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Something we all knew, of course, is that sex is seen as worse than violence in video games. According to a poll put on a website targeting adults about videogames (WhatTheyPlay.com), sex is worse than a graphically severed head by over 10%.

Meanwhile, two men kissing also beats out a graphically severed head in offensiveness. I'll make note of this and, instead of kissing my husband goodbye by the car, will instead place heads on spikes on my front lawn.

Read: Via Kotaku

If the "sex" is all about pornography, then I agree with the poll.
If the "sex" is about having intercourse in complete, and utter, privacy then I disagree with the poll.
I think the people who made this poll should have worded it better.

Homosexuality is worse than violent video games, interesting........

That'd be really hardcore.

I know, right? :)


How do you mean? Why is sexual content bad in a video game? If it's handled in an adult manner, I think there's no problem with it. Just have the game rated correctly (Mature) and enforce that rating.

Just be sure to keep the severed heads a good distance awary from each other. Wouldn't want to have them look like they were about to kiss. That would be offensive.

Awesome: cursing is less offensive than gore which is less offensive than sexuality. [/sarcasm]

Anyone else feel something's a tad out of order?

Do it that would be sweet.

Yes then that would be really bad double offensiveness there.

Dear god, even now people are more scared of their children being gay then their children's head getting cut off!

Seriously, just to piss people off, I'm going to animate two male/female bodies with severed heads near them making love while screaming the F-word! Take THAT society!

We're used to the idea of violence in videogames. It's pretty highly stylized, even in the most "realistic" games. From some of the photographs I've seen, I don't think that this comparison would stack up against real severed heads. On the other hand, sex, beyond simple pictures, isn't something easy to render, so society hasn't really even begun to acclimate itself to games having it. Besides, having played games of many varieties, from a purely aesthetic sense, violence is less offensive. Ever played a game where people kiss? It usually looks awkward and fake. We've got so much practice doing violence that "looks good" (so to speak), especially compared to most sexually explicit content.

And of course cursing is less offensive. Seriously, folks, it something that we experience almost literally every day of our lives. It inundates us more than sex and violence combined (which is quite the task). Is it any surprise that we've started to take it in stride.

And it doesn't help that most of the sexually explicit content you find in video games tends to be highly fetish oriented and imported from Japan. A good portion of that stuff genuinely is offensive, and that view gets dumped on everything else (see the more ridiculous reactions to Mass Effect). Just like all violent videogames are inevitably assumed to be something like Grand Theft Auto, all videogames with sexual content are assumed to be something like "RapeLay." (Yes, that is a real videogame. It's on SomethingAwful. I'd link it, but it's seriously NSFW.)

Violence in video games is ok partly because you can't do that stuff in real life. Dress up in a power suit and blow the crap out of your friends across futuristic landscapes? No.

Sex, on the other hand, just get the real thing. It's better. Porn too, why pay for it when you can surf the net for about five minutes? Thats why pornographic video games (which do exist) sell so horribly. Hardly anyone actually buys them.

Hmmm. I was under the impression that pornographic games sold very well in Japan.

In any case, the whole issue about sex in video games seems to be rather dispropotionate to whatever problems they could realy cause. I mean take Mass Effect (Like Avwolf said) there was sex in it, but it was such a infentesimal Pg 13 scene with perhaps a half a second of a bare butt. But for some reason that was considered "corrupting the children"

I tend to regard statements about video gmaes as over hyped on either side of the issue. Video games are the new rock and role.

personally I think that it's just because sex in games has never really been that predominant, I can count on one hand the games I've played with sex in them. There just isn't many out, and good games even less. I've excluded the aforementioned Jap games, to me they aren't video games their interactive hand shady material.

Video Games are becoming a much more influential form of media then it used to be. I mean everyone from you gran to your nephew plays video games now and just like sex in movies it's going to take time for people to accept these kind of things in this media. I think what a lot of parents are worried about is the fact it is interactive. Some how they see this as their kid engaging in some kind of cyber sex but if that’s the case it's their fault for buying their kid a game which is rated 18 really isn't it.

End of the day though, it's just the latest of the taboos that will have to be broken down. Gore and violence faced the same opposition with games like Doom being released.

I just wish people would grow up about sex, just like they would about the human body. Yes, it's a penis. Half the population have them. yes, those are breasts. The other half have those. So what? If it's handled in an adult fashion, there's no reason to keep it a shameful, forbidden thing.

I've actually had a game in mind for a while that I've always wanted to make, but I know that no corporation would financially back it because of the "controversy" of it involving two gay protagonists, where homosexuality plays a central role to the story. This'd be more than just "HEY LOOK AT ME I'M GAY!" and "THEM CHRISTIANS HATE US" but instead deal with a science-fiction and dystopian inspired future regarding religion, homosexuality, and politics in an adult manner.

...So, it'd be like Cube Zero, but with added homosexuality and reduced gore and pain? Sounds like my kind of game, Kinuki. Maybe Rockstar would back it?

doubtful. Rockstar like a good deal of violence in their games, the only exception to their releases that springs to mind is Midnight Club and thats only becuase you can't really put violence into a racing game. :P