Understanding the influence of video games on boys.

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Dear care and feeding,

My son “Terrence” just turned 15 and received a video game called Crusader Kings 3 for his birthday. He showed it to me and it seems quite nice if you like this type of strategy game. You play a landowning family in the Middle Ages, from Europe to most of Asia to most of Africa, and you hopefully lead your dynasty to wealth and power. Individuals come and go, your lands come and go, but you carry on as a family.

Anyway, he showed me his newest character and I asked what one of the symbols on the character board meant. He looked at it and said, “Oh, the character is gay”…

Apparently the game also models different sexualities. Then he looked confused, noticed that the character had eight children by three different women, and said, “That can’t be true The gay.”

Other than that, I haven't heard any homophobic comments from him. And I'm not sure that really counts. After all, this is not a human being, but simply a collection of data for a computer game. I told him that such a statement was inappropriate, but I didn't pursue it further. Should I make a bigger deal on this?

– Does it count if they aren’t real?

Dear Count,

Yes, it is possible to make a homophobic comment about an imaginary character. Trolls do this all the time. However, your son didn't do that. He turned an unusual juxtaposition of character traits on his computer screen into a bit of light, observational humor. In fact, there's a lot of discussion among Crusader Kings players about what it means for a medieval video game character to be gay, but refreshingly, like your son's comment, that discussion reveals more confusion and curiosity than homophobia. Your son sounds good – he's figuring things out in real life, just like he's figuring things out in his video game. We're all trying to find out! We'll all be fine.

-Dan