polygamer #19: Elisa Meléndez on avatars, FragDolls, racial diversity & rock bands

Posted on April 8, 2015 by Ken Gagne

Elisa Meléndez recently spoke on a PAX East 2015 panel about how we create and identify with our avatars in virtual game worlds. This is one of just many topics she’s researched as part of her Ph.D studies in comparative sociology — and her academic career is just one of Elisa’s many aspects. In this podcast, she discusses being, in her husband’s words, a "triple threat" — a queer woman of color — in the gaming industry, the whitewashing of PAX East, a sociological perspective on GamerGate, being a FragDoll cadet, how gaming saved her marriage, fronting for the rock band Crimson and getting her music into the Ubisoft game Rocksmith, coming out to her father as bisexual, whether being a badass is sexist — and much, much more! So much, that this episode of Polygamer clocks in at two hours, twice its usual length.

Download the audio edition of this interview below or from Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Overcast, Pandora, Pocket Casts, iHeartRadio, TuneIn, RadioPublic, or the Internet Archive. Click past the jump for links to resources mentioned in this episode.

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Podcast: Download (Duration: 2:07:25 — 59.2MB) | Embed