Passion and Play

A Guide to Designing Sexual Content in Games

Michelle Clough

• Publisher: CRC Press
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781000570564
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Computer Science
• Subtopic: Computer Science General
• Index: Computer Science

Hoping to add some steam and sex to your next game? Then this book is for you. This practical guide provides you with the foundational tools needed to write, design, and create healthy sexual content in video games in ways that are narratively compelling, varied, and hot! Challenging the assumptions that sex in games is superfluous, exploitative, or only of interest to straight guys, this book encourages designers to create meaningful, enjoyable sexual content for all audiences.

Using examples from well-known AAA games (and some standout indie content!), each chapter provides a framework to guide game writers, designers, and developers through the steps of creating and executing sexual content in their games – from early concept, to setting it up in larger game narrative, and finally to executing specific sexual scenes and sequences. It also lays out a host of details and considerations that, while easily missed or forgotten, can have a major impact on the quality or theme of the scene.

Offering expert insight and ideas for creating sex scenes in games, this book is vital reading for game designers, writers, and narrative designers who are interested in making games with sexual content. It will also appeal to artists, cutscene directors, audio engineers, composers, and programmers working on these games – or really, any game developer with an interest in the topic!

PART 1 Sex, Games, and Culture

CHAPTER 1 What This Book Is (And Isn't)

DOI: 10.1201/9780429356650-2

WHEN I BEGAN THIS project, my goal was to provide a comprehensive catch-all book for explaining literally anything and everything to do with sex and sex scenes in games, with foolproof instructions on how to do amazing, sexy, universally appealing sex scenes that would work in every single game possible, along with in-depth information for every single discipline involved that ensured that devs, together, would find The One Right Way to do sex scenes.

This bold ambition lasted all of about…oh…five minutes (Figure 1.1).

FIGURE 1.1 “Okay, I've gotten as far as writing ‘sex scenes in games are…’ and already I'm seeing problems.” (Rido/Shutterstock.com)

For one thing, the topic of sex in games is, like, big. Really big. You could write entire books about one single aspect of it, possibly aspects I haven’t even thought of – anything from technical instructions on how to do kisses in the Unreal Engine to the queering of game mechanics in “non-sexual” indie games that are, in fact, Totally About Sex. If I wanted to cover every single possible angle and topic, it would take me upward of a decade to write this book, and it would be roughly the length of the entire series of A Song of Ice and Fire, but with even less end in sight, particularly with new sexy games coming out all the time. So sadly, as much as I wanted to cover every related topic in this book, there are going to be some…gaps (Figure 1.2).

FIGURE 1.2 Yeah, kinda like that. (Songdech Kothmongkol/Shutterstock.com)

For another, sex is…a subjective topic, to put it mildly. There IS no “one-size-fits-all” approach to sex among games because, well, there’s no such thing for humanity in general! There’s the obvious aspect of sexuality as a whole – queerness, heterosexuality, asexuality, and the infinite diversity within those. But even beyond that, sex can be very personal! What really appeals to one person might do nothing for another, and even disgust a third. That can extend to anything from one-night stands to certain sex acts, as well as how those things are depicted in media. Everyone has their own perspective on sex, and while some perspectives may be “wrong” in terms of harm or bias, there’s no “right” perspective on sex so much as “right for that person.” And while I have done my best to make this book accessible and useful for everyone, my approach is of course influenced by my perspective, and a privileged one at that (cis, straight, white, abled, etc.) So how could a single book, written from mostly a single perspective, offer The One Right Way to do sex scenes when there is no such thing?

The answer is that it doesn’t – it doesn’t even try. What this book WILL try to do is to give you the tools you need so that YOU can find The Right Way To Do Sex Scenes for YOUR Game.

So, before we get into the meat of the topic, I wanted to go over a little about what this book is (and is not) so that you, gentle reader, know what to expect in the pages ahead.

This book is…a flexible toolbox with both best practices and self-evaluation

I originally started talking about sex in games partly out of frustration that few people were discussing how to actually develop the craft behind them – when people did discuss sex scenes, it was in big generalities like “lots of sex scenes present sex as pure titillation” or “we need more mature representations of sex.” Fantastic, but what do those scenes actually look like, how are they made, and what is the impact of the creative choices made? This is something where the composition of a shot, the nature of a player interaction, or even the light that the artists use can heavily influence how the scene plays out and how the players interpret it. So why are we not talking about THAT? And if we do talk about that…maybe we can learn what to do – and what to avoid – in more sexual content in the future?

That, at its core, is the genesis of this book – to provide a framework of questions, details, and things to consider for game developers who might NOT have thought of these things before crafting a game with sex scenes or sexual content. By taking all the details that developers have to consider for non-sexual scenes – what’s the impact of this light choice? How do we respect player agency? How much is too much dialogue? How does this work into the larger arc of the game? – and applying them specifically to sex and sexual themes, there is plenty to think about as you move forward on your sexy projects.

To that end, every chapter in this book will feature a “workshop questions” component at the end – a series of questions for you to apply the principles covered in that chapter, both in creating your own sexual game content and in analyzing how other games apply those principles.

My hope for this book is that those who read it will be introduced to aspects of sex scene creation they may never have considered before. More importantly, I want it to help readers and developers evaluate their own creations by asking and answering questions about how they approach this content, examining their larger themes and goals, and bringing a new level of attention and care to the details that make a scene come alive. Whether this book serves as simple inspiration or a framework to build on, its intent is to empower you to identify and build sex scenes in the way that best suits your needs.

In other words, the only person/people who can really know how to present sex in a way that matches your game and enhances it…are YOU and your team. You are the expert about your game, after all. This book is just here to help you apply that expertise to the fullest, and in ways you might not have considered.

That’s not to say that you’ll be thrown completely to the wolves, dear reader! This book does include plenty of suggestions of things to do (or things to avoid) as well as some best practices for presenting sex in games. However, these are intended to be fluid and flexible. If something in this book isn’t working for you, I give full and hearty permission to throw it out and try something else…but my hope is that it will at least work as a starting point to make your job easier and your sex scenes hotter and more engaging.

This book is NOT…a set-in-stone list of dos and don’ts

However, if you purchased this book hoping for the perfect recipe that would solve sex scenes forever, I’m afraid this is where I must disappoint you. As discussed above, there is no One Right Way to do sex scenes because there is no One Right Way to have sex (besides, well, consensually). For every “don’t,” there’s a player out there who would genuinely enjoy that thing; for every “do,” there’s someone who would find it boring or repulsive or just Not Their Thing.

Beyond the larger question of individual sexual preference, however, there’s also the game-specific question of craft, execution, and even genre. What works for a sex scene is entirely dependent on the game you’re making, whether it’s gameplay, tone, or characters. Learning the perfect way to craft a romantic, tender, uplifting scene between two idealized fantasy heroes is great and all, but if you’re making a grim and gritty modern shooter with a bleak outlook on humanity, that’s not exactly going to fit unless it’s in a very deliberate, carefully done way.

Actual execution, be it technical or creative, can also throw “dos” and “don’ts” out the window. We all know that, in game development, there are often massive gaps between the developers’ vision and what they are finally able to put on the screen and in players’ hands. Similarly, there are plenty of games (or other media) that, on paper, sound like a terrible idea, yet end up working with excellent execution. Sex scenes are no different; every “do” could be ruined by tech issues, bad writing, or just general bad execution, while for every “don’t,” you could probably find a game that actually manages to pull it off!

Again, that’s not to say there won’t be plenty of recommendations and advice in this book, both in terms of what to do or what to avoid. But again, none of this is set in stone, and if you genuinely believe that something I recommend against is the right call for your game, then have at it! Just be sure you’ve taken a careful, thoughtful look at why you’re doing it; make sure you have a full understanding of what you are choosing to do and to present, and what its impact is. That, in the end, is the real goal of this book – to help you get that understanding.

This book is…a guide for presenting consensual, sex-positive depictions of sex in games

Sex positivity is a philosophy that recognizes sexuality of all forms as a natural, healthy part of human experience, as well as advocating for consent, sovereignty, and safer sex practices. This is not the same as saying “everything must be sex all the time!” or “everyone has to have lots of (casual) sex” or “people should be able to have sex without regard to their partners or people around them.” Rather, it is understanding that people should be free to enjoy the sex (or lack thereof!) that appeals to them, as long as it’s safe, consensual, and healthy – that it doesn’t matter whether you’ve slept with one person, a thousand people, or no one at all, as long as you (and your partners) are content and respected.

This book aims to apply that philosophy to games, characters, and narratives – to present sexuality, sexual themes, and sexual scenes and moments as natural parts of the world and of the characters’ lives, as opposed to something shocking or controversial or “dirty” (the sex-negative approach). This means resisting the urge to write off explicit sexual content as “pornographic” – not only is this inaccurate, but frankly, the idea that “pornographic = bad” is very sex-negative to begin with! A sex-positive approach to games also means being willing to treat sex frankly, openly, and without judgment. It means exploring ways to portray sex with maturity and nuance while also acknowledging that yes, sometimes we just like to have a hot sex scene with hot characters, and that’s perfectly fine. It is an approach that embraces sexual pleasure, both that of the players and that of the characters, and treats designing and writing toward that pleasure with respect and consideration.

Note that this sex-positive approach does not mean that EVERY depiction of sex has to be glowingly positive. There is certainly narrative room to explore consensual sexual activity that is a bit more “negative” – cynical, unhealthy, or just not very pleasurable. This is, after all, part of how sex can play out in the real world. While a lot of the advice in this book is geared toward creating sex scenes that are hot and/or moving to the player, you’ll find plenty of suggestions about how to explore more complicated sexual moments. The point is, whether your sexual scenes are passionately romantic, casually hot, or deeply cynical, you and your team should be open to exploring the full range of consensual sexuality, and comfortable considering how and why characters might pursue sex, want sex, or agree to sex, and how they express agency in exploring those aspects.

This book is NOT…to be used as a guide for depicting sexual violence in games

The material in this book is geared toward designing depictions of consensual se...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication Page
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Author
• Introduction
• Part 1 Sex, Games, and Culture
• Part 2 Sex and Pre-Production
• Part 3 Sex in the Larger Game Structure
• Part 4 The Craft of Sex Scenes
• Afterword
• Bibliography
• Index