Explicit content in games, audience appeal, and solutions?

[Piergiorgio_d_errico]

Looks that the thread is designed to carry me into it…
C’mon, the Fall '26 and the subsequent release of Isekai 0.99RC1 isn’t so far in future…

but let’s take the bait, hook and plunger and draw the fisher into the depths of Railei (deep apologies for who is sensitive to drowning; in fact, by field of research, I have more than a bit of sailor mindset…), starting from the very top (I have even opened a parallel tab for browsing the debate…):

Hanon (among many other interesting nuggets…) cited a pooping scene in a non-interactive fiction: I don’t hide that indeed there was a pooping scene in Isekai, but I scrapped it not only for storyplaying reasons (railroaded into three 15+ moves scenes back-to-back was definitively too much to endure…) but because, thinking on, was too out-of-character (the winged, horned spouse isn’t evil, but definitively chaotic, and surely when fast-flying home in an very worried state of mind, she surely don’t mind much about a literal shitbombing above some unhabitated land, after all, she’s fertilising the landscape below…) but said scene wasn’t centered on defecating, but on the intimistic talk between PC and said NPC. so, there was a precise narrative context requiring an, oh well, shitting background

Hanon explicitily quotes the opt-ins in his work, Cannery Vale, an interesting, and ancient (albeit weakly implemented in its first instance, LGOP) mechanism but aside adding another layer to an already multi-layered adprose, so I have dropped the idea, together with the one of “feeling the player”, aside the remnant, the aptly-named audax variable, repurposed from player to player-character audacity (no spoilers, sorry )

Just above his quoting the opt-in Hanon cited the horrors of war. whose indeed IS a major theme in Isekai, initially a part of the background tapestry, but surfacing later in game (hint for who is in the (limited) know: Miyai and Azuj fits the Oath’s requirement about sharing harmful knowledge…)

but, enough screen time for our redoubtable Hanon…

Then surprisingly Sophia come out herself into harm’s way, ending into the short list of potential alpha and closed beta testers, but she can opt out: after all, I strongly disagree with the few but very, very questionable people polluting the triangular island of my country… whose raises another major point, deserving a full cite:

@sophia

the mental exercise in writing a sex scene without an emphasis on the combination of genitals being involved. Pretty difficult, but it forces you to be more creative about your language, and the displays of sensuality on show.

PUURRRR !!! exactly my style in depicting “sex scenes”, whose empathises not only sensuality, but the true ingredient of sex: feelings
100% concur and agree on the creative work, after all, I’m not english mothertongue… and, as everyone know, the trio formed by the PC and two major NPC are in the LGBT category.

Amanda put on the table the concept of “transgressive”, a concept which is in constant evolution; honestly, I don’t know if in '26 a polygamy lesbian marriage will be still in that category, but IS still in this category, albeit on XIth millennia Railei is rare, yes , but definitively in the norm (aside the “Till the End of Time”…) and if this work will help pushing lesbianism and polygamy toward the norm, I will be much more than honoured. but what I’m pushing toward the norm is not only the “make love”, but also, and more so, the “not war”, and I sincerely hope that Amanda can tolerate this sort of “political propaganda”…

Now I have written soo many diverse things in a single post, so i think is wise given a respite to my too patient readers, prior of tackling the rest…

Later, and
Best regards from Italy,
dott. Piergiorgio.

[Nathan]

I try to minimize sexual content in my media consumption. Maybe I’m a prude. Yes, people have sex. It’s a crucial aspect of life, but I believe in keeping it private. I don’t want it to be “on camera” in my fiction.
I was so disappointed when I learned while digging for bugs, circa 2005, that Zork II has a custom response to RAPE PRINCESS. I assume that dates from the mainframe Zork days.
I was a kid when Leather Goddesses of Phobos came out, and the advertising clearly communicated to me “This is not for you.” Years later when I got Masterpieces, I was surprised to discover that LGOP’s less sexual than a dirty-minded ten-year-old. It’s a creative and well-made classical treasure-hunt text adventure that tries way too hard to seem naughty.
I appreciate the modern use of content warnings, and if your story is labelled as having sexual content, I’m going to choose something else. I’m not interested in “transgressive” fiction.

[Exemptus]

@Nathan

I was so disappointed when I learned while digging for bugs, circa 2005, that Zork II has a custom response to RAPE PRINCESS.

It does, yes. And what happens is that she cries for help and the Wizard then shows up and fries the player to a crisp on the spot. How that may be inappropriate, I can’t fathom: the game does not in any way suggest any ideas to the player or put anything in their mind. On the contrary, it applies a well-deserved chastening. Any inappropriateness comes from the player only. I’d say the game is better for having that reply in store, not worse.

I would understand finding Artic’s Ship of Doom more objectionable in that regard, because the answer the game provides to a similar situation is not at all edifying.

[HAL9000]

@Exemptus

Any inappropriateness comes from the player only. I’d say the game is better for having that reply in store, not worse.

I think it’s just that the author went there, when a simple parser error would have sufficed. Technically, it let’s you attempt to rape the princess.

[Exemptus]

@HAL9000

I think it’s just that the author went there, when a simple parser error would have sufficed. Technically, it let’s you attempt to rape the princess.

Thanks, that angle hadn’t occurred to me. I appreciate the insight.

[DeusIrae (Mike Russo)]

Right – having a custom response there, even one that’s thwacking the player, is in some way rewarding bad behavior, and for some audiences it’s an invitation to keep trying stuff like that.

On the broader topic, I do suspect that a lot of what’s going on is differing expectations, which is unsurprising given the breadth of the IF community and the various assumptions folks bring to games that usually don’t have much opportunity to communicate what they’re about and what they contain. As Chandler says, fairly explicit sexual content has been a staple of literary fiction (and certain genres, like romance and I think some memoirs?) for a long time. That kind of language in a YA book would be legitimately shocking, though, and in that case accusations of adding it just to get attention make more sense (though I don’t think that’s typically a good practice; good criticism can certainly critique the inclusion of particular content and speculate about what it’s meant to do in a work, but ascribing specific authorial motives isn’t especially edifying when not linked to that kind of analysis IMO). I think given the history of IF – especially parser IF – I get that many people come to it assuming that it’s primarily functioning as an extension of genre fiction where more outre content and language are generally seen as “out of bounds.”

In terms of what to do about that, I obviously do think content warnings so that players can make informed decisions about what to play and what not to play certainly do make sense, and I think the contemporary scene is pretty good at this. Beyond that, broader criticism and discussion about explicit content like this IMO can help validate the idea that there’s definitely a place for more explicit IF works, and also engage with the typical critical job of identifying how (and why) it’s done well versus less well. So I’d definitely also be interested in the piece Chandler mentioned, beyond thinking there’s value in lifting up and evaluating the use of explicit or transgressive content in reviews of individual games (I love Joey Acrimonious’s games, and try to talk through why the sexy bits in them typically work when I review them).

[CMG]

@DeusIrae

So I’d definitely also be interested in the piece Chandler mentioned, beyond thinking there’s value in lifting up and evaluating the use of explicit or transgressive content in reviews of individual games (I love Joey Acrimonious’s games, and try to talk through why the sexy bits in them typically work when I review them).

I think I will write that essay (when I have time). I doubt it will change minds or break new ground, but I feel the increasing need to document my design goals. Getting lumped into the basket with RAPE PRINCESS doesn’t feel great.

[HanonO (Hanon Ondricek)]

@Naarel

I may be wrong, but I feel like people have way stronger reactions to sex and surrounding explicit content than to, let’s say, violence and gore.

I agree with this in the context of the US. With no intention to delve too far into politics and sidetrack the amazing discourse in this thread, we are weird puritans who somehow have decided male nipples are fine and dandy for public display, but female nipples are something shameful that need to be covered - despite female breasts being the first thing most newborn children literally spend the first months of their life smothered against face-first.

@Naarel

“Pure art” is allowed to dive deep into the human psyche with all of its strangeness.

Agreed. Many civilians think of “art” as something pretty, but Art can also challenge perceptions - in the simplest way how sometimes beautiful things can be created from mundane or unpleasant objects, or vice-versa - a horrible thing can be depicted with such skill you can’t look away.

@rovarsson

The thing with this approach is that I would almost certainly pick this option:
Shout at the vagabonds about their decaying moral fiber as you steer clear.

Because I think it’s the funniest both in use of language and the image this situation brings up in my mind. And I would want to roleplay the sour finger-wagging moral guardian.

This means that as a player I would want more of these kinds of situations, and preferably more explicit, so I can act even more shocked as my personage.

And that’s completely awesome - one of my favorite review quotes is:

The best part of robotsexpartymurder is the way it accommodates people who don’t want to have sex parties with robots.

I’m down for that. I write sex games, but there’s so much humor and drama potential in the clash between prurience and chastity and jump-roping that line and playing with that push-and-pull narratively. Some of the most successful “sex games” play with that dichotomy, whether it be Leisure Suit Larry who is constantly DTF but is always farcically thwarted in his attempts, or playing the ‘incorruptible’ trope despite constantly being tempted. Good strong characters with goals are always ideal. This, of course, also requires a sure-author hand with tone with regard to ideas about consent.

Sidebar about a sticky Romance trope

In the private adult forum, we have discussed the conflict that there is a Romance trope of “deflowering” - the swarthy handsome stablehand tempting the virginal bride before the nuptials. As always, consent is important and there’s a tonal line between rape-fantasy (always bad) and the “reluctant chaste person giving into their desires” where it’s clear via internal monologue they are actually into it and not being traumatized. It’s of course more complicated, but that’s the gist - playing with consent for dramatic purposes requires a sure author-hand to not imply that ignoring signals and refusals is a good thing… Historical AIF has always made a lot of mistakes, often in the hands of inexperienced authors often also inexperienced in human relations who reduce consent to a mini game and we all agree that sex-as-quest-reward and reducing characters to objects as pure gamified vending machines is bad.

That’s, in my opinion, why AIF has held a kind of pariah status - so much has gotten it wrong and makes people uncomfortable. There’s a dearth of good healthy well-written erotica by much more well-intentioned authors that surfaces in the mainstream.

@CMG

This might be what some people think. I personally disagree with the categories “pure” and, by implication, “impure” art.

Agreed. As said, Art can just be “pretty” but one of its other major functions is to challenge and make people think. Even if it’s just “Wow, I didn’t know it was even possible to build a model of Mount Rushmore out of dryer lint…”

@pieartsy

Re: robotmurdersexparty, does it have any men having sex in it? if it does, maybe I’m wrong here in comparing why RMSP (which I haven’t played) got less fluffed feathers than MS.

Boy-howdy. robotsexpartymurder has all the sexual permutations I could put in it by design. You can actually “configure” your player - male/female/neither, and you can have all the genitals you want - or none. If you don’t select them, they don’t get interacted with. You can actually play robotcuddlepartymurder if you want. You can also specify whether you’re “comfortable” interacting intimately with women and/or men - even if you say no, you can still do it if you want, but the robots won’t suggest a pairing against your previously stated preferences. Long story short (too late) yes RSPM has all kinds of potential same-sex encounters, and one of the major internal arcs involves a couple who are essentially bi “swingers” into group sex and polyamory (where the “sexpartymurder”) part occurs. My ideal intention was that the player themselves could be chaste. Whenever a sex scene is required it’s past-experience seen through another character’s eyes, so the protagonist can remain a virgin technically if they want - they’re just investigating a crime that happens to occur during a very well-intentioned orgy.

Preferences screen

@Piergiorgio_d_errico

Hanon (among many other interesting nuggets…) cited a pooping scene in a non-interactive fiction

This was in service to what I call “visceral” prose where a scene is made much more intimate by a stealthy relatable detail - and it applies to violence as well as sexuality and…pooping. A mild example is in Stephen King’s Christine where a group of scofflaws meet their demise in a car crash. (blurred cause I know this is a trigger for some) Instead of saying “the passenger in the back seat died” the description is of the driver feeling what seems to be “a hot bucket of water hitting him in the back” which is actually blood. Most people haven’t experienced a large volume of blood fresh out of someone’s veins splashing them, but describing it in more mundane terms allows the reader to more readily feel and experience the horror. This is what makes it “visceral” to me. It’s like the purest form of “show don’t tell” - the infamous pooping scene doesn’t even try to be gross about it - I think it’s “Fiyero’s insides slopped into a bowl” - he’s actually sick, and my initial reaction is whyyyYYY? am I with him for this stupidly personal moment? and that description stayed with me - and that intimate moment makes me feel and empathize with him which makes his subsequent murder even more horrific.

@Piergiorgio_d_errico

but, enough screen time for our redoubtable Hanon…

[whirls past in the background with a fancy cape flourish and a toss of glitter]

@Nathan

Years later when I got Masterpieces, I was surprised to discover that LGOP’s less sexual than a dirty-minded ten-year-old. It’s a creative and well-made classical treasure-hunt text adventure that tries way too hard to seem naughty.

LGOP is actually my favorite game aside from the “sex” element. The comedy tone is the best. I love the joke that your sexy-same-sex companion dies multiple times and the PC pointedly takes a reflective moment of silence to pour-one-out each time but the companion always pops back up later none-the-worse-for-wear.

@CMG

Getting lumped into the basket with RAPE PRINCESS doesn’t feel great.

Understood. The thing is it’s one of the messy jobs in parser IF to attempt to pre-determine what a player might do. There’s merits in not even acknowledging it, as well as using it to finger-wag the player for being that way. There’s an argument to be made whether the author is somehow complicit for even considering players might try that. But who among us hasn’t gotten frustrated in a game and attempted to grudge-hump a desk lamp when all our puzzling is thwarted?

…nobody else? Really? That’s only me? [swirls back into the shadows behind his glittery cape]

[heasm66 (Henrik Åsman)]

There is no princess in mainframe Zork. She is new to Zork Ii. As I remember it there are only the troll and the thief to interact with.

[Mike_G (Mike)]

@CMG

Getting lumped into the basket with RAPE PRINCESS doesn’t feel great.

Some people will lump all explicit content with it no matter what you do, unfortunately.

[Piergiorgio_d_errico]

Now, one of the most interesting point raised in this debate: the concept of pure Art.

Is a concept whose is really relative: let’s take as random example (really random, if one kept in mind my country) that statue of a naked King of Israel, with his virility and buttocks in plain sight, the classical phallic weapon on one hand and with a severed head at his feet (nudity, implicit deadly violence and gore in one stroke, but IS a masterpiece of Renaissance Art…)

True, not much visual Art depicts sexual acts (well, aside Koons and that Roman statue at Naples’s Museum whose can be mildly called “statue of Aberforth Dumbledore”) but the written Art (and IF is written art…) has so many examples in all sauces, and this should be our starting point.
From my perspective, only a true Master of Art can create a visual depiction of true sex (whose involves feelings for the partner(s) ) thru little details like facial expression, gesture (remember that outside cinema, visual art are static) but words remain by far the best medium for feelings (who has never received a love letter ? ) so, IF is one of the best medium for conveying the true face of sex.
So, the care and love I’m giving to the explicit content, so to speak, of my WIP is all into rendering the PC and NPC’s feelings. Will this be high Art ? I dunno, but I think I’m doing my best…

Exemptus’s answer to Nareel is interesting: triggering the suppressed part of the psyche for encoraging the readers, interactive or not, to, as Nareel put it with an excellent synthesis, “sit down and reflect on yourself.”
Virtuadept got this point in noticing that one should not remain in his/her/hey confort zone, but should push the boundaries and experience the unknown. and he gives a major insight into the debate: the path toward enlightenment. If one consider that, at least in the US the pressure towards censorship (and context warnings is a mild form of censor) came from quarters interested in people not leaving the path they trace for them and strong social control, one can see how the relationship between pushing cultural boundary and enrichment and censorship is a major issue.

Kudos to rovarsson for his excellent humorism, delivering levity unto a debate on major autorship problems. Sorry for having scrapped the “player’s audacity measurement”, but, aside the already-quoted adprose layer of complexity, was the only means to steer away from the evil temptation in dealing with audax values below zero, up to kicking the (apparent in your case) US prude out of the game with desultory remarks, a thing totally opposite the general scope of my story…

oh, well. I started answering to the 8th of 21 post and I’m at 12th of 30 posts. That is, nine new posts when I was writing. So I must wrap up this post, read what’s new and rinse and repeat…

Best regards from Italy,
dott. Piergiorgio.

[HanonO (Hanon Ondricek)]

@Piergiorgio_d_errico

True, not much visual Art depicts sexual acts

I’m…Not…Sure…That…Is…True… <-NSFW links

(I understand you’re meaning in the sense of “emotional erotica” but people have been depicting the nasty since cave-paintings.)

[Naarel (Edmund K.)]

Also, just to clarify my stance further: as much as I believe in the right of an artist to include sexually explicit/charged content in their work, I also believe that a reader has no obligation to push past the discomfort they may feel towards such themes. I don’t think that anyone is a “prude” for avoiding sexual themes altogether. Nobody owes you their time and engagement. When I was writing the Lights trilogy, I knew that some of my friends won’t play it due to their stance on sexual content, and I was completely fine with it. We have trigger/content warnings to signalize “hey, this is what is in here, if you can’t take it, don’t play it”, so I won’t be mad at people who see “it has sexual content” and leave. It’s their right.

Players need to understand that some authors can and will put explicit content into their works. Authors need to understand that including such content means that some readers will leave. Those aren’t contradicting statements.

[HanonO (Hanon Ondricek)]

@Naarel

Players need to understand that some authors can and will put explicit content into their works. Authors need to understand that including such content means that some readers will leave. Those aren’t contradicting statements.

Well said, which is why I’m an advocate for clear up-front content warnings for any NSFW material, whether violence, adult language and humor, or explicit sexuality. As I expressed before, I’m also big on a “content toggle” in a game that is switched to off by default and is either explicitly opt-in by the player, or subtly vets the player toward the beginning to gauge if they do have interest in explicit material in a work where it makes sense to tone-down adult content and its omission doesn’t impact the intention of the author.

The “content toggle” of course isn’t required - as CMG said, sometimes content is an inherent part of the meaning and message in a work, but title-page content warnings and a spoiler-gated link for specific content or trigger warnings is never a bad thing.

[Piergiorgio_d_errico]

quick reply:

Hanon… the first pic is of the statue of Abenforth Dumbledore I quoted…

I have glossed over all that, because I want to kept myself in-topic (let’s say that I share with Azuj the pride in own heritage… and a Roman Hebrew’s heritage is perhaps one of the most storied heritage…) but suffice to say that the original of the “relief room” is here:

Public toilets were part of the sanitation system of ancient Rome. These latrines housed long benches with holes accommodating multiple simultaneous users, with no division between individuals or groups.
Using the facilities was considered a social activity.

Best regards from Italy,
dott. Piergiorgio.

[sophia (Sophia de Augustine)]

While generally, I agree, and try to be mindful myself while tagging content warnings in my own works, (usually on a click through link so people can choose to read it or not, and attempting to cover a broad swathe of topics I think might ruffle feathers in my works, from ecclesiastical content (much of my work is geared towards a LGBT audience, and religious trauma is common among that population on the axis of homophobic persecution and shaming) to NSFW, (though of course no one’s perfect, and ultimately, you can only do so much as an author- doesthedogdie is a great resource for looking at what some common courtesy warnings might be,) Aster brought up a great point higher up in the thread, as follows:

@pieartsy

I will just point out otherwise that gay sex (specifically between men, especially if it’s anal) is constantly seen, historically and today, as more dirty, crass, and "transgressive"ly shocking than cis heterosexual sex. Hell, gay people in general are culturally seen as “inappropriate” for all ages, inherently sexual in themselves.

So long as people aren’t derogatory towards authors and their works in a homophobic fashion, (such as tarring a work or author as a degenerate for portraying acts of intimacy they would have no issue with if it were a cishetero coupling, or harassing them for doing such) then I don’t really have an issue with whether or not someone decides to curate their experiences (the romance genre is well divvied up to help readers find the level of heat they’re interested in reading, such as chaste, often Christian romances, or kinky erotica.)

This is in particular a sensitive point for many people also in the LGBT community- (having nearly been sent to conversion therapy myself) as it’s not uncommon to face violence or unfounded smearing as being a danger to women and children. Just something to be mindful of- especially when interacting with fellow creatives who may very well be gay and unfortunately familiar with such homophobia.

[EJoyce (Emery Joyce)]

Since the “shocking for the sake of being shocking” criticism is coming up quite a lot as a bugbear in this thread, I want to apologize for being one of two people to make that criticism in the thread this one spun off of. It was not, in that context, about sex, but it was still about one of CMG’s games and it is clearly something he’s heard a lot and is deeply, deeply sick of, and I’m sorry I was the latest person to say it.

For whatever it’s worth, when I make that type of comment, it’s not meant to ascribe intent to the author. My approach to reviewing and critical/analytical discussion of fiction is that I don’t really care what’s in the creator’s head or heart, I just care about what’s on the screen, and sometimes something can be intended to serve a narrative or thematic purpose and not succeed (in my personal, subjective opinion).

But that’s a criticism that has to be worded carefully to distinguish it from the version that does ascribe intent, and I was not careful, and possibly it’s a type of criticism that is better avoided entirely in this kind of context where the authors of the works of fiction under discussion are all hanging around participating in the conversation. (I spend way more of my time discussing works of fiction in contexts where the creator is unlikely to see it, and it is maybe a little too easy for me to slip into that mode.)

Anyway, I do feel like the “does this serve a purpose” line of critique is more complicated when sex is involved, because on the one hand, yes, in a game where the sexual content is not the main point it’s quite possible for a sex scene to feel out of place in terms of tone or pacing and/or not serve a narrative or thematic purpose. But on the other hand, “this is unnecessary” is also one of the go-to arguments that people fall back on when they’re just uncomfortable with depictions of sex in general—witness the periodic outbursts of Twitter discourse to the tune of “does any movie really need a sex scene?” (Or better yet, don’t.) So from the perspective of an author trying to take in feedback, it can be hard to tell how much validity that particular criticism has, and if I were reviewing an IF game with a sex scene that I felt didn’t serve the story, I would want to be particularly careful about how I worded that critique.

[CMG]

@HanonO

The thing is it’s one of the messy jobs in parser IF to attempt to pre-determine what a player might do. There’s merits in not even acknowledging it, as well as using it to finger-wag the player for being that way. There’s an argument to be made whether the author is somehow complicit for even considering players might try that.

This is worthwhile to consider, but it’s not really what I was talking about. I should’ve explained myself better. I went for brevity – to my detriment!

Essentially, my point is that sex =/= transgression. When the discussion is framed around examples like RAPE PRINCESS, however, then it starts to feel as though prurience and depravity are what “sexual content” inherently means as a label. Everything gets lumped into the same basket. Even though M.S. started this thread, the conversation has arced into the gutter. That’s often the trajectory, but M.S. isn’t aiming at the gutter. It would be nice to hit a higher target one day.

I can’t say much more without analyzing the game itself, which is what I’ll eventually do.

[HanonO (Hanon Ondricek)]

@CMG

the conversation has arced into the gutter.

I think these are good conversations to have. It’s hard to not feel that discussion of explicit content inherently lives “in the gutter” but that is what this is all about.

We are in no way affirming all the topics in this thread specifically apply toward Midnight, Swordfight - I’m the one who posed this discussion in the first place - so I hope we’re not making @CMG feel inadvertently targeted as the subject naturally expands and drifts. That was in no way my intention and I’m a huge fan.

[Mewtamer (Jeffery wright)]

Some of my thoughts on this subject:

I don’t give a damn about pure, true, fine, real, or any other pretentious sounding, 4-letter or otherwise, word some holier than thou critic puts in front of the word art(or any specific form thereof) and then declares anything that doesn’t meet their personal definition of their chosen words is automatically garbage that shouldn’t exist. As far as I’m concerned, all art, from the most perfectly crafted stories that are both entertaining and meaningful with timeless messages about the human condition to the pulpiest of plotless ramblings designed purely to shock and titilate along with everything between, more extreme in either direction, and along any other set of axes you care to define are equally valid so long as at least one person gains value from the creation of a given work. And yes that includes everything I absolutely hate, not that I tend to care enough to maintain hate for any particular work and tend to reserve my hate for more important things.

And to go with my “all art is valid” stance, I’m also very much in the “anything goes in fiction” camp, and that includes things I would hope any reasonable person would think unquestionably immoral in real-life. Heck, war makes a good background for a story, but I’m absolutely disgusted by how many wars the US has gotten involved in since WWII(and at best, I’m willing to call US involvement in WWII a necessary evil and I’m not convinced the US was the least of three evils next to Germany and Japan(kind of hard to ignore the US committing the worst terrorist attacks in history with the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki) and that seemingly no one bats an eye at the US having one of the best funded militaries in the world but so many get up in arms whenever anyone suggests bringing the US up to developed world standards in things like primary and secondary education or health care), and while rape is horrible in real life, I’m not going to kink shame someone with a solid grasp on the difference between fantasy and reality for having fantasies about or roleplaying such scenarios.

I’m also annoyed by the plot/porn dichotomy. Sometimes, I just want to read some smut, and other times I just want to read something totally wholesome even the most prudish would approve of, but sometimes, I want my sex scenes to be the dessert to a full course meal instead of the box of doughnuts I gorge on when my sweettooth gets the better of me… And the first two are easy to find, but the third where you have a full-fledged story that can stand on its own where we get to see what the canon romantic groupings get up to behind closed doors, where the sex is just part of the mix instead of the whole point are rare, and I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve been reading a story, two or more characters are having a moment that turns steamy or lovey-dovey, it would break suspension of disbelief if they didn’t have sex short of an external interruption, but right around the time clothes come off, there’s a cut to the next morning or what’s happening elsewhere, and I’ve wanted to scream at my non-existant monitor. Granted, I understand if the creator isn’t comfortable with writing sex scenes or doesn’t feel like they can do them justice without them feeling out of place in their work, but I feel like there are many creators who stop just short out of fear of alienating the more prudish of their audience members or being targetted by moral guardians and that many creators that start in porn, as they get better at other aspects of their craft, end up dropping the explicit content from their work to reach a more mainstream audience.

As for the NSFW label and the 1-star review from the person expecting porn, I feel like that illustrates the limitation both of content labeling systems and scored reviews. Though, NSFW is a rather ambiguous term and highly dependant on the workplace in question. If one were working at a very straight lace accounting firm where it’s all snow white button ups, winsor-notted ties, and uniformly colored and starched khakis, I doubt management would take kindly to someone watching My Little Pony when they should be pouring over spreadsheets, but in the restaurant kitchen and dishroom where my housemates work, the company culture is like if a Seth MacFarlane animated sitcom were set in the kitchen of a fine dining establishment and they’re cool with the dish washers binging anime on their phones as they work, anything short of actual porn is probably okay. And yeah, sometimes a bad review has nothing to do with the quality of a product(Heaven knows half the 1-star reviews on walmart.com are about delivery drivers being bad at their jobs while saying nothing at all about the product itself)… and honestly, I’m not sure there’s a better alternative to star ratings since even within specific genres, it’s hard to think of a good rubric for players to grade games on.

Though honestly, I haven’t played Midnight Swordfight(pretty sure I haven’t even heard of it outside this thread and the one this thread split off from), but from what’s been said about it, I’m not sure it would even register as needing the sexual content disclaimer if I had played it metaphorically blind in addition to literally blind. Then again, despite growing up with Christian parents in a small town in a bible belt state, I was completely desensitized to things like homosexuality, polyamory, and incest before I ever learned some people took issue with them and have never understood why a explicit sex scene, no matter how tender and, for lack of a better term, vanilla, automatically warrants a higher classification than even the most extreme of violence from pretty much every age-based censorship scheme in existence, so perhaps my calibration for explicit content has a much higher threshold than most people.

And yeah, I’d be down for playing some 18+ IF depending on my mood and the specifics of what’s included.