An Obsession With Miniature Table Top Games

Ok so here it is, after a brief hiatus from updating my blog. SEX & Sci-Fi.

First off let me clear the air by saying that I am no prude. I like catching a glimpse of skin and pink bits as much as the next guy. However I do feel there is a time and a place for it, yes even in sci-fi. However whenever I manage to catch anything new in the genre nowadays I tend to find that it’s just thrown in there for posterity’s sake and not for any other reason.

I just recently managed to catch “BSG-The Plan” and Caprica, being a fan of the reimagined series I was quite excited to finally get my hands on a copy and see the direction the David and Ron would take with these new installments. What I did see however was poor story writing being covered up by gratuitous nudity.

Scenes like the topless bartender in “The-Plan” and the virtual sex rooms in Caprica were unnecessary and didn’t really contribute anything to the quality of the story telling. Rather in my opinion detracted from it by providing unneccessary distraction.

Now looking at the genre as a whole I find that sex is being used indiscriminately, be it plunging cleavage on a buxom female character or out an out on-screen intercourse it just gets thrown in there to make the 120 minutes that most movies can’t even reach nowadays.

Nudity and sex are not necessarily sexy, especially if the characters involved look like quarter backs (ie square bodied). Looking back at movies like Total recall, Sharon Stone was absolutely hot!!! Yes there was a bedroom scene but it was used in a suitable context – Arnie awakening from a nightmare and not just thrown in there for kicks as was in the case of the more recent Repo-Men, there was also a lot of T & A in Total Recall but then again that was confined to a red-light district in which the plot revolved around. Stone’s character continues to remain alluring throughout the movie even up to the point where she gets shot in the head, in that scene she’s wearing a power suit and still looks hot.

For too long producers and directors of sci-fi have in my mind been acting like anime producers. Sex and nudity is used as a form of fan service to lure male audiences. However this kind of implies that the sci-fi audience mainly consists of spotty prepubescent males who can’t get their hands on proper porn. Speaking of which if the goal of producers is to help get the audiences rocks off by having “Muscles McBam-bam” and “Shelly SpreadHerLegs” have a romp in the bedroom together then they are failing  there too and rather miserably at that. The whole excercise seems to me to be rather masturbatory – pardon the pun.

Abuse of sex in sci-fi however is not limited to the screen, even in print media it is used unnecessarily. Characters get their kit off for no reason, there is often no personal attachment between the characters and yet they gravitate towards boinking each other. In Greg Bears “Anvil of Stars” there was a lot of that going on, but contextually it too was suitable as the main protagonists were a bunch of teenagers who grew up apart from the mores and guidance of discerning adults. Even in reality teenage promiscuity is not uncommon so in that case it was acceptable if not a tad tasteless. In more recent cases as in Jack Campbell’s “Lost Fleet” series the scenes were not only unnecessary but were also formulaic, they did not contribute to character growth in any way and in the end they just felt as if the author was practicing writing sex scenes for a future romance novel perhaps.

There is nothing wrong with having sexual relations in sci-fi but sometimes there is really just no reason for it. Case in point, would Mass Effect have been any less of a game if it didn’t have the built-in sex scene that caused so much controversy, in short the answer is no. Jade Empire (though not sci-fi) was better able to convey the blossoming romance between two characters, and they didn’t even have to take their socks off, and this bring me to my next point.

Often an emotional response is better generated to a situation when less information is presented not more. Showing something in its full high-resolution detail serves only to pander to voyeuristic tendencies in people whereas implying that something is occurring leaves the imagination to fill in the blanks. A far more effective tool, especially if the goal of the storytelling is to allow the reader/watcher/player to drawn in and live as the character in that moment. The silhouetted kiss in Jade Empire between the player character and the love interest was far more sexy than the interactive zombie sex scene that was present in Indigo Prophecy (aka Farenheit).

In the end I guess it boils down what people want, there are probably some people out there who enjoy reading about Muscles and the way he penetrates Shelly’s quivering lovebox with his manhood, and there are those who balk at it. I like to think that I sit firmly in the middle, I enjoy the bit of porn-lite that is offered but only if it fits contextually into the story thereby expanding it purposefully.

Well that was it, for those who were waiting with bated breath to hear my erudite views on the matter I hope it was worth it.

PS If any would-be authors are reading this I’d like to pose a challenge. In your next opus, contain as many love/sex scenes as you can muster but do so in a way that it matches up contextually with the premise of the story, afterall it is the story that you are selling.