Sex Ed 101 for Video Games

1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF JUNE 18 | GENDER, SEXUALITY, AND VIDEO GAMES

Sex Ed 101 for Video Games

Cover Story: Learning to build a better game from film, music, and literature.

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‘m a whole lot younger than the medium of video games, but I’m confident that I have the ability to discuss the birds and the bees in a slightly more mature manner without giggling and pointing at the sight of an exposed breast. Sadly, the same can’t be said of a vast majority of games, which may be growing in terms of narrative and presentation, but still remain in a stunted state of arrested development when it comes to anything sexual. Too many video games deal with sex and sexuality by using the same tact as a soft-core porno, only with slightly better music. Having the camera nearly molest an anatomically incorrect digitized facsimile of a female isn’t sexy; it’s just kind of pathetic.

I can’t help but feel like many video game developers, publishers, journalists, and even the characters themselves could use a thorough lesson in how great art deals with the vast concept of sexuality in intelligent and mature ways. This lesson could very easily resemble an introductory college course that focuses not on the titillating, but on the thought-provoking. If our medium as a whole were to enroll in Sex Ed 101, a three credit course that focused on how to maturely covey the various facets of sexuality, it would be wise to take a good look at how other forms of art tackle the subject. Specifically, how three masters of their craft were able to take topics once considered verboten, and weave them in so tightly with their own respective art.