What with game development and newsletters and keeping the paysites active and doing various promotion tasks and doing the regular AAA web essays, it feels like it’s been ages since I’ve gotten to do any writing that’s Just For Me. So I thought, hey, why not shake off the cobwebs with a nice easy softball topic: sexual consent. Very little contentious or fraught about that!

Ideas of consent as they apply to pornographic video games have been on my mind for basically as long as I’ve been working on them, but they’re especially so in light of this summer’s pressure campaign by far-right fringe groups to pressure adult games from storefronts, the recent spate of nations and states instituting insane online verification schemes, attempted draconian crackdowns on free speech in the United States, and most recently Bluesky proposing to ban fictional depictions of non-consensual sex acts from their platform. All that kind of makes one think quite a bit about how their work is perceived!

Don’t take this to mean that I’m in any way interested in interrogating our work to discover if it meets a theoretical alt-Catholic Puritan’s standard of acceptability. It doesn’t, because it is porn, and to the kind of person who is invested in banning porn not only from the internet but from all aspects of society all porn is equally evil and equally deserving of eradication, and the more things that can be designated as pornographic for those purposes, the better. This is as true for porn that depicts explicitly-consensual missionary sex between two married cisgender heterosexuals that is exhaustively justified by a beautiful narrative as it is for porn that depicts snuff. Appeasement is death, and I’m not ready to die yet.

However, we’ve built up enough of a body of work at this point that I do think it’s worth looking at how our games approach sexual consent, along with some of my personal thoughts on how consent is deployed in stories like ours. Fair warning: in addition to frank discussions of explicit depictions of all manner of sex act, this post will also feature a decent amount of kimono-parting that might possibly lay bare our secret mix of herbs & spices. Consider yourself warned!

Okay now that we’re safely behind the “Continue reading” tag: you need to think about consent in erotic fiction the same way you’d think about raw flour in cooking. There’s a lot you can do with it, and you wouldn’t necessarily be wrong if you were to say that it’s almost always foundational to the larger structure. But nobody, NOBODY enjoys a mouthful of raw flour. You’ll see a lot of shit being talked by people who’ll say “consent is sexy”, but for my money, the sexiest thing about consent in erotic fiction is how many ways you can stretch, squish, and otherwise deform it into whatever’s hottest for your story.

Take Opportunity: A Sugar Baby Story as an example. Almost all of the sex that happens in Opportunity happens within either the context of a negotiated transactional relationship (Jackie being Roman’s sugar baby, Kate being a sex worker paid by Roman) or a long-term committed relationship (Juniper & Rose’s sex tapes, Jackie & Olive’s romance). This means that the vast majority of sex is taking place within contexts wherein consent can be assumed (or more specifically, within contexts wherein consent can be assumed to have been easily obtained due to the nature of the relationship). On one level this is very safe and boring, but the thing about having these frameworks in which consent is assumed means that we can now have a lot of fun with the PRESENTATION.

Let’s look at an example from chapter 4 of Opportunity: in this passage, Jacqueline and Roman have come within a hair’s breadth of being caught fucking in a public park, something Jacqueline made even more likely while continuing to bounce on Roman’s dick while they were trying to hide.

Mercifully, both footsteps and voices quickly recede into the distance, leaving Jacqueline and Roman alone again.

Roman remains silent for a few more seconds, straining to hear if anyone else is approaching—

—before rearing back up and slamming himself violently into Jacqueline with all of his considerable strength, making her release a jubilant yelp.

R – I can’t BELIEVE you!

R – That was the stupidest, riskiest, most BRAINLESS thing you possibly could have done!

He’s not holding back at all—not in volume, or in force. The sounds of wet, percussive slapping are surely audible for at least a hundred feet in all directions.

[…]

Every skeleton-shaking thrust rubs Jacqueline’s face against the grassy ground, and she can even feel the grass starting to be worn away, bringing her cheek into contact with the earth beneath.

R – You wanted this cock that badly, did you?

R – Then here! Take as much of it as you want!

J – Th-thank you, sir!!!

Roman doesn’t let up.

The force of his thrusts is starting to sting against the back of her thighs, every fresh contact bringing with it a blossoming of exultant pain.

At some point, Jacqueline realizes that the relentless pounding has caused her glasses to slip off of her sweaty face. She’s past caring.

R – If—hhh—all you care about is being fucked, I’m just going to have to fuck you until you’ve had your fill!

J – Yes, sir!! Punish me! Punish your stupid little slut!!!

Jacqueline revels in her new role as Roman’s cocksleeve. Her tongue lolls out of her mouth, and she begins to pant.

Looked at from a certain point of view, this could be seen as a dangerous, traumatizing scenario for Jacqueline. Roman is a tall, powerfully-built man, and Jacqueline is a short, slightly-built woman. Roman sounds angry, and he’s described as fucking her with incredible force. He’s even verbally berating Jacqueline, using turns of phrase that imply she’s stupid and careless. There are a lot of things here which, if this was a different story told by different people, could make this into Not Very Fun Situation At All!

However, this is all part of the pantomime; this scene plays with a loss of control for both Roman and Jacqueline while the player is repeatedly assured that everything going on is fun and completely in line with Jacqueline’s desires. For one thing, this is taking place at the beginning of the 4th chapter of a story that has featured multiple scenes that make it very explicit what Jacqueline’s specific brand of freakiness looks like. Jacqueline is also the story’s point-of-view character: we have a constant view of her internal monologue, and there’s never any question that she’s genuinely enjoying herself. The narration reinforces this – Jacqueline’s yelp when Roman thrusts into her is “jubilant”, the pain she feels when his thighs strike hers is “exultant”. 

The above being completely in line with Jacqueline’s desires is further reinforced directly after the scene:

Jacqueline sighs contentedly as a warm, fresh breeze cools the sweat-dampened skin of her neck.

J – Ahhh…

J – That really hit the spot.

J – Multiple times.

R – Glad to be of service!

R – I don’t think I’m ever getting the grass stains out of my knees, so it’s good to know their sacrifice was worth it.

Jacqueline chuckles and nuzzles his shoulder.

What did NOT happen at any point before or during the scene was an explicit item-by-item negotiation of the acts that would be performed. Roman did not check in with Jacqueline before railing her face into the dirt. Jacqueline did not barrel down the camera and inform you, the player, that she enthusiastically consents to everything going on. There’s nothing wrong with doing that in your own sex life and you can certainly employ more explicit consent-seeking in your own stories, but for OUR stories, I find that stuff tedious and flow-breaking.

Now let’s look at what we do with consent in Monstrous Liberation, which is a story that concerns two narrative devices that are EXTREMELY intertwined with ideas of consent: mind control and monsterfucking. With the mind control, we do our best to avoid sexualizing it. This is less out of a desire to keep the game palatable for storefronts (though I won’t pretend that I’m not relieved that it worked out that way, given the happenings of this summer) and more out of a desire to be a little bit clever. I thought: there are tons of stories where people are mind-controlled INTO performing sex acts, wouldn’t it be funny if there was a story where the mind control was what was PREVENTING people from having sex? Unfortunately for me, this turned out to mean that I was essentially stuck writing a close critique of Puritan authoritarianism the length of a lesser George R. R. Martin novel, but these things happen sometimes.

The monsterfucking, though, that’s VERY sexualized. Obviously. All monster-fucking narratives feature the potential for violence and the violation of sexual consent as a key flavoring agent, because what is a monster if not something fundamentally different, unknowable, and unpredictable? A werewolf could, at any time, be overcome by its bestial instinct, driving it to either tear you to pieces or bury its knotted wolfcock deep in your ass without asking first, or both. A vampire might, at any moment, be overcome by its need to drink deeply of the blood of the living, mesmerizing you with its hypnotic gaze until you offer up your neck (or holes) freely. All monsters worth fucking feature some combination of extra-human abilities that would make harming/non-consensually fucking you trivial should they desire, and extra-human motivators that make them want to harm or fuck you whether you consent or not. This is not to say that all monster-fucking stories feature non-consensual sex by any means, just that the POTENTIAL for things becoming non-consensual is heightened due to the monstrous nature of one of the participants, and that’s the secret sauce of the whole affair (outside of all the fun shapes for penises).

In Monstrous Liberation, the sleight-of-hand we pull regarding consent is less about creating framing devices that presume consent than about leaning in to the cartoonishness of it all in order to disarm what might otherwise be very problematic scenarios. Monstrous Liberation is a much more full-throatedly pornographic story than Opportunity in the sense that it is repeatedly signalled that everything that’s happening is happening so that, at some point, sex can happen. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the case of the main character, Sasha. Sasha, a late-20s vtuber who tumbles ass-over-teakettle into a world of magic and mystery, could not be clearer that she is having the time of her life and that she is down for Whatever, especially if Whatever takes the form of ethically-dubious sex with a monster or several. The world of Monstrous Liberation is brightly-colored one where magic is real and the laws of physics are treated as mere suggestions, which makes it that much easier for a player to accept that having one’s holes plundered for hours on end by an amorous slime creature is more of an amusing happenstance than anything more concerning.

Let’s take a look at an example from the portion of the game concerning Diogenes, a minotaur apothecary whom Sasha liberates from the control of the magical Threads of Compulsion. Said liberation allows Diogenes to again practice his people’s time-honored cultural tradition of pursuing a fleeing target through a magically-summoned labyrinth, something he tests out on Sasha. We join them at the end of said pursuit:

She can feel exhaustion starting to overtake her. She keeps running, putting one foot in front of the other, but she can feel her pace slowing.

She’s become aware of another sound on top of the hoofbeats, the snorting, her pulse in her ears, and her own ragged breathing.

It’s the sound of her own frenzied, exhilarated, mad laughter.

Sasha takes several more turns at random. It makes no difference, the minotaur hooves continue to grow closer and closer.

Then, just as she feels her legs are just about to give out from under her…

The labyrinth ends.

Sasha skids to a halt, face to face with an impassable stone wall.

Her mind goes blank. She gulps for air. Her thighs tremble.

The hoofbeats behind her have slowed, but they continue their inexorable approach.

Gulping loudly, Sasha turns, ever so slightly.

Behind her, Diogenes looms. Did he get TALLER?

He’s breathing heavily too, though not nearly so heavily as Sasha. Steam — actual steam! — rises from him, and sweat coats every inch of his trembling musculature.

His shadow falls over Sasha like an eclipse.

[…]

The minotaur plucks her up off the ground in one hand as though she weighed little more than a feather.

He still hasn’t said a word, but the way she’s being held leaves little confusion in Sasha’s mind as to his intent.

S – Well.

S – Alright, then.

S – If you INSIST.

S – Just let me get out—

SHRRRRRIP

With a single easy motion, Diogenes tears the entirety of Sasha’s outfit away from her body, unwrapping her like a birthday present.

For a moment, Sasha can only blink as she watches tatters of her clothes float to the floor.

S – …or, yeah, right, that works too.

Diogenes is having none of Sasha’s weak attempts at initiating repartee, which is perhaps for the best.

With another easy motion, he twitches his loincloth to one side and brings his cock out to rest against Sasha’s thighs.

It’s Sasha’s first time getting a good look at it, and she’s pleased it’s every inch as appealing as it felt against her ass back in the shop.

S – THERE you are…

Diogenes is staring at Sasha, still breathing heavily, the force of his breath tickling her skin. She can feel his pulse through the skin of his dick.

The smell of him is everywhere; the heat he built up over the course of the chase through the labyrinth has only intensified it.

S – Well? Don’t keep a girl w—

S – HOUGH BOY

Diogenes lifts Sasha up and drives his cock inside her pussy without ceremony.

Sasha surprises herself by how ready she is to take it — not that she’s complaining.

It’s as though ever since the hulking minotaur cornered her, she’s been ready to be used by him in whatever way he desires.

A detached part of her brain wonders if this is this another feature of the strange innate labyrinth magic minotaurs possess, or if she’s just a gigantic freak like that?

That same part of her brain then takes a moment to listen to the noises Sasha is making while sliding up and down a dozen inches of bulging minotaur cock and decides to give the question up as academic.

As with the scene we looked at from Opportunity, this would be very easy to read this situation and frightening and dangerous. Sasha has been pursued to exhaustion within an inescapable maze by a creature several times her size, who proceeds to pick her up, tear her clothes off, and shove his dick inside her without asking for permission. Said dick is also of an absurd size, a size that would surely cause grievous injury to anyone attempting to take it without extensive preparation beforehand in real life. If this were a darker story, Sasha would be in danger of being killed by this experience.

Of course, that’s not the kind of story being told here. The secret to what we do in Monstrous Liberation, it turns out, is to push things as far as they can possibly go out of Sasha’s control BUT have everything that’s happening outside of her control just COINCIDENTALLY be things that she wholeheartedly enjoys. Having a protagonist with a Bugs-Bunny-esque inability to be meaningfully harmed or even set back by unexpected happenstance gives one a wonderful amount of creative latitude, as it turns out. At every step, Sasha is affirming that although getting stuffed down the middle by an unreasonable amount of minotaur dick might not have been on her day planner, she’s more than happy to pencil it in. Perhaps there exist people for whom this would not be the case, but Sasha does not count herself among those unfortunate souls. In effect, Sasha never revokes sexual consent because everything that happens to Sasha is something she’d happily consent to if it was offered. (This is not to paint Sasha as completely lacking any concept of sexual consent as being something that CAN be revoked – I’m speaking in terms of how she functions as a literary device.)

Again, all of this is talking about how WE handle things regarding consent in our stories. One thing I think we could potentially do better is in providing detailed content warnings for those who want them. My personal feeling is that the danger exists of too-detailed content warnings robbing an erotic story of a measure of the thrill it provides, but even I have to admit that there’s little harm inherent to an opt-in content warning list. Something to think about for the next update to Monstrous Liberation, perhaps. I do go back and forth on it – as I detailed above, I think anyone who’s a true scholar of monsterfucking as a subgenre of erotica is going to have a higher tolerance for boundary-pushing as a rule. However, I must acknowledge that not everyone who plays the game will be a dyed-in-the-wool fucker of monsters, and allowances must be made.

One other final thought regarding sexual consent in fiction generally – I feel that whenever this topic comes up, it is good to remind everyone of who is and is not at risk in fictional representations of non-consensual sex acts: quite literally nobody. I love Jacqueline, I love Sasha, I love ALL of our characters (excepting, perhaps, Willowswitch, whose dual speech patterns were the bane of my fucking existence), but the thing about them is that they are not real people. Even if I WERE to write awful, bad, nasty things happening to them, nobody real would have been harmed, because characters are not real in the sense that they do not exist outside of our imagination and therefore cannot feel pain or suffer trauma. As for our treasured players, if they find themselves caught off-guard or becoming upset due to a representation of sexuality in any of our stories, they possess the ultimate safeword: the ability to close the application, uninstall it, and have it never trouble them again. There is not one single thing I (or any other peddler of ethically-dubious sexual fiction) can do to prevent. There is nothing I can write, no idea so profane or violent or gratuitous or unthinkable, that it can do worse harm to you than a mild hangnail. Perhaps this is self-evident, and more than a little bit condescending, but given the amount of misery that has been visited upon people over the idea that fictional evil is directly responsible for real-world evil, I feel it’s worth saying. This shit cannot and will never hurt you.

That does it for me for today! Good to be back in the saddle. Thanks for reading!

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