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[Statik]

http://blog.wired.com/games/2008/04/poll-sex-in-gam.html

(The original poll is from a "parents guide to video games" website.)


This is actually kind of disturbing. 

Don't get me wrong, I love violent video games, I like swinging a sword around and watching body parts fall off and such.  But it seems odd that violent human interaction is thought of as "better" for children than two men kissing.

Or that our culture (in the US) stresses that destruction of life is "better" than sex (the potential creation of life).

[Evander]

I'm more concerned about the fact that a man and a woman having sex is 11% WORSE than a graphically severed human head.



The homophobic aspect is bad, sure, but I think it's more symptomatic of the overall "sex is evil" vibe.

[imapiratearg]

That's messed up.  I think society on a whole needs to lighten up and embrace these things.

I was kind of surprised that (relative to this survey) vulgarity is not much of an issue.

[Ikrik]

I've never seen a video game where two men have kissed.......ever.  TV shows? All the time, but a video game?  I find swearing to be the most offensive personally, but that's just because I think that if 30% of the words are swear words then the script-writers have been very lazy.  Man...the video game generation is too jaded to find anything offensive, parents are really overreacting.

[Surgoshan]

I've never seen a video game where two men have kissed.......ever.  TV shows? All the time, but a video game?

Rockstar's Bully and Bioware's Jade Empire, for two.

[Dimmukane]

What if there's a graphically severed head being made out with by a guy next to it's body which is having sex via rigor mortis with the chick screaming fuck at the top of her lungs?

Sorry.  I've seen something close to that in a movie before.

[Surgoshan]

Well... a chick has sex with a dead guy (off camera) in Clerks.

Then there's the German necrophilia porno series...

[est]

Guys, what you have to understand is that kids are impressionable and if they see two men kissing they will immediately catch The Gay.

[Nodaisho]

Ah, of course, it is so obvious now, all I had to do was destroy my brain with a thousand hours of the 700 club.

[Cartilage Head]

 I don't want no sissy girly faggots in my got-damn Madden.

 Teck-Shesh.

[Dimmukane]

Well... a chick has sex with a dead guy (off camera) in Clerks.

Then there's the German necrophilia porno series...

In Dellamorte Dellamore, the main character has sex with the hottest dead chick you've ever seen, and his friend falls in love with the severed head of a girl that can still talk.  And as gruesome as the movie is, it's one of the best movies I've seen.  Martin Scoresese agrees with me.

[Thaes]

The moment I read "severed head" and "sex", I begun thinking about "Re-Animator"...

[muteKi]

I've never seen a video game where two men have kissed.......ever.

I've said it once before and I'll say it again. Chou Aniki. It may not have had kissing but it was pretty weird.

[KvP]

Nobody's going to point out the retardedness of internet surveys in the first place? Asking a parental watchdog site's viewership what they're outraged by is akin to asking a football team what their favorite sport is. They're not going to say "I don't have one". The poll is completely meaningless.

[will: wanton sex god]

^
Uh, that doesn't apply here.  Yes, theyre all going to have a differnet thing theyre on watch for, that's why there isn't an "I don't supervise my children" option.  The poll they placed is akin to asking what your least favorite team is on a football website, maybe.  People are watching their kids for a multitude of reasons. 

[KvP]

It's still meaningless, as far as I'm concerned. This has come up on a number of different forums that I frequent, and the common thread seems to be the sentiment of the OP, which is "our culture (in the US) stresses that destruction of life is "better" than sex (the potential creation of life)." which may be true, but this poll doesn't tell us anything about that. It's a cross section of a cross section of the population. Maybe if it was a formal poll with detailed procedures and the like I'd be more receptive to it. But as it stands I just find it to be alarmist internets crap. Conservatives can go apeshit over the content of some stupid game, and liberals can go apeshit over the conservatives going apeshit.

I tried to go the gae route in Jade Empire once, actually, because I didn't believe they'd actually put it in. It's harder than you'd expect, since the way that game's "romance" crap worked was in a queue. Dawn Star is #1, Jade Fox is #2, Whatshisface is #3. In order to be gae with Whatshisface you have to make sure you spurn #s 1 and 2 as quickly as possible.

[Ozymandias]

^ Like going on a date with Barret in FF7. To do it, you basically have to be as big as asshole as possible to Tifa and Aeris.

Of course, in Bully, you can just make out with dudes. The only difference between dudes and ladies is you can't make out with any ol' dude, only certain cuter ones.

I wonder if boyfriends might be in GTA4...

[imapiratearg]

Fable!  You can marry dudes!  But they don't show kissing, or sexings.

[Surgoshan]

I heard the Brokeback Mountain video game has a little gay sex in it.

But mostly people play it for the horseback riding minigames.

[snalin]

the Brokeback Mountain video game

^No way!

If you didn't bother to read the article from the poll, there's a quite scary quote on the bottom. The one where the womans says "But there's no, you know, people having relations in it, is there?"

I guess this means that the woman would rather have her 12-year old child see the violence from the average WW2-FPS than the rather none-graphic sex from the Sims. And that's scary. And really old fashioned, I guess. Poor child.

[snalin]

Well, the eternal damnation is bad, but don't you get that too if you rip someones head of? Or shoot them or whatever?

[Evander]

I've never seen a video game where two men have kissed.......ever.  TV shows? All the time, but a video game?  I find swearing to be the most offensive personally, but that's just because I think that if 30% of the words are swear words then the script-writers have been very lazy.  Man...the video game generation is too jaded to find anything offensive, parents are really overreacting.

It's only lazy if it's there to replace actual content, rather than simply being a stylistic choice

"Bad" words are completely meaningless, and it's actually nice to see that folks recognize how meaningless swear words are, compared to actual stuff.

[Evander]

I wonder if boyfriends might be in GTA4...

It's possible, but I doubt it.

I heard a guy, the other day, talking about how psyched he was for GTA4, but that he was dissappointed that you had to play as a foreign guy.








P.S. The guy was not white.

[Cartilage Head]

A racist guy that isn't white?! Get the fuck out!

[Near Lurker]

Three words: Metal Gear Solid.

[Surgoshan]

Well, the eternal damnation is bad, but don't you get that too if you rip someones head of? Or shoot them or whatever?

Nope.  Well, not if they're of another tribe.  The Bible's injunction against murder should be read as "Don't kill a fellow Jew".  And Jesus's injunction is "Love your fellow Jew".  Religion never views murder of a foreigner/infidel as a bad thing; it's either a good thing or, at worst, morally neutral.

[Jepser]

People are crazy. Love is good, severed heads aren't.

[snalin]

Well, the eternal damnation is bad, but don't you get that too if you rip someones head of? Or shoot them or whatever?

Nope.  Well, not if they're of another tribe.  The Bible's injunction against murder should be read as "Don't kill a fellow Jew".  And Jesus's injunction is "Love your fellow Jew".  Religion never views murder of a foreigner/infidel as a bad thing; it's either a good thing or, at worst, morally neutral.

Are we still on the "the old gospel counts"-thingy?

But ranting aside, there's nobody here that actually agrees with this?

Exept from the ones that, like me, think violence and severed heads is much much more fun than gay-kissing.

[öde]

Nothing is more fun than gay-kissing. There should be games based solely on gay-kissing.

[ThePQ4]

Does this mean that parents don't want their kids playing SIMS then??
'Cause that's like my sister's favorite part of the game --making her character do it with other chicks... That's like -why- she plays the game. The sex itself is censored of course, but the kissing definantly isn't it...and I was reading on another forum that you can uncensor the sex too somehow? I don't really play myself, so I wouldn't know.

And as for other "gay" games, there are some pretty dirty Japanese games out there. There are quite a few BL/yaoi-storyboard-like games that you can find pretty easily online to download (which sadly, I cannot play as I do not understand Japanese and get confused easily). But, you know, any kid with half a brain knows better then to download dirty video games off of the internet if their parents can see it...right? Maybe not...

[öde]

PORN ON THE INTERNET?!

[Narr]

Has anyone pointed out that the wording of the poll is simply "MOST OFFENSIVE", not "OFFENSIVE"?  Because I bet most people that voted in that poll found most of the things offensive listed there and the order to which they are placed are more or less irrelevant.

[snalin]

and I was reading on another forum that you can uncensor the sex too somehow? I don't really play myself, so I wouldn't know.

There is always mods out there, made by perverts with too much time on their hands, and you could, by cheating, remove the beds and see the people laying there, but they don't have.... the imortant parts.

[Surgoshan]

Uncensoring The Sims is about as erotic as bumping Ken and barbie together.

[ThePQ4]

That's what I figured... Frankly, Sims kind of freak me out --they're right up there with resuscitation doll... They are too friggin' needy!!

[Ikrik]

Uncensoring The Sims is about as erotic as bumping Ken and barbie together.

God, yeah.  And yet people were doing it anyway, except my friend downloaded a patch from off of somewhere so that the SIMS actually had all their bits intact....and then he'd just make them walk around naked and bang all the time.

[KvP]

Anybody who has ever delved into the dark belly of the gaming mod community knows that far and away the most popular mods for most (if not all) games are nude character mods. and often the very first mod to come out for any game is a nude character mod. Supply and demand at work.

[Thaes]

Amusing fact here: I downloaded some rather large modpack for Morrowind some time ago, and one of the mods in that pack was "Better Figures" -mod, or something like that. Anyways, when I installed the mod, there were three choices: censored (the mods just makes characters look better), full (allowing characters to be completely naked) and one designed for "immature teenage boys" (only female characters are nude).
That last option amused me greatly.

[ThePQ4]

Is that because you are an immature teenaged boy? --Maybe I'm just jumping to conclusions, but it was aptly named.

[Thaes]

Nawh, I have no great desires to install a mod just to see naked elves and such.

[onewheelwizzard]

Guys, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that maybe having sex in video games IS worse than violence.  Not because it is better for kids to learn about violence than to learn about sex, because that's obviously not the case, but let's face it ... most video games are traditionally violent fantasies.  Anyone who plays a lot of them almost certainly treats them as such.  To what extent do we want sexuality to be presented in a medium that is traditionally violent and fantastic?  There's no way, to my knowledge, for healthy sexual attitudes to be explored and developed through video games, not in the current point in their evolution.  Until someone comes up with a dating sim that's developed enough to actually teach people things that are worth knowing about interpersonal relationships, what good can it do anyone to have sex in video games?  All it does right now is further glamorize and sexualize the violent, competitive attitudes that most video games encourage within the game, and anything that sexualizes violence is something to be VERY wary of in my book.

I would personally be quite disturbed if my children learned anything sexual from today's video games.  I wouldn't object to my children being exposed to sexual content in a context that promoted healthy and respectful relationships, but I sure as hell would object if my children were exposed to sexual content in a context that encouraged violent reactions to conflict and turned violent characters into sexual protagonists.  It's about the association between sex and violence.  That's an association that society simply doesn't want to encourage.

If video games successfully diversify and virtual reality really does come to encompass extremely nuanced aspects of human life like sexuality, I'll change my tune, but until then, I'm really skeptical.  So far, sex in video games has generally gone along the lines of Grand Theft Auto, in which the character abuses women gratuitously and furthermore is rewarded for it.

Think about a narrative-based video game with sexual themes that has a female protagonist.  How would THAT work?  I find it hard to imagine a game that could pull that off without being flagrantly offensive.  That mere fact gives me pause.  If the video game context is skewed enough towards masculinity, violence, and competition that I can't even imagine a game that appropriately represented a sexual female protagonist, that's a good reason not to involve sex in video games.  Again, it's not about the sexuality itself ... it's about the fact that a video game simply isn't yet a viable means of presenting healthy attitudes towards sexuality.

[benji]

Onewheelwizzard, what do you feel about the Sims? Here you have a game in which violence is rare (characters occasionally get in to slap-fights or brawls, but this isn't the point of the game) but which does allow sexual situations. The protagonists of the game are mostly player-created, and creating a sexual female protagonist is fairly easy, much easier then creating a violent protagonist. You may say that this is just the exception that proves the rule, but I think it's hard to say that that game in particular encourages a violent view of sex. I can think of other games that have non-violent themes and some romantic (if not exactly sexual) sub-plot. The Harvest Moon series, for example, has usually had a courtship mini-game where the main character must find a wife or husband by visiting them at home and giving them flowers or presents.

Now, I don't deny that it's a complex issue. Many games are violent and so do or would promote the kind of violent behavior you're talking about. I also have some reservations about the classic Dating Sim set up. Usually the goal is simply to get one of the girls (or boys in some of them) in the game to fall in love with you/agree to sleep with you. This encourage the idea that, in order to "win" sex, you must manipulate people with gifts and carefully chosen words which you don't really mean. To a certain extent, this is unavoidable. Games usually have goals and the player seeks to achieve those goals by any means necessary. Human relationships, by contrast, tend to suffer when people try to "game the system."

Still, it would be possible to create a game about building a healthy relationship. You would simply have to change the "goal." Many Dating Sims (as I understand them. I admit I've never actually played one) end when the girl agrees to go out with you or sleep with you, but what if we put the goal further out? What if the goal was to have a happy and fulfilling long-term relationship? Or perhaps a game in which the goal is simply to navigate a complex social situation and come out of it happy and fulfilled?

[ThePQ4]

...If that where the case, that would be the most boring Dating Sim ever. Jeez.

When it comes down to it, it's up the parents to screen their kids video games. They really feel that simulated sexual situations are too much for little Billy or Susie, then guess what: Don't let them play the game. Too many parents expect retailers and video-game makers to police their games, and get mad when their kids get a hold of questionable material, when if they had just taken the time to research the game their kid wanted and said, "No, I'm sorry, I don't think you're old enough to play something like that", then these discussions wouldn't even need be to had,

[Sox]

It doesn't matter. Even a well scripted dating sim with a 'disney ending' goal won't be realistic in the slighest in regards to actual human relationships. The only way to learn about them is to get outside and interact with people, and watching/guiding scripted characters is never going to teach you anything valuable about how to interact with people.

[Surgoshan]

Yeah, a dating sim would only be realistic if you went through half a dozen shitty breakups and had a significant minigame involving drinking and eating ice cream.

[onewheelwizzard]

Good points, benji.  I've never personally played The Sims, I have to admit ... and from what I understand it's probably the closest we have right now to a computerized model of human interaction that could feasibly include sexuality without twisting it into something I personally don't think it should be.  I can appreciate that.  I haven't had any personal experience with it, but I acknowledge that it is (or at least may be) an exception to the rule.

Also, on the note of Harvest Moon, that's significantly less objectionable BECAUSE it's not sexual.  It's such a basic series of FedEx quests (bring her stuff, the end) that I'd actually be pretty upset if sex came into it because it's simply not cut out to present sex for what it is, just as an arbitrary preset goal that you accomplish by completing material tasks.  If sex was a part of Harvest Moon, a great injustice would've been done to sexuality.

You did, however, explain precisely the counterpoint I was going to raise, which was that video games by nature allow for "power-gaming" and manipulating the system for the most objectively optimal outcome.  They're competitive by nature.  There aren't many video games out there that a person boots up without the intention of winning or at least progressing towards a goal set by the game.  Zooming out from the issue of violence, I feel like this is the broader issue at hand.  Sexuality, and sexual relationship between people, is an area in which the goals and the definition of "winning" have to be self-determined.  My immediate concern was that violence was the means by which goals are usually reached in video games, but the mere fact that a video game is almost invariably about reaching a preset goal is enough to turn me off a bit and I think that it's the deeper problem that the violence issue only exacerbates.

Creating a video game that accurately depicts romantic relationships between real people is probably impossible.  There's no way to model a real person with real emotions.  There has to actually BE a real person with real emotions on the other hand of a romantic relationship in order for it to be meaningfully said that the relationship exists.  The relationship between a person and their video game avatar, or rather between a person and their video game avatar's ingame significant other, is simply never going to be an appropriate model for the relationship between any two real people.  I guess I can understand the appeal of toying with Sims like dolls, as long as the person doing it doesn't start thinking that the dolls they're playing with are comparable to real people and that the way one of their dolls treats the other is a good basis for understanding how real people treat each other and how to treat a real person themselves.  But I can't really see any redeeming qualities in explicit sexual content in video games.  It just seems to me like the most blatant form of objectifying the sex act and turning it into something you "keep score" over.

I'm sure that at some point someone will release something that has sex in it and manages to treat it appropriately.  But the way video games work right now I'm really not holding my breath.

[ThePQ4]

I'm sorry I just kind of scanned through the last post, but I've got to ask:
What is "treating sex appropriately" exactly? Sex is is sex, no matter which way you turn it. You can scale it down or not show anything at all, but then that isn't a problem, and I'm sure there are a myriad of games out there that imply sexual activity without actually showing it. ...I'm confused. I think I got lost somewhere about five posts ago.

[benji]

I certainly agree that we shouldn't use games as a way of teaching children about appropriate sexual conduct, and I agree that it can never substitute for being in a real romantic relationship. A game's goal is to present an engaging and entertaining simulation of something. With human relationships, games have to be kind of abstract.

For example, the Sims (I use it as an example because I am familiar with it, more so then with Dating Sims) represents human interaction using points. Different activities earn you or loose you points with different people. Having a friendly conversation earns you points. Pushing someone looses you points. If you get enough points, new forms of interaction become possible and you can move from talking talking, to hugging, to kissing, to sex. Now, this isn't an accurate portrayal of human feelings. I don't think "that girl is up to 75 points with me right now, I think I wouldn't object if she tried to kiss me." However, it's not terrible as a game representing something that is actually quite complex. The same thing is done with all other aspects of games. For example, a lot of stuff can happen on a battle field, but a game which tries to portray a battle has to narrow it down to variables: hit points, attack, defense, speed, bonuses, etc. No matter how many variables you add, it won't be completely accurate but it can get close.

The other option is, of course, that sex can be part of the narrative instead of part of the game. For example, many RPGs have romantic subplots, and sometimes even sexual ones. The player doesn't have to do anything to initiate these subplots, they just happen, and how accurately they portray human sexual relationships is entirely contingent on the writers of the game.

[onewheelwizzard]

PQ4, I would consider "treating sex appropriately" (and this is an entirely personal definition here, I'm not going to make any claim to be an objective expert on how humans should best treat their sexual relationships) to be treating a sexual relationship as a cooperative effort that is made for the fulfillment and satisfaction of both people.  But there's no way for a game to reward you based on how happy your partner is because your partner doesn't really exist.  Actually, let me rephrase that.  There's no way for you to feel rewarded by your partner's happiness because they don't really exist.

Basically, the means by which rewards are obtained in virtual relationships are precisely the opposite of the means by which rewards are obtained in real relationships.  In the absence of a real human being to consider and have feelings towards, the very motivation that drives healthy relationships is precisely that which is precluded by virtual relationships.

I'm kinda reading into this a little far, I think ... most people don't think of their character in a game as actually being themselves, so I'm sure anyone who had a modicum of real empathy would be able to approach simulated relationships and real relationships as completely different things ... a real relationship is real, and a simulated relationship is just a game that is there to be won.  But there are enough people out there who would take the rules of the simulated game and apply them to real life, thinking that if they just buy that one present, or call that many times, or just kiss her at that romantic moment, that'll be the winning stroke right there and their goal of getting laid will be achieved, and that this makes perfect sense and is the way things work, otherwise why would it work like that in the game?

I don't actually believe that games shape our beliefs and understandings about our personal lives to that extent, or at least not usually.  But there are so many messages throughout all sorts of media nowadays (and for the past God knows how long) promoting precisely the selfish goal-oriented sexuality that there really doesn't need to be.  Putting sex in video games just can't help.  I'm certainly not going to be the one to tell anyone they can't do it, but keep it away from me and mine, especially if it's violent and sexual at the same time.

[ThePQ4]

I'm kinda reading into this a little far, I think

I concur...however:
Your expectation for "treating sex appropriately" is a little high. Lets face it: Who wants to buy a game where , as you say "sexual relationships are a cooperative effort made for the fulfillment and satisfaction of both people"...no one except for sorry saps who can't get real girlfriends. If they want something like that, maybe some silly japanese boy in the same situation will make a sim-game (Welcome to the N.H.K. anyone?) but otherwise: it doesn't sell.

If we wanted "real life" situations, we would go out and live our lives, not hole ourselves up in basements and play video games all day, amiright?