Worth Reading: 05/31/2013

Thank you both for your responses.

I do agree that some of my complaints can be considered nit-picky, since they revolve around particular examples she uses being taken out of context. This is what I'm referring to when I have to roll my eyes and move on to the next thing she discusses. However, there are some leaps of logic that I don't like that aren't nit-picky. I'm not good at writing, so it's hard for me to try to articulate exactly what I want to say, and can only hope that someone can do a better job than me.

I do think that there are points she makes that I agree with, or find myself being informed of something I never took the time to look at, for example the combination of "Damsel in Distress" and "Woman in the Refrigerator" tropes being used - I already knew of the tropes individually. And I think that's part of the reason why I don't like when she brings up something that jars me out of agreeing with her. It's not exclusive (not quite the word I want to use) to these two videos, but is seen in her other work, which was the reason I didn't back this project, since I look at previous work before supporting a Kickstarter.

I agree with @lively, in that I cannot be my brother's keeper, so to speak. When someone brings up such topics as men's rights, how much her Kickstarter made, or how long it's taken for videos, I try to disregard them because they have no bearing on actually critiquing the work in question. I may have opinions on those subjects, that may agree or disagree with them, but they have nothing to do with the actual contents of the videos. (As an aside, I read a good article this week about how men's right activists shouldn't be against feminism, and vice versa, but I can seem to remember where.)

I think most reasonable people can agree that there should be a variety of protagonists to play as, including gender, or even better, give the player the choice. Where we will probably disagree may be the belief that employing damsel in distress is inherently a negative portrayal if handled correctly and not taken out of context.

@lively: Oh it's most definitely not fair, I admit that. And I did say I wasn't actually asking them to apologize for the crazies. I'm not entirely sure what they can do about it, or if they can do anything about it, and don't really have any remedy to suggest... I was more just pointing out that it's a fundamental problem with the debate, and the fact of the matter it's mostly a problem for their side. To be fair, I've seen a number of complaints about the 'tone' of Sarkeesian's argument (which I personally believe is more a reflection of the complainants preconceptions than anything inherent in her delivery, though that's another topic entirely), but I think we can all admit that for whatever fault you might find with her presentation, it's nothing that compares to the vitriol coming from her opponents.

Well stated.

I do have one issue with your post, in that you suggest that it's up to one side of the argument to police their crazies and extremists. I don't think that's a fair thing to ask; it's like calling on moderate muslims to constantly be apologizing for jihadists. It really isn't fair to even regard them as "part of the same thing".

@sergio: Thank you for your thoughtful response. I don't entirely agree with it, (it frankly seems somewhat--and please excuse the negative connotation of the word-- nitpicky to me, as I don't think it necessarily negates her broader argument) but I at least see your point. I was about to say something to the effect of "I see a lot of people criticizing her video without specifying what points they disagree with," but your response has effectively addressed my complaint, and I'd hope others would follow in your example.

I agree with you that those who champion her ideals should be the first to critique them, so I'll offer this obvservation: A lot of the ideas she presents, though I agree with for the most part, could be better fleshed out. (Especially the idea of a violence-based interactive medium perhaps being ill suited to explore romantic relationships and the associated emotions and power dynamics; that topic alone could warrant an entire video devoted to the subject.) I'll excuse her somewhat since these videos are clearly designed to be digested by a wider, non-academic audience, but it would have been nice if perhaps she'd released some sort of accompanying in-depth scholarly writing on the topic. (which I'd assume she's perfectly capable of doing, if she wanted to... it seems like a strange oversight, perhaps it's something she intends to do later?) At its worst, this video sometimes comes across like something you might see on Buzzfeed or something of that sort, and I don't think "10 Llamas That Sort of Look Like Sally Field" should be the model for an academic argument.

I'll say this--and this isn't necessarily aimed at you in particular, Sergio--the people--like you, trying to make a more reasoned argument--complaining about being lumped in with the crazies, occasionally come across as defending said crazies. Or at least seem dismissive of other people's concern about them. I get it, you're not happy about being on the same side as those bozos, it's really not your fault, it sucks. But it's still sort of the elephant in the room, and it needs to be more readily addressed. I understand that it may appear to you that people on my side of the argument are intentionally using those people as an excuse not to engage, but I assure you that this is not the case: Those people are genuinely as disruptive as we're making them out to be: It's like having someone with a flashing strobe light and an air-horn constantly wailing in the room we're trying to have a conversation in. Again, it sucks that your side of the debate is the one being held responsible for them... but you guys kiiiiinda are responsible, is the problem. And I don't mean that in a liability sort of sense even... I mean, just from a pragmatic point of view, those guys aren't going to listen to our side effectively trying to shut them out of the argument. Are you following?

A lot of these forums I've been reading are pretty heavily weighed towards Sarkeesian's critics, some to the point of echo-chamberdom, and I suspect that's largely because a great deal of the people who would support her side are taking a look, seeing threats of violence, seeing derogatory language towards women, seeing people throw horrible bile towards her, her videos, her supporters, and anyone else they believe looked at them the wrong way, and then simply throwing their hands up and saying "no way am I getting into that." Reasonable folks on your side need to be the ones that shut those people down, because ultimately you're the ones whose argument is being hurt most by their hatred. You say you want a forum to discuss the merits of Sarkeesian's work, but that simply can't exist with people throwing around such diatribe. I'm not asking for you to apologize for them or anything.

Ugh, I wound up talking about the crazies more than I wanted to... Maybe I'm contributing to the problem. If you like, I'd be willing to continue engaging in discussion more specifically relating to your points. Anyway, thank you again for your thoughtful commentary.

I guess I'll go against the grain in these comments and say that I like Anita's work, and agree with almost everything she's trying to say. I want portrayals of women in games to get better, and it probably won't happen without more people being aware of how prevalent these themes are in games.

That's what Anita's doing; collecting examples of things she thinks aren't good trends, showing them, and giving her opinion on why they're bad. For the most part, there's not much to refute here, other than to disagree with her more subjective opinions on how things should be. If you're one of those people who feels the need to say "but she's presenting her opinion as fact!", have a cookie, you've obviously never read or watched an editorial.

I've also watched most of the "rebuttal" videos, and for the most part they vastly misinterpret what she's actually saying, and ignore the caveats she herself includes in the original videos. It's hilarious, and also depressing how many people post the rebuttals as if to say, "see? everything Anita's saying is wrong, go back to your homes and stop worrying about this issue!".

I guess it really comes down to me agreeing with what she's trying to do, so I don't want the issue to go away. Even if she were completely full of shit (which she isn't) I would want her goals to succeed, and I want the industry to improve. I want more people to do what she's doing, and do it better. Someone will, I guarantee it.

Until then, I have to give her extra credit for getting out there and bringing attention to this issue without waiting for the internet to approve of every nuance of her presentation first.

@brechtiandinnertheater: When @patrickklepek or any other game reviewer critiques a game and points out any shortcomings, is he trying to take the developer down a peg? When your employer points them out in your performance review, are they trying to take you down a peg?

I'm sure there are some who do want to "take her down a peg," but those are also the ones who call her vile names, threaten her, and try to get her video taken down from youtube. People who are actually discussing her work without any of that aren't necessarily trying to take her down, but are conveniently lumped into that same group. She and her work aren't infallible and should be open to criticism like any other work. Perhaps she can learn from it and improve her work, since it seems that she took some of the criticism from her first video and included some disclaimers in the second.

Actual sexism in the game industry and everywhere else is bad and should be dealt with. Perceived sexism in media should be looked into, but it shouldn't be a simple, "here's a list of tropes, ergo sexism." There should actually be some critical analysis. It's easy to misconstrue things when taken out of context, and she explicitly wants us to take the existence of this trope out of context.

For the most part, I can just roll my eyes, shake my head, and comment in a thread whenever part of her argument stumbles. This time I literally threw my hands up in disgust when she delved into trying to make a connection between games and domestic abuse. I grew up with some abuse in my family, and games were a form of escapism, and now she has the gall to suggest that they somehow make it seem like abuse is ok. No, they do not. Without taking them out of context, the violence portrayed is not the same as real-life abuse. A character asking to sacrifice themselves is not equivalent to the pathetic excuse an abuser might make when they say, "she was asking for it."

While I wish there was a forum to actually discuss the merits of her work and point out their shortcomings to her, I can understand why she disabled comments (not ratings) on youtube. People can say that it's par for the course in terms of youtube comments, but that shouldn't be an excuse to tell someone to just deal with it. Most of the abuse directed towards me was mental abuse, so I do understand that words do hurt, regardless of the old adage, "sticks and stones." Enough vitriol will wear a person down, and she doesn't deserve that, even if I disagree with some of the points she tries to make.

Since there is no forum to relate these things to her, then the best option is for video game websites to do that work. There's no guarantee that she will see some random post on a person's blog or a youtube video with salient counterpoints. She has a masters degree and knows how to articulate her message to convince others, even when there are faults in it, can random blogger X coherently state a valid point against those faults? Some can to varying degrees, some can't. If she does see these rebuttals, will she just shrug it off as just another person trying to "take her down a peg" based on how they've constructed their argument?

I think it's better for those who champion the ideal of her work to actually critique it. That would include video game web sites who post links to her video, making them a newsworthy piece for their audience to consume. None have as of yet. The most we ever see is an aside, "I don't agree with everything she says." Fine then, how about telling us about those things you don't agree with? This would be more visible to her than someone's tumblr post.

Agreed. I suspect (and @sergio touches on this) that there are a lot more prominent writers who don't think very highly of her work, but have either avoided addressing it entirely or focussed on the reactions (and specifically, the crazy/trolling subset of the reactions) to it rather than its substance. Nobody wants to be the guy (especially guy!) to put themselves on the "wrong" (in a perception sense -- I don't think there's an absolute truth here) side of Sarkessian's opinions or the broader discussion. I think the loudness and self-righteousness with which the feminist side came out of the gate made it very difficult for anyone influential to present a dissenting opinion.

I tend to avoid this stuff, but has Patrick really addressed Sarkessian's opinions and articulated his own in a substantive way, or just presented her thoughts as "important" while patronizing those who disagree with her? If the latter, is there any actual value in that, or is it just back-patting "we're on the right side, not like those backward cavemen" liberalism? I say this as a liberal/progressive guy who's growing increasingly sick of my "side's" tendency to prefer feel-good, mob-mentality, conclusions-before-evidence opinions over any kind of rigorous, genuinely-curious inquiry. It's much easier to be snarky and dismissive than it is to do the hard work of shifting a discussion -- or even educating yourself about an issue -- in an intelligent and substantive way.

I feel the vast majority of the discussion about this issue pre-supposes that the fairly radical, badly-supported ideas of a few feminist writers are correct. People who dare to disagree aren't treated like they're contributing to an active debate, they're presented as willfully ignoring the blatant reality of the industry's deep sexism, and are often just lumped in with the trolls and crazies or branded with the at-this-point-meaningless (at they're thrown around like "idiot" without any consideration of their actual meaning) labels of "sexist" or "misogynist".

I'm not at all claiming the industry doesn't have problems or that there hasn't been smart feminist writings about games, but I don't think the industry's as terrible (or even of the same nature) as critics like Sarkessian. I think the industry, in aggregate, should do a better job of depicting women, and I'm sure some companies could be more inviting to women, but I strongly disagree with way it's currently subject to a sexism witch-hunt that pre-supposes that the amateurish musings of a few prominent feminist writers are sacrosanct.

Marriage just means an intimate or close union. People use the term to describe the combinations of flavours in food. Why wouldn't it be called "marriage"?

THIS.

I bought VC years ago but only played it recently. That's a great game. Sure, it has its problems but for all the praise XCOM got, VC did it better, several years ago.

Does anybody know the name of the artist in the first video? His shading style reminds me a lot of the late great Moebius

And yeah, Valkyria Chronicles is definitely worth playing.

In regards to:

• The advantages of having a plan.
  
  Actually, what that study likely shows is the inaccuracy of time journals. There have been studies about the use of and accuracy of 'journals' for all sorts of tasks - food journals, time journals, work journals etc. There studies show people are wildly inaccurate in their journals. There are a lot of studies about inaccuracy in food journals online, but there are also studies that show work journals are very bad to the point where trucking companies and telecommuting companies now don't even allow for journaling..they just use computerized meta data from the tools these people use.
  
  My mother is a nurse, and a good one, but her work place now INSISTS that charting be done in the patients room, right after a task is done or after a reading was noted. They had to create this rule because patient charts that were completed when the nurse was back at a desk was often inaccurate even when charting tasks done moments before. In other words, no matter where you look in the literature/studies the use of journaling for data gathering is worthless.
  
  Those average violists who say they practice for 50 hours are probably spending less than half of the time practicing. That's the takeaway, that's the key journaling is a terrible measure of productivity or adherence to a regime. People lie, and often they don't even realize they lie because the way our brains work is not about precision time and place accuracy, but averages of sensory experience. People can say, "I was productive" or "I was not as productive" with useful accuracy, but they are terrible at exact counts, exact time spent, and hard data.

You should definitely play Valkyria Chronicles and Dark Souls Patrick. Both will give you hours of fun.

Videogames in movies aren't so bad, it's the fake cheap videogames and terms they make up in todays television shows that's hilarious.

Also references that make you grind your teeth.

Patrick is far too busy writing his weekly post of links to other sites content, and telling us we're "allowed to disagree with Sarkessian" to write about #PS4NoDRM. Good lord this site is out of touch.

@humanity said:

I agree and I don't even think the videos are that bad. Even regarding the argument between author and their work, many people take significant issue with both the work AND her, me included. There are critical articles and videos out there pointing out these issues but she gets the benefit of the doubt due to the actually legitimate and serious issue of misogyny and sexism within games.

Patrick did say "You are allowed to disagree with Sarkessian, even aggressively so, but do so with a sense of class" but that feels weak. However, Patrick, Anita, and everyone else is correct about the horrible, stupid and pointless name calling and attacks. Well, maybe not Anita... but that's another issue.

It's really a shame because as I don't rage against Anita, I do feel it's really silly to keep saying oh man the internet is full of crazies, but for all you sensible people here is this video to watch. Especially for a guy like Patrick who has been in the industry since he was a kid and prides himself on being an actual game journalist that goes after stories - to see him watch these ridiculously one sided and cherry picked sensationalist videos Anita puts out and then point the finger at the masses saying "wow you guys should know better, respect her work" is baffling.

I'm not saying we should get our pitchforks and torches to set out for her house, but if you're at all into video games and reasonably intelligent then these videos are borderline insulting in the way they selectively trivialize certain aspects of gaming and completely exaggerate others purely for the sake of sustaining the argument.

When you see Patricks indignant article about Microsoft, condemning them for not respecting their target audience, and then see him post defensive articles about Anita's work which is at best poorly-researched and at worst completely skewed in a single direction to the point of completely fantasy - you start to wonder what is going on? Is this just a weird rage against the machine sort of thing? No offense to Patrick, he's a good guy that pushes for interesting content on the site, but you can't just champion the underdog every single time.

@commandergermanshepard: Heads up, civil unions do not have all the same rights and privileges as marriages in many, many places. In a lot of states in America, the only legal partnership available for homosexual couples carry with them a pale shadow of the benefits and recognition afforded by a marriage. I'm not gonna argue either way about whether gay marriage is the right way to go or not but to say "does it make any difference if it is called something else but still have all the same legal rights as a marriage?" is just ignorant.

The Donkey Kong 64 link at the bottom goes to the article instead of the game page. Not sure if it's intentional since the article is linked again right after.

I feel like all these articles and tweets strawmanning anyone against Anita's videos really isn't helping things at all. It just turns the whole thing into an "Us vs Them" scenario and continues to act like anyone with criticisms for her argument is an overeacting sexist pig.

It does weird me out that game journalists seem to be randomly forgetting that no, there are already plenty of games coming out with inventive, original stories. The summation point from people like Ben Kuchera, "games should start telling different stories", is ultimately without any meaning or purpose. They already do.

@cassus well you offended me good job!. Not every person who follows a religon is ''insane'' as you make out to be. Let people live there life if they believe in religon or not does it really matter ? Your post is not going to change anything it will only create more arguments. Its better to say nothing in these cases

@cassus well you offended me good job!. Not every person who follows a religon is ''insane'' as you make out to be. Let people live there life if they believe in religon or not does it really matter ? Your post is not going to change anything it will only create more arguments. Its better to say nothing in these cases

Every time I try and download Imscared it doesn't work :-\

I thought Sam Lake was going to cry in that video. I don't get how the Penny Arcade article about not getting into China was a big deal. I was listening to the radioradar podcast a couple of weeks ago and Tom Magrino said that they were told to just say they were a businessman to save any problems. He had a hilarious anecdote of saying he was a journalist when trying to get his papers and rebuking that straight away when he was getting questioned by just saying I cover vidoegames

Oh my God thank you for sharing that @IwataAsks twitter account Patrick.

That video game supercut is so 80s! Nowadays video games in movies just seem to be someone wildly pressing all the buttons on a controller.

Sam Lake is a cool dude. Looking forward to their new IP, but I was really looking forward to Alan Wake 2.

That Ashly Burch podcast is really eye opening and heartbreaking. Thanks for sharing this, Patrick.

I find Jenn Frank's Berzerkeley/liberal hand wringing quit tedious. Generally love these "Worth Reading" posts however.Great gaming link-dump.

I also just want to add that I can't even comprehend the urge to take the author down a notch, or whatever it is her critics are trying to accomplish. What are these people's stakes in this discussion, exactly?

As a huge fan of Ico, I admit it stung me a little to see it included in her list of games involving female characters rendered helpless if not for the efforts of a brave male protagonist, but I have to admit in a way she's right. That doesn't make it a bad game. I love the story in Ico, and a big part of what I love about it is how it explores that very relationship that justified the game's inclusion in Sarkeesian's video.

Ico is a genuine artistic statement, but not every game is Ico. Taken on it's own, Ico is perfectly acceptable. The unbalanced relationship between the protagonist and Yorda is only inexcusable in the context of the hundreds of other games that use female characters as little more than props in adolescent power fantasies. We should be mad at the state of writing in games for Ico's inclusion in her list, not the author. (I mean, talk about threatening-to-rape the messenger...)

We're all fans of gaming; me, you... even her. Can't we all see that most video game writing is absolute garbage? Acknowledging this--or even just having the goddamned conversation--can only benefit us.

Good on Stephen Totilo. I'd like to see what he comes up with.

At least @patrickklepek is willing to treat us like adults, despite the bad apples, even if we're critical of Sarkeesian's videos. I got really fucking pissed off at how Ben Kuchera decided to handle it over at the Penny Arcade Report.

Basically telling us we're all too immature to be allowed to discuss it on his website, because obviously everyone who disagrees with Sarkeesian's arguments disagrees that sexism is an issue in general. Then he pretty much tells us all that we should sit in the corner and consider our sexist ways and locks the comments.

To me, it reads like he's too lazy to put his moderation team to work cleaning up anything that gets out of hand, while letting the more mature people debate like civilized adults. He just decided to insult us and claim it's our own fault.

Now, I don't know how people behave over on the PAR, but the most recent thread here on Giant Bomb actually has some really good discussion and debate going on -- with the occasional asshole and lunatic on both sides of the argument (like always), but for the most part it's fine.

I mean, isn't getting this stuff into the public eye and fostering discussion on the issue what games journalists like Kuchera have been preaching for a while now? Lumping all of us in with the actual misogynists who can't keep their mouths shut is insulting, and all it does is encourage more people to get angry rather than behave rationally. And it sure as hell doesn't encourage healthy discussion on the issue.

The Super Mario Bros. Movie was so bad. I guess that goes without saying, but man, is it bad. He can't be being totally genuine in that video. I mean, I guess he can, maybe all things are better in hindsight, but man, that movie was soooooooo bad.

I don't think people give YT comments enough credit. It largely depends on the type of videos you are watching and what kind of audience they attract. I can only speak from my experience, but the videos I watch always have at least funny comments, sometimes insightful comments. I have learned stuff from YT comments. I have seen civilized discussions on YT. And yeah, I have also seen a lot of bullshit comments. But those will generally get downvoted.

Something I've noticed is, that comments and ratings serve - most of the time - as bullshit detectors. If I'm watching a video, and the ratings are relatively low, that raises suspicion. I'm wondering, what's wrong with this video. And the top comments will usually give the answer. I doesn't work like that in every case, but in most. Just look for some creationist videos for example.

When the uploader disables not only comments but also ratings, that's enough reason for me to raise an eyebrow. You could make an argument, that Anita is getting harassed by troll commenters (why would she care), but how can ratings be harassing? Anyway, it's just bad form. Other channels embrace the comment section. They want to know what their viewers have to say, directly on YT, not on some obscure blogs or websites far away. They listen to feedback, answer questions, build a healthy community, etc.

I spent like, five minutes a couple days ago reading one of the forums discussing (i.e. threatening to rape the author) the latest Anita Sarkeesian video, and came away feeling like I needed to take a shower. It's rare I've seen online "discourse" reach this level of bile and hatred... and this is coming from someone who regularly engages in heated political debates on Facebook. It was especially disheartening seeing this on the Giantbomb forums, which I generally think of being a tad more progressive than the online gaming community as a whole.

It's entirely possible that there were more reasoned arguments against her work in the mix, (though it's worth noting I didn't see any) but even if I'd been presented with a rock solid rebuttal of her work, point by point, I think after having read all the other responses I would be immediately suspicious of the author's motives.

More than anything else, it was the lack of self-awareness I found upsetting. Like, if this woman truly has no point, then why do her videos appear to so readily drive people into an almost psychotic rage? For the first time in my life, I feel a little embarrassed to play video games, and it's not just because of how they portray women...

@president_barackbar: I think game "journalists" tend to not want to actually critique her work in any way considering how people with reasonable criticism get lumped in with the worst of her detractors. It's a shame that they just give her a free pass, then rely on other bloggers to carry the mantle. Some do with varying degrees of success, but still get ridiculed for having the audacity to disagree with her.

I'm not a fan of Kotaku, but hopefully Stephen Totilo will actually put something together that has some fair criticism.

You're right that there's been an imbalance and a lack of skeptical coverage of Sarkeesian's arguments. I've been planning on something about that for a few months and have a bunch of notes on it. Rest assured, I'll be getting to it.

Goddamn Sarkeesian.

Weaponlord is good. That is all.

Mental Illness Happy Hour is a fantastic podcast. I'm really glad to see it here.

On another note, it's weird to see dudes I used to forum with become Internet Famous.

That Sam Lake video is actually very heartbreaking. To me, it seems like a man very much torn asunder. He doesn't seem thrilled about Quantum Break so much as torn up that Alan Wake 2 didn't end up making sense.

I didn't end up loving or finishing the first Alan Wake game, but I adore what Alan Wake is as a franchise and what it could be as a game. I hope desperately they get to make a second, even more ambitious and beautiful game with Alan Wake 2, and I will return to Bright Falls sometime this summer.

but she's trying to raise awareness for a good cause, so even though her message is flawed we should cut her some slack. also because people are mean to her.

It's creepy because it was supposed to be creepy. Hell, earlier in the game you found a crashed school bus and then you had to shoot the ghosts of all the dead children from that bus. Most of Prey felt very unnerving and I thought they did an excellent job with it.

I wonder what Ashly Burch's opinion on Papo and Yo were.

The only beef I have with Anita Sarkeesian is that it took nearly three months to produce a 25 minute video. And one that's the back half of another video that's mostly stage-setting. Holy crap.

I'd love to hear what she has to say, but you can't take this long to say it. Not if you want to be taken seriously, or to have any real impact in your message. This stuff really impedes a proper discussion, and If we can't have a discussion, then what's the point?

Indian RPG

Start video

White dude.

Uh.

@sparky_buzzsaw: Definitely. Having to deal with my dad's heroin addiction for 5 years, her story sounded too familiar.

Great point, but just don't demonize people that don't agree with that notion, most are good people to, just with outdated morals and upbringings.

Patrick, please play Valkyria Chronicles. It is such an underappreciated gem. Aslo, good luck with getting into Dark Souls.

Thought you guys should know: Andrew Scott Reisse was killed today. He was the co-fouder of Oculus VR. http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news/local/orange_county&id=9122999

5 minutes into the Conker retrospective (on the DK64 link) and I can already tell you that it is amazing if you like listening to british men say the word "Cunt". It should probably have been on the video links for this week.

@commandergermanshepard: Yes, it makes a difference. There are a large number of people who greatly value marriage. It means something to them, and yes, some of these people are gay. Do you really not see that it is demeaning and insulting to say to a person "Sure you may be in love like my spouse and I. You may be committed to each other like my spouse and I, and you may have the same legal rights as my spouse and I, but you're gay. So if you could just get a civil union or something instead that would be great, because what we have is special and we don't want it sullied by you're relationship being equated to ours."

It might not be evil, but it's still bigotry, and it's a view that says the LGBT community should just be happy with what they get because these social issues make people uncomfortable and challenge their preconceptions.

There is no reason to withhold the word marriage.