Comment by jchw | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jchw | Hacker News Reader

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You may have a specific idea of what it means to be "sexually repressive" that doesn't match what I mean when I say it. Porn games on steam and horniness still existing doesn't literally conflict with people having sexually repressive social attitudes.

Of course, I am not asking for a return to the pathetic days of Lara Crofts' chest. I get that this is one of the most iconic things people think of, but it's neither appealing to me nor something I think was "good". I think if developers want to do that sort of thing because they want to, well, go for it, but it's probably going to come off as stupid.

In order to understand what I'm talking about, I think you'd have to directly confront the perception of media as seen through the lens of younger people on TikTok and Twitter. Personally, I have abandoned social media of any kind (unless you count traditional forums like this, and a few chats), but the way things were trending with regards to how people treated things could not be described as anything but regressive, full-stop.

And also, there's a bit more nuance to the situation than just sexualization itself. I think to illustrate the kind of distinction I'm talking about, I'll just link to someone who writes better than I do.

https://bloodknife.com/everyone-beautiful-no-one-horny/

(This is of course, not about video games. However, I do personally believe that this is in fact a general trend, and not specific to video games or movies.)

There is a thread that I think I may agree with here - something along the lines of the regression towards the acceptable sexual mean in mass media - but you specifically called out a trend where "people have become regressive about sexuality in video games", stating:

> a bunch of people were convinced to go all the way from 90's style "toxic masculinity" to a totally puritanical anti-sexuality stance

To the contrary, I find that there is more sex - including a greater variety in the expression of human sexuality - in mainstream video game titles than I can ever remember there being in my lifetime. Surely a lot of people are paying money for these video games, or else they would not be produced.

Edit: fixed redundant phrasing.

> Surely a lot of people are paying money for these video games, or else they would not be produced.

Absolutely. It is important for me to be clear that I do not believe video games are significantly less sexual overall.

I do think, however, that people's treatment of sexuality in media is dramatically different, and the amount of criticism and scrutiny that it receives outpaces most other social issues these days. This has led to at least a little bit of a chilling effect, as if you're a game developer, or anyone else producing media, you probably feel the pressure to be a lot more careful about exactly how you handle sexuality, as things have gotten a lot more cutthroat overall. That's not to say every consequence of this has been unilaterally bad, but I do personally believe that this leads to things that overall feel less authentic in a lot of cases. Personally, I like to see people's personal creative visions, uncompromised by concerns of how it will be perceived.

But socially and in media coverage, I do see what I personally would consider regressive. It feels like socially, the safest thing you can do is merely tolerate the existence of sexual content, and outwardly enjoying it can earn you some scrutiny. For example, A good amount of the NoFap crowd paints pretty much anyone who enjoys pornographic content as being pornsick. In addition to just them, there is a serious amount of scrutiny regarding the nature of sexual content, and there is a lot of pressure to be careful about how you openly enjoy things; the safest place to be is to merely tolerate sexuality rather than embrace it. If you do embrace it, you can count on it being scrutinized. If something you enjoy is considered problematic, such as a relationship with a power dynamic issue, it will be scrutinized-it doesn't matter that there's media like Game of Thrones filled to the brim with incest and other such content. (In fact, Game of Thrones has become almost cliche to bring up, not unlike Grand Theft Auto with regards to video game violence.)

I can see why my position seems startlingly inaccurate from some perspectives. That said, I do think there is something regressive going on, even if describing it as "puritanical" is perhaps a misstep, as it is clearly a lot more nuanced than that.

I understand where you are coming from. I think we agree that there is something dysfunctional about mass media and its relationship with those who consume it in 2023. But, we probably disagree about the nature of that dysfunction.

My favorite thing to point at to illustrate my own take is the utter corporate sterility of Meta's "Horizon" social vision compared to the untamed (and often sexually-charged) landscape of spaces like Second Life and VRChat. There is a clear mismatch here: open-ended channels show us the forms of creative expression that the human psyche is drawn towards when given a blank canvas. Meanwhile, Meta reduces creativity down to something that the corporate hegemony considers "brand safe." You can be whatever you want to be on Meta's platform, so long as it is an anatomically correct human who aligns with a handful of well-defined social archetypes (all vetted by committee to be a representative cross-section of the diversity of humanity dontchaknow).

Even if I don't agree with your specific claims, this at least seems to rhyme with some what you're observing here.

Exchanges like these give me a small bit of hope for humanity! Thanks cdata and jchw!

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