I should start this piece by saying I am not a gamer. Beyond the “mom games” that my kids make fun of me for playing on my phone, like Candy Crush and Cube Master, I haven’t played a video game since I played Super Mario Bros. on Nintendo in the early 1990s. My partner, on the other hand, has been playing video games for as long as they can remember. They have more than once told me that some of their earliest childhood memories are of falling asleep on their dad’s lap while watching him play video games for hours, even before they were old enough to play themselves.
Early in our relationship, they tried to get me to play, and I didn’t really have any interest. I’m a work-a-holic with a fairly serious personality (I wish that were a joke), and I didn’t understand the point of idling away hours in a fantasy world. I’m more of a reality TV fan. Okay, maybe this is also fantasy, but messy relationship dynamics I can sink my teeth into; dragon quests, not so much.
Recently my partner came home from work and told me they found out their colleague has been playing Baldur’s Gate 3 — the award-winning role-playing video game based on the popular table-top game Dungeons and Dragons — with her husband. “Isn’t that romantic?” they asked with a longing in their eyes. Because I know their colleague, I texted her and asked jokingly why she was setting me up like this. Her response was something like, “You may like it, didn’t they tell you about all the queer smut scenes?”
My partner had neglected to mention this important detail, and really, it was all I needed. Up until that moment, I didn’t know that video game smut was a thing, even though some of my camgirl friends make money by live streaming video games and cosplaying video game characters.
When I told my partner I would play with them, they were so excited that they bought us a PlayStation 5 so that we could play sitting side by side in the living room. Romantic, right? They taught me how to craft my character and we set out on an adventure — the main point of which (for me) was to find the sex scenes.
Since I clearly don’t understand how to optimize the game to serve my own ends, I turned to three scholars to ask them about the role of sexuality in video games, and in particular, in Baldur’s Gate 3. (Full disclosure, one of the scholars is my partner, and one is their colleague who convinced me to play.)
Bo Ruberg, PhD (they/them), professor of film and media studies at UC Irvine, specializes in queer video games, sexuality, and gender in technology. They tell me over a zoom call that many video games have tried to incorporate sexiness but have run into issues when they veer into actual sex. “The classic example is when Grand Theft Auto had a secret mini game you could play that had interactive sex,” they explain. “It became this huge controversy and went before all kinds of large legal bodies and there was this whole moral panic around video games.”
Part of the issue of sexuality in games has to do with the video game rating system. “If games have sex that’s too explicit, they get what is called an AO rating (Adult Only), instead of M for Mature,” Ruberg explains. “Once they get an AO rating, they can’t be sold most places video games are sold.” Not being able to sell your game in game stores is an obvious death blow to profit margins, thus disincentivizing explicit sex.
The divide between an AO and an M rating, however, isn’t just a matter of how explicit the sex is, but also in how interactive. If you, as a player, control the character throughout the scene, the game gets an AO rating, but if there is a cinematic cutscene where you become a passive observer while the characters get it on, the game can often maintain an M rating. It’s by handling sex the second way that Baldur’s Gate manages to maintain an M rating.
This means that Baldur’s Gate has to walk a tightrope when it comes to sex and sexuality. Courtney Colligan, PhD (she/her), assistant teaching professor in the University of Pittsburgh’s gender, sexuality, and women’s studies program admits (after having convinced me to devote my life to this game), “There isn’t that much smut, but I think there’s enough to where it excites people.” She adds, “I will say they do insinuate or lightly show more sex acts than I expected from video games.”
And Colligan is pointing to something important. It isn’t just that there are a number of different kinds of sex acts depicted in the game, but that there is space for queer sexuality, BDSM, and more. Indeed, Ruberg comments, “I know a lot of queer folks who are playing Baldur’s Gate who are very into all the queer romance. It makes them feel seen, especially in this medium that has historically been really exclusionary toward queer people.” Colligan agrees, pointing out that the lesbian romance that her character had with one of the game’s NPCs (non player characters) “played into a lot of beautiful lesbian tropes.” She says as an aside, “I’m happy with that, I’m like, ‘Where’s the U-Haul?’”
The diversity of gender within the game also lends itself to this sexual exploration. Many young people have used video games in this way. “I think that people use games to explore sexuality in all kinds of ways,” Ruberg says. “There are lots of cases where people are doing that on an individual level, who will say, ‘I explored romancing a character of my gender as a kid or as a young adult, and that was the way that I got to either express being queer or explore being queer.’ It happens with gender identity, too. People talk a lot about picking characters that seem to have a different gender than them as a way to explore what that would be like to be in the world.”
Indeed, when I interviewed my partner, PJ Patella-Rey, PhD (they/them), assistant teaching professor in gender sexuality and women’s studies at the University of Pittsburgh, about their experience of playing Baldur’s Gate in particular, they said, “It feels like this game — in contrast to a lot of other games I’ve played — is really inviting you to explore not only a kind of sexual diversity, but also gender diversity. As a non-binary person, this feels really meaningful to me.”
Colligan, as someone who has exclusively played with her husband, also points out that there is a way that the sexual and relationship dynamics in the game have also given her new ways of seeing how her partner would engage in a relationship with someone other than her, which has been fun. “I think there is something about playing together as a couple where we root each other on, ‘I’m like, Yeah, get with her!’” she says. “It gives you a different level of insight into your partner and how they view relationships.” And perhaps, for monogamous folks, a taste of compersion.
Colligan thinks that this sort of exploration is built into the game, and that this contributes to interesting interpersonal dynamics with your partner when you play together. “I think having so much flexibility within the game allows you to learn something new about your partner.”
Independently, Patella-Rey expressed a similar sentiment. “I think there’s something about having a project together, having an experience together, having something that you’re living and doing that is unfolding for you together, that is very exciting,” they say. “It’s our adventure, it’s something we share. It’s our unique experience that nobody else is having, even though, of course, millions of people are playing.”
This openness — the choose-your-own adventure aspect of the game — is in part an answer to my original question. Everyone is excited about the sex in the game — the sex I’m missing out on! — because they are having a different experience than I am. In Patella-Rey’s words, “I think what’s particularly cool about this game is that no one is going to have the same experience because it’s so open and there are so many different pathways through the game.” Like life, some pathways include a lot of sex, and some just don’t.
Perhaps in closing I should say that, though I have not gotten laid in the game, it has proven to be a good use of my free time, especially in the context of my relationship. It isn’t just that my partner loves video games and was very grateful I chose to play with them (though they did tell me they were so happy we have been doing this it makes them want to cry!). It’s also that it has been a tool for understanding some of our conflicts. Indeed, they say, “There are ways that playing the game also reveals aspects of our personality that sometimes we struggle to negotiate in real life. It's kind of been like a sandbox for us to work out some of our personality differences in a very clear and deliberate way in order to ensure that the game is fun for both of us.” They add, “And that doesn't seem insignificant to me.”
Indeed, it doesn’t seem insignificant to me either. While sex has eluded me in the game, spending time with my partner doing something that is meaningful to them has led to a lot of really great real world sex, and for that, I’m grateful I opened myself up to the experience.
Epilogue:
After finishing this piece, I sat down with a glass of wine and played a round with PJ. To my surprise — after writing an entire article about how I haven’t had any sex in the game — my character was romanced by the wildest and sexiest NPC in the game, Halsin. It was so hot that he lost control and turned into a bear. I can’t possibly get into all of that now, but suffice to say, he was worth the wait.
Jessie Sage (she/her) is a Pittsburgh-based sex worker and writer. Her freelance writing has appeared in a variety of publications including The Washington Post, Men’s Health, VICE, The Daily Beast, BuzzFeed, Hustler Magazine, and more. At the beginning of 2024 she launched a new podcast: When We’re Not Hustling: Sex Workers Talking About Everything But.
You can find Jessie on Twitter @sapiotextual & Instagram @curvaceous_sage. You can follow her new podcast on Twitter & Instagram @NotHustlingPod. You can also visit her website jessiesage.com.
