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Steam, Itch.io are pulling ‘porn’ games. Critics say it's a slippery slope

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Re: Steam, Itch.io are pulling ‘porn’ games. Critics say it's a slippery slope

#451

Post by __MatrixMan__ »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #306
atmavatar wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because one of the goals of project 2025 is to make porn illegal. Pornography, manifested today in the omnipresent propagation of transgender ideology and sexualization of children, for instance, is not a political Gordian knot inextricably binding up disparate claims about free speech, property rights, sexual liberation, and child welfare. It has no claim to First Amendment protection. Its purveyors are child predat…

So they want to not have women abort children, but also not have them aware of how their bodies and sex works. Surely not a formula for a dysfunctional future generation.

That they really want is to eliminate any sort of ground truth so that whoever holds the power can resolve related issues by fiat. Less policy, more kissing the ring and such.

This way, abusers can disagree about what constitutes abuse in private, but can form a bloc in public, unifying around the common ground that the boss's whims should be respected in matters where the bandying about of facts is taboo. Might makes right, etc.

Re: Steam, Itch.io are pulling ‘porn’ games. Critics say it's a slippery slope

#452

Post by rustystump »

nosignono wrote: post #219
slowhadoken wrote: post #118

Porn games on Steam and itch are tacky af but they don’t push them on me and I sort of just ignore them. That being said they should probably sell them on different website.

> That being said they should probably sell them on different website. Why? (Genuinely) Why are filters not sufficient? If I enjoy adult games and non-adult games, why should I have to manage two storefronts?

Because filters do not work well at all and because these platforms want to make parents feel like it is ok for kids to be on them. Imagine if youtube had an “onlyfans” creator filter. That would never work.

The reality is you are not the only customer or market. While you may find it to work well enough for you, myself along with many others do not.

Re: Steam, Itch.io are pulling ‘porn’ games. Critics say it's a slippery slope

#453

Post by davikr »

Shekelphile wrote: post #439
can16358p wrote: post #105

What is wrong with these people who try to block certain content? Don't like porn? Don't buy it. Simple as that. No one, including governments or payment processors, should be in the position to decide whether a platform can sell something or not. I wish there was a payment processor who was brave enough to say a big fucking NO to censorship.

They’re being forced to remove games that are essentially anime CSAM. Payment processors shouldn’t need to be stepping up, but these platforms don’t bother to curate or moderate content so their hands are being forced.

Not only that, but also furry content has been targeted in the past in other websites.

Re: Steam, Itch.io are pulling ‘porn’ games. Critics say it's a slippery slope

#454

Post by Shekelphile »

davikr wrote: post #453
Shekelphile wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They’re being forced to remove games that are essentially anime CSAM. Payment processors shouldn’t need to be stepping up, but these platforms don’t bother to curate or moderate content so their hands are being forced.

Not only that, but also furry content has been targeted in the past in other websites.

[flagged]

Re: Steam, Itch.io are pulling ‘porn’ games. Critics say it's a slippery slope

#455

Post by rustystump »

the_af wrote: post #107

In discussions about this topic, in almost every place I see them, lots of people (against this censorship) are going "I don't play this kind of games" or "I don't personally care about tentacle fetish" (or whatever). I don't get this. Let's say it openly: what's the problem with sex and nudity in games? Why is it so unacceptable -- that even people against the censorship must loudly proclaim it's not "their thing" -…

It isnt sex and nudity in games but the other “content” people gloss over that is bundle in.

The other context is that global companies must cater to multiple countries cultures which conflict so they take the path of least resistance.

Re: Steam, Itch.io are pulling ‘porn’ games. Critics say it's a slippery slope

#456

Post by ivape »

__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #447
ben_w wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Don't like porn? Don't buy it. Simple as that. The claim isn't "we don't like it", the claim is "this is damaging to society". I don't agree with such things in many cases (and many people disagree with me when I'm the one saying something is damaging to society), but it's important to note the difference or you will always be arguing against something other than their claim. > No one, including governments or paym…

It's pretty wild that people think that porn is more damaging to society than censorship.

One can make a very strong argument that the manosphere stuff is rooted in poor sexual attitudes of men that only got worse with tons of porn.

You only need to type any random sexual thing and find any explicit subreddit you want, that’s how pervasive the porn is on even an allegedly non-porn platform. Every other game has basically stripper-level female characters now days. We’ve literally gone crazy.

Holistically, you’re talking about a hyper sexualized society where the content and ideology are available at high density and velocity from a pretty early age until the day you die.

It’s a problem. The truth is one side is not wrong forever. The Christian right is wrong about so much, but the progression of our society has finally made them mostly correct on this issue.

People need to take a deep hard look at what hip hop did to a generation of youth (both the violence and sexuality permeated deep into the culture). None of this shit is a joke, the kids end up fucked up.

Re: Steam, Itch.io are pulling ‘porn’ games. Critics say it's a slippery slope

#457

Post by nosignono »

Dweller1622 wrote: post #334
nosignono wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has to do with agency, primarily. Is the character in the media given the agency and depth necessary to support their sexual appetites? Or are they treated like an object by the camera, a 2 dimensional cutout whose purpose is only to be an object. Compare, for example, Sex and the City, where 4 women were regularly engaged in a variety of sexual encounters and say, background dancers in a music video or advert tha…

I've definitely seen people say it's about agency, though exactly what they mean by that and why they think that matters tends to vary. That said, I suspect your response is in line with the person I was originally responding to. In a different context I might be more sympathetic to this specific formulation of the concept since it's not always clear how much agency the background dancers in a music video or advert h…

In a videogame, I can think of some examples.

In Kotor 2, there's a character called "The Handmaiden", who will join your party if the player character is a male. She talks at great length about her situation and the decisions the player should make. She's depicted as a chaste, virginal religious character. But one of the very first things you can do with her when she joins your party is spar with her. And she strips into black lingerie to do so. Then she stays in black lingerie on your ship while you go and do other stuff.

She's clearly there as an object for the audience to drool over. It's given a very surface level justification ("we always spar with only our bodies"), but that justification is provided the instant before the player sees her in her undies. (Which, it's important to note, aren't like modest undergarments one might expect from a religious figure like this, but are specifically sexy underwear.)

Compare this to another Star Wars game, Jedi: Fallen Order, where the Night Sister Mirrin can becomes romantically involved with the player character. She has a well developed culture, and is given space to articulate her personality, choices, and opinions in a cogent way. She can be a romantic interest without being an object. She is as complex as all the other characters, and we don't see her positioned in sexy lingerie suddenly out of the blue.

I can come up with other examples if those aren't illustrative.

Re: Steam, Itch.io are pulling ‘porn’ games. Critics say it's a slippery slope

#458

Post by the_af »

some_random wrote: post #139
the_af wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is a huge sex-negative feminist school of thought, just because you don't like it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. The specific organization we're discussing is not feminist. It's religious conservative, using some of the trappings of feminism.

Is it? The religious conservative organizations I've seen are also wringing their hands over other media as well such as smut or that shitty netflix show, while this one appears to be ambivalent to supportive.

> Is it?

Yes, it is.

Let me see: they seem to receive funding from evangelical organizations; the founder speaks/writes at Christian venues and is pro-life, anti-gay/trans; they are targeting games because that's what they happen to focus on right now. They've also campaigned against Rap music and artists in the past. They managed to get articles critical of them pulled from VICE, etc. Their modus operandi is typical of religious conservatives.

Re: Steam, Itch.io are pulling ‘porn’ games. Critics say it's a slippery slope

#459

Post by nosignono »

Beijinger wrote: post #226
nosignono wrote: post #221

Weirdly, Amazon sells TONS of porn and NSFW content, and yet doesn't lose their Visa/Mastercard processing. Game of Thrones, both the books and the show, contain content much, much more explicit than many of these games. Yet Itch and Steam have to pull stuff or their very existence is threatened.

Isn't this American culture? You can watch soft porn as long as you can claim it is not porn? The Spartacus Series comes to mind. Gore and Porn. But sure, it is "history"

There's plenty of hard core material on Amazon as well, fwiw.
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