Why do American gamers hate sex or sexiness in their game?

[Deleted member 440241]

It's one thing i've always found hilarious.

Violence on TV - Americans - GIVE ME MOAR.

Nipple flash on TV - Americans - WON'T SOMEONE THINK OF THE CHILDREN.

It really isn't that strange when you think about it for more than 5 seconds. Any child can understand that pain is bad so you shouldn't do things that cause other people to feel pain. How do you explain sex to a child that thinks kissing is the grossest thing ever? How do you convince teens that sex is kind of a big deal, that should be handled safely and responsibly, when they see it on full display in most of the media they consume? It's much easier to enjoy the spectacle of violence while condemning the practice than it is with sex.

That's totally fine. I in no way think that every game or movie or whatever needs to have sex or violence in it. But I think the broader debate here, and the one that really underscores the major problem with the prevailing attitude toward sex and violence in mass media releases, is whether or not every mainstream game/movie/TV show/etc. needs to pass the "I could show this to my prudish Christian mom without her disowning me" test.

A lot of this boils down to potential customers. A movie with a PG-13 rating has far more room to make a profit than something with an R rating. I will agree that parents hold the responsibility for paying attention to ratings. And studios/producers need to better understand that appealing to a specific core audience is better in the long term than compromising on every aspect just to get a slightly broader appeal. But at the end of the day that decision is being made by sales numbers, not by complaints from prudish Christian moms... with the key exception of prudish Chinese censors because China is over 1 billion people to potentially sell to.

 

[Avaron1974]

It really isn't that strange when you think about it for more than 5 seconds. Any child can understand that pain is bad so you shouldn't do things that cause other people to feel pain. How do you explain sex to a child that thinks kissing is the grossest thing ever? How do you convince teens that sex is kind of a big deal, that should be handled safely and responsibly, when they see it on full display in most of the media they consume? It's much easier to enjoy the spectacle of violence while condemning the practice than it is with sex.

Therein lies the entire problem.

It's because sex is hidden away and seen as this big taboo that we have so many teen pregnancies.

No one wants to explain it to them and when it's shown people are horrified yet it's been the biggest part of humanity since the cavemen first drew cave boobs.

 

[Yngling]

It really isn't that strange when you think about it for more than 5 seconds. Any child can understand that pain is bad so you shouldn't do things that cause other people to feel pain. How do you explain sex to a child that thinks kissing is the grossest thing ever? How do you convince teens that sex is kind of a big deal, that should be handled safely and responsibly, when they see it on full display in most of the media they consume? It's much easier to enjoy the spectacle of violence while condemning the practice than it is with sex.

That's a really good analogy.

In my opinion however, from an education to children perspective, the important thing is the context in which the sex happens.

Sex itself is simply a mechanical act which is hopefully pleasurable for both parties. I don't see anything wrong with that. Nor do I see much wrong with showing body parts that 50% of the population has.

However what I think is more damaging to a child is the context. Rape is an obvious one, and is generally approached with the required caution in movies / tv series. But cheating or casual one night stands may be just as damaging but appear to be the norm in many movies / tv series. The same with the idea that a girl losing her virginity in the back seat of a car is somehow normal A completely strange (not to mention uncomfortable) concept to me, but given how often it is portrayed, it must be somewhat common...

It's because sex is hidden away and seen as this big taboo that we have so many teen pregnancies.

I think that it is rather due to not teaching children about good life choices.

Some people say that poverty is a choice.
I don't necessarily agree with that.

But, at least in most countries, it is a choice to get a decent education.
It's a choice not to get addicted to drugs and/or alcohol.
It's also a choice to have sex or not.

If you fuck ( ) up one of these three, then avoiding poverty will be much harder.

"Coincidentally", these things tend to "happen" much more often to lower class people.
And, although they are not helping, I don't think you can entirely blame them on movies or tv series, nor on an upbringing which attempts to hide sex.

 

[Omae wa shinda]

Because the weak gamer can't focus when they are aroused unlike the pro gamer, they just tough it out meanwhile godlike gamer don't care at all and karen are blaming the game for nudity and exposed skin is going affect the children.

Jokewise, people need a thing to hate at and the so called sexiness game are just right target
Parent well being parent need to protect their kid from early exposure on sex

I mean those are the "sexy" games , semi-objectified women, sexy woman armor , kinky man , half naked bulky man , weirdly anime

Sex games however it quite different topic and you don't get it publicly (unless super duper popular for "REASONS")(I'm looking at you steam) and you need to search for them to even play them.

 

[zenbear]

So I got some news for the people that think you can hide this stuff from kids. They have 100% already had access to porn of some kind especially in the internet age. It's best that if your teaching kids about sex that it comes from you or someone trained to teach this sort of thing in a responsible way because other wise they are gonna learn from porn and woo boy is reality gonna slap them in the face hard. I remember reading a psychological study that suggested that a lot of kids these days are learning about sex from hentai and just....that's a bit worrisome to say the least. The Karens of the world are doing a shitty job of parenting.

 

[Enigmanic]

The problem is a very vocal group of people pretending to represent the majority so they can con others into adopting their viewpoints. The haters are not the majority and to quote a popular idiom, different strokes for different folks.

In response to the OP, KemonoPadstudio - You're not alone, adult ttrpg's have a strong following. There are plenty of mature roleplaying groups in Discord and other communities. I myself have been running two erotic D&D campaigns through Discord and Roll20 for about five years now. Adult roleplaying isn't for everyone but there's definitely a demographic for it.

The problem with adult video games is that too many content creators make a joke out of it. If you're not a good writer and your adult game has cheesy writing and dialog, we can excuse that as long as the game offers good gameplay and decent erotic content. But many CC's try to downplay their amateur writing by intentionally making the game silly and juvenile.

Thus, the majority of adult games end up being silly and juvenile which turns off a lot of people from exploring adult video games. It hurts the entire medium and the overall fanbase.

 

[xxxDestroyerxxx]

For the tabletop community:

The tabletop comunity itself is a niche in a niche community. I have played tabltetop too and in my opinion erotic does not belong there as long the content of the said tabletop game is erotic itself.

When i was playing tabletop i was meeting up with my buddies to slay evil xenos as mighty space marines. It would be more than wierd when one of the space marines would have turned around and "drowend the eldar in gallons of cum".

I am not from the USA but when it comes down to sexuality in a society there a more than enough societies which are way more prude than the US american one. Strictly speaking look at chinese or korean society. On a daily conext this societies are way more prude and regulatory than the US society. Even Thai society is a very conservative society.

The japanese society too. And in the last years the japanese governement in coming down on porn games and hentai hard too. They are just not making a fuss out of that. It goes quietly but steady.

And the world today has split very hard into east and west block again, sadly. With completely different values. And even in this blocks there is a split too in the societies themselves again.

People just have to know what is "officially accpeted" on the forefront of that society and what is really going on. For the US soceity today the best example would be this: "Everybody is a strong supporter of woke and other movements" , "But in reallity people live their life quietly and are ignoring the daily agenda"

It was the same for the former soviet union. Everybody pretended to be a "good communist". While going to the black market in the evening and buying the new tape of "Modern Talking".

 

[Basilicata]

It's not my kink and it does make me feel uncomfortable having to play it out. This has nothing to do with being a prude, I just don't want to do this kind of erotic role play with random guys or even my friends.

Tabletop RPGs are probably a weird place to bring sex unless you're specifically playing a sexual game with people you're willing to bang. I don't want to sit down with non-sexual friends, or total strangers in some cases, and RP a full sexual encounter with a female NPC created by a male GM.

I totally agree with these (I had a personal experience too and it was awkward, weird and kinda ruined my game). It might be a personal thing. I mean, some dudes find it natural to masturbate while watching porn, TOGETHER!
RPGs rely on imagination. I used to run a campaign and my players were art students. Their imagination run wild. They made paintings, sculptures even poems! When I'm too deep in my imagination, the last thing I want to imagine is a dwarf named Bangor, raping a male orc shaman!
The same applies when I watch Lord Of The Rings! I wouldn't want to see a naked boob or sex if it's not relevant with the plot.
In conclusion, imho some things are better left 'vanilla'. I might like poker with my friends but I'm sure I'll ruin poker night if I even say "Hey,let's play strip poker!".

 

[Pervtron3000]

Probably just needs to be announced beforehand what degree of sexuality will be involved in the game, and by what norms.
By traditional 90s norms, for my generation at least, a dnd game would probably be fine with a traditional seduction element if the character is female, the player is female, and it was her idea.
If you are a dude, yeah sorry life isn’t fair.
Not how I'd have it, just how it is/How I've seen it in my life. Your mileage may vary.

 

[Rafster]

It's difficult but it COULD work if, for example, the group is a full gay guys/lesbian girls ...and I still see some issues if people don't like to talk about sex openly in public.

In an hetero mixed group...even more difficult, and the women might not like when the DM says "and a horde of goblins raped the female paladin and left her pregnant".

And forget about it in an hetero guys group. Just...forget it.

 

[Enigmanic]

It's difficult but it COULD work if, for example, the group is a full gay guys/lesbian girls ...and I still see some issues if people don't like to talk about sex openly in public.

In an hetero mixed group...even more difficult, and the women might not like when the DM says "and a horde of goblins raped the female paladin and left her pregnant".

And forget about it in an hetero guys group. Just...forget it.

That's not necessarily true. In the two online erotic ttrp campaigns I run I've had three female players and eight male players. Amongst them three are bisexual and the rest are straight.

 

[Hagatagar]

It's difficult but it COULD work if, for example, the group is a full gay guys/lesbian girls ...and I still see some issues if people don't like to talk about sex openly in public.

In an hetero mixed group...even more difficult, and the women might not like when the DM says "and a horde of goblins raped the female paladin and left her pregnant".

And forget about it in an hetero guys group. Just...forget it.

This issue has not much to do with gender and sexuality.

If you have somewhat experienced roleplayers, it doesn't make much difference what gender they are. It's more your own preference and how open you like to play around with that topic.

Spoiler: Some anecdotes

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[okmedoit2]

I've loved it in gaming. I remember it fondly in The Witcher 1. Had a vampire brothel with the option of don't kill us we'll be your free vamp cum dumpsters. Felt like, FINALLY. Those are the sorta choices I like to make. (I didn't kill em).

They even gave you a little collectible trading card in game for every girl or monster girl you banged. THATS HOW GWENT SHOULDVE BEEN in tw3. TW3 disappointed me a little in that aspect, because it had the brothels-"fine", but you never once got to bang a succubus as payment for not killing her, lady of the lake, all that. Made the choices less real. Even TW2 kept it up some and it also went in less MG stuff, I think you might've still been able to tag teamed a succubus with dandelion. I dunno. I do know you had to fetch harpy feathers to help a guy crossdress lol.

So it's not me, I love to run into it. If anything I'm terribly bored of excessive violence, which the culture seems to worship. I don't see how.

 

[edod5]

By Americans, I assume you meant USA... and the answer to your question should be found at the "PC culture" and all those "#metoo" and similar things. (I'm not saying they are bad but everything has its time and place.)

 

[Multy2k]

I don't know why, but the subject of sex, nudity, flirting or having a pretty girl or a tone guy who look like they take a bath every once in, well, in their lives in a game tends to cause many people to utterly lose their shit.

Once I tried to ask about making a tabletop rpg with sex rules on reddit, and they utterly lost their mind over it, calling me a perv, a monster, a bad person and wished me to just vanish and die. This incident along with noticing the common element in RPG horror stories is, outside of mainly being bullshit, is "a player is horny for a character, they are bad for bringing sex to my murder fantasies!".

I look up tabletop rpg games in Japan and not only are they open to cute girls doing naughty things, there is actually a few sex based games that feel like an 1980's OVA.

I bring this up on RPGnet, because I tried to talk about how the rpg community seems to have this hate towards both anime fans and adult furries due to them actually enjoying sex and it started with a few posters saying that hate has no place in their community the following posters were basically saying, "yeah, murder them, they suck and I don't want them at my table because it gets in the way of the murder."

Mate. Different zone had different tastes...

Do not kill yourself over it...

If I ever mention hentai in some religious zone, I will probably got a sermon or an arrow to the knee
If I ever mention religious teachings in the thieves den, I will probably got a look or an arrow right between the eyes

 

[arcaos]

There seems to be some cultural memory loss about when games try to pander to horny people. Obviously I have no problems with sex and sexuality or I wouldn’t be a dev, but it is genuinely horrifying to see multi million AAA companies attempting it.

Can I interest you in a bored Kratos getting some ass in God of War 3? Boy, I sure feel like a Chad when I push the buttons to do the sex.

Spoiler

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Maybe you want the titty level from Dante’s Inferno? Did they make the game any more memorable? Nope.

Spoiler

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Or how about OG video game pervert Duke Nukem getting NTR’d by aliens? You get to shoot the forcibly impregnated girls. Fun.

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So no, nobody is afraid of sex in media. If anything, I wish they would be more afraid so they try thinking for at least half a second about what the boobies that some poor animator will have to work on for 3 months will actually add to the game.

 

[ayushiest]

Because slaying a dragon in a violent way or shooting a bunch of aliens is obviously fiction, but sex is very real and people have very strong opinions about it, especially letting children see it.

 

[Winterfire]

Sex in Tabletop games can, and should be done. It is part of the world you live in, and depending on where you live, it is more likely that setting features prostitution and brothels.

However, there is a big difference between roleplaying the whole thing and making the whole thing awkward and cringe, and just make a few rolls for fun and a few laughes.
Spending the night at a brothel, or with a prostitute, could be a trait of your character (like the classic rogue lady-killer type of figure, or just a pervert mage), and there is nothing wrong with that if you are playing among adults.

An example:
"While walking the streets, I look for a brothel." (Roll, if necessary)

*DM describes the brothel* (And theme, if it is not just a normal plain brothel).

Then I spend my hard earned gold, and rest for the night with a prostitute (or two) on my side, roll for pleasure (Homebrew roll made up by the DM, obviously... Usually involving Charisma and Constitution, for obvious reasons).

Done.
No awkwardness, no cringe, and it offers some other funny opportunities as well...
Imagine if you have a mortal enemy race (Rangers, if I remember correctly), and you'd find a brothel housing that race... What would your character do?

 

[ThtsMyScrtCapImAlwysHorny]

In short: we're surrounded by what some call "social justice warriors" on the left and the ideological descendants of the Puritan Christian pilgrims on the right. The former think any sex that doesn't start with consent contracts signed in triplicate and notarized is rape and the latter think vaginas are haunted by demons and an angel commits suicide whenever you touch your dick.

Imagine if you have a mortal enemy race (Rangers, if I remember correctly), and you'd find a brothel housing that race... What would your character do?

https://f95zone.to/threads/goblin-layer-v0-36-3-parodos.89175/

 

[MandyF]

I'd rather not get too political, but it's a combination of the long-lasting effects of puritanism and the current feminist school of thought regarding sex in media. You get the older, frumpier types that find it "gross" and the younger, whinier types that find it "objectifying". The US has always been a sexually repressive country in some ways, and a shockingly sexualized country in other ways.

Like, He-Man. Nobody finds it weird that a kids cartoon featured a super ultra buff dude wearing nothing but a fur speedo, boots and some weird metal BDSM thing on his chest. For gods sake, you can even see a bulge half the time. Meanwhile, even remotely sexually attractive women in children's media (not sexualized, merely attractive) is seen as bizarre, uncomfortable and unfit for kids to see. It goes back to deeply rooted ideas of women being chaste and incapable of lust, and men being horny animals that have to be contained and trained in order to not go wild. Both conceptions are completely false, but have yet to go away.

America is just uncomfortable with sexuality in general. Not all Americans, but American society, y'know?