Shallow Depths

What makes character design sexualised?

I've been thinking about this question a lot recently.  I've encountered a few game characters lately who show a lot of skin, but don't imply (to me) that sex was objective of their design.  I find this quite encouraging, but of course not everyone sees these particular examples in the same way.

It's possible that being a straight female makes it easier for me to see female nudity (or semi-nudity) as something other than sexual, but I suspect that's being unfair.  It's also quite possible I'm just horribly naïve, but even if my examples turn out to be poor the idea remains interesting.

Some people do continue to complain about nudity in painting and sculpture, but there's mainstream acceptance of the artistic merits. I don't see any reason games shouldn't also be capable of meaningful exploration of the human form.

I worry sometimes about how censorship alters the perception of our bodies. Where once a naked child might have represented innocence, now it probably implies something much darker. Innocence is corrupted not just by paedophilia itself, but also by the perception and consciousness of it.

Nudity does not automatically equal sex, though. I like to approach it with a more open mind.

In The Void the Sisters are naked except for glowing chains, which are gradually removed as you feed them with colour. Their bodies writhe, dance, or spin. Depending on your viewpoint it's either cheap titillation or tasteful art.

I haven't played far enough yet to know what's going on in The Void. I don't know what my later interpretations will be. But the important point is that I didn't automatically link this nudity to sex. It's an artistic game overall, and that's how I approached it.

My initial impressions are definitely about beauty and vulnerability rather than eroticism. Naturally linking a nude female to vulnerability may be problematic for other reasons, but it was my honest reaction.

Our male character is also shown naked, though he's also rather, erm, emasculated, which probably adds to the impression of his vulnerability. Sisters are also lacking when it comes to genitals, but that doesn't carry quite the same connotations.  It acts as an equaliser, at least in my early stage of the game.  As my character becomes more powerful I expect to see him quite differently, but maybe if the game remains tense enough he might retain that vulnerability.

Recently I've had some good-natured arguments about Jack from Mass Effect 2. In her default outfit she's naked above the waist, with only a thin harness for modesty. Now, Jack is arguably a sexual character. At least, she has a casual approach to sex and is a romance option for male Shepard. That's not the first impression I get from her appearance though.

I know I'm not the best judge of female attractiveness, but to me the look is more tough than sexy. She'll wear whatever the fuck she wants, and I find it doubtful she's doing it to pander to a sexual gaze. The tattoos also make her seem more clothed than she actually is.



My Shepard is also not to be messed with, so watching her and Jack facing off is pretty interesting. My partner has a more paragon approach, and finds Jack's attitude intimidating and appearance confronting. Our reactions were very different, and I think he'd say I was being too generous in suggesting that Jack's appearance was not sexually motivated. I think of her in pretty much the same way I would a man with their shirt off.  In the hot day socially acceptable sense, not the male model sense.

Where the Sisters in the Void are naked and vulnerable, Jack bares her skin as a sign of strength. There's a huge diversity of symbols and ideas we potentially cut ourselves off from through censorship, or by simplifying nudity in our minds to always be about sex.

Not to say that there's necessarily a problem when it is about sex. There's nothing wrong with exploring natural elements of human experience.

My favourite current-generation RPG so far is The Witcher, and I'm really looking forward to the sequel.

Unfortunately, Geralt's sexual exploits got rather more attention than the rest of the game.  It's not really the part I'm most interested in.  But I'm getting it out of the way first with this post, since it seems to come up whenever this game is discussed.

Geralt is infertile and immune to disease, but his promiscuity remains potentially quite emotionally reckless.  And I will admit it's pretty tacky to reduce sexual intimacy to a series of collectable playing cards.  It was widely labelled as yet another game trying to call itself mature, while including sex in a gratuitous, sexist, and immature way. I have a slightly different take on this.

I don't think casual sex is particularly terrible or sexist in itself -- provided everyone is adult, consenting, honest, and engaging in safe behaviours, of course.  It is important to note that women in The Witcher are not mindless or passive in the whole affair.  It's not quite as simple as one man jumping into bed with every woman he meets.  The game is staying true to what is a morally grey world with no real innocents.  Few people, regardless of gender, are going to come off looking good in that world.  The protagonist is a product of a society full of corrupt politics, sexism, and racism against non-humans.  He is not designed to be completely likeable, and participating in his story does not require me to condone everything he does.

Does the card collecting mini-game risk sending the message that women are nothing but sexual conquests?  Maybe, but if so the reactions I've seen online certainly were not happy to play along.  Most people saw it as childish and misogynistic... and I personally think that was the intended reaction.  If it made you uncomfortable maybe that's a good thing.

Our Witcher, for all his bravery and combat skill, is seriously lacking when it comes to emotional development.  When faced with relationships beyond the physical -- the possibility of love, family and commitment -- he doesn't handle it well.  He doesn't see himself as capable of those emotions, or he simply doesn't consider it compatible with his violent, lone-wolf lifestyle.

When he can't be flippant about sex Geralt suddenly becomes rather lost, and is a pitiable character in this context.  I found that an interesting situation to contemplate, and it's one where the player can clearly separate themselves from the character they are controlling.  Put simply, he makes some bad choices that we can avoid.

Speaking as someone who identifies as polyamorous I do think it's unfortunate you are more likely to encounter an orgy in a game than a multiple-relationship situation.  It's possible to handle multiple partners in a responsible way without falling back on the old standard of monogamous and committed = good, every other sexual lifestyle = bad.  There are other ways to be responsible about sex and relationships, though there is currently a serious lack of good examples from games and other fictional spaces.  Not to mention a scarcity of good real-life role-models.

Geralt is certainly no role-model, and his emotional flaws are highly visible.  But, coming from my own non-puritanical point of view, it was interesting to consider where exactly he goes wrong.

The interviews I've seen for the Witcher 2 suggest the game will continue to include Geralt's womanising aspects, but the collectable cards are disappearing.

From The Witcher Vault:

We definitely retain the 'womanizing' part. After all, Sapkowski himself created Geralt this way, and there's a lot of "that stuff" in the books. But even though we plan to retain sexuality, a lot has changed regarding the presentation. For one, we completely forgo the card collecting aspect. No more sex for roses or gloves. We are more interested in a cinematic type of approach here, less of 'another feather in the cap' and more of a relationship/emotionally warranted displays of affection. Possibly quite like in some of the modern games, like "Heavy Rain" – we want to make it so that the plot and characters' personalities logically conclude in them being together. This will definitely be closer to an "R-rated movie" than a card-collecting game. After all, we're not making the game for the hormone-driven 14 year-olds, but for mature players.

I'm not sure if Heavy Rain was the most appropriate game to refer to here.  But this does suggest some intent for the sexual aspects to mature a little.  I suspect there will still be a lot of complaints, but I at least will be interested to see how they handle it this time around.

A recent conversation with a friend about Mass Effect 2...

Me: I wish Joker were a romance option.
R: You'd break him.
Me: You can have romance without sex, you know.
R: Yes, but that would be mature. And it's only an M-rated game.

That should really be MA15+ rather than M, but I decided not to misquote. Despite my issues with the maturity debate I was amused.

Joker has become one of my favourite game characters. I am coming from an able-bodied perspective, but to me he seems a great example of including disability in gaming. He doesn't feel token, and his problems seem to be just an element of the character rather than his reason for existing. He is a highly skilled pilot and valued crew member. Plus, he is voiced by Seth Green. I suspect that's been acting on me subconsciously for a while.

It is unfortunate I can't think of another good example. About the only other physically disabled character I can recall encountering recently is Oracle in Arkham Asylum... and she was just a voice on the radio.

I'm feeling quite mixed about Katawa Shoujo as a concept. Fetishising disability is a bit creepy, but at the same time I approve of the message that you can still be attractive (and sexy) with those disabilities. I'm inclined to say there are so few examples of this sort of thing -- in general, and particularly in gaming -- that it may well have value, even if they don't do everything exactly right. But I don't expect everyone to agree.

How a concept is treated is important, not just that it is included at all. In my hypothetical Joker example I'm not sure if I could really trust the writers to deal well with a developing romance and the potential issues with physical intimacy. So maybe it's for the best they are not taking requests from me. Even the romances that are actually included can feel pretty clumsy. It may also be more serious a topic than most Mass Effect players want to encounter. But I can't really say for sure.

Recently, I had a nice, relaxing evening to myself. I caught up on The Guild, played some Dragon Age, and generally bummed around. Sometimes that's all I really need.

I'm not very good at motivating myself to cook for one, so I wandered down the street to get a veggie burger for dinner. All well and good, until someone decided to pester me on the way home. It's quite common for people to stop and ask for directions from their cars. I get flustered because I'm not great at directions, but I usually do my best. I really did not need an incident to put me further off the experience.

I don't think this guy even really needed directions, because he got annoyed when I walked off after giving said directions, beeped his horn and did a U-turn in a busy street, just so he could pull into a driveway in front of me and ask if I wanted to go for a drink. He was pretty aggravated at the "no thanks" and beeped his horn some more, complaining that there was nothing wrong with "liking someone".

It was still early in the evening and there were plenty of people around, so I didn't feel particularly unsafe. Although, if he'd kept following me I'd have been worried about him finding out where I lived. But it is still not nice to be someone who often feels like they are being watched walking down the street, and then sort of have it confirmed. It's the sort of thing that can get inside my head and mess with me.

What does all this have to do with gaming? Well, arguably not much. But, as I mentioned I had just been playing Dragon Age. Specifically, I had been experiencing some of the romance options. Mostly the romance with Alistair, who I surprised myself by falling for both in and out of character. Zevran will jump into bed if you so much as look sideways at him, but he is less my type.

The sex scenes in Dragon Age are really quite painful. We have sudden slow music, odd-looking underwear, and characters making silly expressions at each other with their plastic faces. Sometimes a fade-to-black may do just as well, Bioware.

And yet, I did laugh a little as I kept walking down the street. I was returning to my computer-generated lovers, and thinking that even someone who doesn't exist and has no physical form is far more sexually satisfying than someone whose idea of romance involves harassing random women in the street :)

I've been pondering some ideas about mature entertainment. In particular, about people who will argue that something simple containing a lot of sex and/or violence is far more childish than a deeper story that is suitable for all-ages. The word "vacuous" gets used a lot to similar effect, as people glorify their own more-refined tastes.

This feels a bit inadequate to me. I see the distinction, but the value judgement included in the classification bothers me. There are a lot of multi-layered or otherwise complicated creations that I have very much enjoyed. At the same time, there is a lot to be gained from simplicity. I also find a lot of interest in things that appear simple, but looked at from another angle really are not. It's amazing how often people fail to look for that other angle.

Linking all comics to children's picture books, or all animated stories to kids' cartoons, is a pretty clear mistake as soon as you start to investigate those media. But the people bagging out Southpark or MadWorld as childish or vacuous probably aren't going to have their opinions challenged any time soon. And I wonder why it is that entertainment should have to be a deep experience, and why some forms of entertainment are considered more acceptable than others. Surely the nature of something as entertainment in the first place makes it arguably vacuous? That doesn't make it a pointless or meaningless experience, though.

Take, for example, a pornographic movie. It has only the most basic of story, and exists only to satisfy a simple desire or fantasy. Yet people are likely to enjoy it for tapping into those basic desires. At the same time, people are often ashamed of those feelings and try to hide them. The genre as a whole becomes something to be ashamed of, and perhaps dismissed as something only enjoyed by teenagers and lonely old men.

When it comes down to it, people are programmed with fairly basic needs and desires. I think a lot of people like to pretend that isn't the case, and place themselves above more basic instincts. Personally, I've a bit of a habit of switching the value system around, placing primal urges above more affected behaviour. At the very least I'd like people to be less ashamed and stop trying to pretend those elements don't exist within them.

While sex is a natural part of human experience, violence should not be. Its value as part of entertainment can be harder to justify (in reality the opposite seems to happen a lot of the time, which is weird but could also expand into a whole new discussion so I'll ignore that for now).

MadWorld is all about killing other people in violent and gruesome ways. I happen to enjoy it, at least in small doses so it doesn't have the chance to become too samey. I do agree with Rebecca Mayes that it's trying way too hard. Maybe I'm try-hard enough myself to appreciate it anyway. But I would like to be able to justify my enjoyment on some level.

I suppose the first thing to do is point out that virtual ultraviolence is in no way going to inform my real life behaviour. But a lack of negative impact is not the same as demonstrating the value in something.

In the real world, if I grabbed a street sign and impaled someone the likely response would be something like throwing up. But in this stylised world it can even become funny. Ditto TV shows like Happy Tree Friends. These are very stylised examples, which are easily separated from reality. The best non-animated comparisons are probably some kind of slapstick humour. Except that with animation you can pump up the violence level without the associated consequences. There is also a long tradition of cartoon violence aimed at a younger audience. I suspect we are conditioned quite early to accept some animated violence as okay. Though at the same time, I don't normally talk about how I enjoy the humour in Metalocalypse because I don't want to offend anyone. This type of humour relies on a good disconnection from reality.

Once violence becomes more realistic it usually becomes part of more involved stories, which are less likely to be labeled childish. This is where the value is perhaps more recognised, in order to tell a high-impact, serious story. For example, the shocking violence in American History X.

As for the "childish" violence, I think that the value comes from the safety of exploration. It's a rather freeing way to look at violence, where no matter how extreme the images are, none of them can actually hurt anyone. When it's humorous I don't really understand where the humour comes from, only that it exists and isn't dangerous. I suppose it's some sort of absurdist humour.

This could all come down to a discussion of the value of art, and a debate on the merits of different expressions of mature themes. But entertainment is a personal thing. To me, provided you are living your life in a way that doesn't harm others, the most important thing is finding whatever entertainment works for you.

I don't expect everyone to agree with me, and I'm happy to hear discussion and debate. But there is no reason to belittle people for valuing different experiences. I suspect the "childish" crowd are often just using that term to label something they don't personally enjoy.