Lets talk about sex

Warning, contains strong language and images of a sexual nature.

So having done my little piece of gaming growing up and touching on the subject of sex in video games very briefly, and seeing as everyone else I though what the hey I might as well try and bring a different view to the subject and suggest that videogames aren’t that far off reality.
I know shock horror and all that but as a guy who in the past lived in university halls the idea of real world sex and people hooking up isn’t some alien concept and you can relate some things pretty well to video games. So let’s take a look.

The first one being sex turning into something more. Two people meet hook up and have sex and realise they actually have feelings for one another. They realise there is more to their relationship than sex.
Well Thomas was alone does. That’s right a game where you play as shapes manages to pull off a relationship like this with Chris and Laura. Don’t believe me hu ? Well this is part of the actual game dialogue.



That’s right. This is a realistic portrayal of sex, I saw it happen twice in my time at uni within my social group as such.




So now onto the next one. The Hook up. There may or may not be feelings but the people involved decide to go for it, it might not last beyond that night but for whatever reason be it fear of being alone that night or whatever else they hook up. This happens in reality, I can think of a fair few examples that happened. It also happens in video games too. From Legend of Dragoon to the sex scenes in the first Mass Effect and even Fahrenheit/Indigo Prophecy manages ones of these. Sure it may not be obvious in Legend of Dragoon, but it was there. The prince coming out for the bedroom of another Royal families princess’s bedroom late at night ? And nothing happened ?



Sometimes these meet ups / hook ups can happen multiple times with the same people they aren’t ready for a relationship or don’t want one beyond the hook ups. So again, videogames show another aspect of the reality of sex. Now before anyone says “oh that’s unrealistic people don’t just hook up” Had I not been in a relationship at the time I had easily 3 offers of such a thing. That’s 3 offers despite me being the less attractive dopple ganger of this guy.



Oddly works very well in night clubs, you'd be surprised at how many girls will come over asking for pictures with me
Heck hook ups can even be with Ex’s due to feeling still existing, again Fahrenheit/Indigo Prophecy manages to explore this angle with Lucas and his ex.




The “player”
So this is the one for the person who actually “plays the field” they sleep with women and can seemingly have 2 or more on the go at once, it happens in reality and in games in the world of GTA, it happens there too. Both San Andreas and to a greater extent GTAIV means you can be a player and have multiple women on the go at once. I’m not saying this is good I’m just saying it’s realistic. Also if you are a “player”, be safe.



The sexually open
Human beings are sexual creatures and some people are more open about sex than others. Some people can seemingly happily hop from one sexual encounter to another and have everyone seemingly realise there’s no strings attached. The best example I can think for this is probably Witcher 2 because it really is the characters simply having sex without any deep feeling, without anyone after more and without there being any kind further development between them.




So finally, sex in a happy relationship.
See now initially I never thought it was possible for a game to manage this but yet it does. I thought about and well, as it turns out there are games that manage to play sex in a happy relationship off well. From the sexy photos of the newest splatterhouse game showing a rather sexually open-ness to the relationship (heck apparently sexting has become all the rage so it’s not unrealistic). Then there’s the quite intense sex seen in once again Fahrenheit/Indigo Prophecy between Tyler and his girlfriend Samantha.




Now do videogames need to more graphically show it ? Well maybe those that planned too. Mass Effect being a big example of where it was toned down for the sequel. You see games like many films don’t need explicit sex for it to work and be effective. In reality videogames seemingly are managing a pretty good representation of the real world and while some might object saying they don’t feel much, sex in games is like knowing someone else is having sex. Sure they might be your friend but it’s not you and as such you don’t feel anything, even in games with you playing the protagonist it takes extra effort to make people feel much, that however doesn’t mean that the sex is badly used, it often does server its purpose. A purpose which isn’t and shouldn’t be merely for titillating the player and can be used to further the plot.

So with that I leave you with a few finals bits.
When I look up at the night sky and see the millions upon millions of stars, each with millions of planets orbiting them, I think to myself somewhere out there some-ones having sex. The lucky smeghead......



Don’t have nightmares now.