GTA In 1976, Death Race was released. The video game featured a car that ran over stick-figured “gremlins” that screamed when they died. This was the first video game that caused national backlash around concerns for ethics. As we know, it was far from the last.
Today, we have the infamous Grand Theft Auto (and its five different iterations)—a game that depicts crime, drug use, violence, and sexual content. Now, I’m a fan of sexual content in general—but not the kind that the GTA franchise features, which is a version that, by and large, objectifies and dehumanizes its female characters. This includes a player’s ability to attack and kill strippers.
And so, when it hit the news that the highly anticipated upcoming new release— Grand Theft Auto VI —would most likely feature sex scenes , you can imagine the sense of dread that I felt.
Available in November , GTA 6 is rated M for Mature. This means that underage players can buy the game with an adult present, but it is recommended for players 17 and older. For the USA’s ESRB rating system, this rating includes “Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Mature Humor, Nudity, Strong Language, Strong Sexual Content, Use of Drugs and Alcohol.”
There have been a lot of studies done on how video games like GTA affect young boys in particular and most of the research is mixed and inconclusive. Some studies show a correlation without causation, and others point to very minor signs of aggression. But I can tell you with certainty that—in the age of The Manosphere—a video game that depicts women as hypersexualized, mostly NPCs, and gives you the option to murder sex workers after engaging in video game sex with them is not doing anything positive for the minds of anyone impressionable. (Even if killing these women makes the game significantly harder as your Wanted Level goes up and cops try harder to find you—what video gamer doesn’t like a challenge?)
Sex scenes in particular in this world seem like a clear recipe for disaster (as well as an opportunity for many more dangerous depictions of misogyny).
We already live in one of the worst timelines for content for young boys: Red pill, incel ideology runs rampant online. And while video game sex scenes are fairly new, there is a bunch of pretty definitive research on the effects of content like it. Advocacy groups have shown that boys who consume this content regularly adopt misogynistic, dangerous views against women.
A quick Reddit search shows that fathers are planning on buying the game for their much younger children—most of which are 13-15 years old. On average, boys are already exposed to some form of pornography at ages 10-11. And while around here we don’t have a problem with porn on the whole, it’s no secret that a lot of porn out there can already perpetuate harmful ideas about sex and women. Do we really need more opportunities for boys (and men) to see women in this light?
I am, of course, not giving GTA 6 the benefit of the doubt—and this is for absolutely good reason. GTA has had sex scenes before , though in GTA 5 these scenes were shown in first person only with little to no nudity. But there was also “hot coffee.”
Rockstar North (the video game developer) had actually left an interactive sex scene hidden inside GTA: San Andreas ’ code, even though it was supposed to be inaccessible to players. Once people figured out how to unlock it, they found a mini sex game that featured an “Excitement” meter, multiple sexual positions, and even a sexualized spanking sequence that players controlled through button prompts.
The problem was that the game had been rated based on a version that didn't fully account for the sexual content still lurking inside it. The fallout was massive, with the game receiving an Adults Only rating, being pulled from some shelves, and Rockstar facing lawsuits and other penalties.
So when I saw the news about the sex scenes online, I expected to find some backlash, but instead I was met with a bunch of very-excited men.
“Love it”, “I’m gonna catch a case in this game,” and “There will be a lot of masturbation while playing this game,” are just a few of the hundreds of mostly excited comments X users wrote about these anticipated scenes. I only found more of the same on Reddit threads . I would feel more surprised if I didn’t already expect this kind of response from the men who choose to play this game.
In an interview about these upcoming scenes, the current head of development and co-studio head of Rockstar Rob Nelson said , “Physical intimacy is a huge part of a relationship, and so it has to be done right. Like anything that we do, we have to iterate and try things ... until we figure out what feels right.”
You know what feels right to me at this particular moment in time? A video game that allows players to punch women , pay to have sex with them, and then also kill them after to avoid paying for the sex steering clear from any sex scenes at all .
In all fairness to GTA 6 and its creators, this relationship Nelson is talking about is between two main characters Lucia and Jason—so any sex scenes released would assumedly be based on the idea of two people in a loving relationship having consensual sex. This isn’t my issue, though. I simply don’t trust the creators to get it right.
For nearly three decades, sexualized women have been a recurring feature of the GTA formula. Prostitutes, strippers and sexually available female NPCs have appeared throughout the franchise, while female characters have also been subjected to the same extreme violence that defines the series more broadly. What has changed is how explicitly the games combine those two things: turning women's sexuality into something the player can interact with, consume, and sometimes violently act upon.
Sure, we don’t actually know yet exactly how much sex we’re going to see or how explicit it will be. There have been some leaks showing Jason in full frontal in the shower, but we haven’t seen how the game handles Lucia’s potential nudity—we also don’t even know if these specific leaks are real and actually going to be shown in the game. At the end of the day, we don’t know what these “sex scenes” will look like. All I’m saying is, I’d rather not find out.
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Source: Entertainment
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