The MC with Emily has always been "You do you".
Wear what you want and do as you please.
It would seem a little odd to be like "No, you can't be gay".
I suppose I could add an option in the Preference menu to 'View Lesbian content - Yes/No', instead of giving the MC a choice
There's also the option to step outside of the story, and separate the idea of "This is a choice the character is making" from the idea of "This is a choice the player is making".
It doesn't really matter if it would be odd for the
character to tell someone to avoid outside relationships. If the
player wants to make that choice, it's perfectly in keeping with the idea of giving the player agency over the story in the first place.
And you can essentially view it as being two parallel universes - in one universe the outside relationship takes place and the player gets to see it, and in the other universe the outside relationship simply doesn't happen at all.
"It's happening regardless, you just get to choose whether or not to see it" is almost
always the worst possible option, because it still feels like the player isn't being given a choice. So they're going to resent being railroaded into that scenario in the first place. It's not really SEEING it that bothers people. It's the idea of things happening outside of their ability to choose. The more controversial or divisive the scenario, the more people will want to have the power to say no to it.
Like it or not, it's basically a fundamental principle of making an interactive game with player choice. Players will always want to
choose.
I also get that rendering some scenes in which some players may not be interested in are a waste of time
If it's part of a branching path (or pre-blocked content), it's really only a "waste of time" in the sense that it's time spent on a resource that some players will never see, but it still adds value for those who
do want to see it (and making it optional still adds value - or at least avoids subtracting value - for the players who don't).
It's why a lot of people on these boards tend to argue that anything beyond fairly vanilla 1-on-1 relationships should be a choice/avoidable, and the player should always have the option to accept or decline even vanilla/straight/1-on-1 relationships on their own rather than being forced into things they might not want to engage in. Because it means they can still get enjoyment out of a game even if there is a character or a scene or a path that would otherwise lead them to drop a game entirely. Unless the entire concept of a game hinges on a specific premise (ie, the entire story as written requires you to catch your wife cheating on you, or the game is being created from the start to appeal to NTR fans, etc), it's usually a good idea to give at least
some power to the player over what sort of content is present.
Adding that degree of flexibility definitely takes a bit more time, and a little bit of planning on the part of the dev, but the payoff is almost always a boon. And it really only becomes a negative when the dev focuses on one storyline/route/LI to the exclusion of others in a given update (that's when you start getting the "OMG worthless update!" sort of complaints).
Things like NTR or sharing or separate lesbian scenes wouldn't be anywhere near as controversial if they were almost always a choice players could opt out of. Because it's very much the sense of powerlessness that is what causes the frustration.
(It would also help if devs were always open and honest about future content in tags, rather than playing bait-and-switch and adding in the more controversial stuff later after people have already become invested in a game and want to see it continue. It's easier to pass on a game you know is going to focus on things you dislike than it is to drop a game you've already become interested in because it's turning into something other than what it presented itself as.)
As said RICOH it is true that it would be nice if most games had the ability to control the different interests of the game the main fact is 95% of games have no control over that aspect.
But to be fair, the games that
do have that aspect also tend to be the ones that people have the strongest positive feelings for. And throw money at.
Like it or not, if you're including choices
at all (as opposed to just making a kinetic novel where the only thing the viewer can do is scroll through the scenes), you're creating an expectation that the player will have control over the scenario they're seeing. Which is why people tend to get annoyed when they're given the illusion of choice but ultimately have no real say in anything (see also why people always used to complain about Telltalle games).
People who come to a forum for
games tend to expect
games. Not just porn slide shows.
And it generally isn't all that hard to include paths where "If you don't want to see X then X doesn't happen" as opposed to "You don't have to see X but it's still happening anyway" or "You're going to see X whether you want to or not".