(In our world, most adults view videogames as serving one purpose, a nerd's substitute for a real life. The 40 year old virgin's center piece in his home. The hobby of repressed psychopaths like the Columbine Killers. But if this were true, why would the gaming industry be the largest growing entertainment movement today? That's right kids, video games aren't just for nerds and psychos. They are many things to many people. This series of essays will explore just exactly what that statement means.)

A lot of video games are pornographic. That doesn't mean that they contain adult content, or are even particularly offensive. What video games can do, perhaps more than any other medium, is let us release urges that we can't release any other way. That's what porn is all about.

Kurt Vonnoagut was a writer. If you are a video game fan, you've probably never heard of him. He wrote a book called Breakfast of Champions. It has a lot of little drawings in it. One of the drawings that appear more than once in the story is the drawing of an asshole. The drawing looks like this.



In this story, there is a science fiction writer named Kilgore Trout. This writer wrote a story about an alien race that is much like the human race, except the only food they had was burnt out, coal like nuggets. I can't remember what happened to their real food, I think it was destroyed in a big war or something. the point is they had food they could eat, but the food was totally disgusting and they hated it.

This alien race had a whole different concept of pornography. To these aliens, to whom sex was neither repressed or idealised, our pornography seemed tame, almost boring. When they watched porno, they wanted something else. Their hottest porn consisted of a family eating a huge table of food for an hour and a half. At the end, the family was totally gorged, covered in sauce and scraps. And as final "money shot" they throw the dog some hamburger. I'm not even going to get into what they did for prostitution.



Food Porn.

I see many video games being the same kind of pornography as the fictional aliens had. We have more biological needs than just sex. Video games meet these needs for us. Pokemon meets these needs. Halo meets these needs. They are porn.

Just like sexual pornography, these "porn games" can have sequel after sequel adding nearly nothing to the "formula" and still keep fans completely enthralled. Anal Intruders #89 = Pokemon Diamond and Pearl = Trained Teens #7 = Halo 3. Pokemon meets our biological need to explore, collect, and nurture. Halo meets our need to band with others in hunting parties and kill each other. Those are our "gather and mother porn" and "hunt and kill porn" games, respectively. These games let us express instincts that in our culture aren't quite as repressed as our sexual urges, but if we lived in a society where cultivating a small army of furry animals or engaging in violent compatitions with our peers was taboo, you could bet that Pokemon and Halo would be rated XXX.



Hot gang-bang action.

Although it may sound like I'm making a case for gamers to be ashamed of being gamers in yet another way, this couldn't be farther from the truth. Gaming meets biological urges we all have. To be drawn to outlets for these urges is completely normal for everybody, male or female, old or young, etc etc. If you don't like video games, you are probably suffering from some serious internalized repression.

Next time, What is Video Game (?) Part Two: High Art