I’ve never really played any porn games more hardcore than Baldur’s Gate 3 before, but you remember a couple weeks ago when GOG gave away those NSFW games, as a direct response to the whole thing?
Well I claimed the bundle just to boost their numbers (because censorship is bullshit), but recently I needed a low-difficulty gaming distraction, so I checked a few of them out, and… some of them are kind of good?
Like first off you have to be okay with visual novels (usually), but if you’re cool with that, some of them actually have some compelling characters, and occasionally even good gameplay in between all the fucking and whatnot.
Leap of Love is amusing, kind of adorable when it comes to the not-sex stuff, and charming. It is also a game where you (a former frog) can marry and simultaneously bed 3 princesses and their stepmother after deposing of the evil king. My brain is still trying to reconcile this.
Huniepop is one of the best match 3 puzzle games I’ve ever played, with a chill as hell soundtrack. Also a scantily-clad foul-mouthed love fairy wants you to fuck every woman in a 5 mile radius who can fog a mirror.
And Crom help me, when I finished… sigh… Fetish Locator Week 1, I actually cared enough about some of the characters to buy the next one.
The point is, some of these games have more depth and value than I’d been led to believe, and I wouldn’t have known that if the censorship thing hadn’t started that chain of events. So congrats censorship people, and honestly thanks, I guess? Completely the opposite of your intended effect. Task failed successfully.
One other side point that came to mind after the main post.
We’re so conditioned to think realistic violence in games is fine, but realistic sex in games is “wrong” or “sad”. But honestly, I realized I played through 3+ games without doing any violence* and had a blast, and that was actually really refreshing.
*okay, no non-consensual violence. I may have slapped Lyssa’s dick around, but she requested it.
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We’re so conditioned to think realistic violence in games is fine, but realistic sex in games is “wrong” or “sad”.
Not just in games. In all media. You bring to mind a great quote from George R. R. Martin.
“I can describe an axe entering a human skull in great explicit detail and no one will blink twice at it. I provide a similar description, just as detailed, of a penis entering a vagina, and I get letters about it and people swearing off. To my mind this is kind of frustrating, it’s madness. Ultimately, in the history of [the] world, penises entering vaginas have given a lot of people a lot of pleasure; axes entering skulls, well, not so much.”
https://bloodknife.com/everyone-beautiful-no-one-horny/
I think onscreen chemistry peaked in Casino Royale. Now it all feels clinical/sterile.
And this isn’t just the lead and the love interest: supporting characters look this way too, and even villains (frequently clad in monstrous makeup) are still played by conventionally attractive performers. Even background extras are good-looking, or at least inoffensively bland. No one is ugly. No one is really fat. Everyone is beautiful.
Heh, this reminds me of this scene in Last Action Hero (Just watch until 1:34 or so for the scene I’m referring to.
Honestly though, I think this might be starting to change. Looking at shows like Resident Alien and Wheel of Time, for example, there are plenty of casting choices that go against that trend. Now, I’m not saying anyone in these shows is ugly or anything like that, but there are a lot of folks being cast who are not “classic Hollywood pretty” and it’s very nice to see. I like seeing people playing the everyday Joe art who actually looks like an everyday Joe. It really breaks immersion for me when the “ugly girl” part is played by someone who is beautiful dressed in a frumpy outfit.
Yeah, usually the stars are classically attractive still, but there’s a lot more space for other people in other roles. I think comedy in particular has a lot of stars who aren’t incredibly hot.
However, probably a lot of people who are getting jobs as extras are trying to make their way in the industry. The industry, being dominated by attractive people, attracts attractive people. Ugly people fear they wouldn’t succeed, so it creates a selection bias.
Omg what an utter dogshit of an article this is. I bet a fat person expecting unnecessary sex scenes in action movies wrote it. Like go watch some BBW porn you whale.
She’s talking about morons like you.
I didn’t expect a media critique article to make it click why I don’t find “ideal” body types half as attractive as a chick with a realistic belly (of any size sans starvation) and a flirtatious smile.
But yeah, media and culture have become largely sterilized in regards to sex.
I’ve always felt that puritanical stigmatization of sex and sexuality have really fucked us up psychologically as a species.
Puritanism comes down to “happiness is bad.“
Not just sex; dancing, music, poetry, novels, games, decorations. Anything which takes joy in life and expression is forbidden.
Suffering while alive is seen as the proper punishment for being born human - seeing people and nature as beautiful and divine is legitimately blasphemy to these people.
And gods forbid you enjoy suffering, that’s right out
Axes entering skulls give pleasure to the psychopaths we let run our societies.
I remember a quote from a famous porn actor “nacho vidal”.
“I’d rather have my kids playing with “fake plastic penises” around the house rather than playing with fake plastic firearms.”
I’m not comfortable with the idea of kids playing with sexual toys. But it makes me feel something weird that I’m not more weirded out by kids playing to kill with fake guns.
I’m pretty sure a majority of people touched a real penis before touching a real gun.
well tbf one of the detailed sex scenes (in the book) is between a 30 yrs old khal drogo with a 13 year old daenerys targaryen, and it’s being depicted as a good thing, he’s the first guy that cares about her
japanese manga is a nice counter to this
the media targeted to older readers has many well done stories that contain realistic sexuality (good and bad)
and i’m not talking about the stupid shit like jacking it in the river gave me a half fish half man son
It was wild being raised by my mother who didn’t mind if I saw consensual sex, because I should eventually have sex, but restricted all violence because ideally I’ll never see violence in person.
I have no idea how good this is a philosophy for raising children. Sample size is too small.
Leading up to the release of Cyberpunk 2077 there was a relatively innocent post about whether players would be able to romance anyone and sleep with them. The absolute mockery and scorn OP received was shameful. It really struck me because it was so clear how we’ve been conditioned to reject sexuality while at the same time being ultra-desensitized to violence.
What I do recall was one guy asking very specific questions about how much we would be able to customize genitals, and whether sex would be fully interactive with visuals of full penetration.
And while none of those things are wrong per se, the general vibe of asking about all of those things was very weird and pervy.
Hm maybe my memory of the post is fuzzy but that is more pervy than I recalled. Still gets to the larger point though about how we talk about violence in graphic detail with no self-consciousness but can’t do the same for sexuality.
And? What is the answer to these questions? Asking for a friend …
I was pretty surprised that they did have genital customization in the game, no on the other two questions though.
And while none of those things are wrong per se, the general vibe of asking about all of those things was very weird and pervy.
Unshackle your mind. Reject the puritanism bonk and embrace the horniness tentacles.
beating beats beating
And then you usually get “But the sex isn’t realistic!!!”… yeah? Neither is the violence, unless you are frequently the Doomslayer or something?!
Like, how is that even an argument. How can violence in games be preferrable to sex?!
Part of the actual answer to that question is that, while violence is often loud and public (and sometimes government sanctioned on massive scales), sex is something that is usually done in private, intimate settings without observers.
Please note that this is mostly an American thing, in European TV and books we have naked people and (not too explicit detail in TV, books differ) sex.
Some of us are always wondering about this. Something 18+ might be sex or gore related.
Kinda funny to see it in Canada as well, especially when you throw Quebec culture into the mix (things seem a little more sex positive over there compared to other parts of the country, which is neat to think about sometimes).
Thanks, it’s always nice to get more cultural info.
I’ve been into nsfw games for a while, but I do genuinely enjoy a lot of them. Corruption of Champions 2 is a great game, with a lot of customization and great characters, though it is apparent that the game isn’t finished yet.
Tales of Androgyny has some of the highest quality scenes I’ve encountered in an nsfw game. It’s also pretty funny. More games should have a femboy protagonist, is all I’m saying.
Oh man, CoC is a name I haven’t heard in a loooong long time. I think I have a save file and the original flash version hanging around somewhere.
He’s the main love interest, not the protag, but have you seen Haunted by Femboy? A little on the silly side, but I enjoyed the demo.
I did see that but haven’t gotten around to playing it
It’s not out just yet, but it sounded like they’re close based on the discussion board. Demo took me an hour or two to run through, worth the time if you like the subject matter. Quinn is adorbs.
russell vought is behind the porn bans.
Vought?
that too, funny thing the boyz vought(the current series)is loosely based that guy too.
If you’re open to a platformer, the only explicitly adult game I’ve tried is FlipWitch. The gimmick is that you can change your sex, with certain obstacles only able to be passed through by a specific sex. You also have clothing that can only be worn by each sex, and certain NPCs won’t interact unless you’re wearing certain items. It’s a solid metroidvania, and while it’s not going to blow you away, I still enjoyed my time with it.
Oh yeah, I saw that one earlier and threw it on my wishlist for later. It looks pretty good. I picked up Scarlet Maiden instead for now, which is also a pixel-based naughty game, but looks to be a roguelite and is supposed to have great gameplay too.
The music is really good too!
Same here and I have bought now many avn/adult games on gog and steam during sales. I just finished Fetish Locator week 2 and I don’t remember last time when I have laughed so much playing a video game. I would also recommend ”Love & Sex Second Base”, that game has tons of content and plenty of characters and some nice humor as well. And it’s from the same dev as ”Leap of Love”.
I also claimed the games to support the cause! I chose Treasure of Nadia to play on a whim and totally got sucked into the story. The sexy scenes are a mixed bag but generally enjoyable. After completing it, I had to buy the other games from that developer!
Hunnie Pop is the best Bejewled type game ever made. <3
Before the Steam censorship spectacle, payment processors pushed quite hard against eroge sites until Japanese government stepped in and payment processor backed down as a result. We need a similar move for the western adult games.
For vnovels, check out Katawa Shoujo. It has a great storyline and characters, and it’s free!
If you’re looking for a platformer I’d recommend Flipwitch - Forbidden Sex Hex
Flipwitch is a fantastic little Metroidvania that I can’t talk to my “normal” gaming friends about.
Man, you’re mean. You can’t recommend that without at least a warning of the box of tissues that you’ll need nearby. You’ll be responsible for water stains on desks everywhere.
Its wild how gooning and porn are so normalized to the point they harass real woman in their comments and dms 24/7 but god forbid a porn game, I like them ocassionally, when I don’t want to be lazy and I’m in a gaming mood, it’s like reading some Choose your own adventure erotica with visuals, but the story is porn story adjacent
It seems less bad to me, I actually have to use my brain a little, idk I get bored using the same content daily, every one in a while I’ll use vr, comics, books, or a game, but tbh whenever I start to need something extra like that I just don’t jerk off for a day to normalize, don’t want to enter the gooner mindset
Your post made me want to check these out. I only ever played one with a friend for kicks and it was a fun, cheap activity to make a drinking game out of.
It’s like how erotica can still be literature, but people dismiss it for the sexual focus. But I’ve read erotic stories that had me hooked, made interesting social commentary, had nuanced characters and were just a fantastic time.
got any recommendations?
people dismiss it for the sexual focus.
I stand by this: porn is a largely untapped medium for insanely stupid comedy.
I know we’ve all seen lemon stealing whores and whatnot, but like, we could have so much more than we do.
I’ve written porn comedy before. No I will not be linking it, but yeah I enjoyed it and the bad porn book club I was in over the pandemic enjoyed it too.
I think part of the problem is that oftentimes once something erotic has merit beyond the erotic it often loses its porn classification in the public eye. Venus in Furs is porn, the word masochism is a reference to Sacher-Masoch who wrote it the same as sadism is named after the Marquis de Sade, but it’s also classic literature.
I definitely do want to get back into writing porn comedy, but I haven’t been pissed off sufficiently stupid porn writing since that book club stopped.
once something erotic has merit beyond the erotic it often loses its porn classification in the public eye.
This definitely poses a problem. Er… depending on what we think a problem is, I guess. But the stuff I’m thinking of, it would be very hard to do this to.
You’re not alone, James Gunn (yes, that James Gunn) thought the same.
Ha, I had no idea these existed. If anyone would, he seems like the type to, though.
It’s a sadly forgotten relic of the old internet.
And people are trying to shut it down. It’s a damn shame.
Oh well, we still have the absolute chaos that is ammateur, self-published erotica.
One of the hardest times I’ve laughed my ass off was at a one of those semi surreal uncanny 3d porn games. Can’t remember what it was but it scared the shit out of my cat who was sleeping under my desk, have the scars to prove it.
Also if anyone wants to look at porn games F95zone"dot"to is a pirate forum which is good for keeping track of in dev ones or just if you don’t want to possibly waste money on a porn game you may not like. Also the dot is in quotes cause I am not sure how the mods would react to me posting what amounts to a porn link.
I despise visual novels.
They lack the good writing of a proper novel.
They lack the art work a comic can provide.
They aren’t games, but are for some reason sold as one.
They a sub-par mix of things other mediums do significantly better.
There are novels that don’t measure up to the writing of visual novels.
There are comics that don’t measure up to the art of visual novels.
There are video games that are less engaging than visual novels.
Broad generalizations like this are so useless. It’s okay that you play one or two visual novels and they weren’t for you. I don’t particularly like visual novels either, but to discredit an entire genre because of it is just ignorant. I’ve played some visual novels that were excellent and pushed the boundaries of video games. See Slay the Princess and Doki Doki Literature Club. I’m playing Date Everything right now, it’s not exactly innovative, but I’m having fun with it.
That’s a load of crap. Visual novels are such an incredibly low bar on literally every front, if you made a comic or a novel that’s worse than a VN you’d have been actually trying to out-shit VNs.
It’s okay to just admit you got one of the bad endings.
That’s assuming I could even force my way through any VN to get to an ending.
I’m not a masochist.
Modding is a way to add some adult content to some games. For example, Bethesda’s games have a very active modding community.
Sims 4 as well. When you download wickedwhims, nisa and basemental drugs and thousands of different animations from different packages, you will never play the vanilla again.
Ai, loverslab comes to mind. Used that to kink the hell out of Sims back in the day.
I’ve only ever played one VN and it was wonderful: Katawa Shoujo 💛
Not directly to your point but your overall experience just reminds me: we really lose something when the sexual liberation movement were largely erased. People so often dismiss it because we’re conditioned to dismiss taking sex seriously (outside of a very narrow and specific context) but there’s a lot we lose from that.
Was it erased? We are more comfortable with porn than ever (which I wouldn’t say is okay, but definitely not prudish), and after the jews, the biggest boogie man out there is the gender lobby.
I say we’re in the next phase, and moderators (Visa, Mastercard) need to buckle up for what’s coming.
We are more comfortable with porn than ever
Are we (edit: 'hope that doesn’t sound antagonistic; I more meant it rhetorically)? No-Nut November has only recently dipped in the general consciousness and goon is currently trending as a pejorative. I think we’re comfortable with pushing the boundaries and with nodding and winking towards it but outright normalization has a fierce backlash.
But part of what the sex. lib. movement was about was both normalization and healthy interaction with sex, not just sexual content being prevalent. There’s plenty of unhealthy ideas and performances that the mainstream porn industry perpetuates, much of it relying on satisfying a normative and patriarchal outlook; feminist porn, for example, was/is a much more sex. lib. approach to porn (from giving women more active participation in the sex portrayed (rather than just the receptive of it) to also having the performers express their emotions more (even if minimally) and how the sex they were having made them feel).
These goals are much more in line with the emotional experience OP was describing, where it’s not just sexual content but a more healthy engagement with that sexual content as well, such as experiencing emotions and attachment. That’s part of why OP’s descriptions reminded me of it.
Mainstream porn, driven by capitalism (which isn’t to say all of us aren’t in some degree, even indie creators; sadly, that’s just the reality, right now), doesn’t care about these things.
And sex. lib. has a distinct history and activism, much of intertwined with gay liberation and…I think most people don’t know that or, like, the battles that were fought for information about safe sex, etc. I mean, it’s not unique (most people aren’t aware about disability history, for example, or events like the Capital Crawl) but it’s still deeply unfortunate.
I do appreciate the time and effort you put into the comment, but I am not arguing against what you are saying.
Since Kinsey &co and the summer of love, the movement didn’t evaporate, it perforated society and mutated. I don’t think I’d be going too far by stating, that the sexual revolution couldn’t have happened without the suffragettes. I see the queer movement as a spearhead in the same direction.
I only had qualm with you saying anything has been undone (sorry if I’m paraphrasing). Yeah, using ‘woke’ as a pejorative for anyone craving progress is a thing now, but that doesn’t mean most of us want nothing more than to love each other freely.
Mmm, I get what you mean. So often, I find myself in conversations (not ours but in general) that have certain presumptions that have been addressed by movements such as these that I feel like there’s this gap in knowledge that shouldn’t really exist but…
I think your point’s a fair argument, though; I’d certainly prefer that, at the very least.
I do understand. I find myself having to regularly check myself to look for miscommunication instead of malice (or stupidity for that matter).
The whole thing is whack, and anyone with two cents of mind and some compassion is just gaping at the horrors being casually thrown around and equally horrifying misdirections.
Thanks to the internet the only way to hide stuff is to drown it out, but we all have our trusted sources (who in turn distort reality in an infotaining world, but that’s where we’re at). This means we can more or less put the big picture together (or at least the players) and make fairly solid guesstimates.
I tell myself this is an all or nothing attempt by the ruling class to legitimize a strangle hold before any major resource wars break out and that people are really wisening up to their shenanigans. I feel ‘doomerism’ is an aspect where they can easily get me. Don’t let them win.
Tycho, of Penny Arcade, actually had some words on this subject around the time the PC version of Stellar Blade came out and people were up in arms about it. I’ll quote it here because I think it’s a good passage.
I used to say that I grew up Christian, but I think it’s probably more accurate to say Evangelical, especially now that more people might know what I’m talking about. Sex was VERY naughty and we needed to be constantly on the lookout for incursions of this secular, demonic, but also somehow worryingly inherent force…? Breaking that pernicious notion down and enabling people to express themselves was the project I thought I’d more or less seen completed. Now it’s come around some weird bend, with precisely the same energy as before, except now it’s being done for the correct reasons. It can’t possibly be this dumb. And yet!
It’s incredibly fucking boring to have the tail end of the revolution you saw win shame the tools that gave them victory, dust off a bunch of regressive shit, and then have the pluck to feel righteous about it.
It sort of mirrors my own experience (minus the evangelical upbringing). I definitely recall a period of general sex-positivity that has now come around some strange turn whereby the very same voices are admonishing people for daring to enjoy sexy things.
It’s very strange.
It has taken me nearly 30 years to undo that programming and it still affects me. The puriteens scare me.
It’s because both sides were always divided on sex. The “beer, titties, and jesus” crowd and the anti porn feminists had been the lesser voices of their side for a while. But in the fallout of the sexual revolution, in the 70s and 80s second wave feminism developed a really anti sex stance, especially towards deviant types of sex. This was the feminist sex wars, and its the era of a lot of the more batshit bits. But it did begin with reasonable criticism. There was fighting back however, from lesbian feminist sadomasochism groups like Samois to owned porn cooperatives where radical ideas wete tried like having the entire crew be naked so the performers weren’t the only ones exposed.
People like to blame third wave feminism for the swing back, and I disagree. The third wave was the movement born of the critiques of the second wave, and the renewed push for sexual liberation in the 90s ans 00s was quintessentially third wave. And it got far, it did a lot, and it also left us with a lot to criticize. Whether it’s media criticism like Sarkeesian was harassed for daring to do, or it’s the unfortunately common stories of women being pressured into sex acts they don’t want with feminist language critiques had been mounting in the early 10s.
The theoretical fourth wave is often called twitter feminism, and i think it’s best to consider that the first real thing it did that impacted anything was the metoo movement. I believe metoo was a good thing. It’s next to the Arab spring as among the few things Twitter ever did that are good. But it and the late third wave criticisms gave room for the sex negative side to return to prominence. That’s where we are now, but I dont think it will last.
Because I think we need to remember that while there is an internal back and forth, there’s also the realpolitik of the fact that you can pull horny people if nobody else does. A chunk of gamergate is straight up that. Shining feminist media critiques through the worst possible lens to horny boys and men. Anyways the right has dropped their horny-prude coalition recently and is all in on prude, which is coinciding with chunks of the left getting tired of the dominant position of our prudes.
Anyways free the nipple, and what 20 consenting adults do behind closed doors is their right to do.
Since you seem knowledgeable, maybe I’ll bug you about something I’ve wondered about?
Did you notice a significant (huge by my measure) increase in attempts at polyamory for a period of time? As in, that trend seemed to have almost a start and an end, and a real big swell in the middle. And if so, any comments on how that fits into your timeline overview above? Some of your thoughts sound like they may point to this but I certainly don’t want to put words in your mouth.
Anecdotally, it seems to me like I watched a huge chunk of my (significantly) younger sister’s generation get themselves into plural relationships, then realize after a year or two of various attempts (often including some serious abuse) that actually they didn’t like that idea at all.
And don’t get me wrong, I absolutely encourage people to try what they are curious about, it’s a tragedy to spend a life never exploring what one might like. But that phenomena with polyamory / plural relationships in particular stuck out to me, largely because many of the people I saw try it had never previously indicated even remote interest in similar, some behaved fairly jealously toward their partners actually. It felt like a strange societal motivation, some kind of soft cultural pressure among peers, to go for it. And I personally never witnessed a positive outcome, either (which is not me saying that no one should live that way if they enjoy it, or that no one can find it genuinely fulfilling, healthy, and preferable). And for those with clear gender lines in the plural relationships, it was always polygynous - never polyandrous (please let me know if those terms are offensive). Felt like weaponized sexual liberation, frankly, by horny dudes, but that’s me making some possibly unfair leaps and introducing my own bias into the interpretation.
I guess more than anything else I was just struck by what felt like a wave in popularity, followed by an accompanying wave of “oh, nah fuck that actually, forever”. Was interesting to watch. Any thoughts?
(Disclaimer: this can be a thorny topic, anyone should feel free to correct anything I’ve misrepresented, misunderstood, or just been unkind about, I’m not a jerk on purpose usually).
Kinda, I’m actually polyamorous myself and most of my social circle still is. But I’ve heard of what you described. In my circles it’s been a lot more women lead and queer though. I think a lot of people jumped in without breaking their mental monogamy as well. Polyamory can be difficult, and for a lot of people especially those who jump in without thinking or who began their relationship monogamous it can be a spectacular shitshow, much like many relationships where incompatible desires are present or where people go in without knowing how to do it well.
I once had a relationship that I think a lot of my ex’s friends probably see as exactly like you described. We began monogamous, it was my first relationship and it was in the mid 10s, and within a year I realized monogamy wasn’t for me. So we opened up, then did full poly, got engaged, and she realized she couldn’t do poly. She pressured me into monogamy (I had been willing to call it quits) and I hated it. It was an ugly breakup that she likely blames on me pressuring her into polyamory. Funny enough a few months after the breakup when I wasn’t looking for anything serious I met someone else who’d recently had a breakup over wanting to stay poly, and we’re happily married with a clear mutual understanding that neither of us is open to closing the relationship.
Well thanks for the interesting perspective and I’m very glad to hear it wasn’t so one-sided everywhere, and that you’ve seen a lot more positives! Everything you said about causes of strife makes perfect sense to me and I would imagine those feature heavily for folks who try it out due to simple curiosity or pressure from a partner.
I would imagine, too, that sexual trends exhibit regionality and that they diffuse across regions over time and at uneven rates, much like any other cultural trend. Though of course a lot of cultural diffusion has gotten effectively instant thanks to tech - I remember “back in the day” you could travel from a (US) coast to the Midwest and find everyone basically 10-20 years behind cultural trends, from slang to hairstyles, to dress.
I wonder if relationships and dating and such, being a much slower process in general than changing styles of dress or speech, still have some of that interesting old-school slower diffusion, or more regional pockets anyway.
Anyway, enough baseless speculation from me - cheers and have a good one!
(Edit: I hope it didn’t sound like I’m calling your chosen romantic style itself a trend - I would never, when I call polyamory a “trend” I am referring exclusively to folks who did behave exactly as if it were any other fad that came and went, just with way heavier consequences)
Yeah I think a lot of people’s perceptions of polyamory come from it being different from what people are used to resulting in things like frequency biases (watch someone do something they don’t have the skills for and have 3 bad breakups at once rather than over 3 years, even though each lasted the same amount of time), differing points of failure (boundaries of monogamy are assumed natural even though there are disagreements and therefore monogamy is assumed unrelated to the failure, meanwhile if rather than cheating being the cause of failure its someone neglecting an existing partner for a new one, then polyamory gets blamed), polyamory giving people enough rope to hang themselves, and the tendency for it to be a mid relationship change in the basic expectations and rules of the relationship which is something always fraught. I also think people go in not realizing that most of the good ones are already polysaturated and it’s largely the train wrecks and partner hoarders that are constantly seriously looking.
And yeah I think it may be geographic but I think its less that and more subcultural. Being involved in queer and kinky irl scenes led to be being in communities with people who’d been nonmonogamous since well before it was cool and who’d already had expectations of high communication skills.
Like, I don’t think central ohio managed to just be way better at polyamory than most places, though I do think some local cultures still remain
