A word about sex in media

I just read Rich Stanton's piece Why Can't Games Do Sex?

Although I appreciate the insightful review on sex and video games, I have to disagree with the basic premise, which is: sex is a natural thing, so we should deal with it naturally. That includes, of course, having sex on videogames.

This has been discussed before in my blog.

I'll use myself as reference for my argument, but in this regard, I think I'm a pretty standard person, so I hope it's generalizable.

I've played a few Hentai games before... like True Love and Hentai Sim Brothel (which inspired Marvel Brothel). Though they're pretty ok games, I felt a little impatient while playing them. That is because, knowing I was playing a game full of sex and naked chicks, I wasn't really in the mood for stats management and talk-talk-talk. I like how Electrondance described Hentai Sim Brothel: it's a game that rewards masochistic play with hentai images. But it's not supposed to be really masochistic, as it's an interesting business simulator. However, when you're in the mood for sex, you're probably not in the mood for numbers.

My point is basically: sex change things. When I'm watching a movie that I know to contain a strong sex scene, I can't help but wait for that scene and get a little impatient with the rest of the movie. I mean, who likes the terrible acting and dialog of porn actors/actresses when they're not having sex? Same for games. Same for pretty much everything (dates?). Like I said elsewhere, having sex in a game is enough to turn it into a sex game. And sometimes, you just don't WANT to make/play a sex game. So if you're going to do sex, you have to do it right.

If you put a sex minigame in GTA, I have no doubt people will rush through the rest of the game trying to get to that as quickly as possible. They'll hack the game, if they have to. If there was actual sex in The Sims, I don't think people would treat it as "part of the avatar's basic needs" in a natural way, they would force and rush sex in the most bizarre ways possible just for giggles. So, yeah, blame the players. If you want to have sex in a game, make it a sex game, like that grotesque Sepe Cumshot... thing (I'm still washing my hands), on the risk that it'll be a horrible game if you're just trying to simulate actual sex as realistically as possible - because, you know, it's probably not as good as actual sex.