Opposite of Lecherousness

[PK]

Originally Posted by ciaran_skye

I'm making a character who is asexual due to psychological trauma and romantic advances simply don't work. Normally I'd call it sexual orientation and the canonical 0-point feature

Full stop; you had it right, here. This is just sexual preference, which is always a 0-point feature in GURPS unless it comes bundled with traits based on society's reaction (Social Stigma, usually, often at a quirk level). Aside from such bundled traits, "who my character is attracted to" is always a free choice for the player (or GM, for NPCs).

Being asexual has some use -- effective immunity to Sex Appeal (unless someone has the ability to alter your sexual preference), for example -- but it has similar downsides, such as standing out in most groups over time (not as a negative Reputation, just as the kind of feature that makes one stand out in others' minds) and being unable to seduce well yourself since there's nothing you find sexually attractive about anyone. There aren't any real balance issues here; it's a feature. If it makes you feel better thinking of it as Quirk: Asexual [-1] and Perk: Usually immune to Sex Appeal [1], feel free to treat it as such.

[Pomphis]

Originally Posted by PK

Being asexual has some use -- effective immunity to Sex Appeal (unless someone has the ability to alter your sexual preference), for example -- but it has similar downsides, such as standing out in most groups over time (not as a negative Reputation, just as the kind of feature that makes one stand out in others' minds) and being unable to seduce well yourself since there's nothing you find sexually attractive about anyone.

I don´t really see the last part. In the game I can have Sex Appeal -25 if I spend the points regardless of whether I find the victim sexually attractive. In RL I suspect that at least some people who seduced others for example as spies were not really sexually attracted by their targets.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Pomphis

I don´t really see the last part. In the game I can have Sex Appeal -25 if I spend the points regardless of whether I find the victim sexually attractive. In RL I suspect that at least some people who seduced others for example as spies were not really sexually attracted by their targets.

It gets even worse with AIs running bioshells and approaching Sex Appeal (or other skills useable for seduction) and Erotic Art as technical skills - comparable to mental surgery and massage.

In fact, I have an NPC who has a minor split personality (Quirk), and one of the halves may or may not be fully asexual (I'm undecided, but it certainly has this line of thinking more subdued than in the other half). (I have about 2 weeks to resolve this, given the rate at which my campaign is going.)

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Pomphis

I don´t really see the last part. In the game I can have Sex Appeal -25 if I spend the points regardless of whether I find the victim sexually attractive. In RL I suspect that at least some people who seduced others for example as spies were not really sexually attracted by their targets.

Realistically, I would call for use of the Acting skill to counter a penalty to Sex Appeal in such cases.

[PK]

Originally Posted by Pomphis

In RL I suspect that at least some people who seduced others for example as spies were not really sexually attracted by their targets.

True, but there's a big difference between (e.g.) a strictly heterosexual man (Kinsey 0) seducing a woman he doesn't find attractive in any way and that same man seducing another man. In the latter case, he has to overcome not just a lack of attraction to the specific person, but also natural revulsion toward the concept of being sexual with another man. Because of this, it's reasonable and realistic for the GM to assess additional penalties (TDMs) for such Sex Appeal attempts; I know I do.

In real life, most people aren't Kinsey 0 or 6 -- they float somewhere between 1 and 5, which is enough to say that they can seduce the "wrong" sex with either no or modest penalties . . . but that it's at least possible to be seduced by the "wrong" sex as well. I reserve the ruling above for PCs whose players declare are absolute Kinsey 0 or 6. Declaring your (N)PC to be fully asexual (Kinsey X) is similar. (In real life, most asexual folk are actually Kinsey 2-4 with a very low sex drive; true Kinsey X types are rare.)

[Flyndaran]

Are people like me, fully hetero, really that rare? I'm not so sure it isn't just excessive PC-ism and trying to force reality to be tolerant of sexualities that require more than one word to explain.

[PK]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Are people like me, fully hetero, really that rare?

No one said "rare." As I understand it, Kinsey 0 is the largest single category (by far), but the sum of Kinsey 1-5 is slightly higher. Of course, this is based on more than just the original (somewhat disputed) Kinsey Reports; later studies used the same scale despite being unconnected to the original research, simply because it's so darn useful! Case in point, the only reason I used the Kinsey scale here is because it's more precise than waffling and qualifying my terms (e.g., "absolutely heterosexual vs. effectively heterosexual").

Obviously, I am not a professional sexologist or sociologist and thus I could be misunderstanding the implications. But it's really tangential to the point, which is that the larger the segment (of the populace) a player claims Immunity to Sex Appeal from (based on his character's sexual preference), the larger the segment the GM can reasonably assume he has difficulty seducing, himself. That's just two sides of the same coin.

(Let's make sure we all keep on the topic of representing asexuality in GURPS, BTW, and not diverge into a discussion about human sexual norms.)

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Are people like me, fully hetero, really that rare? I'm not so sure it isn't just excessive PC-ism and trying to force reality to be tolerant of sexualities that require more than one word to explain.

It often looks like an agenda to me, about trying to define most men as being born bisexual.

Then again, historically, the useful categores weren't heterosexual, bisexual and homosexual, but rather men who did the penetration and men who were penetratred, with the second category of men being severely stigmatized in most societies. (women weren't acknowledged as having a sexual orientation.)