The sex game – About sexual representation in games

A few days ago i made a post about sexual imagery in games – more specifically how women are often portrayed in games. This got me thinking about sex and games in general. It seems to me that sex in games is a very weird concept at the moment. Most games actively avoid expressing any interest in showing sex, or giving the player the option of having sex, in the game. This seems weird to me, since sex is a natural part of the world, and if games want to cross the border of adolescence entertainment, and be a respectful mode of  expression then we need to have a proper representation of it.

At the moment i feel that we are only seeing extreme sexual representations. These are aimed at evoking a quick entertaining emotion in the player. It’s especially apparent in a game like Grand Theft Auto 4 where you can have sex with girlfriends and prostitutes. The actual sexual act is hidden by a “fun” audio side, and actually getting to the point of sex is just a couple of mini games (on a side note, i guess that might be a typical male fantasy… “II only we could just solve a mini game and then get sex, life would be awesome…”). The sex has no real purpose for the game, it has no meaning, its just there for the laughs.

We also see it in a game like Leisure Suit Larry. Here sex is used as the goal for the game. As a corny 70’s sex “freak” you move your way through a series of puzzles with highly sexual insinuation to score girls. Of course in Larry’s case it rarely works and he always ends up in trouble – but it still shows that sex is handled like something that shouldn’t be too serious. If the media swoops down on the developer then they can always say “Hey we only put fun sex insinuation in our game, of course we would never make a serious game with sex in it….” – you know how it goes.

My problem with these representations is two fold. First it hurts my game design heart. Adding sex to games seem to serve no actual gameplay purpose! It is most often there just to shock, provide headlines, or let geeky teenage boys fantasize in their dark rooms. It annoys me, because i really DO think that sex could be added to games in a way where it would actually make sense to have it. Instead game developers always choose the easy path – be corny, only imply sex, and make it look like a joke.

My second problem is that sex in games could potentially take the medium to a bit higher level. Yes, i am talking about narrative games here. It would make no sense to have sex in Tetris (unless you can justify it to your producer because you are a modern day game developer and want sex in your game because its cool….see the paragraph above), but it would make sense to have it in a narrative game about love. However to actually reach this level, designers need to start taking sex seriously.

I can’t help but look to film history when thinking about this. In film it seems that the same thing did happen. At first sex was only implied, then it became something you added to cheap dirty movies,

until finally it became an accepted way of expression. Now you see sex scenes in a lot of movies, and these are NOT (always) there to make it fun or attract an audience. They are most often there to further the narrative. I admit that in some Jean Claude Van Damme movies i could have done without seeing his butt in the moonlight, but still i feel that overall the movie industry has tackled this a lot better than the games of today.

I do hope that we will see a shift in the mentality on this, and i also do feel that some companies are trying. One such company would be Bioware. In Jade Empire you could have an implied homosexual relationship. In Mass Effect it became a visual relationship. In Dragon Age: Origins it became multilayer and emotional. So it IS happening. Sadly we do see the game censorship taking to arms against this trend, but hopefully Bioware will only be the first of many who stand up for their right to show and implement sex in their games.

Sex is not evil, it is part of life.