Gay Option



Oftentimes in video games, the option exists for the main character to pursue a romantic relationship with some other character. This more often than not happens in more open-ended games, such as RPGs and Wide Open Sandbox games like Grand Theft Auto, rather than games that follow a tight, "every note must be hit" plot, where any romance happens at the behest of the story. As video games are traditionally a medium for males, and most males are heterosexual, most of the romance happens between a male character and a female NPC of the player's choice.

In some cases, however, game designers have begun to realize that even though guys may be the primary audience for video games, girls play too, and not all the male players are straight. And as an interactive medium, it's possible to include content that can please those interested in non-heterosexual content while still giving the primary audience the option of skipping it. This means that games that include romance have occasionally allowed the main character the option to romance a few NPCs who happen to be gay (or, more frequently, bisexual) and who could theoretically desire the main character's bod. This is what we call the Gay Option.

For games where homosexuality is not just an option but the game itself is themed on it, see the video game sections of Yuri Genre (for lesbians) and Boys Love Genre (for gay males). This may or may not overlap with Optional Sexual Encounter, since a game won't always go that far.

Adventure Games

 * The sixth Leisure Suit Larry game had a gay option as a Nonstandard Game Over: If you used Larry's fly on the flamboyantly gay towel attendant or gave him the key to Larry's room, you were treated to a game over screen featuring the two walking hand in hand into the sunset.
 * In one of the Suzumiya Haruhi video games, where you play as Kyon, you can gain or lose favor with each character depending on how much attention you pay to them. Sometimes it's a friendship meter, and sometimes it's a love meter; that last one comes up less often for Itsuki (resident Ho Yay character) than the girls, but it still appears from time to time.

MMORPGs

 * Pirates Of The Burning Sea allows this, in an early mission you get a choice of a number of different people of both genders that you can select to be your romantic interest later in the game with no gender restrictions. This can lead to amusing results as players who don't read the plot text then end up wondering why their character is suddenly gay.
 * Parodied by Gaia Online. A RIG centering on an injured Lex's video-game hallucinations has a dating-sim stage. Lex's options are his female coworkers Becky and Jinx... and his male coworker Russell Ace.
 * World of Warcraft added a small example in the Cataclysm expansion. One series of humorous quests involves listening to the awesome exploits of a couple of NPCs in the Badlands following Deathwing's path of destruction. One of them starts with the Orc showing off his  motorcycle to a series of swooning admirers, ladies of various races... and a male blood elf. When Deathwing appears, you can only choose one of the them to hop in the sidecar with you to safety.

Role-Playing Games

 * Steambot Chronicles had an odd version of this. There were three female characters that could be romanced. During the dates with them, the player could inform the women that they were interested in their male friends, but could not actually date another male character.
 * In Tales of Symphonia, Lloyd can end up with anyone in the party as his soulmate. While this editor isn't sure how many of them are actually supposed to be romantic (at least one of them definitely isn't), if the most apparently strait-laced guy in the game is chosen, at one point he says "Put on a show that will make me fall in love."
 * One of the endings in the .hack/GU series allows players to fall in love with and marry another male, Endrance.
 * .Hack//Link also plays with this. Preform a Cross Rengeki with Endrance and he'll attack the monster while Tokio is in the attacks path only to leap in and carry him off with lots of sparkles and such. Tokio promptly freaks out. Once Endrance gets his Xth form that makes him look even more feminine Tokio will also get said sparkles before realizing what he's doing and freaking out.
 * Rather late in Persona 2 Innocent Sin and after many revelations to all involved, the party eventually corners Tatsuya and asks him bluntly who he's in love with. He has the choice of picking any of the four. The slash option (Jun) almost makes sense compared to Lisa and Maya. (Though Eternal Punishment leans towards Maya)
 * Final Fantasy VII has a fun part where Cloud goes on a date with Aeris, Tifa or Yuffie, depending on which of them the player seemed to be most sympathetic towards. However, if you're really nice to Barret, you'll go on a date with him, although getting him doesn't require being nice to him so much as it requires being a total Jerkass to the three women.
 * Also, if you end up dating one of the girls, Cloud will end up forced to star in a play. At the end of the play, he is given the option of kissing the 'Princess' (the girl he is dating), kissing the Evil Dragon King (who is revealed to be a cursed princess who is turned back by the kiss of true love), or kissing the King (who blushes and reciprocates the affection, annoying the Princess).
 * At the end of Game Boy RPG Great Greed, you had the choice of marrying one of the king's daughters, even one that already has a love interest if you insist. However, by insisting enough, you can actually marry anyone in the room. This includes the king, the queen, the head of the royal guards, the king's adviser, and the court magician. The latter two happen to be an old man & an old woman, respectively. If you choose to marry none of them, the marriage scene during the game's ending will involve you and your father.
 * Bahamut Lagoon manages to fit this trope somewhere into the middle an epic story of dragon battles and inter-dimensional war and makes it look good. Depending on the options you pick, the Silent Protagonist can either be interested in the princess (who ends up leaving him for someone else halfway through the game anyway), or in his old gay mentor, who happens to be a respected war general and court sorcerer. Sure, it's played for laughs (as is most romantic character interaction in the game), but for a 90's Squaresoft SNES game it's downright revolutionary.
 * The Temple of Elemental Evil video game port provides a sidequest where the party can rescue a slave named Bertram from his pirate owner. As a reward, Bertram promises himself to one of the male members of the party. At the end of the game, the two get married.
 * The Tokyo Majin game is full of Ho Yay, but there is a Christmas event where you can date any of the female characters, and if you have a high enough relationship rating with the main supporting male character then you can go on a date with him as well. In fact the main male character can end up with every single party member that joins him - be it male or female - although the male/male endings are certainly open to interpretation, with the exception of the aforementioned male character whom you can date at Christmas who confesses his love for the main male lead.

Simulation Games

 * In the True Love Dating Sim, your best friend confesses his love for you at the beginning of the final day if you activated a certain flag earlier. If you say that you love him too, you're treated to a text ending where they both start dating and the main character remarks: "We're really happy together."
 * Neon Genesis Evangelion has one or two Dating Sim-esque Alternate Continuity games, in which Kaworu naturally plays the Gay Option.
 * Girlfriend of Steel 2 includes a complete non sequitur picture of naked winged Kaworu carrying equally-naked not-winged Shinji, for the fangirls. But after the man-date, all homoerotic options inexplicably vanish from the game.
 * 7 Sins despite being a game that seems to be about being a playboy who seduces as many women as possible, has a number of encounters with men also. Whilst it's not exactly gay since there's no way to avoid the women, it's not precisely straight since the easiest way to progress is by seducing the men too.
 * In Tradewinds Legends one of the characters you can choose to play as is Hassan, who is on a quest to find his lost 'brother'. As you progress through the game it's revealed that Hassan's most definitely not interested in women and it's actually his male lover that he's searching for.

Stealth-Based Games

 * Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker has a couple of Dating Sim missions where Snake can go on a date with, and get some implied action with, the adorable Paz Ortega Andrade. However, if you don't like guuuurls, you can do those things on a date with hunky Miller instead. You can even take photos of him in his underwear.
 * Somewhat deconstructs the trope in true Kojima-vision style:
 * The Otacon ending of Metal Gear Solid, in which Snake shares a romantic scene with Otacon instead of Meryl, is not a true Gay Option - it's more of a romantic-friendship-confession-type thing, and it can only be achieved by making a decision that causes poor innocent Meryl to die. All this said, it's casually referred to by the fandom as 'the gay ending'.

Turn-Based Strategy

 * One of the endings in Luminous Arc 3 involves the hero Refi and male teammate embracing romantically on a secluded beach.

Visual Novel

 * In the eroge May Club, one of the virtual reality girls turns out to be a gay man in real life, and if you complete that romance path the two of you become campaigners for the right to gay marriage.
 * The Enhanced Remake of the visual novel Happiness! had the gay option in the form of Ensemble Darkhorse Jun Watarase. Most people ignored the women in favor of Jun's path.
 * If the player in Clannad has Tomoya ignore all of the main heroines, in the storyline's ending he ends up with Sunohara. There is also the Kappei route, where Tomoya spends the first half or so unable to tell if Kappei is male or female (and having awkward feelings while wondering). After Kappei is revealed to be male, he gets together with Kyou's twin sister, Ryou.
 * The male characters in Shira Oka: Second Chances also have paths and endings, although they're only a bit Ho Yay and not full-on romance.
 * While Maji De Watashi Ni Koi Shinasai doesn't have any routes for it (though not for lack of options, as Touma is quite open about his preferences and displays interest in Yamato, and Ryuuhei is straight up just gay), there is a Bad End where Yamato admits he has preferences he didn't quite expect, along with an implied scene.

Wide Open Sandbox

 * In Bully, Jimmy can lock lips with any girl to gain health back. He can do the same to a few of the boys, one for each clique. Despite the fact that "finishing" his Art class allows him to romance female students without giving them a gift first, he will still have to hand the guys a present before they will be his.
 * In Grand Theft Auto IV, Niko can send date invitations to other men on the ingame website love-meet.net, but, like the other website 'filler' characters, they will not reply. One mission involves going on a date with a gay man, but this is not a Gay Option, since this is an assassination mission.
 * Similarly, San Andreas lets CJ kiss men, but this only applies in multiplayer mode and if the 2nd player chooses a male character.

Adventure Games

 * The Interactive Fiction game Violet has a text command ('HETERONORMATIVITY OFF') to turn the story into a lesbian romance.
 * The video game adaptation of The Princess and the Frog has a mild one of these. It's a minigame collection. One minigame is like tag... but the person who's "it" is a frog who has to kiss another character to make them the frog. Player default is Tiana, with the other 3 players being Prince Naveen, Tiana's best friend Charlotte, and her other friend Georgia.

First Person Shooters

 * The first Star Trek Elite Force game lets you play as either Alexander Munro or Alexandra Munro. Either way, your character flirts with female teammate Telsia Murphy, who might return the flirting in optional scenes.

Role-Playing Games

 * Knights of the Old Republic features Juhani, a female Jedi of a catlike race, as a possible party member. If the player makes their character a female and follows the Light Side path, Juhani confesses her feelings for her before the final battle. The player can tell Juhani she feels the same way, or that she just doesn't swing that way.
 * In Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura, female characters can have same-sex couplings at a brothel in Tarant. It's possible to get a non-violent non-deceptive outcome to the confrontation with the female leader of the Dark Elves by simply responding to her attempts to seduce the main character. Only if the protagonist is especially attractive, mind you (beauty is a stat in Arcanum).
 * In Fallout 3, you may buy the services of Nova, Megaton's good time girl, and those of Clover, a slave with a rather ironic fetish, regardless of your gender. This isn't even hand waved and rather unfairly there are no male counterparts. With the Black Widow perk you may also suggest a threesome with Ronald Laren to get him to do what you want; this gets him killed.
 * In Neverwinter Nights 2, your (female or male) character can have a romance with Elanee, a female elf druid. Whether she's bisexual or just infatuated with the main character specifically is never revealed, though she does have strong stalker tendencies.
 * The Neverwinter Nights expansion Kingmaker provides the bisexual nymph NPC Kaidala who can be romanced by female as well as male characters.
 * The Swordcraft Story sub-series of Summon Night has lesbian options, that are almost impossible to avoid. Bonus points that a lot of the Ship Tease in the first game is female only.
 * Female summons in both games gain a crush on the main character and playing as a female does nothing to deter them, and in-fact only encourages them (Sugar only gives the famed kiss to a female PC).

Simulation Games

 * Harvest Moon: Korobokkuru Station For Girls had a thinly-veiled Gay Option, allowing you to use a "Best Friends Ceremony" to get one of the special wives from the male version to move in with you and eventually bring you a baby, as if they were a husband. This was removed for the US version, Harvest Moon DS Cute—more obnoxiously, Natsume refused to confirm they removed it, and they left in all the related scenes up to actually "proposing", so it's taken hours of work by dedicated players to, in fact, confirm it's not in there. Fans are understandably annoyed.
 * In Princess Maker 4 (possibly only the PC version), if your daughter avoids marrying any men and has a close enough relationship with one of her female friends, she may end up living "happily ever after" with the girl in question.
 * In the online game The Hookup one of your options is the girl, Sarah.
 * In Playboy The Mansion, Heff (you) can form a relationship with anyone you want, as well as introduce NPCs to each-other and watch them form relationships (occasionally this requires Heff to be very pushy, or at least be like "I don't think you two have talked enough". Males can only have Casual, Financial and Romantic relationships with females, but can only have Casual or financial conversations with other males, including you. Females, however, can have all three conversation types with anyone, including you, males and other females.
 * The lack of Male/Male options is sort of funny considering Hef himself was famously gay-friendly even in the 1950s.
 * In Hanako Games' Cute Knight, you have the option of forming a partnership with the librarian ala Xena and Gabrielle. The sequel, Cute Knight Kingdom, lets you settle down with Helena the Huntress.
 * In the lawyer sim Love&Order, one of the romance options for your female PC is a female attorney.
 * Magical Diary: Horse Hall seems to be an Everyone Is Bi setting; the first game allows the female PC to date both of her female roommates as well as kiss another girl who isn't an official option.
 * Fantasy life sim Spirited Heart has an expansion pack or alternate version with six female love interests.
 * Because the default player characters for the Way of the Samurai series are male, with female PC models being unlockable extras for game completion (The series focuses on having a large number of relatively short paths), or awards for Non-Lethal KO (which allows you to use the victim's model for yourself on future plays) on a female character in 3, the game almost always treats you as male, allowing you to visit a brothel (And even get the ranking for visiting it enough times in a cycle), take up the offer of a Fallen Mafia Princess to "take [her] inner woman" so she can fight, ect. Indeed, the one NPC that reacts differently to a female PC in 2 (The female sword informant), can still be (hopelessly) asked on a date.
 * Chrono Days Sim Date and Lunar Days Sim Date both have a lesbian option included among the Secret Characters.

Visual Novels

 * In Fatal Hearts, most of the romance options for the female protagonist are male, but your female best friend is canonically in love with you and can get together with you in one ending.
 * Heileen contains three romantic endings for its female protagonist: a ridiculously easy to get straight option, a difficult to get heavily Les Yay ending, and lastly another difficult to get lesbian ending.

Tabletop Games

 * Tabletop Dating Game/RPG-ish thingie GxB has a Gay Option for Momoko in Risa, the class president. This is despite GxB being short for "Girl x Boy." Whether she gets chosen depends on a mixture of luck, the tastes of Momoko's player, and how well Risa's player runs her.

Choose Your Own Adventure

 * All of the Choice Of games allow a gay option. In Choice of the Dragon you can choose the gender of your mate (or 'I don't care'). Choice of Broadsides allows you to have an affair with Villeneuve, who is always the same gender as you. Choice of Romance always gives you the same options for Love Interests, but said love interests are male or female depending on whether you say you are flirting with men or women in an early decision. And in Choice of the Vampire, you are able to have an affair with Clotho on one hand and Silas, your dominus, and to an extent Jesse on the other hand regardless of gender. Also, in all but Choice of Romance (and possibly Choice of Broadsides) can you be demonstrably bisexual—and in Choice of Romance your love interests are always all of the same gender. Choice of Broadsides is a little odd: when you're asked if you want to get married you can choose to claim you are attracted to your own gender; if you do this, and are friendly enough to Villeneuve, he/she will hit on you and you can accept. If you chose differently, this will never happen. However, after your affair you might have the opportunity to still get married; the text implies at first that you are doing this just to go through the motions or increase your position in society, but after that the description is pretty much identical to what it would be if you truly were interested in these men or women.
 * In Echo Bazaar your character can romance both male and female partners, including a couple of threesomes.

MMORPGs

 * World of Warcraft has a week-long Valentine's Day Special every February where—besides the thematic quests—you can get citizens and guards of the main city to fall in love with you. Male NPCs like people who wear perfume while female NPCs prefer the smell of cologne, regardless of the wearer's sex. As of now, the Love Is In The Air event has been changed so that you no longer have to win over city guards.

Role-Playing Games

 * Probably the first clearly intentional use was in Ultima VII, which had "The Baths" in Buccaneer's Den and allowed the Avatar to have sex with either males or females.
 * Prior to this, the "bad" Gypsies in Ultima VI (there were two groups) also offered their bodies for a fee regardless of gender.
 * The Lazarus remake of Ultima V added a potential gay encounter in Buccaneer's Den.
 * Ultima VII Part Two: Serpent Isle has a female character who attempts to seduce the Avatar, regardless of the Avatar's gender - and if the player turns her down, she uses magic to try to force herself on them.
 * Fallout 2 provides the player with the option to marry either the son or daughter of a farmer, no matter what the main character's sex is (however, if you were "Separated"—i.e. if the spouse died—you could not go back to the town and marry their sibling). Additionally, several NPC characters were gay or bisexual, allowing for same-sex seduction, sometimes to provide an alternative way to complete a quest.
 * Jade Empire allows the player to flirt with three different members of their party, two of them are all up for same-sex coupling, ultimately resulting in a night of romance before the final battle (and, in one instance, a possible threesome). However, due to Executive Meddling from Microsoft, the scene goes to black right before any same-sex kissing is seen. Luckily it can be fixed in the PC version with this Game Mod found here.
 * Fable I provides many options for heterosexual marriage, a few for gay marriage, and, if you can get away with it, a whole lot of options for polygamy. The two aren't exactly equal, though; while heterosexual marriage provides the player with a dowry, an occasional source of income and items, and a cutscene detailing the importance of the marriage to the hero's life, the gay marriage just gives you the income and items.
 * Fable II doesn't exactly provide a dowry, but it's a lot more forward about your relationship. If you're married to someone of the same sex, whenever an NPC refers to the relationship, they'll always say "husband" or "wife" instead of "partner".
 * Fable III expands on this a bit, allowing players to adopt children from an orphanage that becomes available about half-way through the story quests and sending them to live with their husband/wife. Wedding ceremonies can now also be set in chosen locations leading to a short scene where the officiator announces you "husband and husband" or "wife and wife".
 * Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines allowed female player characters to seduce a number of female bar patrons for blood. They could also have sex with a bisexual female vampire character, just as the male player characters could. There was also a single instance in the early part of the game where male vampires could seduce a male NPC for blood, but you had to have a fairly high charisma stat early on for it to work.
 * There's also the gravekeeper, Romero, who has some... needs... that apparently must be fulfilled right now, and he wants you to watch the zombie infested cemetery while he takes care of them. If you're female, you can offer to take care of said needs instead. In the unofficial patch made by one of the original programmers, Romero was changed to bisexual to allow male characters to do the same.
 * Also, if your charisma is high enough, the prostitutes give quite the discount to female PCs, with the logic "Mm, I don't get to do women often..."
 * There's also certain other male NPC's that can be seduced by male PCs, including a food critic.
 * The math behind Star Ocean the Second Story's friendship system was hidden, but boiled down to Friendship and Romance points. The characters that best matched up for one another (roughly) would end up having a cut scene together in the ending, be they same or opposite sex. It was hard to get high Romance Points between same-sex characters due to a lack of appropriate cut scenes, so sabotaging the opposite-sex ones is the best tactic.
 * In Divine Divinity there is a brothel where a player of any gender can sleep with both male and female escorts.
 * Mass Effect:
 * The first game: sort of allows for this if the player creates a female playable character and chooses to romance the Asari member of the squad, Liara T'Soni. Asari are monogendered, their whole race being female; however, from their own cultural perspective they don't view themselves as female, since they don't have any other gender to distinguish from. So it's definitely a lesbian relationship from Fem Shep's human point of view, but to Liara it's just a relationship like any other.
 * Mass Effect 2 allows a romance to bloom between Kelly Chambers (a human woman) and a player character of either sex. However, the game does not count this as a "true" romance for some reason. Starting a romance with Kelly Chambers will not grant the Paramour achievement or keep Shepard from starting a relationship with a party member. The developers described it an easter egg, rather than a true romance path. Unfortunate Implications were raised among some players, as the game features three Interspecies Romances, with very inhuman-looking aliens (at least in Garrus's case), yet failed to carter to the gay crowd.
 * Mass Effect 3 has actual gay relationships, with male Shepard getting shuttle pilot Steve Cortez or a Relationship Upgrade with Kaidan, and female Shepard either tech specialist Samantha Traynor or Hot Scoop Diana Allers.
 * Dragon Age:
 * Dragon Age: Origins:
 * Your romantic options include Zevran, a male Depraved Bisexual elf and Leliana, a female bisexual human. All PCs can romance them. You can also have a threesome with Zevran and an old flame of his, a female pirate, as an alternate method of getting one of the Specialization classes. This results in +7 relationship points with Zevran. You can also do this scene with Leliana if you are romancing her, which doubles as a Crowning Moment of Funny. Or a foursome with you, Zevran, Leliana, and the aforementioned pirate.
 * The Human Noble origin can have an optional encounter with the son of a minor lord or an elven maidservant, again, regardless of the character's gender.
 * There are prostitutes at the Pearl of both genders, the PC can hire any of them regardless of their own gender.
 * Dragon Age II has four bisexual romances in the main game, one exclusively-straight DLC party member and one DLC bisexual Guest Star Party Member.
 * Pokémon Black and White has ferris wheel rides coated with innuendo in the Japanese version. Hilbert gets a hiker and Hilda gets a Meido.
 * In Baldur's Gate II, Tiefling bard Haer'Dalis can make use of a male Drow sex slave. Word of God says the team just figured "he'd be up for anything".
 * In Skyrim, there are a number of characters the player can propose to and marry. None of the prospective loves take gender or race into account.
 * However, while there's a perk that allows you to get better prices from a merchant of the opposite sex, there's no way to seduce merchants of the same gender as your character. Even if you have a same-sex partner.

Simulation Games

 * The Sims allows characters of the same sex to fall in love and move in together, even if they can't get married like their straight counterparts. (Which suggests that the Sim-universe is populated by bisexuals.) The problem is corrected in The Sims 2, which allows for "joining" ceremonies between characters of the same sex.
 * There's actually a "hidden" meter for sexual preference for each character in The Sims 2, from -1000 to 1000, which influences (minorly) just how successful a character is when attempting romantic interactions with another character. If, for example, a character is 1000 points of hetero, and -1000 of gay (for lack of a better term), they are extremely likely to reject all romantic interactions with the same-sex. Of course, a new character has both preferences set to 0, so really, Everyone Is Bi.
 * The story goes that this was actually exposed, with the intention that Sims would actually get fixed sexual preferences during teenage/college years, or character creation if created as adults, but they at the last minute they hid it and toned it down where Sims wouldn't get 'locked in'.
 * In The Sims 3, characters of the same sex now have equal marriage rights. EA, only three years behind Canada.
 * Artificial Academy by Illusion allows you to have entire classes filled with school girl lesbians or school boy homosexuals, it's all up to the player and whether the character was set to homo/bi in the Maker.
 * The only drawback is the yaoi h-scenes... they simply do not exist, unless someone has already made a patch or hack for it.
 * Every Nummyz Dating Sim contains a gay/lesbian character; at least one even has an explicitly bisexual character, breaking the No Bisexuals rule.
 * The game Singles: Flirt Up Your Life, a The Sims-style game in which you try to manipulate two roommates into hooking up, has a gay character of each gender available to choose from. When picking the characters, you either pick one of each gender, or the gay character and another character of the same gender, and it's not any harder to get the "straight" characters into a relationship with the gay character than with an opposite-gender character. So, apparently, in Singles-world, gayness is transmitted by close contact.
 * In the indie Raising Sim series Kudos, you can turn same-sex relationships on or off in the options menu.
 * This caused some controversy in the video game version of the board game The Game Of Life.
 * Frontierville, Zynga's spin-off of Farmville, allows the player to chose a male or female spouse, regardless of their avatar's gender.
 * Magicians Quest Mysterious Times (also known as Enchanted Folk and the School if Wizardry allows you to a achieve a relationship with a same-sex townsperson called "Bound by a Strong Connection." This is treated as a Romantic Two-Girl Friendship (or Two Guy Friendship) by townspeople.
 * Planet Stronghold (from the makers of Spirited Heart) has three possible romance options for each gender, one of which is a same-sex relationship (Joshua and Prince Cliff, or Lisa and Michelle).

Turn-Based Strategy

 * The majority of Fire Emblem games have support conversations between two characters and, given a high enough support level, can alter both their endings.
 * Path of Radiance / Radiant Dawn: Despite having a lot of male and female admirers, Ike only has two paired endings, both with men: Soren and Ranulf.
 * In fact, there is a base conversation that can only be seen in a second play with an A-ranked support between Ike and Soren and transfer data from Path of Radiance with the same.
 * From Blazing Sword (Fire Emblem in the US), Raven and Lucius, Lyn and Florina. Heath and Legault and Karel and Lucius do not have paired endings, but both conversations are high on the Ho Yay.
 * From Sacred Stones / FE 8, Joshua and Gerik. They both have endings with females (Natasha and Marisa, for Joshua; Tethys and Marisa again, for Gerik), btu if they get an A support, Gerik pledges his loyalty to Joshua and stays with him.

Wide Open Sandbox

 * The flexible character creation system in Saints Row 2 allows you to do something like this. You set a gender for your character in the presets menu but are allowed to change the body, face and voice actor to fit the opposite gender. When you perform the Ho-ing Diversion you'll then hear voices from the same sex.