Posts with tag sex

Here in the US, the Motion Picture Association of America assigns ratings to our movies. A quick summary of each:

• G Suitable for all audiences
• PG Parental guidance suggested
• PG-13 Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13
• R Parent or guardian must accompany those under 17
• NC-17 Too adult for 17 and under, so they aren't even admitted

In It came from the Blog, the rule for guildchat is that it must be PG-13. In the Sex Talk edition of Drama Mamas, the guild's forum chat seems to be closer to NC-17.

Now, I don't think that talking about sex necessarily means that the chatters are immature. Mature people can have very mature conversations. But the R to NC-17 chatter in trade chat and battlegrounds is from immature people. There is a huge difference between inappropriately sexual and maturely sexual. But I digress.

Many family guilds will keep it from G to PG, but some stronger language and more mature topics are often allowed at night. It came from the Blog can't do that because we have Australians and other international folk whose days overlap with our nights. We don't want people to be wary of letting their kids play with us because of time zone prejudice.

What rating would you give your guildchat?

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Drama Mamas Lisa Poisso and Robin Torres are experienced gamers and real-life mamas -- and just as we don't want our precious babies to be the ones kicking and wailing on the floor of the checkout lane next to the candy, neither do we want you to become known as That Guy on your realm.

Sex.

Hello Ladies,

I am not sure if you can publish this as it's very adult themed but I am hoping you can because I really need your help! I honestly believe that if I was a man, this wouldn't even be an issue but for now this is really pulling me down.

About three months before the new expansion, I came back to WoW and joined what I thought was an awesome guild. I've been through my probation and for the most part it's been great fun.

The thing with this guild though is that it's very... sexually charged. Most threads get hijacked by something sexual and they even have a NSFW section that is filled with more naked photos than all the men's magazines combined. Even new members are greeted by sexual questions in their application thread. How you response to these questions seems to almost dictates how the guild will receive you.

This Breakfast Topic has been brought to you by Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW Insider's pages.

A few months back, my wife and I were watching television, when suddenly my ears perked to the sound of a familiar phrase. The Big Bang Theory was talking about our beloved game! I had heard that this show employs people to keep its science talk somewhat authentic, so I listened curiously to see where they were going with this. Unfortunately, it appears that they don't exercise the same level of care when talking about video games.

"You know World of Warcraft?" Wolowitz asked Penny.

"The online game? Sure," she replied.

"Well, did you know you that the characters in the game can have sex with each other?

Hollywood has always treated video games more like a prop than a real live hobby, obviously. You're usually lucky when gaming characters actually continue mashing on buttons while they deliver lines, so an inaccuracy like this isn't exactly a surprise. Moments later, though, our phone started to ring. My wife picked it up and I faintly heard my father-in-law asking in his heavy Oklahoma accent, "What does Brian do in that game he's always playin', anyway?" She explained that -- despite tales of Moon Guard -- there is no mechanic in the game to have sex. Still, though ... to this day, when he asks about our "raider game," I swear I can see an incredulous eyebrow rise ever so slightly.

Society and the media haven't always done their best to paint the MMO genre positively or accurately. News stories constantly highlight the worst-case scenarios, and innocent jokes like this can send the wrong impression to the uninitiated. Is there anyone in your life who is convinced that these stereotypes and falsehoods are true? Did you ever try to educate them, or do you just nod your head and laugh to yourself when they mention the game?

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Dodge the drama and become that player everyone wants in their group with the Drama Mamas. Lisa Poisso and Robin Torres are real-life mamas and experienced WoW players -- and just as we don't want our precious babies to be the ones kicking and wailing on the floor of checkout lane next to the candy, neither do we want you to become known as That Guy on your server. We're taking your questions at DramaMamas (at) WoW (dot) com.

Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we pretend to be a gender we're not. When we discussed boys playing girl characters before, we all pretty much agreed that it was cool as long as there was no deception involved. Roleplaying = yay. Experimentation = good. Hiding your true identity in a non-roleplaying environment = uh oh. Unfortunately, for One Big Liar, what began as experimentation and a wee bit of roleplaying evolved into a full-scale reputation for being a "real girl." Uh oh, indeed.

The conservative Christian investment firm, the Timothy Plan, has released a list of the 30 most offensive games on the market (Warning: link is to a PDF file). This list details the areas of sex, nudity, gay / lesbian, violence, cartoon violence, language, comic mischief, drugs, alcohol, tobacco, gambling, demonic, and game addiction as things that are against any "morally responsible" mutual fund to invest in.

In other words they don't want you to invest, like they don't, in companies that make games which deal with any of the above areas.

World of Warcraft is on the list. It has an overall score of a 9, which means it is half as offensive as Grand Theft Auto IV. According to the Timothy Plan, WoW is morally deficient in sex, violence, language, alcohol, and game addiction.

Some investors will take this advice, and that's their right to do so.

After the break we'll examine areas in which WoW is morally deficient, according to the Timothy Plan.

Paid customization has come to the game, and with it, some big decisions for a lot of players. We've asked for a long time to be able to change our gender or look in the game, and now that we can, we have to decide if we will or not.

Personally, I'm torn -- way back when I first started the game, I created a female Night Elf Hunter, thinking along the old classic lines of "if I'm going to stare at someone's backside for hours and hours, it might as well be a woman." But since then, I've gotten a lot of flak for being a dude playing a female character, and since I've played all male characters since then, I think I better identify with male characters anyway, even if the view isn't as good.

But on the other hand, I'm used to my Hunter now -- she's looked the same for almost 80 levels, and it would be weird to suddenly see a Night Elf guy on the screen in her place. So I'm torn -- change my character to a male and make being social in game much easier, or stay the same and keep my character familiar to me?

What do you all think? Are you facing the same situation or is the choice easier (or even harder) for you?

This story is really only tangentially related to our game, but we'll mention it anyway: a London teacher has been accused of sending sexually-related text messages to a 14-year-old student that she contacted while they were playing World of Warcraft together. Apparently the woman met up with the student in Azeroth, and then was able to somehow get his phone number from him. Later, the boy's father discovered explicit text messages from her on his son's phone, and she now faces jailtime as a result.

Of course, this says nothing at all about World of Warcraft -- there are man, many ways of communication on the Internet, and the game happens to be just one of them (and shame on the Escapist for even suggesting this is an argument against games in education -- the fault here lies with the teacher, not the game). You should be cautious about who your children are corresponding with no matter where they are or what they're doing, and in fact, this boy's father was.

When you decide to roleplay, a whole new world of imagination opens up to you -- soon you realize that all the World of Warcraft is a stage, and all the orcs and humans merely players. Michael Gray fills in this week for David Bowers to talk about how you can handle delicate subjects while achieving your roleplay goals.

I can't speak for anyone else, but one thing Momma always warned me about is that there are a few topics you just don't talk about over dinner or in polite company. Sex, drugs, money, politics. If you're like me, your sweetheart gives you that look if certain subjects are brought up. "Don't even get started," that look warns me.

I admit, I can be a powderkeg about feminism, racial equality, and general "do the right thing" subjects. But these issues do come up during the course of roleplay. There are more than a few victims among WoW's characters, and there are certainly some bad guys who'd do despicable things.

If you're going to play with hot-topic issues, there some things you can do to help keep everyone's sensitivities in mind.

All the World's a Stage is a column for inquisitive minds, playing with roles every Sunday evening.

The media usually portrays WoW as a "boy's game." That's not to say girls don't play too, of course -- just that the game is basically about qualities such as aggressiveness and violence, and our culture expects males to be interested in that sort of thing.

Whether such a designation is true or not, the "masculine equals violent" stereotype is very pervasive, and it is natural for many male players to begin the game with a powerful and intimidating character in mind. The player may imagine that his avatar is warm and kind-hearted inside, but outwardly, his character looks as though he could rip out your throat with a flick of his pinky finger.

But there are many men out there who don't like such exaggerated manliness in their characters, just as there are many women who don't want their character to look like a dainty barbie doll. Being a person isn't just about just one gender attribute, after all. Indeed, female characters in WoW can achieve a full range of human attributes in their appearance; they can look friendly and intelligent, yet lightning quick and deadly at the same time. However, the appearance of male characters is often so filled to the brim with "strength and honor" that there's not much room left for any other human quality.

All the World's a Stage is a weekly column by David Bowers, investigating the explorative performance art of roleplaying in the World of Warcraft.

Roleplaying the opposite sex happens. It is alluring to some, and repulsive to others -- a lot of people do it, while a lot of other people very openly proclaim (as if they know these things) that anyone who does this weird, manipulative, deceitful, and so on.

People also tend to come up with various excuses for why they play a character of the opposite sex, as if they need to justify themselves according to their own gender's traditional expectations. Some men say, "if I'm going to have to stare at a characters butt for hours while I play, I'd rather it be a hot and sexy butt," while some women say, "I get all kinds of unwanted attention if I play a girl, and the only way I can get away from it is to play a boy." All that may be true in some cases, but it's hardly the whole story behind opposite-gender roleplaying.

First of all, let me just say it here and now: you have every right to create whatever character you want, particularly in an actual roleplaying environment, and particularly if you intend to be faithful to the character you're creating.