So, what's behind the "creepy" and "icky" and "squicky" feelings that not very explicit descriptions of a super-powerful free-love wizard-queen and her perpetual elven hot-tub orgy conjure up in so many people?
Well, some of it surely is principled prudishness - "I don't want to see any kind of sexual depiction, ever." Some of it is a kind of horror-of-the-nerds - "You can have all the sex you want, but don't mix it with my gaming!"
But what if instead of a goodly queen and her consensual pleasure jacuzzi, you had descriptions of a cruel demon empress, genitally tortured male slaves, raped women forced to bear demon babies? Would you see the author of those scenes described as a "dirty old man"? Would he be accused of projecting his own sexual fantasies into the fiction? Or would this stuff be considered kind of staid, traditional, in a game that started out with a naked chained female sacrifice on a cover? You tell me.
Writers of that kind of "extreme" scenario may get called out on sexual politics, but they're also taking a more usual step than you might think in fantasy gaming. And it certainly avoids the cardinal sins of being uncool, and hippy-dippy, and happy-smiley. I mean, that Elfquest orgy - so embarrassing!
Again, you tell me. Do you give stuff that mingles sex with violence a free pass because it's edgy, bold, transgressive? Or, actually, because it's strangely traditional in the fantasy and horror genre? Or, also, because the motion-picture rating cliche is more true than you'd like to admit - violence is more OK by an order of magnitude than sex - to the point where violence can actually make sex more acceptable? Perhaps the real revolutionary is the one who cuts sex free from its pulp-fantasy whips and chains and altars.
Consider this. Some creators mix depictions of sex with violence because "that's the way it is, man." Some, on a kneejerk level, because it's part of the genre. Some, no doubt, do it because that's what sexually excites them. Still others, to force a more existential kind of confrontation. But there have always been those who do it because on some level they think sex is bad, they think violence is bad, and the best way to reinforce the badness of sex is to mix it with violence and gross-outs. Like so:
All of this sets me up to write the next entry: How to shock, and why.
"violence is more OK by an order of magnitude than sex"
ReplyDeleteThat's a fairly culturally parochial point of view.
Role-playing during my middle-school years featured far more sexual situations than now (in my late 30's). However, if one of my players wants to go down that road, however twisted other may see it, is fine by me as the DM. I still find myself drawing the occasional Heavy Metal Magazine-esque babe for my blog, just like I did when I was a kid eyeballing Psylocke in my comic collection. I tend to keep my drawings covered up, as I am for the PG-13 rating in terms of my public blog.
ReplyDeleteI'm actually pretty happy with the level of sex, and its lack of intertwining with violence, in the game I'm currently running. PCs get treasure, bring it back to town, spend it on "booze and whores". Occasionally they'll wake up next to someone who happens to be a plot hook (or another PC or henchman), and we have one PC who's been charmed by a sorceress and brings her presents. The action is off-screen and not explicit, but a lot gets implied.
ReplyDeleteTruthfully, I think it's because they are having boring sex IRL.
ReplyDeleteI mean, if they aren't having sex, then they can probably fantasize about it. And if they are having exciting sex then they sort of view it as somewhat representative of the lifestyle of you know, what they might be doing with magic powers.
But if you're in an unsatisfactory or dull sexual relationship, then Ed greenwood and Zak Sabbath better fuck off and shut up because they are full of sin.
Or so I think without proof.
By the same token, though, I think lots of nerds have no sex at all. And because they aren't having any sex, all they do is fantasize about it. And fantasies being what they are, they become more and more extreme over time.
DeleteSometimes they become sort of touchingly extreme, like Ed Greenwood's completely harmless pervy old man routine. At other times, they turn into FATAL or what have you. That seems the fundamental psychology of it, to me.
I'm quite sure Ed was never having hippy sex with the Vancouver equivalents of Galadriel and Arwen, anyway.
DeleteIs there a way to mention sexuality in a game, like you would in any other work of fiction? Because I don't shy away from sexual attractions and facts in my game but I never make it a main feature, and I always offer it as a potential hook for players rather than a mandate. I can see how people accuse Ed of wish-fulfillment but then it's very easy to wonder why the same accusations are not levied against creators of more egregious fictions.
DeleteWhy would I want to discuss sex with a table full of middle aged men? No really why? D&D has plenty of rules for combat and random encounters but is strangely silent on the issue of sex.
ReplyDeleteI get the cultural cringe around sex and in particular sex in movies. I don't think roleplaying games need more sex because of hollywoods double standard.
a table full of middle aged men
DeleteI don't think this is a good assumption to make. This may be your group, but I read this post as addressing all the many and diverse groups out there, not just the stereotypes.
"on some level they think sex is bad"
ReplyDeleteI think that this is probably the answer when you get right down to it. Demon-sorceresses inflicting sex on others is "ok" because it resonates with the societal perception that sex is dirty and wrong and, at best, should be hidden away.
I think part of what's going on here is, as you say, a remnant of the genres from which these games originally sprung.
ReplyDeleteIn the late 70s and through the 80s, Hollywood films -- and specifically action, horror, sci-fi/fantasy, and exploitation films generally -- adopted a very strange set of attitudes toward sex. Roger Corman and his ilk got the ball rolling with horny teenagers coming to bad ends, and the new crop of horror films starting in the mid-70s really ratcheted this up: Wes Craven's Last House On The Left is as shocking a sex-torture film today as it was when it was first released.
In the 80s, this trend took what I consider an even more sinister and unhealthy turn: lusty, laughing heroes disappeared from action movies and were replaced with grim sadists like Dirty Harry and Mad Max. These guys had no time for the ladies, except to establish a motive for their sadistic revenge when she inevitably gets raped/tortured/murdered by the bad guys. Increasingly over the course of the 80s, action heroes became asexual, while the villains were often depicted as overtly and perversely sexual, often in combination with violence and sadism. If you want to see the peak of this phenomenon, watch a martial arts flick from the late 80s, with a star like Van Damme or Steven Seagal. Or watch the De Niro version of Cape Fear. Really sick stuff, and very weird sexual politics: women exist to be sexually victimized, and male sexuality is identical to sadism, violence, and corruption.
I think it's notable that this was the era in which D&D culture took the shape it still holds today. The playful kinkiness of pulp writers like REH had dried up into a harder, more sadistically violent attitude toward sex, and I think this had a profound effect on how D&D culture developed.
All you've said is true, but then you have to explain how this age of grimdark heroes manages to coincide with the age of sanitized, blowdried, smiley depictions in D&D. Probably all that repressed zeitgeist resurfaced, gaming-wise, in the White Wolf generation.
DeleteInterestingly, I am just in the process of reading the Warhammer sourcebook Realm of Chaos: Slaves to Darkness, which treats the demons of Khorne (Bloodshed) and Slaanesh (Pleasure). An interesting grouping, in light of this post. In fact, the very concept of Slaanesh seems slightly victorian and prudish to me. Somehow kinky sex is put on the same level of degenerate wanton violence.
ReplyDeletebut rem that Change (Tzeentch?) is also one of the Big Four. Sex, Disease, War and Change - the four deadly sins!
DeleteIf we're talking Warhammer, you're going further back than the Victorian for sex-negativity (see my Hieronymus Bosch source material ...)
DeleteOne other important thing to consider, that makes this discussion different for RPGs than it does for other forms of media like novels and movies, is that the idea of combat is almost inherent in RPGs (yes, there are exceptions, but 99% of the time...) whereas sex is optional.
ReplyDeleteAnd combat is a big part of D&D style tomb robbing (heroic fantasy, too) games. So if sex is added, it's likely to be mixed up with the violence, just because there is so much violence present, not necessarily because people are chasing ideas of transgression. So, in answer to your question, no, I don't give sex a pass because it is accompanied by violence. But then, I don't feel like I need to give sex a pass at all, because its depiction is not problematic to me.
I do probably avoid sex to some degree in my games, but that's just because I don't want to make players uncomfortable. Different people have dramatically different boundaries around these things, and it also can potentially get into real life issues. For example, if your character is having sex with an NPC, and it is described, is that equivalent to sexting? Might you be complicit in cheating in a real-world relationship if you engage in that narration? Obviously, it depends on the particular people in question, but what if you are playing with a "free love" player and a less sexually liberal player? Does the predilection of the less sexually liberal player always trump the free love player? My guess is practically speaking, it probably does.
This is true, I always give a very light touch when it comes to offering a sexual "hook" to PCs, and very much using the proverbial "three asterisks." I wouldn't shy away from orgy-as-scenery to prove a point about the value system of where the party is at, but there's only so far you can go play-acting a sexualized character without entering a very bad place, so that requires a very subtle handling.
Delete"sex is bad, they think violence is bad, and the best way to reinforce the badness of sex is to mix it with violence and gross-outs"
ReplyDeleteYes, that's still an uncontroversial position. Witness eg the orgy scene in Conan The Barbarian.
No one minds Iuz having his demonic orgies. Ed activates the squick-meter because it's the Elves and Good Wizards having hippy consensual orgies where no one gets hurt. None of us mind the idea of Theleb Ka'arna or Thoth Amon engaged in orgies; but Gandalf and Galadriel is a big no-no.
Indeed, and again, the "good guys are sexless" idea is a way to cope with the anxiety that your imagined scenarios might be wish-fulfillment - precisely the accusation leveled against poor old Ed, and ironic considering the usual defensiveness about the problems of *violent* wish-fulfillment in these games.
DeleteI certainly think swords & sorcery naked-virgin-on-altar is just as much wish-fulfilment as Ed's Alustriel orgies/pregancies/pain-free childbirth.
DeleteObjectively speaking, Ed's fantasies are quite 'nice', whereas the adolescent s&s fantasies of sex are 'nasty'; yet it's still Ed who squicks me out, while some mild S&S bondage imagery is quite titillating. Presumably this doesn't say anything very nice about me, but I appear to be in the clear majority.
Here's an excerpt from one of the linked articles:
DeleteIn the same way that real-world kings in some places and times enjoyed droit de signeur [French for: “As the King, I have the right to sleep with anyone” :}], Alustriel takes many lovers for short periods of time, and is one of those rare kind, understanding, warm people who has the knack of staying close, affectionate friends with former lovers, even in the presence of other ex-flames. In fact, it’s quite likely that any meeting of courtiers will contain a majority of folk who have visited the royal bed or baths at one time or another -- and most of them remain fiercely loyal to Alustriel and to her dream of Silverymoon.
Just in contrast S'mon, I think this is awesome, and far less problematic than PCs kicking down doors and killing orcs (which is also fair game in scenarios I run; I am not a moralizing referee).
Why does Ed's depiction "squick you out" (and what does that mean?). Is it just because he is an older guy with a beard, and older guys are not allowed to be attracted to youthful women? Would your reaction be different if the passage was written by, say, a 19 year old college student DM?
I don't see why Ed's depiction should be scandalous at all, especially compared to real world historical examples like harems and rites to Dionysos.
Brendan:
ReplyDelete"Why does Ed's depiction "squick you out" (and what does that mean?). Is it just because he is an older guy with a beard, and older guys are not allowed to be attracted to youthful women? "
No, I'm sure he formed his fantasies when he was a young hippy nerd, his neckbeard barely grown. :)
"I don't see why Ed's depiction should be scandalous at all, especially compared to real world historical examples"
Well he doesn't understand that real-world courtly love required the absence of actual carnal intercourse. It worked through suppressed desire, not constant orgies.
Not in Ancient Greece or Rome. And there are plenty of other historical counter examples.
DeleteI'm not an expert, but I believe courtly love is a very specific European (and specifically French) medieval concept.
Yes, but 'courtly love' is the term Ed (mis)uses, not "Greco-Roman orgy". The power of a queen like (mythologised) Eleanor of Aquitaine in 'courtly love' is that she is an unattainable, impossible figure, like Galadrial - the repressed sexual desire gives power, this is the essence of chivalric love. Not that she's a constantly copulating queen termite like Alustriel. Alustriel is presented is closer to the Alien Queen in Aliens, constantly popping out progeny, than to Galadriel or Eleanor.
DeleteIf so, Ed misused a (relatively specific) historical term. (I just reread that part, and actually agree with you; "courtly love" in the historical sense is not the meaning Ed wants to convey.)
DeleteBut that doesn't say much about his setting depiction. Do you have an issue with what he signified (free love elf queen) or just the signifier?
"But that doesn't say much about his setting depiction. Do you have an issue with what he signified (free love elf queen) or just the signifier?"
ReplyDeleteHmm... if it were presented differently... if he used appropriate terminology... then I might not object.
Alustriel is arguably no different than the Drow matriarch with her throngs of disposable male lovers. I only have minor objections to the drow matriarchy, practical ones like the need for some kind of stable, trusted relationship (most likely another female, perhaps an elevated-status male), to protect the matriarch while she is vulnerable during late pregnancy and childbirth. Likewise Ed's polyandrous, promiscuous Alustriel could be tweaked to work, to make sense as an Elf Queen rather than some chubby hippy den mother smoking weed while she pops out another brat.
Fair enough, I think we're more or less on the same page then.
DeleteThe only other thing I would add is that I think Alustriel's lovers are consenting, no? It's been a while since I read TSR materials about Drow matriarchies, but I don't think the males get much of a say about what happens in their society.
For instance, Alustriel still needs to inspire respect - like the Drow Matriarch, she needs to be a little scary. Ed's depiction, taken literally, is laughable, and makes that impossible. I can see an Elf Queen who is Good but who takes many lovers and uses sex as a weapon - you know you're in favour when she takes you to her bed, but what plans does she have for you? This has historical precedent. But Ed presents her as a kind of hippy den mother.
DeleteAlso, the "There's a naked orgy, whoops your pants fall off!" stuff... *sigh*
I always assumed that by parrallel with spiders, drow males were normally consenting, but suffer a high mortality rate!
Delete