No Sex Please, We’re Pixels

No Sex Please, We’re Pixels

Posted on Monday March 22, 2010, 15:46 by David Scarborough in Infinite Lives

When delving into the epic sci-fi RPG that is Mass Effect 2, it soon became unusually clear that I was impatiently anticipating when this fantastical intergalactic romp, was going to let me do some much hyped intergalactic romping. After all, isn’t knocking boots with a bevy of otherworldly hussies what this game is all about? Anyone? I found that much amusement can be made from the different life-forms that can be wooed at your will (or with a predetermined set of button combinations) but I thought to myself; has a sex scene in a video game ever been truly justified?

I suppose it goes all the way back to childhood – 1997 to be precise – when one friend swapped a cheat code with me that would allow action heroine Lara Croft to be played in the buff. ‘Archaeologists would probably benefit from less clothing, with all that dust and stuff’ I thought (or something to that effect, I’m sure) but my efforts were in vain, as it proved to be just a duff rumour and the globe-trotting, amply tooled Ms. Croft remained within her tight sweatshirt. I’m not sure what I was to gain from this experience? I imagine it was just pre-pubescent amusement - but sex in video games seems to have offered little else since.

Sex has always weaved in and out of mainstream computer gaming but its impact has been minimal at best. It seems that while most people have buckled the preconception that gaming is a mindless toy for children, to whittle away hours on; sex in gaming reinforces this old ideology. It’s not that it can’t be used effectively but it’s that gaming as a medium can’t really utilise it to any relevant effect.

Grand Theft Auto III was one of the first mainstream games I came across that implemented it in some form, letting you get it on with a local lady of the night for a health perk. Subsequent sequels have removed the life boost, rendering it completely pointless to include sex in the first place (if anything it should surely take health away?).

Our Eastern gaming chums haven’t swayed the opinion either. Look across their titles and most of the female characters are shopping for sizes far too small in some sort of sadomasochistic section of their local Land of Leather, not to mention that certain parts of their body seem to be out of proportion. It’s hard to believe they can even stand, let alone hit a volleyball over a net. Even if it does boil down to male fantasy, what is gained from it? It’s not like it is attractive.

I find that whenever sex pops up in a game, it isn’t to propel the story forward or to add a new layer of interactivity but just to raise the odd titter or two. It usually ends up reverting me to a childlike level of embarrassment and giggles – like a child opening up the front page of their Dad’s Sun.

With the advent of motion controls, it is quite a frightening prospect to imagine where developers are thinking of going with sex in games (and you know they are thinking about it…). As of yet, I haven’t played a game that has featured sex in some form and thought ‘that really added something’, instead, it’s just a cheap giggle, the video game equivalent of a fart joke and one that has been kicking up a stink ever since. Whatever the Daily Mail Brigade says, when those pixels start rubbing together, it’s not so much ‘won’t someone think of the children?’ but ‘won’t someone think of the poor gamers who have to suffer it’.

So, can anyone justify the role of sex in video games? Maybe those same people who think Jessica Rabbit is sexy…