The nice thing about living in the town where a major conference is being held is waking up the next day in my own bed. Sure, with a hangover, but that’s a lot better than the standard GDC ‘what-the-hell-way-I-thinking’ airplane trip home.

On Wednesday, I went long enough to see the Sex in Games talk hosted by Brenda Braithwaite, who helps run the Sex SIG for the IGDA. Her talk was very good and very funny – while I was well familiar with the history of sex in games (I’m a … er… student on the topic), she encapsulated it well, managing to give insights into it without condemning or condoning it.

In her opinion, the major thing holding back sex in games is the “Plastic People” problem, coupled with the fact that realistic characters all too often look undead. This is, of course, what’s been referred to here in the past as the Uncanny Valley, but ‘Plastic People’ as a term probably makes for a better presentation- it gets more laughs and provides for great screenshot opportunities.

One thing that she said that I’ve always tried to say is that the notion that women don’t like sex in their media is wrong. Soap operas, Harlequin novels, and Melrose Place are all about sex. The thing is that they don’t focus exclusively on the act as porn does (although I’m told that some romance novels come very close). Sex is the end-result of relationship-oriented storylines. Unsurprisingly, relationships that lead to sex are at the core of the Sims, which is not to put too fine a point on it, the most successful PC franchise of all time.

The insight that I got that I hadn’t thought of before was the importance of humor to sex-related video games. Once you think about it, this goes without saying. I get a great kick out of the Sims and Leisure Suit Larry, but Virtually Jenna kind of creeps me out.

But then, pure sex games with ‘realistic’ art, no humor or relationships have always somewhat mystified me. I had heard rumors that there was enough free porn on the internet that those so inclined could, you know, gratify themselves with images and movies that didn’t look like the Plastic Living Dead were involved.

Forgot to mention: The guy from SlashDong was there. He brought… samples. And ‘teledildonics‘ is a great word.