This presentation was delivered on October 21, 2022 at the Transformative Play Initiative Seminar 2022: Role-playing, Culture, and Heritage.
Description:
Scholars have documented the varied presence of erotic play in role-playing games, from using health scores to determine if a character can have sex, to sexuality themed supplements like the Book of Erotic Fantasy (Brown and Stenros 2018, Fine 1983, Kestrel and Scott 2003). Some games such as Apocalypse World or Monsterhearts include specific mechanics to allow for sexual encounters during play, while Nordic larp has a rich history of varied types of intimate experiences (Brown and Stenros 2018). Brown and Stenros define erotic role-play as “role-play which invokes erotic, sensual, and sexual themes”(2018) And past research has also explored erotic play as a participant defined activity (Brown 2015). This paper aims to examine the construction of the category of “erotic game” in the Honey & Hot Wax anthology. Defined and marketed as “an anthology of erotic art games,” Honey & Hot Wax features role-playing games by a diverse group of nine designers, edited by Lucian Kahn and Sharang Biswas. As a discrete collection of erotic games, it provides unique sample for an exploration of the variations and similarities within the category of “erotic game.” Drawing on sociological understandings of sexuality and culture, that situate sexuality as embedded in systems of meaning and call for examinations of sexual discourse, this paper aims to interrogate how the erotic, sensual, and sexual is constructed within each of the nine games in the anthology (Epstein 2002, Foucault 1990, Irvine 2002, Plummer 1995). Drawing on content analysis, this paper will examine not only the anthology itself, but also reviews of the anthology as part of the cultural discourse surrounding the category of “erotic game.
Bio:
Katherine Castiello Jones (she/they) is an Assistant Professor Educator in Sociology at the University of Cincinnati. Her research focuses on gender, sexuality, and culture. They write extensively on topics related to games and game design including sexuality in games, inclusive design, and feminist theories of play. Dr. Castiello Jones has been writing table-top and live-action role-playing games (larps) for over a decade. Their work on the topic of games and sexuality appears in both academic and popular publications, including Analog Game Studies. She was recently an invited speaker for the Clitical Hits Sex Education Game Jam in 2022.
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This seminar is hosted by the Transformative Play Initiative in the Games & Society Lab at the Department of Game Design, Uppsala University Campus Gotland. This seminar is made possible by financial support from the Sustainable Heritage Research Forum (SuHRF). The Transformative Play Initiative explores the use of analog role-playing games as vehicles for lasting personal and social change.
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Graphic Design by Liliia Chorna. Music by Elias Faltin. Video edited by Rezmo (Mohammad Mohammad Rezaie).