In his latest piece of the Designer's Notebook, Ernest Adams talks about the role of sex in videogames.

With a topic like "Sex in Videogames", I do think you need to define what you mean by sex. Mr. Adams glosses over this a little too readily:

"What about sex in computer games? Not just scantily-clad Amazons running around with guns, but real sex."

Real sex? What is "real sex?" Sexuality is more of continuum. You can arbitrarily place a dot somewhere on the line and say "THIS is where real sex is." Good luck getting any group of people to agree where this dot should go, unless you just use the lowest common denominator. One could argue as soon as anything with a gender is involved, you've added a sexual component. Tetris is a good example of game devoid of sex, phallic block stacks not withstanding.

A lot of people already feel a scantily-clad Amazon running around with a gun is real sex, because it's done solely for titilation. I think the deluge of lead female characters in games is done entirely for sexual reasons. The folks from Eidos even admitted as much. "If you are going to be staring at someone's bum for 40 hours while you play a game, it might as well be a nice bum!" Since the game-playing demographic is mostly male, the gender choice of these characters is revealing. When a man plays Tomb Raider, does he want to be Lara Croft, or does he just enjoy looking at her and controling her? The female leads are eye candy, really. But they are eye candy for sexual reasons. So sex is already in games, or rather, games have been sexualized.

I think the "real sex" Mr. Adams is alluding to, though, is either the graphic depiction of sexual acts, or the suggestion of sexual acts. This is fairly uncommon in today's games, though not unheard of. Mr. Adams posits that three meaningful ways "real" sex can be part of a game: seduction, sexual activity, and dramatic significance. I think he missed a biggie, though, it may be because his focus is on traditional computer games. Multi-player worlds (or MMORPG, for massively multi-player online role playing game, which is a dreadful acronym), like Clan Lord, or Ultima Online, are very different from traditional computer games, so I think Mr. Adams left them out quite specifically, since they probably need to be understood in their own rights. These types of games are very sexual, so if you want to examine the frontier of sex in computer games, it's the place to look. Since sex is typically an act between two (or more) people, it would make sense that sex in games is more likely to occur in a game where there are lots of people. No one really wants to have sex with a computer anyway. Admittedly, in MMORPGs, the sex isn't part of the game directly, but sex is a big part of the game nonetheless, and it's a huge part of the appeal. In these types of games, sex happens.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying MMORPGs are cyber-sex parlors. They aren't. If we use Mr. Adams definition of "real sex," there's not much of that going on, though you will find some seduction going on, and even some sexual activity. But most of the sexual activity involves flirting. You might not think flirting is a sexual activity, but it is, since you can only flirt with a person who's gender you are sexual attracted to. You might not consider this "real" sex. "Flirting with someone isn't the same as banging them!" Fair enough, but it goes back to my point that sex is a continuum. And if you want to talk about the most significant aspect of sex in videogames, you'll miss out if you don't notice this phenomena.

Flirting in MMORPGs is a big deal. It is part of the appeal. Flirting in these games doesn't actually help you with the game, per se. But these games aren't completely goal oriented, they are largely socially oriented. People flirt for flirting's sake. People enjoy flirting in these environments because it feels safer. MMORPGs that provide better environments and better tools to flirt will be more appealing than ones that don't. Look at the very sexualized character models for the male and female characters of Asheron's Call. Imagine you could go to a party, but instead of looking like ordinary old you, you could be a buff, gorgeous version of you, with a face that reveals no insecurity or nervousness. Sure makes it easier to sidle up to that other buff, gorgeous version of someone else, and lay on the charm... Die hard gamers can complain that such games are too much like chat rooms, but people like chat rooms.

Of course, all sorts of gender-bending goes on in MMORPGs, and this does make things a bit complicated at times. But when we talk about sex, what are we talking about? Are we talking about the act of intercourse? Or are we talking about a special connection between two (or more) people? Isn't that what sex really is about? Intimacy and arousal? Desire and closeness? Because if you are like me, and you feel that is what sex is, then you can't help but see the new sexual revolution is taking place in these online worlds. People playing in MMORPGs enter into romantic relationships with each other that have an emotional impact on their lives. That's real sex, if you ask me. And it's going on right now.
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