Yes, interesting thread.
I don't really think about ethnicity and religion in the game at all as there simply isn't the gameplay hooks there for me to latch onto, beyond aesthetics.
When I create a new Sim, I mess about the random thingy and if the look strikes me, then I tweak and adapt, so I have a pretty mixed bunch.
I am British, and what we call here, a straight white Anglo-Saxon male. The neighbourhoods we have been provided with are nothing like anything we have here, so I tend to go with the American tropes I like.
For instance, I have a bit of a Mad Men (A show about advertising executives in 50s) thing going on with some of my households with the perfect blonde and the smart husband dutifully having children and trying to progress in building the perfect life, but underneath it all is darkness, betrayal and tragedy.
Into this backdrop, I have mixed in other contemporary stereotypes, such as a mixed race group of students. I use teens to simulate college, as I can't send my YA's to college. This gives me blank slates to develop into the next generation of house owners. So I have the Asian looking Genius that is constantly focused, but likes to party hard, The loner bookworm, etc The musical genius goth girl. Yes, all cliches :) But easy to come up with :blush:
I also have a household of criminals that has been inspired by Breaking Bad, so they are modelled on Jesse and his mates. They are also mixed race. I have built one or two middle class households containing a criminal, or two. These are mainly based, again, on the 1950s Coke commercial look, so tend to be white.
As to sexuality. I have pretty much all types that the game allows me to have, though I have a higher incidence of heterosexual Sims, than other preferences. I like to let the game determine this for me to some extent and I use a gender preference mod so I can view which team a Sim bats for at any time :)
I have a fantastic lesbian household now that just sparked as teens and has just grown naturally. I have poor Mike, who just doesn't know what he wants and is fast approaching adulthood. He isn't very smart, but he is good looking and just he just wants love and affection, but it never seems to quite work out. A kind of bro love relationship has slowly been growing with his mate, because they just get on.
Sorry I haven;t answered your questions directly, I have a bit of an aversion to form like structures!
