It's almost like there's another reason for censorship

It's almost like sex is a natural part of human existence and it being taboo is the bit that really fucks people up.

I mean sexualized movies with skimpy ladies and jacked dudes, and smut books are not harmful broadly speaking, so I don't really see why video games would be different.

Skimming their data tables (don't have access to the journal outside of work), it feels like a really broad hodge pdge of semi-related studies (which the authors essentially admitted).

But it also kind of misses the point. The problem isn't titties or dicks in video games. The problem is the culture around it and what it reinforces and it very much goes far beyond video games. Big jiggly titties? You are a mature game. Dick size slider so you can rock a magnum dong that needs a monster condom? You are progressive. What? Both of those are just more male gaze?

And all of that is normalized. You won't see a significant change from the baseline because that IS the baseline.

You know what you almost never see (outside of those "problematic gay games that turn the kids into litter boxes")? A sexy twink. We all made the same joke about Lies of Timothee Chalamet being one of the better souslikes of the past decade but it is also very telling that we mostly see our twinks in full stillsuits or twelve layers of Victorian clothing. Look, but have enough chastity belts that nobody needs to be worried about being able to touch. And the moment you have a woman who doesn't have an hourglass figure? See: The Last Of Us 2.

Which is the issue. We have a cult of toxic misogyny that insists everything MUST be male gaze and the only acceptable nudity is big titty girls and guys who look like Ahnold. And any divergence from that is "ruining games" or "being woke" to the point that we don't even GET those games outside of the rare case of a game nobody cared about becoming popular (I'll always cite that Yasuke was a recurring character in Nioh long before people turned him into a culture war).

Its like saying that gas stoves cause no meaningful decrease in air quality but having every study take place in the home of a pack a day smoker.

Okay but what games are considered sexualised and how many people are actually playing them?

Cyberpunk certainly qualifies both. It's got explicit sex, and it's got a large player base. But while uncouth and perverse things happen, you can't really be party to them. You tend to show up after. Maybe your choices might lead to some, but you're not there for it. The only sex involving the player is generally wholesome. Except, you know, the ghost of Johnny Silverhand riding shotgun and not necessarily consenting to it (especially when you hook up with the cop).

Then there's Skyrim. Bigger player base but no sex outside of mods. And there are plenty of mods, but if you look at the player count among people using those mods... it's nowhere near the player count of Skyrim as a whole, or Cyberpunk, or even a lot of the other games. And from there it drops off sharply.

So... what sexualised video games?

I was beating my meat to Natalya's (Goldeneye 64) cone-shaped tits at age 10. It may have been arguably better for me than jerking off to droves of actual tits.

...Not that I wasn't doing that also..

Wouldn't it be awesome if people cared about research and facts.

Conservatives want to take all our games away, they have hated video games for decades, they made it clear for years that they want to see games censored the same way as movies and television. They have pushed many major media platforms into censorship already, and are just getting started.

But what if I just pirate and use VPN's? You tech-savvy kiddos might ask, getting a small thrill from feeling like anti-establishment pirates.

Well never fear, they have plans for that too! Do you all really think Palantir and associated social monitoring programs are just going to make drones to try to spy on what American citizens are masturbating to? Nope! Palantir is a broad-spectrum monitoring company, and they will have various manner of AI bots scanning the contents of your hard-drive and reporting your browsing and downloading habits to all kinds of agencies and institutions who would loooooove to have more "product" to sell to our for-profit prison industry!

As a dude, I exclusively use female characters to get gifts in multi-player games

How dare you! You can't throw facts at puritanical arguments; that's illegal.

Much as I’d predict support for that conclusion, I feel like there’s room to doubt the survey process used - as has often been the case for studies on gamer behavior.

no its the right wing influencers backed by russia doing this. they are responsible for getting men into Right wing politics, and by extension hating women is one of thier goals too.

Well, they cause me harm, because I feel that the developers are trying a cheap trick to get me to play their games. And also, popping it open in some places is unacceptable.

Otherwise, there's places for those types of games.

Something, something, can't prove a negative... While valuable research, it doesn't prove no harm is done. It can only provide evidrnce that the harm they tested for didn't appear to happen. That is a kind of important difference.

You hear that, sexists? It's all in you. Can't blame the games. 🙂