Clueless Sex

From the prostitutes of "Grand Theft Auto" to cutting-edge teledildonics, sex has fueled the gaming industry, as the author of "Porn & Pong" explains.

In 1972, our sexual landscape was forever changed by the release of two pop-culture legends: the skin flick "Deep Throat" and, months later, the arcade game "Pong." Since then, pornography has greatly influenced how sex and sexuality are explored in gaming, which in just three decades has ballooned into a $18.85 billion industry. From early '80s sleaze fests like "Leisure Suit Larry" to the porny moans of pneumatic "Tomb Raider" heroine Lara Croft to the teledildonics that are changing the way we have -- and think of -- sex, video games have evolved with an understanding that humans crave sexual interaction, whether with a virtual character or a fellow human with high-speed Internet.

It's this sexual history of video games that Damon Brown, who covers technology for Playboy, obsessively details in"Porn & Pong: How 'Grand Theft Auto', 'Tomb Raider and other Sexy Games Change Our Culture". Approaching such topics as arm-length pixelated penises and breasts that deserve their own planetary orbit with a sense of humor, Brown explores how virtual sex has gone from the crude, joystick-controlled adult games on the Atari 2600 and text-only cybering in early-'90s AOL chat rooms to bumping uglies (fully customizable, by the way) in the virtual world "Second Life" and banging prostitutes in "Grand Theft Auto." He also examines how video vixens went from having bodies practically built out of Lego blocks to becoming ever more realistic -- at least, as much as porn-industry bodies can be called "realistic."

I recently spoke with Brown about these topics and more

How did the first pornographic video game come about?

The first mainstream pornographic game would be "Custer's Revenge," which came out in 1982 and was manufactured by a pornographic company that wanted to get a piece of the large Atari 2600 market. The game is based on General Custer who, of course, failed at Little Bighorn back in the 1800s. Part of the traditional history is that not only did General Custer fight against the Native Americans, but he also slept with quite a few of them, as did his soldiers. That was Custer's revenge for losing so badly

In the game you move a naked General Custer across the screen, avoiding Native American arrows, toward a voluptuous Native American woman, who has her hands and legs tied to a cactus. Your job is to get to her, have sex and once you have enough orgasms or she has enough orgasms it starts over and you're back on the other side of the screen. You get to do it again, only there are more arrows coming. That was the whole game and it sold 80,000 copies at $50 a piece.

There was another one called "Strip Poker" that was for the Apple II. It was a poker game where you had this digital image of a fully clothed man or woman lying down and, as you beat them in rounds of poker, the screen would flash and they would take off another piece of clothing. There were six stages, so you went from fully clothed to bra and panties -- and in later editions completely nude.

"Leisure Suit Larry" was the first fully accepted sex-related game. It had a lovable character wearing a leisure suit. He came straight from the '70s. He was like the 40-year-old virgin, except much sleazier. He just wandered around a parody of Las Vegas trying to pick up women, and it sold about a million copies in the '80s.

By Tracy Clark-Flory

salon.com