A History of Sex & Games

Girls who are boys, who like boys to be girls
The edge-dwelling sex games of the ‘80s taught us one sure thing: A market existed for sexy games. But even as a new decade dawned, adult themes tiptoed subtly into the digital world. While no one argues the fact we love sex, there was always a zealous fight to keep sexuality locked out of popular culture to protect our kids, our families or our moral fabric.

While this makes it harder to push obviously sex-themed games out to the public, developers have managed to engender a sense of the sexual in games without having to show a single nude scene or genital Fresco, thus circumventing angry mobs.

With gaming hardware continually advancing into a more powerful canvas, players and developers embraced the sexiness of the human form in gaming, providing titillation while keeping literal sex out of the equation.

Beat-em-ups started making appearances through the ‘90s and brought with them a glut of playable characters whose avatars and actions highlighted an intriguing mix of sex and violence. Here was a genre that cast players as burly guys beating up little girls (and vice versa) and same-sex wrestling against a backdrop of domination and subjugation. Whether in the guise of Chun-Li’s shiny thighs peeking through a hybrid geisha costume or the rippling muscles of Guile; the same traits that create a ‘sexy’ character in other mediums gathered a foothold in interactive entertainment.

Core Design’s Tomb Raider circa 1996 took character design up several notches using a then-stunning 3D engine to give substance to the now-legendary Lara Croft. Lara was not only a perfectly sexy game model, but one of the first mainstream playable female heroines. Waves of players brought up on male-centric characters were being given a female to control in-game – not as an option, but as the only choice.

We weren’t just rescuing Princess Zelda anymore. Instead we became a female character whose acrobatic moves and powerful onscreen presence were anything but princess-like.

This opened up a whole new realm of exploration as players experienced a popular video game as a strong, attractive and plot-central woman. For guys in particular, Lara was a window into the ever-present fantasy of being a woman for a day, the sexual limits we employ in reality becoming fragile in the world of polygons and texture maps.

One can't help but admire the customisation that allows you to set strap-on girth.

The A-list of gaming hotties
Name: Lara Croft
(Tomb Raider)
Famous for being a game character so anatomically disproportionate, she had to be played by the equally disproportionate Angeline Jolie in the movie spin-off.

Name: Blood Rayne
(Blood Rayne)
If there’s anything un-sexy about a vampire wrapped up in spandex and wielding a huge set of steak knives, we haven’t discovered it.


Name: Max Payne
(Max Payne)
As much the product of a good storyline as typical male hero looks, Max has film noir quality mingled with the phallic overtones of a pump-action shotgun.

Name: Gordon Freeman
(Half-Life)
An eclectic mix of chiselled good looks and ‘Revenge of the Nerds’ spectacles, Gordon Freeman is the modern hottie. Alyx agrees.


Name: Chun-Li
(Street Fighter)
The Japanese know-how to craft beautiful game characters and Chun-Li is ample proof, rolling sexy, tough and cute into a silky blue qipao.

Name: Duke Nukem
(Duke Nukem)
The perfect square-jawed, masculinity-oozing beefcake. ‘Come get some!’ indeed.



Sex, coffee and the OFLC
Censorship goes hand in hand with sexual content. In Australia, it arrived in the form of the Australian Office of Film and Literature (OFLC) video & computer games rating system created in 1994. Though catering to ratings from G through to MA15+, any game deemed in the 18+ category because of sex, violence, drugs or other adult themes is given an RC rating (Refused Classification), prohibiting sale. Here’s a rundown of games that landed on the OFLC’s hit list.

Night Trap – Released in 1992 on Sega CD depicting quasi-sexual violence in the form of the capture and blood-draining of young women, Night Trap was instrumental in the formation of the OFLC despite being given an MA15+ rating.

Sierra’s full-motion video (FMV) horror game Phantasmagoria released in 1995 earned an RC status for a graphic rape scene between husband and wife. While the OFLC pointed out the narrative indicated the husband was under the influence of ‘evil forces’ as he committed the act, guidelines left no room for contextual justification.

With a conceptual link between sex and violence in the form of driving a prostitute to a park, shagging, then beating seven shades of pixilated crap out of her and taking her money, Grand Theft Auto 3 was refused classification in 2001, but later re-released with the prostitute scene omitted and an MA15+ rating.

Despite prostitute-bashing akin to GTA 3, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas passed with an MA15+ rating. That freedom was short-lived after a disabled sex mini-game was found in the title and the ‘Hot Coffee’ mod released to unlock it. The graphic scene was enough for the MA15+ rating to be revoked, and the game was ripped from shelves.

Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude was refused classification in 2004 on the basis of implied 3D sexual activity as a reward. Likewise, Singles: Flirt up your Life joined the latest Larry game in distribution exodus after also being refused classification in 2004 for using sex as an in-game reward.

There’s a paradigm of conflicting messages for RC rated games, something which highlights the glaring omission of an R18+ classification. Promoting the genre online, however, largely bypasses the hurdles faced by the censorship laws and retailer standards in place.

Brenda Brathwaite, lead designer of Playboy: The Mansion for the PC and professor at the Savannah College of Art & Design, says that difficulty in selling sexually-themed games has weighed heavily on their development and the shift to the Internet as a means of distribution.

‘I think the reason you see less sex games is that it’s difficult to sell sexually-themed titles particularly if they’re hardcore. You can’t put these games in Target, so they have to be sold online through independent shops.’

Brenda is quick to point out that regardless of restrictions, a mature market is developing.

‘As traditional media embrace games as something not just for kids, we’re getting more coverage. Playboy has a column on gaming, and other magazines and websites are following suit. When porn stars like Jenna Jameson and Ron Jeremy (who has a line of sex mobile phone games) get into the act, you know gaming has hit the adult market.’