Cav's Place

I have recently read an article about this issue and it has been brought back to the forefront of my mind. Playing Neverwinter Nights these days, as I have mentioned before, only underlined the problem even more. It might be an old game, but it still counts as censorship when you pick the lock on the door of an occupied room in a brothel only to find a soldier and an “escort”, as those particular NPCs are called, standing in the middle of the room and talking. Somehow, I think the likelihood of that happening in any scenario that holds up to scrutiny is slim to none, and yet that’s exactly what you see in every such room that you break into.
This is certainly connected to the greater problem of censorship, which applies everywhere, but it does seem that there’s a specific unspoken agreement to keep sex away from games. I find that very weird, since it’s a very normal and natural act. Of course, humans aren’t exactly known for making sense…

I won’t do the same thing as the author of that article I mentioned earlier, namely comparing sex with violence, with the implied notion that violence is bad and it therefore makes no sense to allow that and not sex, which is usually not bad. The only possible comparison between the two is when sex meets violence, such as during rape. The author of that article says that “no sane person wants a game where the player can rape or commit sexual violence”, but I beg to differ. Since the player is allowed to steal, murder or, sometimes, even torture, why not be able to rape as well?
That might sound very offensive for some, but it’s not a matter of right or wrong, it’s just a matter of freedom. Games tend to give the player more and more choices, which can only be a good thing, so why not include these as well? What the player does with those choices is their own problem… It’s really stupid to try imposing “real world” laws on games, because they happen in a virtual world, they’re not “real” by definition! And if a few players, out of perhaps hundreds of millions, don’t understand that basic fact and try to reenact what they have seen in a game in the “real world”, again, it’s their problem, not the game’s!
You can’t force games to be “moral” by disallowing certain choices. Deciding which actions are rewarded and which are punished in the long run would be a far better method. Newer games are starting to include long-term consequences of certain actions, so this is where “morality” could come into play. However, this is a completely different issue and not the focus of this post. The connection between morality and the actual focus of this post is that sex shouldn’t be kept away from games simply because some people seem to find the very notion immoral.

Sex could very easily be linked to relationships in games. There certainly are some romantic relationships in some games, and that’s an aspect which could and should be developed even further. But if sex needs to be kept out of the picture, developing credible romantic relationships between characters becomes even more difficult than it already is. Imposing this apparent chastity makes the entire scenario feel quite weird because, you see, relationships do tend to include sex, so why not show it? It would make the experience more immersive and more realistic, not to mention that sex could play an important part in many plots. There could be a lot of things being said or noticed during or immediately after sex, or certain emotionally charged events could logically lead to sex. It’s very silly to cut away the sex and only show the rest, or even cut away the entire scene and find other means of developing the story and the characters, just because some people, which are hardly ever the gamers themselves, would be bothered by it.
Or I could take a more pragmatic view and say that characters in games tend to have certain needs. Since that makes perfect sense, I have a question: If a character might sometimes need to eat or sleep or, as it is in The Sims, socialize, why wouldn’t that same character also need a, shall we say, “release” now and then? Especially when we’re talking about potentially arousing situations… This could also apply to the scenes which take place shortly before or after very dangerous moments, since it is very natural to want to have sex at such times. Once again, it would simply make sense and make the experience even more complete, which can only be a good thing.

I’m aware that many of those who desire to keep sex out of games consider that most gamers are under the age of 18 but, as that article points out, the average gamer is no longer a minor. Not that it’d matter if they were, since sex is a part of the life of people under 18 just as well and, instead of wasting their time and breath trying to stop a perfectly natural and, if done right, beneficial behavior, those who claim to be concerned by this issue should put their efforts into providing teenagers with some real sexual education for a change. That would imply teaching them how to do it right, how to find the optimal balance between pleasure and safety, between the physical and the emotional… Actually, many adults could greatly benefit from such education as well, since there’s no fairy godmother to whack each of us over the head with a wand the moment we turn 18 and magically grant us all the knowledge and experience we had completely lacked until that moment, as most laws appear to assume. And including sex in games could actually be a means of offering such education, to minors and adults alike.

There could be a lot of very valid reasons to include more actual sex scenes in games, but I really don’t think they need to be listed. In the end, the best justification for desiring to see more sex scenes in games is that you don’t need to justify such a desire because sex is just a part of life and, unless something goes wrong, a good one at that. Actually, it’s far more a part of life than many, if not most, behaviors which are usually found in games… And if, whether they’re aware of it or not, many people play games to get away from the bad things in life, the good ones should be emphasized as much as possible.