Sex in video games used to be a thing that was alluded to but never shown, or a quick glimpse of a curvy shadow right before a cutscene. Games that strayed away from this PG-13 way of displaying sex made headlines (and got mothers across America bent out of shape). When games went further and showed us things like a same-sex (yet different species) scene with the Iron Bull in Dragon Age Inquisition, or Geralt doing what many men would like to do with Yennifer on the back of a Unicorn, people absolutely lost their collective minds. The Witcher series and Mass Effect and other "mature" fantasy games were masters of pushing limits but never really showing the goods.
But that was then, and this is now. And in the now, you have… this.
Games like The SIMS 4 allow third-party content creators to use the same types of tools that developers paid by game studios to create animations and insert them into the game and on your screen. It's interesting, possibly erotic for many, but it still feels like animated characters in a game merging pixels with each other rather than any type of physical contact.
For that, and to reach the pinnacle of sex in mainstream PC games, we look to Skyrim.
Developers and content creators have been able to merge HAVOK physics and 3D collision into Skyrim's engine in ways that not only let the fabric of your cloak flutter in the wind but can also make a 3D animated schlong penetrate an HTD animated pussy in ways that are almost realistic. Almost.
Yes, this borders on the weird, is fully intended to be erotic for people looking for erotica in a fantasy game, and is some amazing 3D modeling and animation from people who do it because they love it, not because Bethesda pays them.
Nothing here is locked content that's found in the game files. A group of developers at Silverlock.org have developed a DLL file that, when running through a special loader executable, injects new scripting abilities into Skyrim. This brings new ways to interact with the environment — and the people in it — to the engine complete with event-driven dialog and a relatively simple way to include it in a mod.
Because of the way this script extender changes the game engine, this won't be coming to your Xbox. The game files aren't being modified, but additions to the engine and scripting language require the DLL package and modifications to the way everything runs from disk and memory. It's safe — there are no after-effects because the files from Bethesda themselves aren't altered and once you kill the game process nothing is running. But it is a third-party executable that Microsoft forbids on the Xbox platform. Even if the DLL and engine modifications could be built for the Xbox, you would never be able to install them. This is before we even get to Microsoft's content policies, which prohibit nipples and peckers and other "unsafe" body parts.
You'll see a lot of mods at sites like NexusMods that require SKSE (the script extender that lets the magic happen), but to dig into the more adult side of what can be done you'll need to visit sites like Lover's Lab — the current king of adult content for gaming, and home of Sex Lab.
Sex Lab is a framework for animations and ways to interact with them while they are running. Once installed like any other mod, you can then run others that rely on Sex Lab's content to do things.
As the name Sex Lab would suggest, these are adult things.
You build a special character body, designed with a skeleton that third party animations can use for physics, movement and collision and boobs and genitals that are as unrealistic as you want them to be. Then you're ready to do things.
They range from the mundane things that any middle-aged man and his partner would do to things that make Geralt banging Yennifer on the back of a stuffed horse seem tame. They also go darker, and if you want to see a giant boar or frost troll with a glowing wang have its way with you or your followers, you can.
You can even go darker and into things I'm not going to try or write about.
Yes, the content does have its appeal. While my groin wasn't ever tickled by seeing Delphine giving my character a blowjob or spending a night with Lucan Valerius' member embedded in my backside, I did find myself going back to Riverwood to see what else I could do and what would happen once I did it.
Prostitution or sexual combat mods bring a new element to Skyrim, and gameplay is extended. Knowing that a group of bandits will rape you and leave you for dead when finished makes you play more carefully because losing brings something horrible and unspeakable.
Much of the content will be offensive to many of us. A mod that places an 18-year-old female follower that looks like she is 13 (the actual description) is something that I don't want to try, and maybe even wish it didn't exist. With the help of Google Translate and a good VPN I was able to find things that aren't only offensive, but depict things that are even worse. It gets pretty nasty if you dive in deep enough.
In real life, sex can be complicated and messy. While I'm pretty open to fun, there are things that aren't for me. Sex in Skyrim is the same way.
This also leads into the argument of limits on what we see and do in games. The same companies that encourage killing, terrorism, hijacking and most every other form of violence that can be imagined aren't ever going to encourage sexual penetration or same-sex erotica. I went into this thinking that I'm fine with killing every living thing in range while playing other games, so I'm also OK with anal sex and cum showers in Skyrim. But even I have limits, and there are mods available that go past them. We'll let you find those on your own.
Next-gen virtual sex
To me what is able to be accomplished and how it's done is more compelling that seeing naked characters sticking things into each other. Sex Lab is the content warehouse for sex mods, but the newest entry, called OSex is what happens when you refine what you're able to do and create something that looks even more "professional" than the original.
The physics and collision use the same engine, but attention to placement and position, animation speed, and the user interface put OSex completely over the top. The body parts do the things you expect them to do and the facial expressions tie it all together and make OSex almost too lifelike for comfort. Add in a screen overlay complete with extensive controls that allow you to change almost every detail, and you can tell that OSex is different than anything we've ever seen before.
If you've ever been behind someone doing things both parties like doing, you have an idea of how buns and boobs react to gentle movement as well as aggressive thrusting. You know what an opening is supposed to look like when something is inserted into it. So do the animators of the OSex mod, and the line between a game and interactive intercourse are blurred. Because I know it's a game, it was a bit too weird and awkward to get me turned on, but It's not hard to see other people reacting differently. It looks that real. It sounds that real. It's a work of adult art.
This is the future of cybersex. When the people who can create these incredibly life-like ways to get it on are able to incorporate VR, a new (and profitable) genre of adult entertainment will spring to life. We already have vibrators and penis stimulators that work in conjunction with your computer or smartphone, and once we can merge these into lifelike VR sex, porn will never be the same.
