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[Mauricio_Magus]

lol... yeah, no one ever criticized God of War and MK. It must be fun to live on planet lala-land.

I don't see it at all, we get the Kratos taking off Helios head GIF posted here in GAF all the time and no one says a word.

That shit is fucking insane.

 

[Doofcake]

I get enough sex from real life and porn.

I don't pop many mutant heads off with a laser from 150m away in my daily life, so I play videogames.

Winner. Personally I don't crave for more sex in games either, but I do find it quite silly that games that DO include sex or nudity have to be censored on Steam and have no place on consoles.

 

[Clefargle]

Who exactly is being exploited in a video game? The voice actress? The mocap model? Anyone? Was that nude lady in custards revenge being exploited? Seriously, I would like an answer please.

 

[Crossing Eden]

"You have to defeat Ganon, so go kill those spiders hopping around in the mountains." - makes perfect sense.

If you think that a character being on a gore-reality TV show is enough to justify torturing people and removing their limbs, then how is a bikini island not enough context for Dead or Alive Beach Volleyball? They're the same levels of "back story" to justify the context. I think you are applying some serious double standards here.

Um yes, especially since those spiders attack anyone who comes nearby, you're seriously reaching to sell this "Game violence is never contextualize" narrative that is utterly ridiculous. Especially since way more thought went into that than the a character wearing skimpy clothes.

 

[SomTervo]

Ahh, good to know. I haven't played either games yet, but I heard Witcher handled sex better than Mass Effect.

No probs. I think The Witcher has the best set-ups for sex scenes I've ever seen, it's just the animation and camera work during said scenes which is pretty poor and canned. Has no impact. Would be far better if there were no sex scenes or they were even more truncated.

The lead-ups are always perfect though, really well written. The female parties have just as much consent and dialogue as Geralt does.

The difference is that hot guys are usually portrayed holistically and their sexual appeal is derived from their entirety: from body language, to overall muscularture as opposed to a single body part, to personality. Whereas the stereotypical portrayal of the hot girl is way more reductionistically focused on specific parts as the source of sexual appeal.

Killing it ITT, NS.

No, what's beside the point is the initial origin of these values. The key point, the germane point, is that origin of the value system is not relevant to the current situation because the phrase "it's an American thing" is referring to the present or recent past. It is not referring to the reality a century or more ago. America is, clearly, the dominant cultural force in the West as well as the main driver behind these values. You can find plenty of academic research to back that up as well, shockingly enough other people also attended college and covered cultural studies, media and communications. Which is probably why so many of them have time to waste on internet message boards .

Was it originally a British thing? Certainly. No-one's contesting it's origin. But it is most certainly "an American thing" these days.

Ah I see what you're getting at. FYI I am in no-way disputing that USA is the dominant cultural force in the west - that's fucking obvious. But re the line 'it is most certainly "an American thing" these days' - you're still wrong.

It's also, still a British thing these days. And it's still a 'thing' in many other countries. Perhaps America has the hardest line on it, and they certainly have more creative output than most countries, but you can't say it's just an 'American thing'. That's such a narrow-minded thing to say. It's a big world and tens of countries have similar puritanical-origin beliefs that really colour their output and tastes.

I get enough sex from real life and porn.

I don't pop many mutant heads off with a laser from 150m away in my daily life, so I play videogames.

Well said - it's still worth discussing though, if the community wants to evaluate games as an art form.

 

[Kssio_Aug]

We may not have porn all the time in our games (thankfully), but there are a lot of sexualization in them, all the time!! Sexy portraits of women and men is very constant in games!

Also, is not as sex and violence is the same thing or the total opposite. You don't combat violence in games adding sex, and neither justify allowing more sex because of violence. Sex and violence are 2 different things!

And, as some people already said, violence in games are used a lot cause they serve as a core gameplay mechanic (beat the enemies to reach the objective), while you could not use sex in the same way, except in a very "creative" game.

Edit:
Although, looking at this thread I definitely see a difference in how the culture can interpret it in quite different ways.

 

[chillumchilla]

I think it is a relic of Victorian Christian puritanism.

Where sex is 'sinful' esp. for women while violence is glorified and given their god's blessing.

Thankfully it is more of an Anglophone phenomenon not worldwide.

 

[SomTervo]

I think it is a relic of Victorian christian puritanism.

Where sex is 'sinful' esp. for women while violence is glorified and given their god's blessing.

Thankfully it is more of an anglophone phenomenon not worldwide.

Word.

 

[Morrigan Stark]

Not liking the overabundance of randomly, gratuitously sexualized female characters does not make one a Victorian prude who hates sex. Please.

 

[GoldStarz]

I'd say it's more that criticism of violence in video games is more external (like I the news and such) while complaints of sexualization (and in many cases objectification) is more of an internal complaint in the gamer community, so it's easier to ignore complaints of violence than it is of sex, which isn't to say both have valid points in some places.

 

[Gunstar Ikari]

lol... yeah, no one ever criticized God of War and MK. It must be fun to live on planet lala-land.

There is a very disproportionate number of complaints about sexualization compared to violence and it takes a hell of a lot of selective memory to claim otherwise. lol indeed.

 

[chillumchilla]

Not liking the overabundance of randomly, gratuitously sexualized female characters does not make one a Victorian prude who hates sex. Please.

Fair enough but aren't you conflating sex with sexism?

The OT was about sex and violence not sexism surely?

 

[Morrigan Stark]

There is a very disproportionate number of complaints about sexualization compared to violence and it takes a hell of a lot of selective memory to claim otherwise. lol indeed.

[citation needed]

Fair enough but aren't you conflating sex with sexism?

The OP was about sex and violence not sexism surely?

I've never seen anyone complain about sex itself in games, only sexist representation, but so many people like the OP think (or pretend to think) it's the sex that critics are talking about, just so they can dismiss them as prudes and making them look ridiculous and inconsistent by somehow being OK with all violence (which again isn't necessarily true).

You are correct that they are two different things, of course. OP was attacking a very typical strawman.

 

[MAX PAYMENT]

I want to play violence in games, I do not want to play sex in games.

 

[rpmurphy]

I don't see it at all, we get the Kratos taking off Helios head GIF posted here in GAF all the time and no one says a word.

That shit is fucking insane.

I remember the thread when that trailer came out. It was so gross, I had no desire to post even a response for it (also I don't post in game series that I don't have interest in so that's another thing). Hence, I guess why most were oohing and aahing at the gif were just people already fans of that kind of hyperviolence.

 

[GenG3000]

2. The bigger reason games like DOA are criticised is that there's no equivalent to staring at virtual dicks, biceps, thighs or 'hot guys'. There is only the female-ogling variant. The whole media panders to one gender/sexuality.

That's a different topic, though.

There are plenty of otome "girl" games with fanservice for women.

 

[Bronx-Man]

Some games handle sex pretty well like the new Wolfenstein. Most games handle it pretty fucking wrong though.

 

[Ploid 3.0]

Sex doesn't sell guns.

When there's a NRA for sex maybe it'll start being ok, maybe if we end up having major world wide population problems and no one is reproducing, or everyone is being careful (smart) to not have kids.

 

[rakkadakka]

So I don't have a problem with sex in games in general but I do have a problem with the way games like Dragons Crown depict female characters.

Same way I don't have a problem with violence in most games but I'm not a fan of the violence in games like Hatred.

It's not always a black and white issue but the whole DoA thing feels manufactured to get people to care about DoA. Which is both a shit fighting game and a shit game to ogle ladies.

 

[Cloyster]

I wish for more realistic, artistic, and creative depictions of sexuality in video games, where, like violence, sex can be interplayed in the gameplay and systems in interesting ways.

The people who are complaining are usually NOT complaining about sex. They are complaining about gratuitous, objectifying sexualization.

Notice how people complain far more about things like say Senran Kagura or DOA outfits, than Bayonetta or Catherine.

 

[CambriaRising]

Sex doesn't sell guns.

When there's a NRA for sex maybe it'll start being ok, maybe if we end up having major world wide population problems and no one is reproducing, or everyone is being careful (smart) to not have kids.

 

[Psymatiq]

less of this

More of this....OHHH YEAH

 

[Chû Totoro]

It's not violence or sex the problem. Imo it's the way it's used and that's why it should be the responsibility of each creator to draw the line between what has to be done or not so the game keeps all the things he had in mind without being insulting or needlessly to violent or sexy.

Sadly so many games are just using this for something else than for the illustration of their creators vision.
That's why violence which is a gameplay thing that can be more easily said as "virtual" while sex will be experienced by all of us and has a sort of stupid sacred thing entitled to it.

You also have to take in account that games are mostly an entertainment, they combines many artistic things and some part (sometime whole games) can be listed as art but it's not their purpose so clearly you have to look at games like you look at big movies, it's here to make money and sadly in our society violence is more accepted than nudity or sex.

And again OP (which is banned now?!?) sex or nudity is something a lot of countries are not comfortable with (I'm not saying it's a nice thing) and even if it was I'm not sure it could add a lot to the gaming experience. Maybe in some very specific games (you may see what I'm talking about) but else I don't see the reason to have sex or nudity in games even if I'm sad to see that some art styles (like Bayonetta) are making controversies while the game is 18+ !!!

 

[Cloyster]

It's not violence or sex the problem. Imo it's the way it's used and that's why it should be the responsibility of each creator to draw the line between what has to be done or not so the game keeps all the things he had in mind without being insulting or needlessly to violent or sexy.

Sadly so many games are just using this for something else than for the illustration of their creators vision.
That's why violence which is a gameplay thing that can be more easily said as "virtual" while sex will be experienced by all of us and has a sort of stupid sacred thing entitled to it.

You also have to take in account that games are mostly an entertainment, they combines many artistic things and some part (sometime whole games) can be listed as art but it's not their purpose so clearly you have to look at games like you look at big movies, it's here to make money and sadly in our society violence is more accepted than nudity or sex.

And again OP (which is banned now?!?) sex or nudity is something a lot of countries are not comfortable with (I'm not saying it's a nice thing) and even if it was I'm not sure it could add a lot to the gaming experience. Maybe in some very specific games (you may see what I'm talking about) but else I don't see the reason to have sex or nudity in games even if I'm sad to see that some art styles (like Bayonetta) are making controversies while the game is 18+ !!!

If there is any game that has a good reason to have sexuality and nudity, It's Bayonetta.

 

[SlavetodaBOX]

Sex and Nudity does not bother me....

 

[Bronx-Man]

I wish for more realistic, artistic, and creative depictions of sexuality in video games, where, like violence, sex can be interplayed in the gameplay and systems in interesting ways.

The people who are complaining are usually NOT complaining about sex. They are complaining about gratuitous, objectifying sexualization.

Notice how people complain far more about things like say Senran Kagura or DOA outfits, than Bayonetta or Catherine.

Agreed with all of this. Atlus got so many things right about romance & sex with Catherine.