Editor’s Note: While not entirely explicit, some of the images below may be considered by some NSFW.

SEX! It is everywhere in today’s society. From ad campaigns to television shows, music, movies, comedy routines… sex is everywhere you look. And why shouldn’t it be? The fact of the matter is simple - sex sells! You hear that all the time, and for good reason. Want to get people to listen to you, mention the word sex (ala Dane Cook). Want your movie to get more people to watch it despite it having a very crappy plot, have the two stars have several very explicit sex scenes throughout the film (damn you Angelina Jolie and Antonio Banderas for making me sit through 90 minutes of Original Sin). Want your less than stellar song to get some buzz, sing about sex (i.e. Steel Panther’s Party All Day, Fuck All Night). Want people to come to your booth are expos and cons? There is a reason we have booth babes people. Bad press, good press, the mantra in the entertainment business is no press is bad press, so why not get a little racy to get people to notice you. Sure, you may bring the oh so scary (NOT!) wrath of the Parents Television Council, Common Sense Media, the Eagle Forum and several other conservative advocacy groups; but most of the time, the attention these group bring to the matter lends to more people following, watching or purchasing said items these groups were rallying in the first place.

That being said however, the entertainment medium that has been most reluctant to include wanton and grandiose use of sex as a selling point has been the video game industry. The vast majority of games out on the market right now rely little on sex or sexual innuendo as a way to get their products sold to consumers. And believe me, it isn’t because the game developers and publishers believe that gaming is still a purely child’s form of entertainment; that is far from the truth - especially when you consider the number of adults who play video games today greatly outnumbers those of children. (Check out these numbers to see for yourselves.) Trust me, the people who make these games realize that the people who are buying these games today are the ones who grew up on the medium back in the 1970s and 1980s. (And anyone who tells you that gaming is still purely a child’s pastime is ignorant of the facts on the matter.) No, the makers of video games today would much rather rely on the gameplay or story of their games to be the main selling point. Even games like Grand Theft Auto III, which did create quite a stir for the inclusion of being able to solicit a prostitute, relied more on the style and freedom of gameplay and the actual plot of the game to maintain its large fan base for the past decade.

Sure, there have been games released since the beginning of the gaming industry that have attempted to exploit sex in the games to garner a bigger profit out in the market. Hell, right off the top of my head I can name you the following ten games that gratuitously featured sexual themes: Custer’s Revenge, Beat ’Em & Eat ’Em, Bubble Bath Babes, Leisure Suit Larry, Phantasmagoria, BMX XXX, Playboy: The Mansion, Dead or Alive: Extreme Beach Volleyball, The Guy Game and Singles: Flirt up Your Life. (And despite what you may have heard, Night Trap was in no way a sexually exploitive game. Play it and see just where in the game it becomes "offensive.") But aside from Leisure Suit Larry and DOAX (which have very loyal cult followings), I ask you to name me which of these games was actually a successful and well received game by the gaming public. Exactly! Games that rely solely on the premise of sexual exploitation don’t really sell to well in the mainstream market as say a sexual comedy would on the silver screen with movie goers. (I would like to believe that it is because we as gamers have a more sophisticated palette, but that really is just wishful thinking.) Seriously speaking now, as gamers, we want more from a game than just a cheap thrill to get out blood flowing with excitement. I mean, come on, would you honestly continue playing a game if the game play and plot sucked? I know I wouldn’t. A game needs at least either/or one of those two points to make it worth my time and continue playing.

Let’s go back to Grand Theft Auto III for a moment here as I believe it illustrates my point perfectly here. As I said before, as the main protagonist in the game, it was possible to seek out and solicit a prostitute in the game to gain extra health. And it was fun to do that for a while. But the main part of the game, the story that the game presented before you and how you go about completing the many task in the game; that was the main selling point of the game. I mean, you could only solicit a prostitute so many times before the initial fun of it wore thin. But going around and completing Claude’s measure of vengeance and revenge were much more engaging than having a pixilated sweetie tickle his joystick for a few jollies. Okay, so some of you may be saying that the main selling point of the game was the violence and that it is in some way equal in footing with sex. Okay, then how do you explain away games like Fear Effect 1 & 2, Mass Effect 1 & 2, Fahrenheit (aka Indigo Prophecy), Heavy Rain, Dragon Age: Origins, Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots and several others that, while containing sexually explicit or sex scenes, relied more on the intelligent game play and mature and extensive storyline to entice gamers to continue on. The sexual scenes in the game flowed in perfectly with the story and were not gratuitous but served to either progress the story along and/or show the level of emotional attachment between the characters.

If that is how sex is used in a video game, in a mature and responsible way, I am all for gaming companies including scenes like them in their products. If the companies can avoid simply putting a sex scene in just because they can, I have a much higher degree of respect for them for doing so. But if they make a game which just places scene after scene in it which exploits sex for no reason than just because they thought it would be a great addition to the game; then I have to admit that it is not generally something I would purchase. Nor recommend. The same way that I do not respect movies like Showgirls and Original Sin, I have very little respect for games like The Guy Game and Singles: Flirt Up Your Life. There has to be something much deeper than sex as a selling point to keep me interested in the product. I may enjoy a round or two of DOAX once in a while, but I am more likely to pick up and continue playing a game like Ico because the game play and story can keep me immersed and interested for more than a fleeting few minutes of fun.

On that note, I thought it would be responsible of me to consult with a couple of my fellow colleagues here at Nfamous to see what they have to say on the matter. First off, I went to our lovely comic book expert and host of our Comic Nsanity podcast, Marron Marvel for her thoughts on the subject of video games and sex.

“I don't have a problem with nudity and/or sex in gaming as long as the packaging has proper warnings so that people are informed before letting their kids play said games. Most gamers are in their late twenties to mid-thirties, so sex, violence, drugs, nudity and all that other wholesome fun stuff that we find everywhere else in the media is perfectly acceptable in video games. It's up to a younger gamer's parents to make sure they are educated about the content of games and to make the decision whether or not to allow a child to play a game. I think that once people begin to understand that video games aren't just for kids and start to treat it like other media where sex is prevalent, like television, then it will be more acceptable.”

As always, she is intelligent and insightful. Next, I wanted to consult with KYABen, one of our resident gaming writers, for his thoughts on the matter. Not only is he an avid gamer but his level and wealth of knowledge are something that I admire and respect about him. If anyone here knows there video games, it is him.

“I remember the first time I came into contact with nudity in a video game. It was while playing Duke Nukem. In one of the levels there was a strip club with dancers on the tables. Handing over a wad of cash would prompt the dancer to flash her naked chest, covered oh so slightly by two small red tassels over the nipples. Nudity, yet not quite. I have to say, the few seconds of a highly pixilated female shaking her goods got my adolescent blood flowing- which I imagine was the whole point. This day and age sex is everywhere. From Victoria's Secret catalogs arriving in the mail to movies and television shows depicting love scenes, our culture is inundated with the naked, or nearly naked, human form. While I don't really have a problem with this, I do hope that it doesn't proliferate much farther into the realm of video games. The reason being that sex sells. It always has, and it always will. It's a cheap and easy way to create a buzz about a game and as the old saying goes: there is no such thing as bad press. The level of sex and/or profanity says a lot about the level of creativity that goes into a project.

Look at modern comedy for instance. How many movies come out that are loaded with sex and sexual themes? Almost all of them. Then take a look at stand up comics, and I mean really look. How many of them are able to make you laugh without resorting to risqué themes and chains of expletives? Take Sinbad for instance. Love him or hate him, he built his career without using curse words or venturing into X rated territory, and he is very successful. Don't get me wrong, though. There are plenty of comedians who curse up a storm, or discuss all sorts of sexual antics that are hilarious, and I certainly wouldn't knock a video game just because it contains a scene or three of nudity. I just respect the developers all the more if they can create an engaging, fun game without having to resort to sex. Sinbad said it best:  ‘You can keep it real without making it distasteful’. I agree 100%, bitch.”

Both of my colleagues bring up intelligent and mature points of interest. KYABen and I actually share many of the same ideas when it comes to sex and video games. But Marron Marvel does bring up a point in this argument that I have yet to touch upon - the labeling and selling of games with sex to the consumer. First and foremost, it is up to the consumer to be mindful of what they are buying when they purchase a video game, especially when the guardian or parent is making a purchase for a minor. They must be willing to take full responsibility for the purchase and take the time to make sure that the minor understands exactly what they are seeing on the screen when a sexual scene is shown. (Personally I am a big proponent of full parental responsibility and hate the fact that groups like PTC and Common Sense Media claim that they know what is better for a child than the parent - especially when I am a parent myself.) I think I know better than anyone just what my children can and can’t handle. And I won’t shelter or hide them away from facts of life they will come to experience on their own later. Parents have to really ask themselves if they are ready to sit with their child and explain to them what they are seeing before making a purchase of a video game, of any video game, with their children. Would I buy my oldest son a game like Heavy Rain right now? No, he is still a little too young to comprehend it. But when he is say 13, 14 or 15 and he ask me for a game of that nature, would I buy it for him then? I would really consider yes after I sit and talk with him about what he is seeing.

Now, in order for a parent to make those choices though, the game must be clearly marked in front of the box art that it is intended for mature gamers and what the potentially objectionable material may be. If that sounds familiar for some of you out there, then you are already familiar with the Entertainment Software Ratings Board, more commonly referred to as the ESRB. This organization, established in 1994 in the wake of congressional hearings on the matter of video games and mature themes, is a non-profit ,self-regulating board that uses several methods to review and rate a video game for its content and whether or not it should be included on the warning label which list the rating. The current rating system which goes from EC (Early Childhood) all the way up to AO (Adults Only) is a stellar example of just how consumers and parents can gauge the level of suitable material is in a game. For the past 17 years, this organization has been responsible for making sure that all consumers and retailers know exactly what is contained in a game, and makes much more sense than some of the other alternative suggestions that people and groups have come up with over the past several years. (Check out the battle between the State of California and the Entertainment Merchants Association.) Is it a perfect system? Of course not. But neither is the FDA with all these outbreaks of E. Coli and other diseases found in foods lately and the number of medicinal drugs being recalled.

Back to the discussion about sex and video games; it seems only likely that sex will have a more pronounced role in video games as the age of the average player rises every year. Despite what many of these advocacy groups would have you believe, video games are not child’s play anymore. And it is ultimately up to the adult parents and guardians to determine what they believe to be appropriate for their children to play. That being said, I hope that video games do not go the route of the sexual comedy where sex in games is there just simply because it can be there. If sex has a future in games, I hope that it is handled in a way that leads to the progression of the story rather than a cheap thrill. I have given several adequate examples of games that have gone that route and have been successful in their presentation. I personally have nothing against sex in games when done tastefully. And I even admitted to enjoying the occasional exploitive game. But as long as it doesn’t become the norm or done just for the sake of doing so, I see no reason why sex and video games can’t become cozy bed buddies. It is the natural progression of the medium to go in that route, whether conservative groups are ready for it or not.

We already have sexually suggestive themes in games. Don’t believe me; ask yourself just why characters like Lara Croft (pre-2011), Bloodrayne, Felicia and Morrigan, Kitana and Mileena, Mai Shiranui and Bayonetta were designed the way they were. The game makers were already appealing to the base instincts of the male gaming population all the way to when games first started. And I am fine with that. That kind of eye candy or fan service has never been too gratuitous or harmful. It may be a bit one-sided for female gamers out there, but it has never been as detrimental or as much as a lightning rod for controversy as actual sex in video games goes. I don’t know why it hasn’t garnered as much interest, but that is the way it is. Likewise, I am not discussing games that are solely intended for adults like hentai games are. Like porn, hentai games are designed for a small population of the gaming community and cannot even be sold at the majority of retail gaming stores across the country. I know these topics lend themselves in a small way to the whole picture, but I wanted to focus on the main point of this argument rather than nitpick at the smaller details. (I may get into those topics pretty soon though.)

We as a gaming community have to let the developers and publishers of these games we enjoy know exactly what we want from our games. We have to let them know that we want or do not want sex in video games. If we do want sex in games, we have to let them know just what the boundaries are that we will tolerate. We can’t have every studio decide to put out B-movie type games relying solely on cheap thrills. As I stated before, I would like to think we are a more intelligent group who can handle the maturity of sex in games and not resort to it becoming a cheap sales gimmick. If we want to be taken seriously and not have our medium of entertainment attacked again and again by people with misleading facts or half-truths, we have to not only hold the gaming companies accountable for the content, but ourselves as well. Sex in video games can be a good thing if, like all other things in life, can be done in moderation. Sex has a place in video gaming; I just think we still need to find just how and where it fits in the big picture of it all.