by Jessica Colabufo

Created on: May 20, 2010   Last Updated: May 21, 2010

As if there aren’t already enough controversies surrounding video games and the violence depicted within them, sexual themes and content have also begun to alert critics and worrisome parents to look even closer at what children and teens are playing.  As early as 1982, a video game called Custer’s Revenge was released, marking one of the first dates that a sexual game was available for a console.  Games of this nature didn’t attract as much attention in the early 80s because video games weren’t nearly as mainstream and commercialized as they have become in recent years.  Although everybody wants to know what’s appropriate for young players (who are mostly male) to view, it is rare to hear the average gamer ask how this ultimately portrays women in our culture.

Some might infer that video games teach young boys how they’re supposed to act with women as well as reinforce these ideals for the older generation of men who are playing the same games as their sons.  However, sexual themes in video games are only a mirror of what our culture already demands of us, as it is the people within our culture who are authoring these games.  In other words, a culture obsessed with sex is inevitably going to create sexual games, and the consumers are going to inevitably spend the money to play them.  In Henry Jenkins’ essay about gendered play spaces, he remarks that “such a culture is as violent as the world depicted in contemporary video games.”  The same can be said for the amount of sexuality present in video games today.

Custer’s Revenge is a key starting point.  It was a pornographic video game, for the Atari, which depicted General George Custer wearing nothing but cowboy boots, a bandana, a hat….and his erection (Wikipedia).  The object of the game was to have sex with the naked Native American woman. There was more controversy over the cultural insensitivity than there was about the naked characters; this could be due in part to the fact that it’s slightly more difficult to be insulted by nude characters when they look like blocks of Legos.  It’s likely that the number of sexual video games has increased because of the fact that developers have better technology to work with now.  It’s become incredibly easy to render a naked character that looks like a real human being.  Essentially, it’s easier to simulate relationships

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