Textbook bares all on sex in games
by Alexander Sliwinski 
{ Sep 21st 2006 at 1:00PM }
Brenda Brathwaite knows good game sex. The founder and chair of the International Game Developers Association Sex Special Interest Group and lead designer on Playboy: The Mansion organized the Sex in Video Games Conference this summer and schooled GameHead's Geoff Keighly on some classic sexually themed games. Now, Brathwaite has unleashed a 300-page text book on the subject, titled, appropriately enough, Sex in Video Games.
This book is long, thick and certainly knows what it's doing. From the history of sex, positive inclusion and censorship, to emergent sex and sex across cultures, it's a comprehensive reference of some of the more social aspects of our tech-heavy industry.
Certainly one of the most interesting chapters in the book is the 20-page chronology and analysis of the Hot Coffee incident. The book covers everything from the initial discovery to the modest investigation and finally the full-blown media circus with interviews with the original hot coffee modder Patrick Wildenborg and MIT Prof. Henry Jenkins.
It is great to see an academic textbook showing it all off regarding this taboo subject. After all, as Brathwaite says, "games are not just for kids."
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Judd @ Sep 21st 2006 1:14PM
It's such a shame that if a game shows killing and war it can get an M and sometimes even a T rating, but if there is any sexuality it gets an M rating. I would like to see more games with sexuality. Not because I'm a perv or anything, but I'd like to see more games take risks and make the game they want to make regardless of the ESRB. I've never bought a GTA game before, but if Rockstar decided to release their game with an AO rating forcing stores like Walmart and Gamestop to not carry the title(this will never happen but hypothetically speaking), I will buy their title online. This is just to support a developer who doesn't buckle to censorship. It's the same thing with the film industry how a film with mass killing can be shown at any theater, but most won't carry a movie with an NC-17 rating because it shows a persons body. That's why I'm looking forward to seeing "This Film is Not Yet Rated" on IFC. Somehow in our society it's more acceptable to show hatred than it is to show love.
Judd @ Sep 21st 2006 1:18PM
I meant to say in the first sentence "If a game shows too much nudity it will get an AO rating."
Elyscape @ Sep 21st 2006 1:21PM
Okay, I really have to know; where did that image come from?
nonpareil @ Sep 21st 2006 1:22PM
Whoa what is up with that screenshot?
minus_273 @ Sep 21st 2006 1:43PM
most of the balck bars i can understand, but why does the sheep have its eyes blacked out?
Phranctoast @ Sep 21st 2006 1:53PM
the sheep on the bed is a nice touch....no un intended
ymmv @ Sep 21st 2006 1:41PM
Love the sheep!
Derbeste @ Sep 21st 2006 1:48PM
"most of the balck bars i can understand, but why does the sheep have its eyes blacked out?"
To protect the sheep's identity. duuuh!
The ZeroCorpse @ Sep 21st 2006 2:20PM
The screenshot is a mixture of GTA Vice City and The Sims 2. It's a nifty fake.
And yes, America means:
Violence = PG13
Nudity = R
Sex = X
. . .when it should be all switched around.
rogue @ Sep 21st 2006 2:29PM
Sex getting a bad rap in America is why I still hate the Puritans.
OtakuCODE @ Sep 21st 2006 2:38PM
Well, sex is a requirement for survival, extremely pleasurable, available to 6 billion people around the world, completely natural, easily and cheaply able to be made extremely safe, and even has biological factors building in desire for it.
It's amazing how many people can be duped into thinking it's 'dirty' or 'bad' by a few control freaks.