Sex, Bawls and Video Games
Whoever said gamers don’t get any action is obviously jealous. Gamers have been getting more consistent action than most other demographics for years now — so what if it’s not analog?
Inspired by a recent article on the weekly BrandX about sex in video games, we hit up Crix Lee, the editor-in-chief of GirlGamer.com, a social network for women based out of Los Angeles.
“I can’t really pinpoint one game in particular,” Lee told us when we asked her to name the most sexually-charged game she’d played recently. “Like everybody else, I was out to get my characters in Dragon Age and Mass Effect 2 laid.”
When asked whether she’d seen an increase in the incidence of sexual situations in games in recent years, Lee pointed to the Grand Theft Auto series.
“You’ve got games like Alpha Protocol, where you actually get an achievement — called “Ladies Man” — for sexing up every woman in the game,” she told us.
Though amused with the ability to make players engage sexually, Lee expressed disappointed about the manner that same-sex relationships are treated — assuming they are allowed to occur in a game to begin with.
“In Mass Effect 2, you could have a same-sex partnership but you don’t get the ‘Paramour’ achievement if you take this route, which I find unacceptable,” she said, quickly adding: “But it’s tastefully done, so there’s the rub, pardon the pun.”
Some games are not so tasteful, she noted, singling out “eroge,” games of a highly sexual nature that are marketed as such (“eroge” is a portmanteau of the words “erotic” and “game”), and which often feature non-consensual situations.
“RapeLay is about a man who not only rapes a mother, but her two daughters as well,” Lee explained. “The game shows you how to stalk, grope, and force your victim not only into sexual positions but you can put cat ears on one and make them meow and has multiplayer features like three on one gangbangs.”
Asked about whether any apparent increase in the sexual content in games is related to the success of the role playing game Second Life, Lee was quick to point to 1987’s Leisure Suit Larry, a game about a loser in his 40s whose mission is to bed as many “hot chicks” as possible.
“Record of Agarest War is getting a lot of attention these days,” she said of the sexiest game right now. “The God of War franchise has mini sex games, and… take your pick, really.”
So does GirlGamer.com have forums where tons of women gamers discuss the naughty happenings in virtual reality?
“We pride ourselves on being an open, welcoming community where you can speak your mind but at the same time we do not tolerate anything unbecoming toward any of our members,” she warned. “We also encourage our members not to use profile pics of themselves in compromising positions or scantily clad because we want our members and prospective members to feel like they have a home at GirlGamer.com, not like they just rolled up into a strip club.”
Oh, well. We tried.
Screengrab in the header by Frank.
