I’ve never really played any porn games more hardcore than Baldur’s Gate 3 before, but you remember a couple weeks ago when GOG gave away those NSFW games, as a direct response to the whole thing?
Well I claimed the bundle just to boost their numbers (because censorship is bullshit), but recently I needed a low-difficulty gaming distraction, so I checked a few of them out, and… some of them are kind of good?
Like first off you have to be okay with visual novels (usually), but if you’re cool with that, some of them actually have some compelling characters, and occasionally even good gameplay in between all the fucking and whatnot.
Leap of Love is amusing, kind of adorable when it comes to the not-sex stuff, and charming. It is also a game where you (a former frog) can marry and simultaneously bed 3 princesses and their stepmother after deposing of the evil king. My brain is still trying to reconcile this.
Huniepop is one of the best match 3 puzzle games I’ve ever played, with a chill as hell soundtrack. Also a scantily-clad foul-mouthed love fairy wants you to fuck every woman in a 5 mile radius who can fog a mirror.
And Crom help me, when I finished… sigh… Fetish Locator Week 1, I actually cared enough about some of the characters to buy the next one.
The point is, some of these games have more depth and value than I’d been led to believe, and I wouldn’t have known that if the censorship thing hadn’t started that chain of events. So congrats censorship people, and honestly thanks, I guess? Completely the opposite of your intended effect. Task failed successfully.
Are we (edit: 'hope that doesn’t sound antagonistic; I more meant it rhetorically)? No-Nut November has only recently dipped in the general consciousness and goon is currently trending as a pejorative. I think we’re comfortable with pushing the boundaries and with nodding and winking towards it but outright normalization has a fierce backlash.
But part of what the sex. lib. movement was about was both normalization and healthy interaction with sex, not just sexual content being prevalent. There’s plenty of unhealthy ideas and performances that the mainstream porn industry perpetuates, much of it relying on satisfying a normative and patriarchal outlook; feminist porn, for example, was/is a much more sex. lib. approach to porn (from giving women more active participation in the sex portrayed (rather than just the receptive of it) to also having the performers express their emotions more (even if minimally) and how the sex they were having made them feel).
These goals are much more in line with the emotional experience OP was describing, where it’s not just sexual content but a more healthy engagement with that sexual content as well, such as experiencing emotions and attachment. That’s part of why OP’s descriptions reminded me of it.
Mainstream porn, driven by capitalism (which isn’t to say all of us aren’t in some degree, even indie creators; sadly, that’s just the reality, right now), doesn’t care about these things.
And sex. lib. has a distinct history and activism, much of intertwined with gay liberation and…I think most people don’t know that or, like, the battles that were fought for information about safe sex, etc. I mean, it’s not unique (most people aren’t aware about disability history, for example, or events like the Capital Crawl) but it’s still deeply unfortunate.
I do appreciate the time and effort you put into the comment, but I am not arguing against what you are saying.
Since Kinsey &co and the summer of love, the movement didn’t evaporate, it perforated society and mutated. I don’t think I’d be going too far by stating, that the sexual revolution couldn’t have happened without the suffragettes. I see the queer movement as a spearhead in the same direction.
I only had qualm with you saying anything has been undone (sorry if I’m paraphrasing). Yeah, using ‘woke’ as a pejorative for anyone craving progress is a thing now, but that doesn’t mean most of us want nothing more than to love each other freely.