#oneaday Day 248: Frankness

I was pondering something interesting this evening, and it was prompted by my continuing playthrough of LOVE³. Specifically, it was prompted by the way that game's first full-on H-scene made me feel, and how that inspired me to immediately go and write a section of my upcoming article about the game.

The thing is, the reason why I found that particular H-scene so personally impactful is… well, the sort of thing you normally keep private to yourself. But when you're contemplating a work for which one of the core appeal elements is the erotic content, surely it behooves anyone writing about it to actually examine that erotic content in the same way as narrative, characterisation and suchlike?

There's seemingly an assumption that anything sexually explicit is somehow a "lesser" form of media, art, whatever. It's why eroge get swept under the rug when many of them address a lot of the commonly cited issues with video game narratives, particularly when it comes to sexuality and related matters. And it's why the term nukige bothers me so much, as I wrote about the other day.

I feel it's important for people to feel like they can be open and honest about this sort of thing, since if you're reading a sexually explicit visual novel or playing a sexually explicit game, at least part of the reason you're there is pretty obvious. With that in mind, my upcoming article about LOVE³ will, I promise, be honest, open and unashamed, and I fully intend to continue treating erotic content in this way as I continue.

To be honest, I've always wanted to handle things this way in one form or another and I think, up until now, I haven't done too bad a job. I think I can do more, though, and there is one person in particular I want to acknowledge for being a bit of an inspiration in this regard: Infernal Monkey. (He doesn't read this as he's not a Patron. I don't think.)

If you've never come across Infernal Monkey's blog, check it out at  https://infernalmonkey.com/ — though be aware that it is very NSFW.

Infernal Monkey reviews onaholes. If you don't know what an onahole is, it's a male sex toy; specifically, something you stick your knob in and jiggle it around until you reach an appropriately happy ending. Some of them are simulated vaginas; some of them are things that are designed to just feel nice while looking abstract or nondescript; some have gimmicks or attempt to simulate more of a "full-body" experience. Infernal Monkey reviews them all, and he does so frankly, honestly and in more detail than anyone else I know on the Internet.

Let's face it, if you're a gentleman and you want something nice to pop your willy in of an evening, you want to know you're getting something worthwhile, since these things aren't cheap. Sites like Infernal Monkey's are valuable because they provide the perspective of a real person on a subject that not a lot of people are willing to talk about particularly openly.

With that in mind, I figured it was high time we stopped pussy-footing around erotic content in visual novels and started being honest about it. Yes, I'm still going to take great pains to explain how and why the sexual scenes are sometimes (often!) an integral part of eroge narratives, as (still) best exemplified by the Grisaia series, but I'm also going to acknowledge and celebrate the fact that these scenes are, in many cases, quite simply enjoyable in a way that, again, people aren't often willing to talk about openly.

There are a lot of bad things to say about life in 2019, but the willingness and receptiveness of a lot of people to talk about sexual matters is not one of them. Sex is pretty great, and thus there shouldn't be any shame in talking about media that celebrates that.

Also play LOVE³. It's great. And super-hot.