New Poster, New Author, New Game :)
Epithet
feel quite comfortable using my real name here, largely cause
I want rec.games.int-fiction to respect any future more serious
works I create, and also because I don't want employers Deja-
searching my name and getting these decidedly... *unusual*
qualifications.
Anyway, like every other random yahoo who posts here once
and then disappears forevermore, I'm interested in writing AIF.
I've lurked on this group for a while, and I must say I'm impressed
by the open, positive community here. I really like seeing that in
an erotica newsgroup. I've also read WAIF and played several
of the games - GNA, HI, Afternoon Visit, I-O, Deanna, Soft Porn,
Moist, Rakish and a few others I've forgotten. In all honesty I'm
not that fond of some of them, and none of them really hit the
nail on what I find erotic. So I wanna do my own.
I really loved Newkid's games, primarily because the girls were
so enthusiastic and had at least a modicum of personality. I will
admit I liked GNA more *before* I figured out the sitcom tie,
though; luckily, I don't watch Friends et al. so that doesn't really
influence me. Back when I was 14, I had a *huge* thing for
Deanna Troi, so _Deanna_ was at once fun, nostalgic and more
than a little embarrasing. :) The others I'm less complementary
of, to be frank. I played Visit because I heard about the food
scene, which is one of my kinks. Indeed, that part was rather
nice - but the age of your partners, and what you need to do to
get them in bed, I found repulsive enough to sour the game for
me. Not that I want to persecute people that like fantasies about
taking advantage of 15 year old girls - I just find it spectaculairly,
awesomely un-erotic and repulsive. Moist I played a bit, until the
one girl - the maid, IIRC - walked away in the middle of having
sex with me. From that point on, it was more comedy than erotica,
for me at least. It seemed a very mechanistic, put-tab-A-in-slot-B
type of game, and never really caught my intrest. Not that it's not
well done, mind you - it is - but it's just not to my taste. The
others are somewhere in the middle. So I decided to do my own.
I do have a few advantages. I'm both a skilled writer - I've written
lots of prose, including to short stories, lots of instructionary text
and more than half of a *long* novel - and a skilled programmer.
I also know Inform quite well, which is the language I use for IF
of any sort, including AIF. I'm able to do fairly technical things
with it fairly easily, like the conversation system I'll mention more
below. I also have lots of involved, imaginative sexual fantasies.
The bad news is that I have an astoundingly poor record
for finishing the things I start, but I might just have a way around
this little difficulty. My plan is to program my game one scene at
a time, releasing each scene as I finish them. Because my plan
for a game lacks a linear plot, this won't seem as unprofessional
as it otherwise would.
My basic concept is much simpler than the involved genre parodies
this group seems to favour, but it has a simple elegance to it, in my
opinion, that will add a lot to the game and let me write very diverse
kinds of sexual situations believably. The concept is this: your
character is a hedonist-swinger attending an erotic Halloween party
at a fancy mansion in the middle of nowhere. To make things even
better, an Arbitrary Plot Device (tm) has ensured that there will be
significantly more girls than boys in attendance. The idea of a fetish
party lets me include lots of different girls interested in sex
without needing a credible buildup for each individual encounter, as
well as having a good reason for various erotic party games, strange
locales, kinky costumes, exhibitionism scenes and so forth. The
game will basically just be sex, flirtation, other erotic situations
and more sex - there is no real plot other than a community of
people getting together to have good, clean fun.
I want to try do do a few things differently than other AIF games
have done so far - this is not to be critical of the past, mosty great
games, but just to pander specifically to my own tastes. The women
will be a lot more active in my game - if you don't do an action in a
turn that prevents it, the girl your involved with will do things very
much on her own. Technically, I suppose, this means you could
zip through a sex scene just by typing "z," lots of times - or at
least until your partner starts slapping you around for your inaction,
but this isn't a big problem to me. I'n not a big fan of puzzles - my
game will certainly be interactive in that there's tons of different
options to try and very little is linear, but it won't be all that
hard to get from plot point A to B, so to speak.
I want to make my game a lot less sexually mechanistic than some
others - focusing less on different places to poke your organ or on
proper action sequences to win the "next stage" of the scene, and
more on the feelings, excitement and arousal of your partners, as
well as unusual and kinky sexual activities. There will be a lot of
salicious, suggestive conversation, a lot of different positions (that
the game provides - you don't have to figure them out or anything)
and a lot of playful foreplay. What I've written so far is a few
chunks of erotic prose for the first scene and an engine to
handle detailed conversation in Inform. I also have outlines of the
sex engine and the clothing engine, neither of which I forsee being
excruciatingly difficult to write - the conversation engine has taken
me maybe 6 hours total; I'm a fast programmer.
Ideally, the game will have a greater sense of context, rather than
a set description for each action. How I plan to do this is a little
technical - in short, the ladies have a variable each for their mood,
position and last action, and every possible action they can take is
stored as an invisible object within the character object. Each action
has list of positions, moods and stages of the encounter in which it
is possible (and characters to whom it can be done, in the case of
scenes with more than one participant.) Each turn, the game will
scan through the actions possible and choose one at random,
marking it as done. The lady will do said thing, and her context
will change accordingly. This all sounds very complex, but it boils
down to AIF women who seem like beings with minds of their own
instead of recepticles for a penis. I also want to make the language
more naturalistic (ENTER cathy instead of FUCK cathy; and certainly
not DILDOFUCK cathy or somesuch). Actual intercourse will take
more than one turn - once you have ENTERed a character, other
things (like touching or kissing) can be done before orgasm is
reached. I *would* write a library for this stuff, but it doesn't seem
like anyone here uses Inform, and I abhorr TADS. (Sorry!) I will
make my source available when I make the first scene available.
Another thing I want is for the protaganist to be fairly different
from other AIF protaganists. I want to get out of the Leasure Suit
Larry/Spellcasting 101/Visit rut of making the hero either a geek in
search of losing his virginity or a manipulative creep trying to con
women into sleeping with him. The character will be respectful,
graceful, educated, mature (though still funny and silly at times),
seductive, quite sexually experienced, generally appealing and not
sleazy overall. While the game will in all honesty be largely male-
oriented, I think a beautiful, charming lead would make it more
appealing to both genders in the long run.
As I mentioned above, the (mis)use of food and other messy or
slippery substances for sexual purposes is one of my personal kinks,
and I had planned to have it figure fairly prominently in several of
the scenes. Since you folk are my target audience, I figured I'd ask:
is this appealing? Repugnant? Would you not play the game because
of it? Other non-vanilla content might include playful catfighting
or wrestling, exhibitionism (before an open and sensitive community,
not total strangers), erotic bets and dares (no real reluctance,
though - everything I program will be very consensual), light bondage,
sex while blindfolded, threesomes or groupsex, and some very
enthusiastic women.
Anyway, that's about all I have to say. Any questions or comments
are welcomed. What do you think?
**Epithet**
PS. Don't expect anything for at least 3 months. It would be a fluke
if I finished the first scene before than, because it's a threesome
(It has to be, or I'd have to rewrite the engine when I wanted to do
one) and I have to do all the "background programming" as well as
the scene proper. Don't hold your breath after 3 months, either - I
told y'all I have difficulty finishing what I start, and I wasn't
kidding...
nobody
much about whether it fits with what people in this newsgroup might ideally
want.
Keep in mind that the majority of AIF is crap, stupid and poorly written.
Based solely upon your ability to use the english language well, as
evidenced in your introductory message, I figure that whatever you write
will be considered among the best AIF that exists.
And, releasing one scene at a time is better than releasing no scenes ever.
Mycophile
you've got to live up to them. I knew we must have a lurker out there like
you -- glad to see you're coming out in to the open, such as it is.
"Epithet" <slip...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:39b24e4b.33926023@news...
> Hiya, all. My name is Epithet - well, you can call me that; I don't
> feel quite comfortable using my real name here, largely cause
> I want rec.games.int-fiction to respect any future more serious
> works I create, and also because I don't want employers Deja-
> searching my name and getting these decidedly... *unusual*
> qualifications.
We can call you epithets? Okay, fuckface :)
Seriously though, I can understand what you're saying about anonymity. As a
person of kink who's also in a professinal field (once I get out of school
anyway), I've had to consider the same thing. Ultimately, though, I've
decided not to really bother making it difficult to track down my activities
on agx and such.
Basically, I figure I don't want to live my life feeling like my sexuality
is something I have to go around taking great measures to hide. Not that
I'm going to shove it in people's faces, but I consider it analogous to
being homosexual or something; it's part of who I am and nothing to be
ashamed of, so I'm not going to hide it. At least, not to the extent that
if someone specifically tries to find out stuff like that about me, they
wouldn't be able to. If an employer is going to do a search like that on
me, and not hire me because of what they find, I consider myself lucky for
finding out early on what they're like, so I wouldn't have to waste my time
with such an intolerant company. This may just be the idealism of youth
speaking, but there you have it. And of course, I respect your decision to
be anonymous -- just giving my own opinion.
> Anyway, like every other random yahoo who posts here once
> and then disappears forevermore, I'm interested in writing AIF.
> I've lurked on this group for a while, and I must say I'm impressed
> by the open, positive community here. I really like seeing that in
> an erotica newsgroup. I've also read WAIF and played several
> of the games - GNA, HI, Afternoon Visit, I-O, Deanna, Soft Porn,
> Moist, Rakish and a few others I've forgotten. In all honesty I'm
> not that fond of some of them, and none of them really hit the
> nail on what I find erotic. So I wanna do my own.
This is a good statement of how I feel about the community. Some of the
games are fun diversions, but none are what I'd consider what AIF "should"
be. Some of the games are good, or at least decent, IF. None of them are
good erotica. It's not the games that make me hopeful for better games in
the future, though -- it's the community.
> I really loved Newkid's games, primarily because the girls were
> so enthusiastic and had at least a modicum of personality. I will
Woohoo! Modica!
> of, to be frank. I played Visit because I heard about the food
> scene, which is one of my kinks. Indeed, that part was rather
> nice - but the age of your partners, and what you need to do to
> get them in bed, I found repulsive enough to sour the game for
> me. Not that I want to persecute people that like fantasies about
> taking advantage of 15 year old girls - I just find it spectaculairly,
> awesomely un-erotic and repulsive.
Well, I haven't played it in a while, but I think the idea was that you were
all about 15 years old. But I guess the fantasy is still pretty much in
that direction. From my correspondence with the author a while back, it's
clear that he definitely has a thing for teenage girls. I think that when I
played it, I was probably 18, and actually had a girlfriend at the time who
was nearly three years younger (hey, sue me...), so it didn't stick out as
inappropriate to me. I'm curious to know how much of an age difference it
is for you. You said you had a crush on Troi when you were 14... when's the
earliest that could have been?
> Moist I played a bit, until the
> one girl - the maid, IIRC - walked away in the middle of having
> sex with me. From that point on, it was more comedy than erotica,
> for me at least. It seemed a very mechanistic, put-tab-A-in-slot-B
> type of game, and never really caught my intrest. Not that it's not
> well done, mind you - it is - but it's just not to my taste. The
> others are somewhere in the middle. So I decided to do my own.
The thing I like about Moist is the freeform nature of it. The player can
explore just about the whole game with very few limitations on what can be
done before what. But the complaints you've stated about it are certainly
valid.
> I do have a few advantages. I'm both a skilled writer - I've written
> lots of prose, including to short stories, lots of instructionary text
> and more than half of a *long* novel - and a skilled programmer.
That's very promising to hear. Writing is at least as important as
programming when it comes to (A)IF. Not just for the actual text, but for
the organization of the story as a whole.
> I also know Inform quite well, which is the language I use for IF
> of any sort, including AIF. I'm able to do fairly technical things
> with it fairly easily, like the conversation system I'll mention more
> below. I also have lots of involved, imaginative sexual fantasies.
Alriiiight, Inform! I know Inform myself, rather than TADS, but haven't had
much success encouraging others to choose it. More on this below, though.
> The bad news is that I have an astoundingly poor record
> for finishing the things I start, but I might just have a way around
> this little difficulty. My plan is to program my game one scene at
> a time, releasing each scene as I finish them. Because my plan
> for a game lacks a linear plot, this won't seem as unprofessional
> as it otherwise would.
I had considered something similar a while back, though of course I also
have a bad track record for finishing things I start. The people I talked
to (primarily Scarlet Herring, I think) dissuaded me from this approach, and
I agreed with them. Not saying it won't work for you, though. Maybe you
could do something more like what NewKid's doing with Wraith (which he
completed back in March and is holding hostage, as we all know), releasing a
one-scene "trailer" in anticipation of the full game. That way you generate
the anticipation that will keep you working on the game, but the game as a
whole doesn't come across as disjointed and piecemeal.
> My basic concept is much simpler than the involved genre parodies
> this group seems to favour, but it has a simple elegance to it, in my
> opinion, that will add a lot to the game and let me write very diverse
> kinds of sexual situations believably. The concept is this: your
> character is a hedonist-swinger attending an erotic Halloween party
> at a fancy mansion in the middle of nowhere. To make things even
> better, an Arbitrary Plot Device (tm) has ensured that there will be
> significantly more girls than boys in attendance. The idea of a fetish
> party lets me include lots of different girls interested in sex
> without needing a credible buildup for each individual encounter, as
> well as having a good reason for various erotic party games, strange
> locales, kinky costumes, exhibitionism scenes and so forth. The
> game will basically just be sex, flirtation, other erotic situations
> and more sex - there is no real plot other than a community of
> people getting together to have good, clean fun.
This does sound like a nice setting for some miscellaneous kinky sexual
adventures. Makes me look forward to the party I'll be attending this
Halloween, but that's another story. Anyway, I was thinking that you might
consider taking inspiration from actual play parties when it comes to which
kinks to include. That is, often at a play party there will be a scene
which includes things that a person who sees it is not interested in, or may
find off-putting in fact. Another person may be wishing they could leap in
and take part in the action. Everybody has different kinks, and there's a
difference between YKINMK (Your Kink Is Not My Kink) and YKINOK (Your Kink
Is Not OK). My point is, not everyone playing the game will have the same
tastes as you, but that shouldn't dissuade you from incorporating your
tastes into the game (a game written about tastes you don't have would be
decidedly artificial and bland). What you should do is make those parts as
optional as possible, so people who aren't interested in doing them can
watch respectfully from a distance and not be offended.
> scenes with more than one participant.) Each turn, the game will
> scan through the actions possible and choose one at random,
> marking it as done. The lady will do said thing, and her context
> will change accordingly. This all sounds very complex, but it boils
> down to AIF women who seem like beings with minds of their own
> instead of recepticles for a penis. I also want to make the language
An impressively revolutionary idea :)
> more naturalistic (ENTER cathy instead of FUCK cathy; and certainly
> not DILDOFUCK cathy or somesuch). Actual intercourse will take
> more than one turn - once you have ENTERed a character, other
> things (like touching or kissing) can be done before orgasm is
> reached. I *would* write a library for this stuff, but it doesn't seem
> like anyone here uses Inform, and I abhorr TADS. (Sorry!) I will
> make my source available when I make the first scene available.
To be honest, I don't find ENTER preferable to FUCK -- seems like an
unhelpful euphemism. Neither is really suitable, but it's the curse of the
imperative sense that IF commands must be done in, along with the brevity
necessary. I'd say just allow all the different synonyms you can think of,
but I'm sure you already know that coming from the RAIF crowd and all.
Oh, almost missed the chance to comment on Inform. I'm very excited to hear
that someone who seems to be so skilled and promising as an AIF author is
using Inform. I think that you *should* write a library for it, though!
Here's a typical exchange on this newsgroup:
Newbie: "I want to write an AIF game. What language should I use?"
AGX: "TADS or Inform. They're exactly identical, except TADS has libraries
which write the game for you and nobody uses Inform."
Myco: "No, use Inform! It's just as good if not better!"
Newbie: "I've carefully weighed the options and will use TADS."
So it's a positive feedback loop -- people are using TADS because there are
AIF libraries for it, but if you wrote one for Inform we could see more
Inform games, especially if the game you write with your own libraries is an
impressive one. Releasing your source is a good step, but it's not nearly
the same as releasing a library. Since you're taking a modular approach to
your game anyway, releasing it a piece at a time, having modular libraries
would be the most sensible thing to do anyway. After all, you'll want to
use them for your *second* game, right? ;)
> women into sleeping with him. The character will be respectful,
> graceful, educated, mature (though still funny and silly at times),
> seductive, quite sexually experienced, generally appealing and not
> sleazy overall. While the game will in all honesty be largely male-
> oriented, I think a beautiful, charming lead would make it more
> appealing to both genders in the long run.
Agreed. This community, obviously, has a rather large male majority at this
point, and we've discussed at length why this is and how it can be changed.
It sounds like your game would be a step in the right direction.
> As I mentioned above, the (mis)use of food and other messy or
> slippery substances for sexual purposes is one of my personal kinks,
> and I had planned to have it figure fairly prominently in several of
> the scenes. Since you folk are my target audience, I figured I'd ask:
> is this appealing? Repugnant? Would you not play the game because
> of it? Other non-vanilla content might include playful catfighting
> or wrestling, exhibitionism (before an open and sensitive community,
> not total strangers), erotic bets and dares (no real reluctance,
> though - everything I program will be very consensual), light bondage,
> sex while blindfolded, threesomes or groupsex, and some very
> enthusiastic women.
*yawn* That's it? ;)
No, actually, these sound like kinks that would fit well into AIF, probably
more easily than for example my own, which are rather more psychological
than playful.
> PS. Don't expect anything for at least 3 months. It would be a fluke
> if I finished the first scene before than, because it's a threesome
> (It has to be, or I'd have to rewrite the engine when I wanted to do
> one) and I have to do all the "background programming" as well as
> the scene proper. Don't hold your breath after 3 months, either - I
> told y'all I have difficulty finishing what I start, and I wasn't
> kidding...
But I wannit now! Hehe, nah... don't rush yourself. Just don't stop
working on it!
Myco
Mycophile
news:8p1fh0$2sb$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
> The reason that no one has written AIF libraries for Inform is that the
> people using Inform are writing games instead of libraries. No currently
> available game has been developed using any AIF libraries, so what is the
> big deal about these libraries? The hard part about writing games isn't
> coding actions, it's figuring out what's interesting to have happen. I'm
> unconvinced that "simplifying" things by making libraries available will
> improve the quality of games by allowing non-programmers to write them.
> Essentially, it's only people who know sort of how to program that are
> interested in AIF in the first place. Programming isn't their problem.
Sorry to say, but the facts have conspired against you. There are
relatively frequent posts from people who are very much interested in AIF
and yet feel they lack the technical skills to code a game. They ask for a
coder to work with them on a game, or for tools to place a layer of
abstraction between themselves and the code. Just because we're a
more-technical-than-average crowd here doesn't mean we're all programmers.
> Pardon me for being vaguely cruel here, but I think it's ridiculous to
> suggest that only those who post pie-in-the-sky suggestions about their
> own future games are the AIF authors, when in my experience, those who
> keep mostly quiet are the ones who deliver.
I don't think anyone's claimed that this isn't so; the most talkative
members of this group certainly are not those who have released games, and
frequently acknowledge this fact. I don't see what this has to do with your
point, at any rate.
Myco
Epithet
>Welcome to the group.
Thanks.
> Glad to see somebody else from the RAIF group
>who would even admit that they even lurk here, let alone post...
>I might faint. Somebody who frequents RAIF who is impressed by us. We
>don't hear that a lot.
RAIF is full of wonderful, creative people (IMO, at least) but
they do tend to be a little effete at times - Graham Nelson very
much liking the ideal of the erudite Enligh gentleman and all,
at least from all the "high culture" referances in the games, and
him kind of being the unspoken hero of RAIF. I can see why this
group tends to rub them a little off... :)
In honesty, RAIF is a nice place, but this is a more honest, open
community - again, IMO. I admire y'all a lot for that; I really hope
you don't find me snooty because of RAIF. I get the impression
that they (we, I guess) want to be taken seriously as a literary
community instead of being seen as computer game writers stuck
in the 1980s, so they act a little cool to the pornographers. Which
is understandable, but with all of society acting "a little cool" or
worse to pornographers, fetishists, swingers and anyone else even
remotely related to sex... well, it doesn't help make the world any
nicer, that's for sure.
> I
>understand about using an alias, I don't think you'll hear any
>complaints about that. I use one myself for the same reasons,
>although code that I've released has my real name on it. I later
>developed an attitude similar to Myco's about being part of this
>community.
Perhaps I will too, eventually. I hope so, but not right
now, at least.
>Well, you can prevent that from happening in Moist, at least if
>you've tried everything. Just out of curiosity, did you play far
>enough to intereact with the card-player? (Kim?) If so, I'd be
>curious to your thoughts about that particular puzzle.
No. I read a little of the source, though, and the walkthrough.
I don't have a lot of thoughts on Kim, truthfully. The idea of
strip poker in AIF is a good one, but reading the source I
didn't find anything the game would tell me WRT Kim to be
very tittilating. Moist is a game I mean to go back and explore
more, though, when I get a little time. It might be fairly cool,
but uncovering that will take more effort than most AIF games
do.
>Would it add any difficulty for you to make these library extensions
>that can be made available to others? I know there are a few in the
>group here who are working with Inform, this would just help them
>further along. And as Rap would say, anything that helps get more
>games he can play is more than welcome. I'd tend to agree.
Since this seems to be the overwhelming request from everyone,
I'll likely do so. Not till after the first scene, however - I'll need
to debug it more completely. Even then, my entire approach is
a tad more technical than straight-line, so my library will be of
minimal use to those non-programmers in the group.
>I urge you to reconsider. The fact that there aren't any Inform
>libraries for this sort of thing makes it harder for somebody to
>choose it as an option. Having traveled the RAIF crowd, I'm sure
>you're aware that some folks just aren't comfortable poking around
>trying to extend Inform (TADS, or others for that matter). Putting
>your code into a library that others could use could be a big help to
>the community at large.
So it should be, then.
>That would be a change indeed. Although I don't think you need to
>have your character start out with all those qualities. They could
>develop over the course of the game scenes. Then again, if that were
>the case, you'd need to be able to store settings that we could load
>for each new scene, so that might not work for you. *shrug*
I don't plan a huge degree of character development. The
protaganist isn't really a very realistic person anyway, though
he should be believable. I think that will come later, as (if) I
do more scenes. Once I've gotten the raw sex element out
of my system, I'll start doing more complex stuff.
**Epithet**
Epithet
trying to boast. If I came off that way, I'm truly sorry. It's
entirely possible that I won't ever achieve anything productive,
and as you say I'm sure that others that only lurk are more
dutiful producers than I. Still, I like talking about projects
I'm working on, whether or not anything comes of it, and
I don't see it as harmful to do so. I certainly wasn't trying to
claim credit for that which I have not yet done - I just wanted
to chat about it.
**Epithet**
Epithet
wrote:
>Well, this brings up a rather tired point. Visit certainly incorporated the
>objectionable elements you mention, but it is after all just a fantasy. How
>is that different from, say, a bondage fantasy where the bottom pretends to
>be helpless and the top pretends to be taking advantage, doing things
>against his partner's will? Both would be objectionable if they were "real"
>situations, but they're fantasy. Minors are a touchy point, of course. And
>anyway, I can definitely see where it would be unappealing to someone
>regardless (I'm more or less ambivalent myself).
Realize, I'm not objecting on moral grounds. I'm just saying it's
not what I find sexy. BSDM, on the other hand, I'm a lot more
open to - it's not my "thing," but as long as it's consensual it can
be fairly appealing to me anyway.
>Given that you've displayed your excellent writing ability, can I give you a
>ruler across the knuckles for that "it's?" :)
I'm not overly careful with grammar in Usenet posts. I make a
fair number of them, so there isn't time.
>Oh, and I have an idea for you. AIF players have gotten pretty used to
>being able to score with just about every attractive female in a game. A
>player can read the initial description of a female NPC and determine
>whether or not she's "doable" -- almost always, she is. What I'd like to
>see is a perfectly attractive and available female NPC who just doesn't
>happen to be interested in the PC. She's not a lock, there's no key for
>her. Let players wrap their promiscuous minds around that one. You'll get
>three sadist points if you do.
Why add frusteration and rejection to what is supposed to
be an idyllic fantasy? That said, there may be people like this
in my game, if only because the setting demands that not
everyone be attracted to you.
>Hehe, "wierd."
I have no idea if it will work yet - I hope so, though.
>I get the feeling you'll hate this suggestion, but I have to say it: what
>about the possibility of others writing modules for the game?
I'd be delighted, even if the content wasn't totally down my alley.
I wouldn't want predation or violence, just because I don't want
to have to involve myself with that in code I'll have to edit and
such, but other than that I'd be immensely flattered if someone
wanted to do a scene for a game I wrote.
>Well, I'm lucky in that I found out about a local BDSM organization that has
>an awesome play space and throws good parties. I was in your position for a
>long time -- I've only had one girlfriend, and I'm certainly antisocial.
>Depending on where you live, there might be a local kink organization you
>could check out. Mine's in Seattle.
I'm fairly in touch with the WAM (wet and messy - water, foodplay,
etc.) fetish community on the Internet, but there's nothing where I
live, and I'd be a little to scared to attend an event anyway. I'm not
in as large a metropolitan center as Seattle.
>Well, there's no sense being ashamed of your tastes. The shame is if you're
>not honest with yourself about them. Nobody's responsible for what turns
>them on -- just what they do about it.
Amen.
**Epithet**
al_bi...@hotmail.com
girls." It has never been my intention to implement clothing you can put
on anybody and a full range of orifices in every person you see. If you
have all this stuff, however, you still are lacking quite a bit of the
coding you need for a game, so I'm not sure how it's going to solve your
problem. Which is to say: it's incomplete (not the whole game) and it's
overcomplete (do you really need all the modular features?).
As has been noted, there are those who say, I can write, who can code for
me? To which I say, these people are not going to be able to code a game
with the AIF libraries either, because there is still much to do. And to
which I say, further, do they ever get any assistance on their actual
entreaty, which is not for modular libraries, but modular humans to help
them?
I'm not a programmer. So the thing that fascinates me is, why the
obsession with writing computer games to print smut on your screen, if
that isn't something you actually know how to do? Why not just write the
smut directly? I just think maybe people get excited about the idea of
seeing smut printed on their screens and they forget there are
differences between the ways to get this accomplished, and reasons for
those differences.
Al
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Rap
al_bi...@hotmail.com wrote:
> I guess my point was that an AIF game is not "good writing" + "pre-coded
> girls."
And a good point it is, but I disagree with pieces of it. AIF is not that, but
if you want to write AIF, you are going to need to code girls.
> It has never been my intention to implement clothing you can put
> on anybody and a full range of orifices in every person you see. If you
> have all this stuff, however, you still are lacking quite a bit of the
> coding you need for a game, so I'm not sure how it's going to solve your
> problem. Which is to say: it's incomplete (not the whole game) and it's
> overcomplete (do you really need all the modular features?).
Incomplete: true. So it doesn't solve your problem, but it helps alleviate the
problem. Because you can take all of the effort required to plan, write, and
(replan and rewrite and) debug the basic sex code that each chick in your game
will share, and instead use that time and effort for making the individual
quirks of each chick more interesting. This is one of the basic rules of
programming. What you were saying was, "Why write a window manager? Every
application needs its own GUI anyway." But in fact, most programs will want to
have one or more rectangular, resizable windows with menus, title bars... A
huge amount of effort is required to get all that stuff done -- why make each
person who wants to write a word processor, web browser, or mail reader do it
over?
Overcomplete: also true. To an extent. Probably any one game won't use every
possible tab-slot-clothing combination. But if you plan intelligently, adding
a new bodypart isn't the complicated part of making a library. And it's not
worth making a library that's so specific it'll only work for your game.
> As has been noted, there are those who say, I can write, who can code for
> me? To which I say, these people are not going to be able to code a game
> with the AIF libraries either, because there is still much to do.
True, but let's not talk about people who don't code at all. Let's rather say
that different people have different strengths. Although NewKid has clearly
done a whole lot of programming, he still comes at things from a Writer's
perspective. I happen to come at things from a Coder's perspective. (If only
#include <prose.t> would make my writing better!) Libraries will save work for
everyone, but they will save even more for Writers, who want to code less and
write more.
> I'm not a programmer. So the thing that fascinates me is, why the
> obsession with writing computer games to print smut on your screen, if
> that isn't something you actually know how to do? Why not just write the
> smut directly? I just think maybe people get excited about the idea of
> seeing smut printed on their screens and they forget there are
> differences between the ways to get this accomplished, and reasons for
> those differences.
I'll let others who have actually completed games deal with this, but I think
some people may be drawn to the genre specifically because of its differences
from regular smut. See also the current discussion on raif about "why write
IF?"
--
-Rap
Rap
subject lines or headers and stuff.
> From: no...@invisible.org (ArKane)
>
> Al was overheard typing about:
>
> >Pardon me for being vaguely cruel here, but I think it's
> >ridiculous to suggest that only those who post pie-in-the-sky
> >suggestions about their own future games are the AIF authors, when
> >in my experience, those who keep mostly quiet are the ones who
> >deliver.
>
> BTW, I can't recall anyone in this group referring to themselves as
> an AIF author who hasn't released something (game or library). I
> don't consider myself one for that very reason.
Several people have said this, but let me echo it, as one of the most verbose
posters of pie-in-the-sky suggestions. Clearly, the authors are the ones who
actually wrote games. In fact, I've even joked about my theory that we
high-volume posters are doing our job by posting lots of drivel, somehow
helping the actually productive people to code stuff, as evidenced by, for
example, Sir Gareth the ex-lurker.
-Rap
al_bi...@my-deja.com
I don't like your analogy that "girl libraries" are like a windowing
system. I happen to think windowing systems are useful, though I can and
have been convinced of other ways to do things. However, if you are
writing a program for, say, Mac OS, you want it to look like a Mac OS
program, so you make calls to the appropriate windowing toolbox.
If you are writing AIF, and your girl library is "Big Al's EZ Chix," then
you are -- to use your analogy -- essentially writing a program for that
platform, with all the assumptions and presumptions that Big Al made. To
which I say, why do you want to do that? To make the presumption that
windows need close boxes is perhaps reasonable, but to make the
presumption that characters in my AIF game should act a certain way is
clearly not, because while in a program written for an OS windows are
incidental, in an AIF game the way characters act is perhaps a full third
of what you are doing.
The presumptions of the way I do things are a bad thing for you to agree
with if you are trying to make what is, for lack of a better term, a work
of art. In the context of AIF, who is to say that "remove skirt, fuck
Fiona" is the way to go. What about a conversation-driven seduction, the
kind that we're used to in real life? What about a game in which the
player attempts to avoid come-ons from everybody? What about a million
things which, because they have not been pursued, are more interesting
than "An Evening with -Proper Noun-"? I don't think the plug-in concept
(pardon the pun) is going to yield a world of new experiences. If the
goal is to produce the most number of games in the least time, by people
who are the least involved in their creation, it will help. How can it
help anything else? I don't want to play games where the only difference
is the girls have different names and the writing quality varies!
I guess what I'm saying is, where is the weird stuff? Where is the stuff
too good for me, you, us, to have already come up with?
If there were ever a golden age, I would be mourning for it.
Dramatically,
Al
Rap
> Once I've gotten the raw sex element out
> of my system, I'll start doing more complex stuff.
Don't hold your breath.
-Rap
Rap
> On Mon, 04 Sep 2000 22:04:20 GMT, Rap <raprap...@my-deja.com>
> wrote:
> >Epithet wrote:
>
> I write reasonably deep characters in non-adult fiction. My
> style tend to come to characters with a mess of psychological
> hangups, pains of simply having lived, insecurities and such.
But that's so pathetically unrealistic! I mean, look at me; *I* don't have any
hangups or insecurities!
> When I write erotica, I look to present a more idyllic envionment -
> one that is relaxing and appealing in more ways then the pretty
> women.
This implies that you're on my side (in this matter) of the Rap-Myco debate. I
call for T&AIF, while he wants lots of deep, complicated stuff.
> That's what I liked in GNA and IHS. You aren't going to write a
> literary dissertation on Wynne's personality and foibles, but on the
> other hand she seems like a real person to an extent, at least.
Agreed! Btw, don't blame the early AIF too much -- part of the problem was a
lack of technology.
> There are a few reasons I went for the party. First, it's a place
> where people can be comfortable about sexuality, and IMO that
> makes it easier for the *player* to be comfortable about playing
> the game, and about immersing themselves in the scenario.
Heh. Somehow, I have a feeling the players will be willing to immerse
themselves in almost any scenario, as long as it's a scenario with lots of sex
in. ("Music with Rocks in", maxchaos.)
> Also, most MF erotica is one scene; it doesn't have to justify why you do
> five women in a day - and when it does, it generally comes to being sex
> clubs or circles of swinging friends or whatever anyway.
True. Good point.
> I would say that an adult party setting adds at least as much room
> for variety in sex as more pedestrian settings, unless you are fixated
> on exotic locales.
I never thought of this before, but it seems like I really am fixated on
exotic locales or situations. Cf. all my crazy YANNIs. I wonder why! Not that
HI and GNA have particularly exotic locales.
> Sex in my closet at home isn't terribly different from sex in a closet at
> the museam, or sex in a closet on the starship Enterprise, or whereever.
Well, it *can* be depending on how you set up the atmosphere in the museum as
a whole, but OK.
> There _will_ be exhibitionism in my game,
> and IMO it will be more fun because the people involved know their
> watchers are sensitive and non-judgemental.
Interesting. I would think the fact that it's a game would let you go crazy
and have exhibitionism in front of pretty much anyone. But you do seem to be
focusing on the player's comfort. I guess maybe I get immersed in games in a
different way than you, such that I'm able to do things I would "never imagine
doing" in real life. That is, your goal is to be more realistic, so that
it's easier to imagine your real self in that situation. I let AIFs be more of
a fantasy world, where I can do stuff the real me wouldn't do. OTOH, I would
never play a BDSM game, because even the hero me doesn't want to do that. I
guess the hero me is less held back by certain moral issues, but *much* less
held back in terms of RL limitations like the number of times a man can orgasm
in a day - let alone limitations like the number of women who would say yes
(to *me*) in a day :)
> >(2) Plausibility. Most people in the world (AFAIK!) don't go to swinger
> >parties. So it's easier to imagine having sex with someone at work, or at a
> >bar, or on a business trip, because these are places people actually go to.
>
> Me, personally, I find sex at a swing club to me more likely
> than elsewhere, because, well, that's why they are there.
Again, we have amusingly different ideas of what's "plausible" and where we're
letting our fantasies go. I imagine wholly unrealistic sex in bland
situations; you go for totally realistic outcomes of situations you'd be
unlikely to end up in (at this stage in your life, from what you've said).
> It
> also implies sex without the messy emotional entanglements
Yes!
> For _me_ personally, going to a swing club is no less normal then going on a
> date, because I don't do either - and in honesty, if one were ever to
> happen, it would more likely be the former than the latter. I _hate_ the
> rituals and hypocrasy of dating...
Warning: serious subjects approaching.
Swinging is definitely less accepted in overall american society than dating.
Not that that's necessarily a view I support :)
I didn't date in college -- I found that extracurricular stuff afforded a much
better opportunity to meet women in a less threatening environment. And once
you know them from that, you can "go out" without the pressure of a date.
> I'm getting that you are very big on setting - which is great -
> but in all honesty sex in the library is more a nightmare thought
> for me than a fantasy.
All depends on the librarian :)
> At least, if you try for anything more than a dream-like state of unreality,
> that is. On of the prerequisites for something being erotic, IMO, is that
> it's emotionally comfortable and reassuring. Of course, that's just me.
Yeah. We seem to have this interesting difference. (At least I and maybe you
think it's interesting. Good thing noone else is reading this.) I think I very
much want a "dream-like state of unreality." In fact, for me, that's more
"emotionally comfortable and reassuring" because when I'm in a dream, I don't
have to worry about RL things like emotional involvement, the morality of
one-night (or one-hour) stands, et al. Which also explains why I fight for
T&AIF. Myco, who's apparently more comfortable with these sex issues in RL,
has less of a problem with RL-like things in AIF.
> Then again, the "under the table" scene in IHS was pretty hot...
:) The caveat to all our arguing is that we enjoyed lots of the same stuff.
Serious subject in 3...2....
> Sex in everyday situations does absolutely nothing for me - I
> honestly don't know why. Part of the reason could be the active
> effort I put into not seeing the people I attend college with as
> sexually attractive, in order as not to unconsciously treat them in
> a sexist way.
[SPOILERS for RL! Skip to the next '>' for more interesting AIF issues]
I'm sure the last thing you need is someone you've never met who doesn't know
your name or where you live or where you go to college or what you look like
or what your hobbies are psychoanalyzing you. Especially when you know as
little about me. So I'll do it anyway: (Btw, Epithet, I assume you too will
skip ahead to the AIF if you don't want to talk about this in a public forum.)
How are you going to find a girlfriend -- or even an appropriately gendered
human (I assume you're aiming for humans, since you said "sexist", not
"specieist" :) to hang out and have a good time with and fool around with
some -- if you insist on not seeing people as sexually attractive?
OK. I'm assuming here that finding a girlfriend is a Good Thing. Is that such
a crazy assumption? Is it so important to not be sexist that you should
sacrifice the well-studied psychological benefits (to you and her) of Liking
Someone? (And the equally-if-not-more-carefully-studied psychological benefits
of nookie.)
Sexism is certainly an important issue. And yes, we treat people we're
sexually attracted to differently sometimes. But I don't think the answer to
this is to deny sexuality! (From the way you put it, it's not that the women
there *aren't* sexually attractive; you just put effort into seeing them that
way. And who are we kidding -- is it possible that in a whole (coed) college
there wouldn't be some number of women attractive enough to see in a sexual
way? (Which is to say, for standard red-blooded males, only the teeniest bit
attractive.)) And much as I love AIF, I don't think that sinking all of your
sexual feelings into nonexistent or otherwise far away women is the answer.
My argument is with your if/then. You're saying that, if you see someone as
sexually attractive, then you'll unconsciously treat them in a sexist way. Is
that absolutely 100% sure outcome? Are you sure you're not buying into PC
ideology? What if you make a *conscious* effort to treat attractive women
(i.e., basically all of them) in a non-sexist way? Maybe I just have more
faith in your conscious than your unconscious. If you view a woman as smart
and talented, reciprocate her offers of friendship, give her every opportunity
you would give to a man, does it matter that you think she looks sexy as hell
in short skirts?
Isn't ignoring women's sexuality (if it's even possible) just as bad as
ignoring their other characteristics -- intelligence, personality, whatever?
Admittedly, in a workplace setting, it's extremely important to limit the
sexual connection because of the danger of sexual harrassment, especially when
power relationships come into it. But college is a very different
circumstance. And a woman's sexuality is a part of her - for some women, a
very important part.
OK, maybe I should stop babbling. Back to the important and less real stuff.
> If there's ever going to be any of what I, as a non-AIF author,
> truly consider plot in my AIF, it will relate to themes of social
> commentary on how we see sex, and the benefits that can be
> gained by being more open about it, and about how to be an
> empathic lover.
Oh oh! That sounds a bit too much like RL!
> Essentially, "swing" is something I believe in as an ideology IRL, even if
> I'm to cowardly to actually participate, and thus expressing the rationale
> behind that ideology is a good source of plot in any game I'll write. (Plot
> in the future, however; right now in honesty I want [to write] T&A.)
And I want to *play* T&A. I couldn't imagine a better match.
> It also really depends on how you define plot. In my non-IF erotic tastes,
> I'm a more look-at-pictures type than read-stories type;
No wonder we're so different in IF thoughts.
> the reason writing AIF appeals to me is that A) I have a
> chance to express my own fantasies before an interested and
> tolerant audience, and B) it's a lot more immersive and interactive
> than AF.
Er, or maybe not different.
> I don't want plot in the English 20 "introduction-rising-
> tension-climax-resolution" sense,
Huh. I think rising, tension, and climax would play an important part in any
game *I* wrote.
> >#4 can probably be broken up into two pieces. (4a) would be the excitement of
> >suspense, which we all know well. That one you can handle by (as you suggest)
> >having scenes that don't let you have sex at the end, especially if they hint
> >to you that eventually you will get to.
>
> I so disagree with this - sorry. IMO, no-sex scenes in erotica are
> frusteration, not suspense (as, IMO, are puzzles in the middle of
> or immediately before sex scenes), and I don't need frusteration
> in my fantasies. I agree that you need anticipation, but IMO the
> best way to do that is to fill the space between first sight and full-
> on fucking with interesting content and arousing events that slowly
> leads up to sex.
Well, I'm not necessarily arguing for Myco's sadistic plan. IMO, a puzzle
before sex can involve lots of sexual tension, and possibly some limited sex.
You see, the advantage here is that the player knows that he's playing AIF, so
that *eventually* he'll get to have plenty of sex. That makes it OK that in a
particular scene the object of his affections gets kidnapped by an evil cattle
rustler just as she's about to get naked.
[Laura]
> I guess I just don't see this as you do.
What?! I'm sorry, you'll just have to leave the newsgroup, then.
> For example, have you seen the trailer for Sandra Bullock's comedy Forces of
> Nature? I haven't seen the movie, but you can get an entertaining glimse of
> the character's personality from the trailer; the best I can describe it as
> is "psychotically mischevious."
True. A bit scary, in a good(?) way.
> Imagine a girl with that attitude who wanted to have sex with you, but only
> in the rafters of the mansion, some 40 feet above lots of dancing couples.So
> she lures you up into this precarious position and does you right there,
> where anyone looking up could see...
>
> That's not exactly a stereotypical sex scene. The partner has a definite
> and distinct (albiet superficial) personality; the setting is unique,
> scary and erotic. Outside your personal tastes, how is this scene
> objectively inferior to the "jumped in the library" one?
Yeah, OK, I could get into this.
> >Great! We definitely need more of this. Note that it's kind of hard to pull
> >off in IF, since the player can sit there for half an hour and not type
> >anything in and you can't make anything happen until he hits ENTER. You only
>
> Of, of course. But the same is true of putting an erotic story down
> for a while, or pausing a porn video.
Nope. Once you turn on the video, all you have to do is keep your eyes open, &
for a book, all you have to do is turn pages. In both cases, the "player" has
to do very little, and there's only one choice of action. IF is very
different, because on every turn you need to take an active role (even if only
to type Z) and you have choices of what to do. On the one hand, that makes
immersion much easier. OTOH, you need to be more careful to keep the immersion
going throughout the game, because it's also easier for the player to pull
himself *out* of the immersion.
> I also am less than fond of the message that a potential sex partner can be
> won over by the right gift or whatever. It seems sexist to me is ways that
> average erotica isn't. (And no, I don't feel that erotica, written or
> visual, is _inherantly_ sexist in any way.)
Well, some games are IMO being "jokingly sexist". That is, they're
acknowledging our natural sexism, which keeps wishing that the cute cashier in
the cafeteria (how alliterative!) would hop on the table for a quickie if we
just said the right words. But they're written tongue-in-cheek to say that
obviously we know that is very unlike RL.
Then there's the practical barrier -- you're playing a game for a few hours,
so you can't expect to actually develop a RL relationship with a woman.
And then there's the fact that better AIF has gone beyond the "give item, get
sex" (GIGS :) metaphor. Wynne & Amy are much more complicated (hence
believable) than a magic potion (though that too has its place, at times,
IMO). Or there's Muffy, who kind of turns the GIGS paradigm on
its head, plus the *result* of sex is different than usual, which colors the
encounter on hindsight. (OK, maybe I'm overanalyzing what we need to remember
are pieces of T&A.) But I definitely think you can get beyond the sexism
without losing the puzzles. (Your other arguments against puzzles, like not
liking them, I obviously can't argue against. Although maybe I will, just for
fun :)
I think I even talked in WAIF about how tired the GIGS idea is. But by
carefully adding in emotional coloring, I think you can do a lot with it.
> >Um, OK. I have a feeling some complications may arise.
>
> Oh, they will, I'm sure. It shouldn't be worse than writing a video
> game, though, or a compiler, or any other app. I'll face it as it
> comes, but I think overcoming these complications will be easier
> for me because I genuinely _enjoy_ programming, which others
> here don't seem to.
Actually, I'm very much a coder, who enjoys programming. It's prose that I
have trouble with (among other things, like ever finishing things). Many here
do seem to be writers, I admit, who're programming because it's required.
> Oh, and blowjobs will be deemphasized somewhat, just cause I find them less
> sexy unless the girl is really into it. Are they more popular than other
> kinds of sex in this group, less so, or what?
If you made a game with all blowjobs, people would play it. No wait, they
already did!
If you made a game with no blowjobs but lots of WAM, threesomes, and erotic
games... do you really think people *wouldn't* play it?!
To answer your question, AFAIK blowjobs aren't more or less popular than any
other kind of sex on agx. Which is to say, we'll take one whenever possible :)
> >> The character will be respectful, graceful, educated, mature (though still
> >> funny and silly at times), seductive, quite sexually experienced, generally
> >> appealing and not sleazy overall.
> >
> >Like yourself, you mean? Don't forget the 9-inch Tool of Steel. :)
>
> Of all that, I'm only mature and sensitive. I'm really unromantic,
> not sexy, not particulairly attractive and so forth.
Funny, you didn't sound particularly sleazy. But anyway, there's really no
need to be honest here.
> It's ironic, you see... *we're* computer geeks (by society's rule,
> at least) and yet we have much more realistic, mature outlooks
> on these things than the cliched protaganists of these games.
Careful. You're sounding a little bit like a computer geek who rationalizes
some of his shortcomings by putting down people with other lifestyles. Not
that I haven't done the same thing a million times.
> These are the combinations I like as well. I could imagine
> liking (and including) M+F, provided it wasn't a 'gangbang'
> atmosphere.
Hm. Doesn't really do it for me. I think I'd get uncomfortable about MM
issues, and be annoyed that the lone F could only be so many places at once.
> And there might be light M+F+ in the form of
> party games and such, but likely not sex.
You go, girl.
> So yeah, it sounds
> like my favoured content won't be problematic.
To put it lightly.
> >It'll be out in three months? You promise?
>
> No - "at least," not "within." Sorry.
Oh. I figured you'd been lurking for so long that you would recognize the
standard agx joke taking a poster's words out of context as an implied promise
that a game would be released soon.
-Rap
Rap
> "Epithet" <slip...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:39b2f13a.1165075@news...
>
> Hey, don't sweat it. I've cultivated social perversity for years; it's not
> something one jumps into. Anyway, we can have some fun trying to guess you
> you are based on your writing style.
Oh no! He's going to find out I'm Suzanne Britton and I've only been posting
under an assumed name so I can talk up my chatter.t module!
>
> > features a naughty game called Storyteller's Circle that some
> > people at the party will play. The idea is that each person
> > in turn tells an erotic story to the group, featuring the other
> > group members as characters, and trying to get the people
> > involved hot. The idea of listening to a story about yourself
> > engaged in kinky sex with people that are sitting fully clothed
> > three feet from you, participating in the story without any
> > control, is a rather psychological form of erotica. In the game,
> > the player plays the stories, with the game text being the current
> > storyteller's words, with amused, shocked or aroused interjections
> > from the audience. The actual play would in theory be much like
> > an adult Photopia, if you've played it.
>
> I have played it. That sounds like an interesting scene. Very
> innovative -- sounds fun in real life, with the right group of people anyway
> (good luck!).
I totally agree. If it could be done right. Since you're writing *about* the
game, you've got the added advantage of being able to describe the reactions
of the storytellers to the stories they're telling. Sort of like double sex.
(I think one of M1ke Hunt's stories (if you haven't read them, do it now! The
'1' in his name makes searching pretty easy.) has three layers of sex, mostly
to prove he could do it.)
--
-Rap
Rap
> On Sun, 3 Sep 2000 14:53:27 -0700, "Mycophile" <my...@u.washington.edu>
> wrote:
>
> >"Epithet" <slip...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> >news:39b24e4b.33926023@news...
> >
> >That's very promising to hear. Writing is at least as important as
> >programming when it comes to (A)IF. Not just for the actual text, but for
> >the organization of the story as a whole.
>
> Reading that a girl has big tits is not
> nearly as appealing as looking at a Playboy centerfold, after all.
But what about reading that she has REALLY ENORMIS TITS with INCH LONG
NIPPULS!
> To be truthful, I'm kinda against "black-box" libraries on
> principle. It encourages people to avoid technical innovation
> and not make unique interactive options for each scene. I
> guess that non-programmers find them useful, but IMO it's
> better to learn a little Inform than to use a library and end up
> with very formulaic sex cause you don't want to implement
> the complex stuff.
But for example, most sex will involve a thing going into another thing. If
you can code that general aspect, then people can focus on things like the
text that's *printed* when things do things to things. Which is what the
player will see, and hence what will define his experience. Similarly, any
librarying you can do to handle disambiguation issues, guess-the-verb
problems, and other things that detract from the average user experience but
don't require literary creativity will make the gaming world better for
everyone. Coding clothes that can go on top of each other requires "technical
innovation". But IMO the AIF author should focus on interesting mixes of
clothes, or ways of getting them on or off, or having sex in or with them --
there's no reason that every AIF author should have to fight with writing the
code that allows a chick to take her bra off while she's wearing a shirt.
> I like to think that I'm fairly mature about my views on
> sexuality and sexual issues, but my sexual tastes proper are
> juvinile as all hell. The somewhat sophomoric character of a
> few of my fantasies is another reason I'm a little embarrased
> to use my real name. Give me girls that look like Playboy center-
> folds that want lots of it, and I'm happy. No psychology needed.
Hear, hear!
--
-Rap
new...@killingtime.com
> girls." It has never been my intention to implement clothing you can put
> on anybody and a full range of orifices in every person you see. If you
> have all this stuff, however, you still are lacking quite a bit of the
> coding you need for a game, so I'm not sure how it's going to solve your
> problem. Which is to say: it's incomplete (not the whole game) and it's
> overcomplete (do you really need all the modular features?).
All this is completely accurate, but what's your point, Al?
Seriously, I have thought exactly this as I've gone through development
of my chick.t suite of libraries, and especially as I made the decision
to sand off the rough edges to make it publicly available (a process not
yet complete by any means).
First, why do it at all?
Well, I'm arrogant. And I want people to bask in my brilliance. Of
course, once the general public sees what a pathetic coder I am, this may
backfire.
Second, I want more games written. A good library or two will
hopefully make it a little easier for newbies to get something done.
A library is by no means a game, but handling the sexual interactions in
a game is a TON of work when going from scratch. BJD got around this by
massively simplifying the available options. It worked and was hilarious,
but is not a good general purpose model. Here is what I would suggest
with some confidence is the usual developmental cycle for 96% of AIF
projects.
* Idea. Maybe even a good one, but at least an idea.
* Download development language. Blanch at manual. Plow on.
* Weeks spent "coding the map". Lots of time and effort. Author
thinks he is halfway home. Perhaps he posts his hopes. Usually he gets
encouragement.
* Starts on NPCs and puzzles.
* Starts writing sex code. Gets side-tracked on a few sex scenes.
* Gives up project because NPC interaction is hugely complex, making
room coding look like eating Jello, they can't see an end in sight, and
this is taking up valuable time they could be spending in the
BikerSluts.com chat room.....
Sex libraries can hopefully get a few more people over that hump and on
to the interesting stuff, like filling in the erotica and fleshing out
the characters and world to make for an interesting story.
Now, as for a library being over-complete, this is tricky, and the
"Librarian" needs to be careful. Just try to implement ONE of the neat
things Kevin Forchione has produced in his TADS libraries.... Can't, can
ya? You gotta download thirty libs, and use em all. Its a pain, so I use
none of them.
It is my intent (we'll see how well I pull it off) to allow authors to
simply ignore any tab/slot combinations they want to, without leaving the
player screaming "What do you mean, 'I don't recognize the word
Titfuck'?!?!" At the same time, the library should allow the Author to
implement any additional ideas of his own, by simply cloning the existing
forms.
Now, there will be some definite effects of using a specific library. The
primary one is that the game will inevitably have the "feel" of that type
of engine. You could write Blow Job Drifter with chick.t easily, and make
it look the same as it does. You could not write Moist with my library.
Not and have it function the same. Similarly, you would have a more
difficult time writiung GNA or BJD with MMX.... (I sound like a gubmint
employee...). In other words, I will in effect be forcing any author who
uses my library to write their game in the "cut-scene" school of AIF.
> As has been noted, there are those who say, I can write, who can code for
> me? To which I say, these people are not going to be able to code a game
> with the AIF libraries either, because there is still much to do. And to
> which I say, further, do they ever get any assistance on their actual
> entreaty, which is not for modular libraries, but modular humans to help
> them?
I agree, I think IF in general is a one-author, one-project kind of art
form. You have to code your work yourself to succeed. A library is not
going to teach someone how to program, nor allow them to build a game
from a template. It CAN help a newbie get over the hump I described
before. It CAN dramatically shorten development time, allowing an author
who does have what it takes to produce two games in a year (or career)
instead of just one. It CAN save a lot of dopeslaps in beta testing,
becuase the Librarian's forehead has already been flattened for the
author. (There will still be a humongous amount of dopeslapping, just not
quite as much)
And by the way Al, when do we get something new from YOU?!?
> I'm not a programmer. So the thing that fascinates me is, why the
> obsession with writing computer games to print smut on your screen, if
> that isn't something you actually know how to do? Why not just write the
> smut directly? I just think maybe people get excited about the idea of
> seeing smut printed on their screens and they forget there are
> differences between the ways to get this accomplished, and reasons for
> those differences.
Not sure of your exact point here. Two possibilities:
1)Why not just write erotica. I assume, since you have given us on of the
better works out there, you know why not. The "I" in AIF. Forcing the
reader to think, not just absorb. A good library does not affect this at
all. The author must still produce the plot, the personalities, the
prose, and the problems. They can be of any form, and stretch the
language to its utmost. The library is SUPPOSED to get some of the scut
work out of the way. Are you telling us you don't use any of the inform
libs out there? In TADS, even ADT.T is a library after all.
2)I'm not a programmer either, beleive me. I AM computer literate, and I
understand the different ways I can make the medium work to change my
message. Writing straight erotica interests me little. I write plenty of
non erotic prose, and need no additonal genres to take up my time. My
problem as a "legit" author is lack of discipline as is.
I would try writing "PG" IF, but again, I get bored quickly. I manage to
produce finished *A*IF because I'm a pervert, and the sex draws me back
in when I get bored. But in either case, the reason I write IF at all, is
to find ways to set up puzzles and see how others solve them. I really
like to recieve pleas for help on my games, because that gives me an idea
of how the players are playing them.
Sigh. Too long. I should be ginding out more revisions on Chick.t....
NewKid
kayce
>
> >Given that you've displayed your excellent writing ability, can I give you a
> >ruler across the knuckles for that "it's?" :)
>
> I'm not overly careful with grammar in Usenet posts. I make a
> fair number of them, so there isn't time.
Aren't Canadians supposedly allowed to use apostrophe-s for short
words? Or is that another urban legend I fell for?
--
Raven Kayce
http://www.anzwers.net/hot/kayce
kayce
>
> I don't like your analogy that "girl libraries" are like a windowing
> system. I happen to think windowing systems are useful, though I can and
> have been convinced of other ways to do things. However, if you are
> writing a program for, say, Mac OS, you want it to look like a Mac OS
> program, so you make calls to the appropriate windowing toolbox.
>
> If you are writing AIF, and your girl library is "Big Al's EZ Chix," then
> you are -- to use your analogy -- essentially writing a program for that
> platform, with all the assumptions and presumptions that Big Al made. To
> which I say, why do you want to do that? To make the presumption that
> windows need close boxes is perhaps reasonable, but to make the
> presumption that characters in my AIF game should act a certain way is
> clearly not, because while in a program written for an OS windows are
> incidental, in an AIF game the way characters act is perhaps a full third
> of what you are doing.
Who says that just because the library makes it easier to handle
clothing, you always have to use it by letting the player undress the
girl step by step? The stuff I am writing for my game, for example, is
very similar to that in other libraries. However, I still need *my*
library, because I want to write a library that will make it less work
for me to write the actual sex acts.
Face it: Most people will want the games to include the option of at
least being able to fondle, kiss, undress and f*ck a partner in a game.
Of course, I control how they get there, and I write decently unique
prose for every combination of actors in the game. That is the reason,
why in my game you merely define msg_fuck_vagina and such properties of
an actor to handle player-NPC interaction, and a little more (but not
much) more work is involved when it comes to NPC-NPC interaction.
Why not automate common elements. The code is always the same, but by
variating the prose, I will (hopefully) get people not to recognize it.
Yes, there will probably be need for more custom code, I will have to
code a dildo or whatever I want to be involved, but why not automate
this third of a game? I am lazy. I want to write interactive fiction
that tells the stories I want it to tell, with all variations I like to
have in there. But it's not like a good library forces you to have every
fuck turn into a listing of default text like:
> kiss jane's neck
you kiss her neck.
> kiss anne's neck
you kiss her neck.
kayce
>
> Interesting. I would think the fact that it's a game would let you go crazy
> and have exhibitionism in front of pretty much anyone. But you do seem to be
> focusing on the player's comfort. I guess maybe I get immersed in games in a
> different way than you, such that I'm able to do things I would "never imagine
> doing" in real life.
I guess I'm in the middle, then: If a game allows exhibitionism, I'm
always disappointed if there is no reaction. After all, the sexy thing
about it is (at least to me) that I am constantly in fear of being
discovered. So, I would at least expect someone looking up from time to
time to remind me there is someone down there, and if I don't 'z' then,
I'll be caught, or something like that. GNA is also good in avoiding
exhibitionism, as it always makes the player's character dress again
before leaving a room. I find games bad where, if I enter a ballroom (no
pun intended) completely nude, nobody is shocked or at least notices it.
Of course, I wouldn't do that in real life, but I like being able to
play with such a situation and get some feedback in AIF games. OTOH, if
I want the partner to be mad at me, I could just as well misbehave in RL.
> Huh. I think rising, tension, and climax would play an important part in any
> game *I* wrote.
sigh.
> Well, some games are IMO being "jokingly sexist". That is, they're
> acknowledging our natural sexism, which keeps wishing that the cute cashier in
> the cafeteria (how alliterative!) would hop on the table for a quickie if we
> just said the right words. But they're written tongue-in-cheek to say that
> obviously we know that is very unlike RL.
This is one of the points I like so much about AIF, and in which regard
they are more realistic than sex flicks on TV: they give you all that
great sex, but they also give you humour with it, which I consider an
important part. In the films, the best you get is slapstick... (at least
those I've seen are thus).
> If you made a game with all blowjobs, people would play it. No wait, they
> already did!
>
> If you made a game with no blowjobs but lots of WAM, threesomes, and erotic
> games... do you really think people *wouldn't* play it?!
>
> To answer your question, AFAIK blowjobs aren't more or less popular than any
> other kind of sex on agx. Which is to say, we'll take one whenever possible :)
I would agree. Many people have preferences, like messy or reluc, but
generally we are easy to please. Just write what you like. If you want
to be nice, list what the player can expect in your readme file, so
people who didn't realize it e.g. contains m/m can quit before being
turned off.
> > It's ironic, you see... *we're* computer geeks (by society's rule,
> > at least) and yet we have much more realistic, mature outlooks
> > on these things than the cliched protaganists of these games.
And here I always thought of myself as someone who knowingly steers into
destruction. I always love to analyse where I'm going to then realize I
haven't succeeded in doing anything about it.
ArKane
>Epithet wrote:
>>
>> >Given that you've displayed your excellent writing ability, can
>> >I give you a ruler across the knuckles for that "it's?" :)
>>
>> I'm not overly careful with grammar in Usenet posts. I make a
>> fair number of them, so there isn't time.
>
> Aren't Canadians supposedly allowed to use apostrophe-s for short
>words? Or is that another urban legend I fell for?
Eh? Wha' kinda nonsense are ya spoutin'. That might be true, but even
Canadians aren't supposed to use contractions for possesives. Eh!
ArKane
--
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
ArKane http://www.geocities.com/aetus_kane/
ICQ: 78983892
"The mark of Kane is upon me,
and the mark of Kane brings fear."
ArKane
> RAIF is full of wonderful, creative people (IMO, at least) but
>they do tend to be a little effete at times - Graham Nelson very
>much liking the ideal of the erudite Enligh gentleman and all,
>at least from all the "high culture" referances in the games, and
>him kind of being the unspoken hero of RAIF. I can see why this
>group tends to rub them a little off... :)
Won't get any arguments from me. I frequent that group as well. Of
course, before I found this place I had a fun time getting aswers to
questions without asking them in context to what I was really working
on. *L*
> In honesty, RAIF is a nice place, but this is a more honest,
> open
>community - again, IMO. I admire y'all a lot for that; I really
>hope you don't find me snooty because of RAIF. I get the
>impression that they (we, I guess) want to be taken seriously as a
>literary community instead of being seen as computer game writers
>stuck in the 1980s, so they act a little cool to the
>pornographers. Which is understandable, but with all of society
>acting "a little cool" or worse to pornographers, fetishists,
>swingers and anyone else even remotely related to sex... well, it
>doesn't help make the world any nicer, that's for sure.
I can't find you snooty just for association with RAIF or I'd have to
look down my nose at myself.
[alias and such]
>Perhaps I will too, eventually. I hope so, but not right
>now, at least.
<Rap mode>
We don't care what people call themselves. We just want more games,
more posts, more ideas!
</Rap mode>
[snippage about Moist]
> Since this seems to be the overwhelming request from everyone,
>I'll likely do so. Not till after the first scene, however - I'll
>need
>to debug it more completely. Even then, my entire approach is
>a tad more technical than straight-line, so my library will be of
>minimal use to those non-programmers in the group.
Makes sense, you'd have to work out how you were going to put it
together first anway. As for your comments about modules requiring
changing messages and things of that nature, we're used to that
concept already. There's still an amount of coding required to use
modules, it's just saving some of us the trouble of trying to write
code for various actions that would be used in each game, scene,
whatever.
Rap
new...@killingtime.com wrote:
> In article <8p38h7$teu$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
> al_bi...@hotmail.com wrote:
>
> First, why do it at all?
> Well, I'm arrogant. And I want people to bask in my brilliance. Of
> course, once the general public sees what a pathetic coder I am, this may
> backfire.
Lucky for you (or a smart choice) that your audience is so desperate for
material.
> A library is by no means a game, but handling the sexual interactions in
> a game is a TON of work when going from scratch. BJD got around this by
> massively simplifying the available options. It worked and was hilarious,
> but is not a good general purpose model.
Right. BJD was totally breakthrough, in the manner Al suggests other games
ought to be. But I don't know if Foot Fetish Drifter would work so well, which
means most people want a library that lets you (optionally) code "standard"
sex actions. It's important to recall, btw, that you're not forced to stick
exactly with the library's mode of doing things; it restricts you somewhat,
but you've still got some freedom too.
> Here is what I would suggest
> with some confidence is the usual developmental cycle for 96% of AIF
> projects.
> * Idea. Maybe even a good one, but at least an idea.
> * Download development language. Blanch at manual. Plow on.
Not everyone gets this far.
> * Weeks spent "coding the map". Lots of time and effort. Author
> thinks he is halfway home. Perhaps he posts his hopes. Usually he gets
> encouragement.
> * Starts on NPCs and puzzles.
> * Starts writing sex code. Gets side-tracked on a few sex scenes.
> * Gives up project because NPC interaction is hugely complex, making
> room coding look like eating Jello, they can't see an end in sight, and
> this is taking up valuable time they could be spending in the
> BikerSluts.com chat room.....
They have a chat room? <Rap heads off into the distance, never to be seen
again...>
> Sex libraries can hopefully get a few more people over that hump and on
> to the interesting stuff, like filling in the erotica and fleshing out
> the characters and world to make for an interesting story.
Right. Unfortunately, the new model for game-writing may be something like
this:
* Idea
...
* Starts writing sex code.
* Writes some awesome sex scenes using a fancy new library or two.
Pats self on back. Announces that game will be ready any day now.
* Gives up project because any non-NWT game is huge and complex,
requiring innumerable room, character (clothing & bodyparts & maybe
even personality), and object descriptions, original,
well-written prose laying out each scene in all its possible
forms, original, well-written, and arousing prose for every drawn
out step of foreplay, original, well-written, and possibly humorous
disavows for sex and other disallowed object interactions, not to
mention coding daemons to make all the action happen at the right
time *and* generate original, well-written prose.
Not that I'm trying to be cynical or anything. Unfortunately, while I keep
clamoring for libraries, it's not like they'll solve the inherent IF problem
that unless you've got an amazingly tight story that can be told in a couple
rooms with a couple characters, any IF game is going to take a long time to
do, especially if noone's paying you for it.
> Now, there will be some definite effects of using a specific library. The
> primary one is that the game will inevitably have the "feel" of that type
> of engine. You could write Blow Job Drifter with chick.t easily, and make
> it look the same as it does. You could not write Moist with my library.
> Not and have it function the same.
You *might* be able to, if you're careful. But it would probaly be much easier
to use the MMX library. Luckily, it looks like we'll have a number of
libraries, so that authors will be able to pick whichever best suits their
plans. Or maybe even take pieces from different libraries.
> I agree, I think IF in general is a one-author, one-project kind of art
> form. You have to code your work yourself to succeed.
Well, if it's not true, it hasn't really been demonstrated yet, although that
might just be because the Collaboration List is still in its infancy (and PM
keeps getting deserted by his coders).
[snip what a library CAN do, even if it doesn't solve all your problems, which
I totally agree with, but I wouldn't want someone to accuse me of writing long
posts]
> Forcing the reader to think, not just absorb.
Btw, I think you're showing your puzzle bias (which I happen to share). Others
might say, "Forcing the reader to *act*, not just absorb."
> 2)I'm not a programmer either, beleive me.
And believe me. I've seen some of his code! (I think I'm entitled to a swap or
two after a year of glowing praise, don't you?)
> But in either case, the reason I write IF at all, is
> to find ways to set up puzzles and see how others solve them. I really
> like to recieve pleas for help on my games, because that gives me an idea
> of how the players are playing them.
I can kind of understand this. If I ever finished a game, I think I'd love to
get player logs and see how they attacked things. There might be a bit of evil
genius doing experiments with people thing in that, but so be it.
> Sigh. Too long. I should be ginding out more revisions on Chick.t....
Right. Also, didn't you say Wraith was going to come out in the Spring? (I
knew we should've pushed you to say which year.)
--
-Rap
Rap
al_bi...@my-deja.com wrote:
> Rap:
>
> I don't like your analogy that "girl libraries" are like a windowing
> system. I happen to think windowing systems are useful, though I can and
> have been convinced of other ways to do things.
Hey, I do most of my work with vi in a bunch of xterminals, so it's not like
I'm a windowing zealot. (It is convenient to have more than one window
available at a time, though, so I can switch from editing to agx posts without
too much hassle.)
> However, if you are writing a program for, say, Mac OS, you want it to look
> like a Mac OS program, so you make calls to the appropriate windowing
> toolbox.
But that's hardly the only reason you do it. The other reason you make calls
is so that you don't have to write a windowing toolbox by yourself. Which
takes a lot of time. Besides which, you can count on the expertise of the
design folks who built the toolbox so that, in general, things will basically
look good. For example, if you are talented at the kind of coding necessary to
build a word processor, but aren't so good at layout design, using a toolbox
lets you take advantage of the layout design experts who built it, so when you
call for a "radiobutton" you won't have to design one (with shading, 3D
effects, borders, color combinations, etc.) yourself.
But in the end, NewKid's "dopeslapping" point is the most important.
> If you are writing AIF, and your girl library is "Big Al's EZ Chix," then
> you are -- to use your analogy -- essentially writing a program for that
> platform, with all the assumptions and presumptions that Big Al made. To
> which I say, why do you want to do that? To make the presumption that
> windows need close boxes is perhaps reasonable, but to make the
> presumption that characters in my AIF game should act a certain way is
> clearly not, because while in a program written for an OS windows are
> incidental, in an AIF game the way characters act is perhaps a full third
> of what you are doing.
I disagree. First, in an OS the windows are by no means incidental. If your
windowing system allows submenus or doesn't (maybe a stupid example, but I'll
bet in the old days some didn't), that'll very strongly effect how the
applications are designed.
Second, I think that the way characters act in AIF is at least half and maybe
more of the game. They're totally essential.
But Third, I think that a well-written, general library can be general enough
that it doesn't restrict the author too much.
> The presumptions of the way I do things are a bad thing for you to agree
> with if you are trying to make what is, for lack of a better term, a work
> of art.
It all depends on how general your library is, and how basic the functions you
support. For example, lots of painters use oil paints they buy from a regular
old paint store, along with paint brushes, easels, canvas, etc. Should every
painter be forced to make his own brushes? Should a violinist have to make her
own violin? It may be a cool scene for a coming-of-age movie (Wax floor,
Daniel-San!) but a lot less art would get done that way. You'd be requiring
people to have a whole extra set of skills.
> In the context of AIF, who is to say that "remove skirt, fuck
> Fiona" is the way to go. What about a conversation-driven seduction, the
> kind that we're used to in real life? What about a game in which the
> player attempts to avoid come-ons from everybody? What about a million
> things which, because they have not been pursued, are more interesting
> than "An Evening with -Proper Noun-"?
I'm totally inspired by these suggestions. Seriously. My concern, though, is
that the reason so many "Evening with ---" (aka NWT) games are written is that
people have to spend so much work getting the basic sex to work that they're
too tired to write a whole game around it. Maybe I'm wrong. As people start
using the libraries, we'll find out.
> I don't think the plug-in concept (pardon the pun) is going to yield a world
> of new experiences. If the goal is to produce the most number of games in
> the least time, by people who are the least involved in their creation, it
> will help. How can it help anything else? I don't want to play games where
> the only difference is the girls have different names and the writing
> quality varies!
So once you've seen one Impressionist painting, you don't want to see any
more? OK, maybe I'm giving AIF too much credit. My point is, while I admit
that a sex (or other) library will limit the author somewhat, the available
space the author still has to work with is tremendous. There's all the
escapist genres I'm always yammering about. There's various flavors of sex
that Epithet's mentioned. And then there's the far larger universe of
inter-character relationships that haven't been mined. We've briefly mentioned
on agx things like a game with a PC and just one SO. Myco, with his thing for
realism, might talk about having sex with someone you dislike. (At a prom due
to peer pressure? You're going through a messy divorce and she's the easiest
way to strike back at your spouse? Because you're both drunk?) Any of these
things could be done with a "standard" sex library allowing for commands like
"remove skirt, fuck Fiona", but would be totally different from what's
currently out there. And don't forget that with the same writing *quality*,
writing *style* may differ hugely.
Depending on how you count, there are, what, five good AIF games? Ten? As I
mentioned in another post, BJD may have been a one-shot deal. But do you
really think that any new game has to be totally groundbreaking in order to be
good?
> I guess what I'm saying is, where is the weird stuff? Where is the stuff
> too good for me, you, us, to have already come up with?
>
> If there were ever a golden age, I would be mourning for it.
>
> Dramatically,
> Al
Maybe you're trying to be overdramatic to make your point. But I think it
sounds a little like an oldtimer railing against the new technology.
"Self-focusing cameras will be the death of Photography!"
I say, give people a chance to take the new tools and use them in new and
wondrous (and weird) ways.
--
-Rap
Rap
> >now, at least.
>
> <Rap mode>
> We don't care what people call themselves. We just want more games,
> more posts, more ideas!
> </Rap mode>
Wait! I thought Rap mode meant verbosity.
Hm. I wonder if Emacs has Meta-x-Rap-mode?
al_bi...@hotmail.com
when games come out using them, and my abstract objections are just
another reason why I'm an asshole. I agree that it's good to make things
easier for people. I don't agree that all that libraries exist to do is
make things easier; I think they just make different things hard.
As has been stated by others, -BJD- is a simple game, and it has a simple
focus. However, its focus is not on blow jobs, but on being amusing. I
thought blow jobs would be enough to keep people going; what's
interesting is all the weird people and situations, not how many ways I
can come up with to describe butt sex, which frankly isn't many. I don't
really care if I can take clothes off and put them on in a different
order, or that I can have seven kinds of sex with different text
responses in different rooms. The reason I object to these kinds of
things being librarified is that they are not universal needs. An NPC who
responds to verbs is a universal need, but who's to say what the verbs
are? We already have a guy here who wants to write AIF for people who
think sex is dirty, which, frankly, I think is a brilliant idea.
I have never enjoyed -An Evening with- games. I don't enjoy "find all the
girls" games, which is why I wrote one. For me, the epitome of AIF is
when weird things suddenly become necessary, like breaking elevators, or
taking pictures of everybody (yes, NewKid, both kudos to you). AIF is
"How do I make this weird situation involve sex?" not "How many forms of
sex can I reference in ten minutes?"
So, yes, Rap, while maybe I wouldn't go so far as to say that every work
must be a breakthrough, I do think that should be something we think
about when we work on it. Down with "Me too" games! Down with "I'll write
a game when it becomes easier"! It's not going to ever get easier! If you
want to do it, do it! If you will only do it if it takes no effort, you
will fail!
-BJD- is a measly 4375 lines. The generic female class (coincidentally
called Chick) is 65 lines. I wrote it over a few weekends over a few
years. Is it a good example of programming? I would doubt it. (Although
everything is a function or an object, there's no bullshit where I typed
stuff over. I hate that.) But it wasn't that hard to do! I am not a
programmer! You can do it!
Anyway, who knows when I'll have one of my games finished, but I can
assure you they are completely different from -BJD- and completely
different from any existing games. Naturally, this doesn't mean they are
any better, or even any good. But I'm tryin'.
With -The Wraith-'s "trailer" as inspiration, you might expect a short
game from me in the near future, i.e., during the year 2000.
It will have some blow jobs in it.
Regards,
Al
Mr Wish
> coding actions, it's figuring out what's interesting to have happen. I'm
> unconvinced that "simplifying" things by making libraries available will
> improve the quality of games by allowing non-programmers to write them.
> Essentially, it's only people who know sort of how to program that are
> interested in AIF in the first place. Programming isn't their problem.
As a full time writer ideas are never a problem for me. I could write a new
a original game once a month for the next three years and still have plenty
left in me!!
I didn't have a clue about any form of programming until I stummbled on this
very group four or so years ago, however I did have a reasonable aptitude in
the creation of storylines and structure, thus I decided to write a game in
AGT? Damn can't even remmember if that's what it's called!
Then as my ability grew as did my needs I moved on to TADS. The only way I
was even close to having any programming ability at all was HTML & DHTML,
neither of which can really be called a programming language.
> Pardon me for being vaguely cruel here, but I think it's ridiculous to
> suggest that only those who post pie-in-the-sky suggestions about their
> own future games are the AIF authors, when in my experience, those who
> keep mostly quiet are the ones who deliver.
No one really realises what a commitment you make when you say okay I'm
writing a game so watch out. Newkid has been stalked ever since he
mentioned WRATH (sorry if I'm out of date with the name!?)
Thus I feel that most if not all those who say it, do really mean to do it.
However RL can throw some real crap at you and the momentum fizzles.
Personally I found that by having a small group of Pre-Beta testers to look
through my game as I write it also means you have plenty of people saying
okay that good but it needs this etc... Therefore you keep up with it!
My 2 pence.
Mr Wish
Epithet
wrote:
>Epithet wrote:
>
>> On Mon, 04 Sep 2000 22:04:20 GMT, Rap <raprap...@my-deja.com>
>> wrote:
>> >Epithet wrote:
>>
>> I write reasonably deep characters in non-adult fiction. My
>> style tend to come to characters with a mess of psychological
>> hangups, pains of simply having lived, insecurities and such.
>
>But that's so pathetically unrealistic! I mean, look at me; *I* don't have any
>hangups or insecurities!
Not all the characters I write are nutballs, but even the well-
adjusted ones have their personal scars, emotional nuances,
aspects of tunnel vision and so forth. Everyone has that, it's
just human. I do prefer to leave it out of wish-fulfillment genres
like erotica, however.
>This implies that you're on my side (in this matter) of the Rap-Myco debate. I
>call for T&AIF, while he wants lots of deep, complicated stuff.
I have nothing against deep, meaningful erotica; it's just not
what _I_ want to write - now, at least. If Myco releases something
with depth and complexity, I'll be pleased to enjoy it and analyze
it and so forth, and I will be every bit behind the effort. In truth,
however, what I want to write is T&A. At least at first. I do like
intelligent erotica, though - at least, I liked Anne Rice. Even the
gay stuff, which I have no taste for normally, but which Rice makes
seem so romantic and moving. Besides, I can point to it and say,
"See - women fantasize about M/M too," and then I don't have to
feel strange for keeping a lesbian orgy at the back of my mind. :)
>I never thought of this before, but it seems like I really am fixated on
>exotic locales or situations. Cf. all my crazy YANNIs. I wonder why! Not that
>HI and GNA have particularly exotic locales.
I love exotic situations (see the rafters sex below); indeed, I
suspect AIF depends on them, because it's so much less able
to illustrate the more mechanical elements in an appealing way.
It's *locales* that I'm not quite as into. But I will try to think up
some exotic ones since there seems to be demand...
(BTW, don't think I'm pandering to people here. I like to include
others' fantasies in my own, because if I incorporate it right, it
just adds to the overall story.)
>guess the hero me is less held back by certain moral issues, but *much* less
>held back in terms of RL limitations like the number of times a man can orgasm
>in a day - let alone limitations like the number of women who would say yes
>(to *me*) in a day :)
My protaganist isn't likely to be very limited by physical realism
either, though perhaps more so than in a few other games.
>Swinging is definitely less accepted in overall american society than dating.
>Not that that's necessarily a view I support :)
Nor I. I go far beyond the "free sex is good - heh heh" mentality
to actually supporting empathic polygamy and the dissolution of
family values from a sociological standpoint, and _that's_ not
something I'm afraid to stand up for in public at all. I could in
theory end up sacrificing a lot and facing great scorn to support
sexual freedom... and still be shy and awkward enough to never
indulge in it myself.
OTOH, free sex _is_ good. Heh. Heh. :)
>Yeah. We seem to have this interesting difference. (At least I and maybe you
>think it's interesting. Good thing noone else is reading this.) I think I very
>much want a "dream-like state of unreality." In fact, for me, that's more
In retrospect, I do too. There's _no way_ my game will be
realistic, but it will be...humanistic? Believable? Textured? I
don't know the work I'm really looking for here, but what I
mean is that it will be very much a fantasy, visibly so, but it
will be one that would be moral and proper IRL... by my
(somewhat strange but rather strict) standards, at least.
>"emotionally comfortable and reassuring" because when I'm in a dream, I don't
>have to worry about RL things like emotional involvement, the morality of
>one-night (or one-hour) stands, et al. Which also explains why I fight for
Not that anyone cares, but IMO as long as both partners are
honest and treat each other as human beings, one night stands
are just fine, morally speaking. It's only when one partner tries to
use or decieve another that they turn immoral. IMO, at least. I'd
go so far as to say being willing to engage in them is a virtue,
because it reaffirms human contact and shows honesty and
courage with regard to what you are truly feeling as opposed to
what the Moral Majority says you "should" be feeling.
>T&AIF. Myco, who's apparently more comfortable with these sex issues in RL,
>has less of a problem with RL-like things in AIF.
I like to think I'm very comfortable with sexuality and sexual
issues IRL; I'm just not comfortable with interacting romantically
with women. Part of that, in fact, comes from my intense desire
_not_ to mistreat them. Most of it, though, just comes from plain
old shyness.
>I'm sure the last thing you need is someone you've never met who doesn't know
>your name or where you live or where you go to college or what you look like
>or what your hobbies are psychoanalyzing you. Especially when you know as
>little about me. So I'll do it anyway: (Btw, Epithet, I assume you too will
>skip ahead to the AIF if you don't want to talk about this in a public forum.)
Actually, I'm not averse at all. I have no problem talking about
sexual issues and in fact am glad to have a tolerant audience.
It's catharic, you see.
>How are you going to find a girlfriend -- or even an appropriately gendered
>human (I assume you're aiming for humans, since you said "sexist", not
>"specieist" :) to hang out and have a good time with and fool around with
>some -- if you insist on not seeing people as sexually attractive?
Perhaps that was a bad turn of phrase. I didn't mean I don't see
the women I interact with IRL as attractive; I meant that I make a
strong active effort not to let that affect my _professional_ affairs
with them. A girl shouldn't have to put up with a guy making unwanted
advances at her in college. It's just not proper.
That said, it's all a matter of context. At a party, for example,
I'd feel a lot more morally justified in flirting with a girl. But it
is not something you do in the workplace, or in school. At least,
that's the standard I hold myself to; I'm not trying to impose it
on others, though I do think that if a girl tells you to back off
and you don't, she's perfectly justified in ripping your balls off. :)
>OK. I'm assuming here that finding a girlfriend is a Good Thing. Is that such
>a crazy assumption?
For most people, no. For me - yes. First of all, in honesty with
myself, what I'm interested in is most often sex and/or friendship.
I don't even believe in the existance of love! That makes going
into a relationship a little deceptive on my part, because our
cultural standard claims there should be something a little more
romantic to dating then sex, empathy and friendship. However,
those are the only things I suspect I would ever want from a
woman.
> Is it so important to not be sexist that you should
>sacrifice benefits (to you and her) of Liking Someone?
Yes. Actually, for me not being sexist is serious enough that
I would sacrifice my life - not for something minor like a dating
offense, but for something serious enough for it to be relevant.
I consider sexism and mysogyny to be arguably some of the
most serious problems in the world, particulairly in Africa, China
and Japan. (A male pornographer with strong feminist leanings.
Imagine that.)
>Sexism is certainly an important issue. And yes, we treat people we're
>sexually attracted to differently sometimes. But I don't think the answer to
>this is to deny sexuality! (From the way you put it, it's not that the women
>there *aren't* sexually attractive; you just put effort into seeing them that
>way. And who are we kidding -- is it possible that in a whole (coed) college
>there wouldn't be some number of women attractive enough to see in a sexual
>way? (Which is to say, for standard red-blooded males, only the teeniest bit
>attractive.)) And much as I love AIF, I don't think that sinking all of your
>sexual feelings into nonexistent or otherwise far away women is the answer.
I'm not talking about denying sexuality; I'm talking about
restricting expression of it to contexts where it is proper to
do so. I honestly don't feel that college is such a context.
Look at the peer pressure on women to "put out" in a college
setting. This is wrong, and yes, seemingly innocent flirtation
*does* contribute to it, though it may not be the most central
origin of it. The entire sexual atmosphere at college (at least,
at the ones I've been to) strikes me as unhealthy. The guys are
out to score, but aren't honest about it; the girls are expected
to "give out" enough not to seem prudish or frigid, but not so
much that they threaten those girls with higher social station
and are therefore deemed 'sluts' (a word I rate right up with the
n-word for blank folk, BTW). I'd much rather abstain than
participate in that enviornment, even if it means I stay a virgin.
And if though my own lust I ended up adding to that uglyness,
I know I could never live with myself.
Yes, there's a reason I'm antisocial.
That's why the idea of sex at a swinger party is so much more
appealing to me - it's an open, tolerant, emotionally humane
enviornment - at least stereotypically, and I'll bet that while the
RL swing parties are a lot uglier than my fantasy one, they are
still a damn shade nicer places than high school or college.
>My argument is with your if/then. You're saying that, if you see someone as
>sexually attractive, then you'll unconsciously treat them in a sexist way. Is
No, I'm saying that I _do_ see people as attractive, and therefore
make an active effort _not_ to treat them in a sexist way. Big diff.
>that absolutely 100% sure outcome? Are you sure you're not buying into PC
>ideology? What if you make a *conscious* effort to treat attractive women
>(i.e., basically all of them) in a non-sexist way? Maybe I just have more
>faith in your conscious than your unconscious. If you view a woman as smart
>and talented, reciprocate her offers of friendship, give her every opportunity
>you would give to a man, does it matter that you think she looks sexy as hell
>in short skirts?
No, it doesn't. I see what you are saying here. OTOH, if you
can't stop staring at her ass, that's problematic. Not that I don't
spare a glance here and there - everyone does - but I want to
avoid thoughts of sex dominating the way I interact with women.
I put that badly in my first post.
By the way, although it has been used to justify or endorse
some ugly things in the past, I do think political correctness is
a good idea overall. It's a wonderfully non-invasive method of
large-scale social engeneering that is controlled as much by
the masses as the media, which isn't true of most other forms
of social engineering. When someone uses words like f*ggot
or n*gger, I think it would be dangerous to give the state the
power to arrest or even fine them. But political correctness
allows me and others to direct an incredible degree of scorn
and misfortune their way without violating their rights at all.
They might lose their job, their friends and above all the respect
of their peers - a fate I feel bigots fully deserve. I think political
correctness can do a lot to ensure that alternate sexual
practices and communities aren't persecued, and further that
it's about the only way to do so without violating people's civil
rights. Thus, count me as PC. :)
(Yes, I think true human sincerity and desire to do the right
thing for the right reasons is better than just being PC. But in
a world filled with people that aren't all that ethical, we do need
PC as a method of keeping them in line.)
>Isn't ignoring women's sexuality (if it's even possible) just as bad as
>ignoring their other characteristics -- intelligence, personality, whatever?
If a woman is expressing sexuality toward me, I'll feel a lot more
comfortable expressing it toward her. I despise the idea of
marginalizing women's sexual expression, and an delighted by
the fact that there is more social tolerance now for aggressive
female sexuality, female-aimed porn, and so forth. If the context
is appropriate, I'll have no moral problem making a pass at a
woman (though likely I'll lack the nerve.) I just don't want to do so
in a place where it's improper behaviour, like the workplace, or in
a place where I feel it will have overall negative macroscopic
sociological impact, like in college.
>Admittedly, in a workplace setting, it's extremely important to limit the
>sexual connection because of the danger of sexual harrassment, especially when
>power relationships come into it. But college is a very different
>circumstance. And a woman's sexuality is a part of her - for some women, a
>very important part.
I talked about college above. I agree that a woman's sexuality is
as important a man's, but it should be her (or his) choice whether
she wants to express it and deal with it in a given place and time -
or not.
>Oh oh! That sounds a bit too much like RL!
People say they want plot. I describe something that I might use
as plot. People say it's too much like RL. What _exactly_ do you
mean by the word 'plot'? Because at this point I'll admit to being
completely lost. :)
>And I want to *play* T&A. I couldn't imagine a better match.
:)
>No wonder we're so different in IF thoughts.
...
>Er, or maybe not different.
I think we have more in common then not, from what I've seen.
You just seem to be big on either very exotic or very mundane
locales. I'm not truly interested in the latter, but I think my game
will provide more of the former than you expect. :)
>Huh. I think rising, tension, and climax would play an important part in any
>game *I* wrote.
But not *overall*. There isn't a resolution of plot threads so much
as there is a continuing cycle of seeking-anticipation-arousal-
foreplay-sex-afterglow-seeking... there's sexual climax and release
of tension in that form, but not a real literary climax AFAICT. Each
to his own, though.
>Well, I'm not necessarily arguing for Myco's sadistic plan. IMO, a puzzle
>before sex can involve lots of sexual tension, and possibly some limited sex.
My taste here is coloured by the fact that _I can't solve puzzles,
period._ Hence, they are more a source of frusteration than tension
for me. I might consider a few, though - perhaps a few sex scenes
you can access right off, and a few others that require a little
puzzle solving to get to. Thus, the game isn't frusterating dead-off,
and when it gets so, players can go (re)play one of the easier-to-get-
to scenes.
>You see, the advantage here is that the player knows that he's playing AIF, so
>that *eventually* he'll get to have plenty of sex. That makes it OK that in a
>particular scene the object of his affections gets kidnapped by an evil cattle
>rustler just as she's about to get naked.
That's a delay, not a rejection, which is of course different.
>Yeah, OK, I could get into this.
Cool. I'm hoping many of the scenes will be this unique, and
some will be even more freakish... :)
>Well, some games are IMO being "jokingly sexist". That is, they're
>acknowledging our natural sexism, which keeps wishing that the cute cashier in
>the cafeteria (how alliterative!) would hop on the table for a quickie if we
>just said the right words. But they're written tongue-in-cheek to say that
>obviously we know that is very unlike RL.
Mmm. I do think that depending on how it's done, these
kind of games can have a negative social impact be reinforcing
bad ideas about women. Leisure Suit Larry, as fun as I found
it, is like this. An already somewhat sexist player might find that
it reinforces his notions of what is proper. The chartacter is
something of an (anti)heroic icon to a certain type of male
mindset; what's good clean fun to you and me can be less
healthy for someone that's already mildly sexist.
>Then there's the practical barrier -- you're playing a game for a few hours,
>so you can't expect to actually develop a RL relationship with a woman.
Yes. And in honesty, I don't want a deep relationship, anyway.
I just want a little T&A, and IMO that's not bad. The "gospel truth"
that sex is immoral unless it's matched with love is not one I agree
with in the slightest. There's a difference between true love and
treating partners with respect, though...
>I think I even talked in WAIF about how tired the GIGS idea is. But by
>carefully adding in emotional coloring, I think you can do a lot with it.
True. I think my favoured spin on this will be to include
puzzles centering around physically _getting to_ the women
in question as opposed to _winning them over_.
>Actually, I'm very much a coder, who enjoys programming. It's prose that I
>have trouble with (among other things, like ever finishing things). Many here
>do seem to be writers, I admit, who're programming because it's required.
Cool. Perhaps you and someone could get together sometime...
>To answer your question, AFAIK blowjobs aren't more or less popular than any
>other kind of sex on agx. Which is to say, we'll take one whenever possible :)
I do think there's ways to do them that are very sexy... it just
takes more effort than other types of sex. You have to describe
the woman's (or man's, for M/M) expression and the sensations
more carefully, or it comes off more crass than erotic. IMO.
>Funny, you didn't sound particularly sleazy. But anyway, there's really no
>need to be honest here.
I like to anyway, especially about my own weaknesses. Ego
opposes enlightenment and all. I'm not sleazy, BTW - just shy
and average looking.
>Careful. You're sounding a little bit like a computer geek who rationalizes
>some of his shortcomings by putting down people with other lifestyles. Not
>that I haven't done the same thing a million times.
I do have an extent of hostility toward the intentionally popular,
if only because they have treated me with such malice in the
past. As I said, there's a reason I'm antisocial. But I'd really
prefer not to get into all that here. I do have popular friends
who are also nice, and I bear them no ill will, so it's not as if
I'm typecasting here.
>Hm. Doesn't really do it for me. I think I'd get uncomfortable about MM
>issues, and be annoyed that the lone F could only be so many places at once.
I've even considered trying to write MM stuff, just to explore
that aspect. I'm not bi, but I like exploring anything consensual
just to play around with it in my mind. Real gay folk would laugh
at how unrealistic it is, of course, but I may eventually try none
the less. That said, it would require the player to initiate it, be
noted in the help text and be fully optional. Another thing I
might try (through the Storyteller's Circle device) is female-
perspective scenes, either FM or FF, or some other combination.
**Epithet**
Epithet
It doesn't show up here, and I get the impression Rap can't see it
there. Can anyone who can see it quote it and repost it? If not, I'll
retype it later.
**Epithet**
Rap
Assuming your post is the really long post that deals with some Serious Issues
that's in this thread, then yes, I got it.
--
Rap
al_bi...@hotmail.com wrote:
> All right, who knows.
Woo-hoo! We won!
Actually, I think the points you raised were very good ones, so I'm glad you
did.
> I thought blow jobs would be enough to keep people going; what's interesting
> is all the weird people and situations, not how many ways I can come up with
> to describe butt sex, which frankly isn't many. I don't really care if I can
> take clothes off and put them on in a different order, or that I can have
> seven kinds of sex with different text responses in different rooms. The
> reason I object to these kinds of things being librarified is that they are
> not universal needs. An NPC who responds to verbs is a universal need, but
> who's to say what the verbs are?
Again, no library requires you to use all of its verbs, or not to make up any
new ones. But don't you think there are more than one or two possible AIF
games that will use "fuck"? Or that will involve a character with more than
one piece of clothing? Sure, you might want to have an extreme cut-scene
view, where as soon as the first piece of clothing comes off, you go into
cut-scene mode and describe the entire scene, but if you don't want that,
then a library will be useful.
(At the least, all this discussion about libraries may have gotten some
lurkers thinking about writing games again :)
> I have never enjoyed -An Evening with- games.
Me too. Because I know what's going to happen. Also, there's (usually (Deanna
doesn't quite fit the NWT mold)) no puzzles (other than guess-the-verb),
little variety, and too little there there to really get immersed.
> I don't enjoy "find all the
> girls" games, which is why I wrote one.
Ha!
> For me, the epitome of AIF is when weird things suddenly become necessary,
> like breaking elevators, or taking pictures of everybody (yes, NewKid, both
> kudos to you). AIF is "How do I make this weird situation involve sex?" not
> "How many forms of sex can I reference in ten minutes?"
Well, then, you seem to believe in the "exotic situation" paradigm, which I
also like. Although I don't think "AIF is" that. That's maybe one possible
genre of AIF which I happen to think is really fun.
> So, yes, Rap, while maybe I wouldn't go so far as to say that every work
> must be a breakthrough, I do think that should be something we think
> about when we work on it. Down with "Me too" games! Down with "I'll write
> a game when it becomes easier"! It's not going to ever get easier!
I still disagree. The point we've been trying to make about libraries is that
they can get rid of hurdles that aren't really the sort of "defining" hurdles
of AIF, namely coming up with an interactive (I), interesting story (F) that
involves sex (A).
> If you want to do it, do it! If you will only do it if it takes no effort,
> you will fail!
This applies even if there is a library.
> -BJD- is a measly 4375 lines.
I'm impressed! I guess focusing on the important parts is a key goal if you
want to finish a game in less than a year or two.
> With -The Wraith-'s "trailer" as inspiration, you might expect a short
> game from me in the near future, i.e., during the year 2000.
>
> It will have some blow jobs in it.
<wild applause>
--
-Rap
Rap
"Mr Wish" <mrw...@talk21.com> wrote:
>
> As a full time writer ideas are never a problem for me. I could write a new
> a original game once a month for the next three years and still have plenty
> left in me!!
So why not submit some of the ideas that you're never going to use to agx? We
might all get a kick and/or inspiration out of them, and ArKane could post
them on his Ideas page.
> I didn't have a clue about any form of programming until I stummbled on this
> very group four or so years ago,
4 years? You're a real oldtimer!
> No one really realises what a commitment you make when you say okay I'm
> writing a game so watch out. Newkid has been stalked ever since he
> mentioned WRATH (sorry if I'm out of date with the name!?)
Introducing Sexed Generation II: The Wrath of NewKid...
(I believe it's called "Wraith" these days, unless NewKid changed his mind in
the last couple of days.)
> Personally I found that by having a small group of Pre-Beta testers to look
> through my game as I write it also means you have plenty of people saying
> okay that good but it needs this etc... Therefore you keep up with it!
Having someone to discuss it with can *definitely* help with inspiration.
ArKane
>In article <8FA6D5DF6...@207.106.93.200>,
> no...@invisible.org (ArKane) wrote:
>> <Rap mode>
>> We don't care what people call themselves. We just want more
>> games, more posts, more ideas!
>> </Rap mode>
>
>Wait! I thought Rap mode meant verbosity.
Well usually it does, except when you say something like "I don't
care what language you use, just make more games for me to play!"
>Hm. I wonder if Emacs has Meta-x-Rap-mode?
No, it would require a complete rewrite of the elisp version of
eliza, which would have to be considerably changed to mak it Rap.
COnsidering the differences, I just don't really think it can be done
in a painless, easy to use interface.
Rap
slip...@hotmail.com (Epithet) wrote:
> On Tue, 05 Sep 2000 20:12:40 GMT, Rap <raprap...@my-deja.com>
> wrote:
>
> >Epithet wrote:
> >
> >> On Mon, 04 Sep 2000 22:04:20 GMT, Rap <raprap...@my-deja.com>
> >> wrote:
> >> >Epithet wrote:
> >>
> >> I write reasonably deep characters in non-adult fiction. My
> >> style tend to come to characters with a mess of psychological
> >> hangups, pains of simply having lived, insecurities and such.
> >
> >But that's so pathetically unrealistic! I mean, look at me; *I* don't have
> >any hangups or insecurities!
> Not all the characters I write are nutballs, but even the well-
> adjusted ones have their personal scars, emotional nuances,
> aspects of tunnel vision and so forth. Everyone has that, it's
> just human. I do prefer to leave it out of wish-fulfillment genres
> like erotica, however.
In case it wasn't clear, I was joking above.
> I have nothing against deep, meaningful erotica; it's just not
> what _I_ want to write - now, at least.
Cool. I have nothing against it; it's just not what I want to read or play.
> In truth, however, what I want to write is T&A.
I can't tell you how happy this makes me. Although I guess I've tried at
length.
> then I don't have to feel strange for keeping a lesbian orgy at the back of
> my mind. :)
Any het guy on the ng who doesn't keep a lesbian orgy at the back of his mind
raise his hand!
...
See? Why would you feel like that makes you strange?!
> I love exotic situations (see the rafters sex below); indeed, I
> suspect AIF depends on them, because it's so much less able
> to illustrate the more mechanical elements in an appealing way.
> It's *locales* that I'm not quite as into. But I will try to think up
> some exotic ones since there seems to be demand...
Don't take my posts -- even if there's a lot of them -- as representative of
agx demand. And even if they were, a ton of people here have said that you'll
do best writing what turns you on. If exotic situations is what does it for
you, then you'll write those best, so stick to them. I promise I won't
complain that there are no sex scenes in a vat of caramel at an ice cream
factory. (Might be good for the Messy folks, though :)
> (BTW, don't think I'm pandering to people here. I like to include
> others' fantasies in my own, because if I incorporate it right, it
> just adds to the overall story.)
Oh. I should have read that before I wrote the above paragraph. Well, anyway,
if one of my fantasies also sounds interesting to you, then I suppose it's
OK.
> >Yeah. We seem to have this interesting difference. (At least I and maybe
> >you think it's interesting. Good thing noone else is reading this.) I think
> >I very much want a "dream-like state of unreality." In fact, for me, that's
> >more
>
> In retrospect, I do too. There's _no way_ my game will be realistic, but it
> will be...humanistic? Believable? Textured? I don't know the work I'm really
> looking for here, but what I mean is that it will be very much a fantasy,
> visibly so, but it will be one that would be moral and proper IRL... by my
> (somewhat strange but rather strict) standards, at least.
I think I don't really know what humanistic means, but I get your gist. But as
I've said I mostly want my protagonist to share my morals, for example. (Btw,
you said you don't want your protagonist to be a computer geek, but I think
it's pretty clear why an AIF author would write one: both because he/she
identifies with that and because the audience would.)
> >"emotionally comfortable and reassuring" because when I'm in a dream, I don't
> >have to worry about RL things like emotional involvement, the morality of
> >one-night (or one-hour) stands, et al. Which also explains why I fight for
>
> Not that anyone cares, but IMO as long as both partners are
> honest and treat each other as human beings, one night stands
> are just fine, morally speaking. It's only when one partner tries to
> use or decieve another that they turn immoral.
Oh, a whole lot of people care, if only because they'd like to know how to
have one. Anyway, after some thought, I came to the conclusion that for *me*,
a one night stand would be impossible because I couldn't do it without
generating a bunch of emotional baggage. Not that I ever tested my theory.
> IMO, at least. I'd go so far as to say being willing to engage in them is a
> virtue, because it reaffirms human contact and shows honesty and courage
> with regard to what you are truly feeling as opposed to what the Moral
> Majority says you "should" be feeling.
But who listens to the Moral Majority? I'm not going to have sex with someone
just to prove I can. Although doing it because I want to have sex with the
side effect of fighting the Evil Conservatives wouldn't be so bad, maybe.
> I like to think I'm very comfortable with sexuality and sexual
> issues IRL; I'm just not comfortable with interacting romantically
> with women. Part of that, in fact, comes from my intense desire
> _not_ to mistreat them. Most of it, though, just comes from plain
> old shyness.
Er, how can interacting romantically be a mistreatment? Interacting sexually
with no regard for feelings, maybe. Well, OK, even interacting romantically,
if you're just using it to get to the sexual interaction. But from what I can
tell, romance seems to involve making a person feel important & wanted.
Mistreatment?
> Actually, I'm not averse at all. I have no problem talking about
> sexual issues and in fact am glad to have a tolerant audience.
> It's catharic, you see.
Oh good. That's how I feel too, which is why all the lurkers on agx get to
wake up each morning to a new episode of Rap's Sexophilic Brain.
> >How are you going to find a girlfriend -- or even an appropriately gendered
> >human (I assume you're aiming for humans, since you said "sexist", not
> >"specieist" :) to hang out and have a good time with and fool around with
> >some -- if you insist on not seeing people as sexually attractive?
>
> Perhaps that was a bad turn of phrase. I didn't mean I don't see
> the women I interact with IRL as attractive;
Oh! So basically, you can ignore everything I said. But since you didn't I can
still find some things to argue with.
> I meant that I make a strong active effort not to let that affect my
> _professional_ affairs with them. A girl shouldn't have to put up with a guy
> making unwanted advances at her in college. It's just not proper.
When did we start talking about *unwanted* advances? What if they're wanted?
I think most single people of either gender are happy to get advanced upon
*if* it's in a proper context and it's done slowly enough that either side can
halt the advance at any time without hurting the other party.
> That said, it's all a matter of context. At a party, for example, I'd feel a
> lot more morally justified in flirting with a girl. But it is not something
> you do in the workplace, or in school.
I have to disagree with you here. The workplace has very clear rules against
it. A lot of that is because of the possibilities of power roles screwing up
relationships. School is way different, as there's no issue of abusing power
for sex (at least between students). Also, school is a bunch of young people,
nearly all single, most living away from home for the first time, living in
close proximity with a whole lot of people they don't know so well who're
therefore possibly new focuses (ahem, foc*i*) of friendly, romantic, or sexual
interest. People who go to college know this full well. Obviously if someone
sends you signals that they're unadvanceable, you have to stay away. But I
think the default in the workplace is stay away, while the default in school
is advance with caution and tact. School is *prime* hookup time. Why do you
think it's "not proper"?
> At least, that's the standard I hold myself to; I'm not trying to impose it
> on others, though I do think that if a girl tells you to back off and you
> don't, she's perfectly justified in ripping your balls off. :)
Funny how that hasn't appeared in any AIF yet.
Of course I agree with this. I'm just saying that if more people held to your
standard, very few people would ever hook up.
> >OK. I'm assuming here that finding a girlfriend is a Good Thing. Is that
> >such a crazy assumption?
>
> For most people, no. For me - yes. First of all, in honesty with myself,
> what I'm interested in is most often sex and/or friendship. I don't even
> believe in the existance of love!
<picks self off of floor. dusts off bruised idealism>
(1) That's a serious bummer.
(2) Are you sure? Do you love your parents? Or, if you have Issues (don't we
all?), wouldn't you agree that there are other people in the world that love
*their* parents, or siblings, or deity, or dog, or operating system? Why is it
weird to think that feelings like that could develop with another person,
maybe even one you happen to be having sex with?
(3) Your philoagnositicsm (to coin a stupid word :) is basically beside the
point. We can just change the definition of "girlfriend" to "friend who you
fool around with, perhaps even on a regular basis". From a purely medical and
psychological standpoint, having friends and people to fool around with is
undoubtedly healthy.
(Wanted to work a quote from Huey Lewis' "Do You Believe in Love?" in here,
but couldn't figure out how. I guess he'll remain unquoted.)
> That makes going into a relationship a little deceptive on my part, because
> our cultural standard claims there should be something a little more
> romantic to dating then sex, empathy and friendship. However, those are the
> only things I suspect I would ever want from a woman.
I suspect that if you seriously asked 100 women whether they would be
interested in a relationship which would involve "only" sex, empathy, and
friendship, about 95 would say yes. The other five would probably be lesbians
not interested in the sex. To me, those three things put together come pretty
close to True Love. ("He said 'to blaive'.") Or, to put it another way, "I
do not think that word means what you think it means." What do you mean by
"love" when you say you don't believe in it?
> > Is it so important to not be sexist that you should
> >sacrifice benefits (to you and her) of Liking Someone?
>
> Yes. Actually, for me not being sexist is serious enough that
> I would sacrifice my life - not for something minor like a dating
> offense, but for something serious enough for it to be relevant.
> I consider sexism and mysogyny to be arguably some of the
> most serious problems in the world, particulairly in Africa, China
> and Japan.
Rrrright, also in about 180 other countries, in the American workplace, and
lots of other places. Perhaps I should have said, "Is it so important to avoid
the *possibility* of a very minor display of sexism that you should sacrifice
benefits (to you and her) of Liking Someone?" And you still haven't told me
why flirting with someone would be sexist. Not giving her a job because she's
a woman? Sexist. Dismissing her thoughts on answers to problem sets because
"women don't get science"? Definitely sexist. Even something like thinking she
should put out is sexist. But noone (here) is suggesting that.
> (A male pornographer with strong feminist leanings. Imagine that.)
Not surprisng at all, actually. Many of us worship women for their looks *and*
personalities & have come to realize that it's not intellectually honest to
try and put them down or give them fewer opportunities in life while doing so.
Besides, women look really hot in those tight executive business suits :)
(OTOH, high heels may look good, but they're both inconvenient and unhealthy
(damaging to calf muscles). But I digress.)
But really. Look at the women in AIF games. They may be horny, but they're not
stupid, or inferior, and sex is usually depicted as being equally enjoyable
and fulfilling (OK, maybe fulfilling is a bit strong in T&AIF) for both
parties. Parts of the pornography industry are horrible to women. They're
basically treated like show animals, kept clean but never respected as human
beings. Movies & magazines put the men in control (not in BDSM fashion, which
is a kink, but in social terms). If the AIF community was like that, I would
never have stayed here.
> I'm not talking about denying sexuality; I'm talking about
> restricting expression of it to contexts where it is proper to
> do so. I honestly don't feel that college is such a context.
Why? Oh, you're about to tell me.
> Look at the peer pressure on women to "put out" in a college
> setting. This is wrong, and yes, seemingly innocent flirtation
> *does* contribute to it, though it may not be the most central
> origin of it. The entire sexual atmosphere at college (at least,
> at the ones I've been to) strikes me as unhealthy. The guys are
> out to score, but aren't honest about it; the girls are expected
> to "give out" enough not to seem prudish or frigid, but not so
> much that they threaten those girls with higher social station
> and are therefore deemed 'sluts' . I'd much rather abstain than
> participate in that enviornment, even if it means I stay a virgin.
> And if though my own lust I ended up adding to that uglyness,
> I know I could never live with myself.
Poor, young Jedi. Your thoughts are pure, but you have much to learn. (OK, I'm
not 800, but I *am* a few years older than you.)
I concede that a lot of men are out to score solely for personal satisfaction,
or for bragging rights. That Society tries to make women sex objects and
simultaneously make them feel guilty for it.
The problem is with your response. You're removing from the mix one person who
would try to establish equal, non-sexist relationships (i.e., yourself) and
thereby tilting the balance further towards the bad guys. Women are always
complaining that they go out with guys who are bad for them because the good
ones are taken. Well, if the good ones take themselves out of the mix, that
doesn't help anyone.
It's commendable that you're willing to sacrifice your own happiness for an
ideal, but in this case the sacrifice doesn't alleviate the problem at all.
You say, "if th[r]ough my own lust I ended up adding to that uglyness, I know
I could never live with myself." But that's just demonstrating a severe lack
of confidence in yourself. Your lust wouldn't add to the ugliness; it might
even reduce it. Would you score with someone just so you could brag about it?
No! Knowing and disliking the way sex is usually handled, you would make sure
that sex and friendship were enjoyable and constructive for everyone involved.
Imagine you find out that most of the people in your class cheat on tests. Do
you say, "I don't want to be in the environment of cheating, so I'll skip the
test and get a zero?" No. You study, and try to do well on the tests fairly,
and maybe even demonstrate to others that it's possible to succeed without
cheating. This isn't a good analogy, but it's the best I could come up with on
short notice.
> That's why the idea of sex at a swinger party is so much more
> appealing to me - it's an open, tolerant, emotionally humane
> enviornment - at least stereotypically, and I'll bet that while the
> RL swing parties are a lot uglier than my fantasy one, they are
> still a damn shade nicer places than high school or college.
I refuse to believe that every man & woman at your college is evil. Shouldn't
you make it your goal to find the nice ones?
> >My argument is with your if/then. You're saying that, if you see someone as
> >sexually attractive, then you'll unconsciously treat them in a sexist way. Is
>
> No, I'm saying that I _do_ see people as attractive, and therefore
> make an active effort _not_ to treat them in a sexist way. Big diff.
sexual != sexist;
> No, it doesn't. I see what you are saying here. OTOH, if you
> can't stop staring at her ass, that's problematic. Not that I don't
> spare a glance here and there - everyone does - but I want to
> avoid thoughts of sex dominating the way I interact with women.
I vigorously contend that one can interact with a woman in a sexual way (not
necessarily actual sex) without thoughts of sex dominating the way you
interact with them.
You've taken a much much different solution to the Harry Met Sally problem
(i.e., men and women can't be friends) than Harry did. But in a way you're
running away from the problem the same way he did.
> By the way, although it has been used to justify or endorse
> some ugly things in the past, I do think political correctness is
> a good idea overall.
Yeah, I kind of agree with you. The problem is that PC has been overused to
put down things like, say, erotica.
> >Isn't ignoring women's sexuality (if it's even possible) just as bad as
> >ignoring their other characteristics -- intelligence, personality, whatever?
>
> If a woman is expressing sexuality toward me, I'll feel a lot more
> comfortable expressing it toward her. I despise the idea of
> marginalizing women's sexual expression, and an delighted by
> the fact that there is more social tolerance now for aggressive
> female sexuality, female-aimed porn, and so forth.
Aha! And yet you're marginalizing *men's* sexual expression. Or at least one
man's.
It's all well and good to think of this in such a theoretical context.
Unfortunately, the society we've built up over the last few hundred years
means that it's very unlikely a woman will walk up to you and tell you, "let's
have sex". (In fact, she couldn't do that by your standards, because it would
be sexist, i.e., she'd be viewing you as just a sex object, or letting
"thoughts of sex dominate the way" she interacted with you). Instead, man and
woman give each other vague hints of sexual interest over time, hopefully at a
pace both are comfortable with.
> If the context is appropriate, I'll have no moral problem making a pass at a
> woman (though likely I'll lack the nerve.)
Heh. We need the wizard of Oz to give you a bottle of courage. The fact is
that while I may be good at verbal flirting, it's not like I'm some expert in
starting healthy sexual relationships. I'm just saying if we could get past
the philosophical issues, at least you could strike-out with women the
old-fashioned way, like the rest of us computer geeks.
> I just don't want to do so
> in a place where it's improper behaviour, like the workplace, or in
> a place where I feel it will have overall negative macroscopic
> sociological impact, like in college.
While I concede that the sexual environment sucks, you haven't convinced me
that your abstention helps that at all. In fact, it's just more likely to lead
women to despair that there are no nice guys out there. Think globally (rail
against modern sexual mores) but act locally (be a Nice Guy).
> I talked about college above. I agree that a woman's sexuality is
> as important a man's, but it should be her (or his) choice whether
> she wants to express it and deal with it in a given place and time -
> or not.
Agreed! And by insisting on making all of your relationships asexual, you're
not giving her a chance to. IMO, a middle road is almost always better than
extremes; so I don't support scoring/putting out OR abstention.
> >Oh oh! That sounds a bit too much like RL!
>
> People say they want plot. I describe something that I might use
> as plot. People say it's too much like RL. What _exactly_ do you
> mean by the word 'plot'? Because at this point I'll admit to being
> completely lost. :)
You need to stop paying attention to what I say, I think.
> >Huh. I think rising, tension, and climax would play an important part in any
> >game *I* wrote.
>
> But not *overall*. There isn't a resolution of plot threads so much
> as there is a continuing cycle of seeking-anticipation-arousal-
> foreplay-sex-afterglow-seeking... there's sexual climax and release
> of tension in that form, but not a real literary climax AFAICT. Each
> to his own, though.
Did you not notice my nudging & winking while I said this? Am I the only one
with his mind in the gutter? What do I come here for, people?
> >Well, some games are IMO being "jokingly sexist".
>
> Mmm. I do think that depending on how it's done, these
> kind of games can have a negative social impact be reinforcing
> bad ideas about women. Leisure Suit Larry, as fun as I found
> it, is like this. An already somewhat sexist player might find that
> it reinforces his notions of what is proper. The chartacter is
> something of an (anti)heroic icon to a certain type of male
> mindset; what's good clean fun to you and me can be less
> healthy for someone that's already mildly sexist.
Definitely a tough issue. I'm not sure I'm ready to stop having my good clean
fun in order to avoid sexists though. I guess the key is for the jokingly
sexist game to make it clear at some point that Larry is much more pathetic
than the women.
[give item, get sex]
> True. I think my favoured spin on this will be to include
> puzzles centering around physically _getting to_ the women
> in question as opposed to _winning them over_.
Well, OK. The only thing is that using emotions or personality as puzzles can
be a lot more interesting than yet another locked door. If it's well done,
it'll be more than just giving an item to get sex; it'll involve an
understanding of the NPCs *personality*, which is anti-sexist.
> >Actually, I'm very much a coder, who enjoys programming. It's prose that I
> >have trouble with (among other things, like ever finishing things). Many here
> >do seem to be writers, I admit, who're programming because it's required.
>
> Cool. Perhaps you and someone could get together sometime...
Sigh. I doubt it. See my long, rambling posts on threads in response to PM
Virgin a few weeks ago.
> >To answer your question, AFAIK blowjobs aren't more or less popular than
> >any other kind of sex on agx. Which is to say, we'll take one whenever
> >possible :)
>
> I do think there's ways to do them that are very sexy... it just takes more
> effort than other types of sex. You have to describe the woman's (or man's,
> for M/M) expression and the sensations more carefully, or it comes off more
> crass than erotic. IMO.
Right. If you say a women went down on a guy, it sounds crass. But then, it
also sounds crass to say a guy went down on a woman. I think the point is the
impression that really only one of the participants actually enjoys it; it's
wholly for the benefit of just one of them. (Which means sex can be that way
too.) With careful writing, though, it can be good for both of 'em.
> I like to anyway, especially about my own weaknesses. Ego
> opposes enlightenment and all. I'm not sleazy, BTW - just shy
> and average looking.
Sucks for you. I'm a total stud who has to beat off the women. (Heh heh. He
said "beat off".)
[popular people issues]
> But I'd really prefer not to get into all that here.
done and snipped.
> I've even considered trying to write MM stuff, just to explore
> that aspect. I'm not bi, but I like exploring anything consensual
> just to play around with it in my mind. Real gay folk would laugh
> at how unrealistic it is, of course, but I may eventually try none
> the less. That said, it would require the player to initiate it, be
> noted in the help text and be fully optional. Another thing I
> might try (through the Storyteller's Circle device) is female-
> perspective scenes, either FM or FF, or some other combination.
Sounds really cool. Based on the results of the totally unscientific poll run
on the ng a while ago, a whole lot of folks would be happy to hear
female-perspective scenes. Also based on their reaction to tukulti :)
--
Epithet
annoying and I'll cut it promptly. This seems like a lot-traffic
newsgroup prone to tangents, though, so I don't think it's been
*that* offensive... yet, at least.
On Thu, 07 Sep 2000 15:27:37 GMT, Rap <raprap...@my-deja.com>
wrote:
>Don't take my posts -- even if there's a lot of them -- as representative of
>agx demand. And even if they were, a ton of people here have said that you'll
>do best writing what turns you on. If exotic situations is what does it for
>you, then you'll write those best, so stick to them. I promise I won't
>complain that there are no sex scenes in a vat of caramel at an ice cream
>factory. (Might be good for the Messy folks, though :)
Heh - and I thought I *was* the "messy folks"! That scene might
just be a possibility... :)
>I think I don't really know what humanistic means, but I get your gist. But as
>I've said I mostly want my protagonist to share my morals, for example. (Btw,
>you said you don't want your protagonist to be a computer geek, but I think
>it's pretty clear why an AIF author would write one: both because he/she
>identifies with that and because the audience would.)
True. I'm not opposed to the computer geek as protaganist nearly
as much as I am the sleaze-as-protaganist. It's be nice to see a
*realistic* computer geek, though. My rationale behind the suave
protaganist is that it makes the work more appealing overall, and
particularily increases the appeal to straight women from zero to
at least marginal.
>Oh, a whole lot of people care, if only because they'd like to know how to
>have one. Anyway, after some thought, I came to the conclusion that for *me*,
>a one night stand would be impossible because I couldn't do it without
>generating a bunch of emotional baggage. Not that I ever tested my theory.
Hrm. I wonder if that "baggage" doesn't point more in the
direction of pathos/friendship then love/commitment. I can't,
for the record, imagine sleeping with someone IRL and not
feeling *anything* for them, but that wouldn't stop me from
keeping several lovers as friends and close contants if I could
manage to attract them.
>Er, how can interacting romantically be a mistreatment? Interacting sexually
>with no regard for feelings, maybe. Well, OK, even interacting romantically,
>if you're just using it to get to the sexual interaction. But from what I can
>tell, romance seems to involve making a person feel important & wanted.
>Mistreatment?
It's hard to be romantically fair when you live in a society
where monogamy is presumed and you don't believe in it.
Not that I _couldn't_ commit, but I can't help but feel that
I'm promising something I'm not open to giving, even above
and beyond commitment.
>Oh good. That's how I feel too, which is why all the lurkers on agx get to
>wake up each morning to a new episode of Rap's Sexophilic Brain.
Heh. Cool. This sound like an interesting newsgroup. Anonymity is
fun! :)
>When did we start talking about *unwanted* advances? What if they're wanted?
>I think most single people of either gender are happy to get advanced upon
>*if* it's in a proper context and it's done slowly enough that either side can
>halt the advance at any time without hurting the other party.
Place a woman who doesn't particulairly want advances of any sort
in a college enviornment - she's a closet lesbian, say, and not the
fantasy type that likes including men. I make a polite pass at her.
There is strong social pressure to be sexy, so she responds somewhat,
keeping it at a flirty level, but playing along solely in order to
avoid being deemed frigid or prudish. Strange as it may seem,
this is not an unrealistic situation.
>I have to disagree with you here. The workplace has very clear rules against
>it. A lot of that is because of the possibilities of power roles screwing up
>relationships. School is way different, as there's no issue of abusing power
>for sex (at least between students). Also, school is a bunch of young people,
>nearly all single, most living away from home for the first time, living in
>close proximity with a whole lot of people they don't know so well who're
>therefore possibly new focuses (ahem, foc*i*) of friendly, romantic, or sexual
>interest. People who go to college know this full well.
But you can't leave college without significant loss is you want
to get out of the social envionment. That *is* a form of pressure.
> Obviously if someone
>sends you signals that they're unadvanceable, you have to stay away. But I
Sending those signals can have serious negative consequences,
especially for women.
>think the default in the workplace is stay away, while the default in school
>is advance with caution and tact. School is *prime* hookup time. Why do you
>think it's "not proper"?
Because of the enviornment I described below.
[not believing in love]
>(1) That's a serious bummer.
Why? In clear, logical terms, please - not the vague "poor you"
crap I get whenever I say that.
>(2) Are you sure? Do you love your parents? Or, if you have Issues (don't we
>all?), wouldn't you agree that there are other people in the world that love
>*their* parents, or siblings, or deity, or dog, or operating system? Why is it
>weird to think that feelings like that could develop with another person,
>maybe even one you happen to be having sex with?
I loved both of my parents, though I hated my mother with a
passion. No, they aren't exclusive. That's a *very* different use
of the word love from the romantic kind. I think the ideal of love
is so abstract and ill-defined that it ceases to have any meaning.
I also hate the idea of love in the "sex is meaningless and
dehumanizing without it" ideal, as if it's a magic wand to make
sex morally justified. There's also the assumption that love will
lead to a family. I may want to have kids some day, but I *never*
want a family in the conventional sense.
>(3) Your philoagnositicsm (to coin a stupid word :) is basically beside the
>point. We can just change the definition of "girlfriend" to "friend who you
>fool around with, perhaps even on a regular basis". From a purely medical and
>psychological standpoint, having friends and people to fool around with is
>undoubtedly healthy.
Fair enough. There is a difference between what the two definitions
mean to the average person (and thus to a potential partner), however.
I'm all for the latter, but wary of the former.
>I suspect that if you seriously asked 100 women whether they would be
>interested in a relationship which would involve "only" sex, empathy, and
>friendship, about 95 would say yes. The other five would probably be lesbians
I'll bet at least 80% would want to add commitment to the list.
>not interested in the sex. To me, those three things put together come pretty
>close to True Love. ("He said 'to blaive'.") Or, to put it another way, "I
>do not think that word means what you think it means." What do you mean by
>"love" when you say you don't believe in it?
I mean it's not sufficiently defined to believe in!
>Rrrright, also in about 180 other countries, in the American workplace, and
>lots of other places. Perhaps I should have said, "Is it so important to avoid
>the *possibility* of a very minor display of sexism that you should sacrifice
>benefits (to you and her) of Liking Someone?" And you still haven't told me
>why flirting with someone would be sexist. Not giving her a job because she's
>a woman? Sexist. Dismissing her thoughts on answers to problem sets because
>"women don't get science"? Definitely sexist. Even something like thinking she
>should put out is sexist. But noone (here) is suggesting that.
I never said flirting was sexist. What I am saying is that the
unhealthy social envionment at college makes it a bad place
to do so, because of the unseen forces of peer pressure and
other social strictures.
>But really. Look at the women in AIF games. They may be horny, but they're not
>stupid, or inferior, and sex is usually depicted as being equally enjoyable
>and fulfilling (OK, maybe fulfilling is a bit strong in T&AIF) for both
>parties.
True, in some games, particulairly Newkid's. This I like.
> Parts of the pornography industry are horrible to women. They're
>basically treated like show animals, kept clean but never respected as human
>beings. Movies & magazines put the men in control (not in BDSM fashion, which
>is a kink, but in social terms). If the AIF community was like that, I would
>never have stayed here.
I'll agree there's a lot of the porn industry that's outright evil,
but, speaking as someone who as mentioned is into visual
erotica, it's not all as bad as Hollywood makes it seem by far. The
WAM community, in particular, is a little bit sexist at times (they
have a tendancy to try and solicit women members into doing messy
pictures) but overall is very respectful to it's models, many of
whom participate in the same forums and parties as the men,
their consumers, and have every choice in the kind of erotica
they produce. I really think a lot of the 'porn industry abuses
women' sentiment is exaggerated. Not that there isn't a problem;
just that prudish tendances in reporters and critics make it damned
impossible to judge where that problem is centered. (Here's a clue: it
isn't with the most mainstream producers by any means - at least,
AFAICT.)
>Poor, young Jedi. Your thoughts are pure, but you have much to learn. (OK, I'm
>not 800, but I *am* a few years older than you.)
Firstly, realize that it's not as practical a matter as perhaps
I've made it sound. I'm not in college anymore, I'm doing home
study. The *primary* reason I avoided women when I was at
college was shyness, not ethical strictures. The solution is
simple - approach the girls outside college, and keep the
relationship there.
>The problem is with your response. You're removing from the mix one person who
>would try to establish equal, non-sexist relationships (i.e., yourself) and
>thereby tilting the balance further towards the bad guys. Women are always
>complaining that they go out with guys who are bad for them because the good
>ones are taken. Well, if the good ones take themselves out of the mix, that
>doesn't help anyone.
Good point. I do think taking *relationships* out of college is
a good (if impractical) goal, though. I also think that I don't have
a moral obligation to emotionally martyr myself for the sake of
college girls - the envionment is as unhealthy to *me* as it is to
the women; quite frankly I don't want to get involved in a
relationship where I am going to suffer - if not as a result of
my partner, that as a result of others around me.
>It's commendable that you're willing to sacrifice your own happiness for an
>ideal, but in this case the sacrifice doesn't alleviate the problem at all.
Who said anything about sacrificing my happiness? As soon as I'm
brave enough (and I _am_ getting better, slowly) I'll get involved in
relationships; I'll just choose a healthier medium then college to do
so in. As the old adage goes, when presented with a choice between
two options, the third is often best. :)
>You say, "if th[r]ough my own lust I ended up adding to that uglyness, I know
>I could never live with myself." But that's just demonstrating a severe lack
>of confidence in yourself. Your lust wouldn't add to the ugliness; it might
>even reduce it. Would you score with someone just so you could brag about it?
>No! Knowing and disliking the way sex is usually handled, you would make sure
>that sex and friendship were enjoyable and constructive for everyone involved.
I think that the social envionment works to twist any relationship,
but that may be my prejudice. I _do_ think that the college envionment
forces things to be public, and judged, that should be private and
tolerated. And when things go sour, there's really no escape. You
can't elect out just because you feel like it. I have no desire to
participate in that, nor do I want to draw another into it. Can you
see what I'm saying? Every college relationship is a triangle: the
man, the woman and the peer group. I don't want to be in that
triangle myself, and I don't want to draw others into it.
>sexual != sexist;
I'll easily give you this; my earlier way of putting it was wrong.
What I will say is this: I have lots of friendship and empathy in
my life, though I'm always willing to give and accept more. I
don't have any desire for commitment. I do have a desire for
sex, and it's going to be foremost in my mind in a relationship
with a girl. Based on this, can you see why I consider it more
honest and respectful to approach ladies at a swing party, or
a less extreme envionment with similar assumptions, than at
college, or work, or conventional dating. It's a matter of respect:
I match my desires to the assumptions given by the context,
thereby avoiding giving my would-be partner a false impression
of what I'm offering.
Sure, 90% of college relationships are based in lust, but the
thing is that _they aren't honest about it_. I want to be. Sex, in
college, comes with an unstated acceptance of commitment
and the vague, unclearly set out concept of love. I'm not willing
to give out either, therefore it's not really fair to participate. And
why should I, when I don't _want_ to participate in a relationship
in the college envionment myself?
>You've taken a much much different solution to the Harry Met Sally problem
>(i.e., men and women can't be friends) than Harry did. But in a way you're
Where did I say men and women can't be friends? I believe no such
thing! BTW, I haven't seen the movie, so I'm missing the context here.
>Yeah, I kind of agree with you. The problem is that PC has been overused to
>put down things like, say, erotica.
True. Less so now, however. The primary emphasis of PC against
erotica is that A) children shouldn't see it, and B) People that don't
want to deal with it should not have to. I'm not particulairly against
either, although a few horny 14-year-olds getting access to a (non-
mysogynistic) porn site isn't the end of the world in my eyes.
>Aha! And yet you're marginalizing *men's* sexual expression. Or at least one
>man's.
Semantics. My sexuality is my own; I can do whatever I damned well
please with it - including choose the enviornments in which I am most
confortable expressing it.
>It's all well and good to think of this in such a theoretical context.
>Unfortunately, the society we've built up over the last few hundred years
>means that it's very unlikely a woman will walk up to you and tell you, "let's
>have sex". (In fact, she couldn't do that by your standards, because it would
>be sexist, i.e., she'd be viewing you as just a sex object, or letting
>"thoughts of sex dominate the way" she interacted with you). Instead, man and
Depends on context - in context specifically set out for that, it's
fine. I think it's also okay if the context is personal, and there's
no pressure, any you know enough about the person you are
saying it to to know that they won't be humiliated.
>Heh. We need the wizard of Oz to give you a bottle of courage. The fact is
Sadly, RL doesn't work like that.
>that while I may be good at verbal flirting, it's not like I'm some expert in
>starting healthy sexual relationships. I'm just saying if we could get past
>the philosophical issues, at least you could strike-out with women the
>old-fashioned way, like the rest of us computer geeks.
The big barrier is shyness, not morality. My ethos gives me plenty
of room to form relationships with women - just not at the workplace
or at college. I do intend to do so, by the way, as soon as I get up
the nerve and build social skills somewhat.
>While I concede that the sexual environment sucks, you haven't convinced me
>that your abstention helps that at all. In fact, it's just more likely to lead
>women to despair that there are no nice guys out there. Think globally (rail
>against modern sexual mores) but act locally (be a Nice Guy).
I do try. :)
>Did you not notice my nudging & winking while I said this? Am I the only one
>with his mind in the gutter? What do I come here for, people?
Heh.
>Definitely a tough issue. I'm not sure I'm ready to stop having my good clean
>fun in order to avoid sexists though. I guess the key is for the jokingly
>sexist game to make it clear at some point that Larry is much more pathetic
>than the women.
Me, personally, I'd rather be suave and mature in my fantasies than
a computer geek or Larry. But that's just me. (The Larry character is
better in the later games, BTW, at least IIRC. It's the first one that
I'm thinking of here.)
>Well, OK. The only thing is that using emotions or personality as puzzles can
>be a lot more interesting than yet another locked door. If it's well done,
>it'll be more than just giving an item to get sex; it'll involve an
>understanding of the NPCs *personality*, which is anti-sexist.
I'll agree that personality puzzles can be cool. I think that to
get a personality complex enough to hang puzzles on without
it being lock/key style, you'd have to rise above T&A and become
deep and meaningful, which I don't wanna do right now.
>Right. If you say a women went down on a guy, it sounds crass. But then, it
>also sounds crass to say a guy went down on a woman. I think the point is the
>impression that really only one of the participants actually enjoys it; it's
>wholly for the benefit of just one of them. (Which means sex can be that way
>too.) With careful writing, though, it can be good for both of 'em.
Exactly! Newkid is the only writer I know who makes blowjobs seem
sexy, and it's cause of this.
>Sounds really cool. Based on the results of the totally unscientific poll run
>on the ng a while ago, a whole lot of folks would be happy to hear
>female-perspective scenes. Also based on their reaction to tukulti :)
Will do then.
** Epithet **
Rap
slip...@hotmail.com (Epithet) wrote:
> Folk, let me know when this off-topic wierdness starts getting
> annoying and I'll cut it promptly. This seems like a lot-traffic
> newsgroup prone to tangents, though, so I don't think it's been
> *that* offensive... yet, at least.
I think by now people have worked out that this isn't an AIF discussion and
will kill the thread unless they're fascinated by your & my sexual/social
hangups.
> On Thu, 07 Sep 2000 15:27:37 GMT, Rap <raprap...@my-deja.com>
> wrote:
>
> True. I'm not opposed to the computer geek as protaganist nearly
> as much as I am the sleaze-as-protaganist. It's be nice to see a
> *realistic* computer geek, though.
Read Cryptonomicon. (Not too much sex, but the geek is realistic.)
> My rationale behind the suave protaganist is that it makes the work more
> appealing overall, and particularily increases the appeal to straight women
> from zero to at least marginal.
Possible.
> Hrm. I wonder if that "baggage" doesn't point more in the
> direction of pathos/friendship then love/commitment. I can't,
> for the record, imagine sleeping with someone IRL and not
> feeling *anything* for them, but that wouldn't stop me from
> keeping several lovers as friends and close contants if I could
> manage to attract them.
I can't imagine folks in the group getting catty. But that's probably my
inexperience with Free Love talking.
> >I think most single people of either gender are happy to get advanced upon
>
> Place a woman who doesn't particulairly want advances of any sort
> in a college enviornment - she's a closet lesbian, say, and not the
> fantasy type that likes including men. I make a polite pass at her.
> There is strong social pressure to be sexy, so she responds somewhat,
> keeping it at a flirty level, but playing along solely in order to
> avoid being deemed frigid or prudish. Strange as it may seem,
> this is not an unrealistic situation.
Maybe not unrealistic, but it sounds a little forced. Like not offering
someone a beer in case they're a closet recovering alcoholic. By your logic,
you could *never* flirt with a woman, even outside college, because the
American environment is still enough to keep many lesbians in the closet.
While I feel sympathy for people forced by society to stay in the closet,
chances are that either (a) a woman you pick at random is *not* a closet
lesbian or (b) if she is, she'll have worked out a way not to have sex with
men despite the social pressure.
> > Obviously if someone
> >sends you signals that they're unadvanceable, you have to stay away. But I
>
> Sending those signals can have serious negative consequences,
> especially for women.
Arg. You're right, but she's going to have to work it out eventually. Besides
which, presumably you'll be able to convince a woman that you're open to
signals with no danger of negative consequences. IMO, never having
relationships can also have serious negative consequences.
> [not believing in love]
> >(1) That's a serious bummer.
>
> Why? In clear, logical terms, please - not the vague "poor you"
> crap I get whenever I say that.
Sorry. All I can give you is vague crap. Why a bummer? Because love makes you
feel good. Except when it's making you feel bad. Because giving and receiving
love fills spaces inside you that humans desperately need to fill. (Wow. I'm
so OT I didn't even want that to be taken sexually.) I'm all for friendship,
but that fills different spaces. But I can only talk poetically, not in "clear
logical terms". I think you can't define love the same way you can't prove
God. (Hitchhiker's doesn't count.)
Did you ever read Brave New World? Quick synopsis. There's two ways to avoid
the pain that emotions cause: live an unemotional life; commit suicide. I'm
strongly against either of these forms, so even if love is painful sometimes,
I choose it.
The search for love, like the search for sex, is partly societal. But I don't
think it's fully societal. I think we're born with physical & psychological
need for sex, and I don't think love's much different. But then, I'm not a
psychologist.
> I think the ideal of love is so abstract and ill-defined that it ceases to
> have any meaning.
OK, it doesn't have meaning. Yet everybody feels it at one time or another.
> There's also the assumption that love will lead to a
> family. I may want to have kids some day, but I *never* want a family in the
> conventional sense.
There's plenty of women out there who will agree with you on that. You're just
buying into societal stereotypes that all women want families.
> >I suspect that if you seriously asked 100 women whether they would be
> >interested in a relationship which would involve "only" sex, empathy, and
> >friendship, about 95 would say yes. The other five would probably be lesbians
>
> I'll bet at least 80% would want to add commitment to the list.
OK. That leaves about 600,000,000 women, or maybe 60M if you want to be
realistic about age differences.
> >not interested in the sex. To me, those three things put together come pretty
> >close to True Love. ("He said 'to blaive'.") Or, to put it another way, "I
> >do not think that word means what you think it means." What do you mean by
> >"love" when you say you don't believe in it?
>
> I mean it's not sufficiently defined to believe in!
Do you believe that if people share themselves, they can achieve a special
kind of friendship? And that adding a bit of sex to the mix can make things
even more complicated? But like I said, I'm not sure it's definable. But I
don't think something has to be well-defined just to believe in it. The key
here is "belief", not "mathematical proof". Belief involves faith, which means
it hasn't been well proven.
> I never said flirting was sexist. What I am saying is that the
> unhealthy social envionment at college makes it a bad place
> to do so, because of the unseen forces of peer pressure and
> other social strictures.
I *still* say you're letting the bad guys win.
> I'll agree there's a lot of the porn industry that's outright evil,
> but, speaking as someone who as mentioned is into visual
> erotica, it's not all as bad as Hollywood makes it seem by far.
Yeah, you're probably right. But if I can't be sensationalist, life will be
much less exciting.
> Good point. I do think taking *relationships* out of college is
> a good (if impractical) goal, though. I also think that I don't have
> a moral obligation to emotionally martyr myself for the sake of
> college girls - the envionment is as unhealthy to *me* as it is to
> the women; quite frankly I don't want to get involved in a
> relationship where I am going to suffer - if not as a result of
> my partner, that as a result of others around me.
I guess it's hard to know the statistics. I don't feel like most of the people
I knew in college were made to suffer when they were in relationships. Sure,
breakups sucked, but relationships as a whole were usually constructive and
more happy than unhappy. (Some were *totally* screwed up. But that was more
because the people in them were wacko.)
> Who said anything about sacrificing my happiness? As soon as I'm
> brave enough (and I _am_ getting better, slowly) I'll get involved in
> relationships; I'll just choose a healthier medium then college to do
> so in.
Oh, OK. So it's not as bad a problem as I thought. You're just anti-college.
Now we just need to work on the shyness thing. Well, I can't think of a better
forum of advisers than a bunch of people who play games where they get to
imagine having sex with people who don't actually exist.
> I think that the social envionment works to twist any relationship,
> but that may be my prejudice.
Yup. It's prejudice.
> I _do_ think that the college envionment
> forces things to be public, and judged, that should be private and
> tolerated.
True. Annoying. Again, if you don't have a relationship because people will
judge you & try to make public your private issues, then you're just letting
the bad guys win.
> Can you see what I'm saying? Every college relationship is a triangle: the
> man, the woman and the peer group. I don't want to be in that triangle
> myself, and I don't want to draw others into it.
Every relationship in life is going to be man, woman, peer group. Bad news:
you can't really guarantee that the peer group after college will be any
better. Sure, you try to find a good peer group (note, btw, that a college
with 10000 students has at least 100 different peer groups for you to choose
from). But literature is full of people who had relationships despite their
peer groups. (And just look how well Romeo & Juliet managed!)
> >sexual != sexist;
>
> I'll easily give you this; my earlier way of putting it was wrong.
Careful. On this newsgroup, you're not ever supposed to admit you were wrong.
You could, for example, hint that someone stole your computer and posted
something wrong under your name.
> What I will say is this: I have lots of friendship and empathy in my life,
> though I'm always willing to give and accept more. I
> don't have any desire for commitment.
Oh, that's *so* standard Hollywood male. OK, maybe your non-desire is
different than the standard Hollywood male's :)
> I do have a desire for sex, and it's going to be foremost in
> my mind in a relationship with a girl. Based on this, can you see why I
> consider it more honest and respectful to approach ladies at a swing party,
> or a less extreme envionment with similar assumptions, than at college, or
> work, or conventional dating. It's a matter of respect: I match my desires
> to the assumptions given by the context, thereby avoiding giving my would-be
> partner a false impression of what I'm offering.
Sigh. Good luck.
> >You've taken a much much different solution to the Harry Met Sally problem
> >(i.e., men and women can't be friends) than Harry did. But in a way you're
>
> Where did I say men and women can't be friends? I believe no such
> thing!
Oh, OK. That's true. The thesis there is that men & women can't be friends
because sex gets in the way. You're saying men & women can't have sex because
society gets in the way :)
> BTW, I haven't seen the movie, so I'm missing the context here.
I highly recommend the movie. Billy Crystal is really funny. But watch out --
they talk about love & stuff. Actually, I think Nora Ephron may not know what
love is either, although there are hints in the sofa interviews sprinkled
throughout the movie, as well as the last scene.
(If I was really evil, and this forum included audio, I'd start singing "I
want to know what love is, I want you to show me." and it would be stuck in
your head pissing you off for the next twenty four hours. Alas, I can't do
that.)
[a woman saying "let's have sex"]
> Depends on context - in context specifically set out for that, it's
> fine. I think it's also okay if the context is personal, and there's
> no pressure, any you know enough about the person you are
> saying it to to know that they won't be humiliated.
But except at a swinger party, that won't happen unless you first break the
ice.
> >Heh. We need the wizard of Oz to give you a bottle of courage. The fact is
>
> Sadly, RL doesn't work like that.
RL bites.
> Me, personally, I'd rather be suave and mature in my fantasies than
> a computer geek or Larry. But that's just me.
I guess it's just so far from my experience that I can't identify with a suave
character at all :)
> (The Larry character is better in the later games, BTW, at least IIRC. It's
> the first one that I'm thinking of here.)
Only played the first. Which is too bad, as I got the impression that the
later ones had more sex & better graphics.
tukulti
wrote:
> Folk, let me know when this off-topic wierdness starts getting
>annoying and I'll cut it promptly. This seems like a lot-traffic
>newsgroup prone to tangents, though, so I don't think it's been
>*that* offensive... yet, at least.
As far as I'm concerned, tangent all you like. :) I just had one
comment--hope you don't mind if I enter this thread a bit. . . .
Well, actually I had more thoughts on this topic, but you and Rap are
doing such a lovely job at it.
>*realistic* computer geek, though. My rationale behind the suave
>protaganist is that it makes the work more appealing overall, and
>particularily increases the appeal to straight women from zero to
>at least marginal.
Hee hee, you're joking about this part. right? :) As long as you
don't apply it to RL also. . . .
--Jan
ArKane
>I vigorously contend that one can interact with a woman in a
>sexual way (not necessarily actual sex) without thoughts of sex
>dominating the way you interact with them.
I had a feeling if I could keep reading this I might find something
to add my 5 cents worth to. I can vouch for this theory personally,
most of my good friends are women, our relation/friendship has
nothing to do with sex. A side effect of this is that with a few of
them, flirting becomes a highly involved game just to see who can
twist things around more. It's highly amusing to be able to do this.
I wouldn't change it for the world.
>Heh. We need the wizard of Oz to give you a bottle of courage. The
>fact is that while I may be good at verbal flirting, it's not like
>I'm some expert in starting healthy sexual relationships. I'm just
>saying if we could get past the philosophical issues, at least you
>could strike-out with women the old-fashioned way, like the rest
>of us computer geeks.
I had something to say here about the relation of verbal flirting to
other types, but I lost track of it.
>While I concede that the sexual environment sucks, you haven't
>convinced me that your abstention helps that at all. In fact, it's
>just more likely to lead women to despair that there are no nice
>guys out there. Think globally (rail against modern sexual mores)
>but act locally (be a Nice Guy).
Next time I hear a female friend make this comment I'm going to tell
her no, they're all hanging out in AGX! *LMAO*
>Did you not notice my nudging & winking while I said this? Am I
>the only one with his mind in the gutter? What do I come here for,
>people?
Well as referenced by my comments about the verbal games I get to
play with friends, you just may be. See, my mind is usually lower
than the gutter. ;)
>Sucks for you. I'm a total stud who has to beat off the women.
>(Heh heh. He said "beat off".)
We won't ponder on what you really meant...
ArKane
>Maybe not unrealistic, but it sounds a little forced. Like not
>offering someone a beer in case they're a closet recovering
>alcoholic. By your logic, you could *never* flirt with a woman,
>even outside college, because the American environment is still
>enough to keep many lesbians in the closet. While I feel sympathy
>for people forced by society to stay in the closet, chances are
>that either (a) a woman you pick at random is *not* a closet
>lesbian or (b) if she is, she'll have worked out a way not to have
>sex with men despite the social pressure.
It's funny you should use this particular comparison. Why? Because
(unless recently recovered) most alcoholics will not have a problem
telling you they don't want a drink, and usually will tell you why.
Probably because by the time they get to that point, many people
around them have figured out something is up with them.
On the other hand, it's not as easy for someone of a different sexual
lifestyle. For one, they have to deal with the misplaced attitudes of
how others perceive them and how others perceive (and/or reacte
to) people close to them. It's that second part that adds to an
already difficult situation.
This could easily get into the tired discussion of whether or not
homosexuality is generic or choice. I'm sure when somebody first
figured out alcoholism there was the same sort of problems.
>Sorry. All I can give you is vague crap. Why a bummer? Because
>love makes you feel good. Except when it's making you feel bad.
>Because giving and receiving love fills spaces inside you that
>humans desperately need to fill. (Wow. I'm so OT I didn't even
>want that to be taken sexually.) I'm all for friendship, but that
>fills different spaces. But I can only talk poetically, not in
>"clear logical terms". I think you can't define love the same way
>you can't prove God. (Hitchhiker's doesn't count.)
Hey, that made sense! No seriously. I know what you're saying here.
It only takes about a third of a lifetime to figure the differences
out. It takes the rest of it trying to figure out to explain it to
someone else.
>Did you ever read Brave New World? Quick synopsis. There's two
>ways to avoid the pain that emotions cause: live an unemotional
>life; commit suicide. I'm strongly against either of these forms,
>so even if love is painful sometimes, I choose it.
Well let's see. Choice one permanently scars you. Choice two
permanently scars those you leave behind. Frankly, neither works.
>Do you believe that if people share themselves, they can achieve a
>special kind of friendship? And that adding a bit of sex to the
>mix can make things even more complicated? But like I said, I'm
>not sure it's definable. But I don't think something has to be
>well-defined just to believe in it. The key here is "belief", not
>"mathematical proof". Belief involves faith, which means it hasn't
>been well proven.
Well this just gives a whole new turn to my belief in government. ;)
>Oh, OK. So it's not as bad a problem as I thought. You're just
>anti-college. Now we just need to work on the shyness thing. Well,
>I can't think of a better forum of advisers than a bunch of people
>who play games where they get to imagine having sex with people
>who don't actually exist.
Speaking of taking one's time to find what/who it is we were looking
for. Two things to say:
1) who or what you think you are looking for will probably turn out
not to be, but in some way leads you to the right place.
2) time is just that. The more you take looking, the more you will
know that you've found what you were looking for.
(Sorry, philosopher Kane and RL experience jumpin in for a minute.)
>Every relationship in life is going to be man, woman, peer group.
>Bad news: you can't really guarantee that the peer group after
>college will be any better. Sure, you try to find a good peer
>group (note, btw, that a college with 10000 students has at least
>100 different peer groups for you to choose from). But literature
>is full of people who had relationships despite their peer groups.
>(And just look how well Romeo & Juliet managed!)
Right, out of school. Got nice job. Have friends from work and other
social areas of your life. Bam! Meet the mate of your choice and
suddenly peer group gets left behind, gets PO'ed about it. Hassles
you for a bit. Realises that you've found something else you were
looking for. Some of them drop you entirely, the rest hang out and
don't infringe on your new relationship (much). Life goes on.
If you're really lucky, some of those friends will support you even
when you ask them for help doing things that really seem crazy beyond
measure.
>> Me, personally, I'd rather be suave and mature in my fantasies
>> than a computer geek or Larry. But that's just me.
Well not being Larry is good all around. Personally, I'm a mature and
sometimes suave computer geek. Nothing wrong with that.
Epithet
wrote:
>In article <39b7ec0d.42821914@news>,
> slip...@hotmail.com (Epithet) wrote:
This talk is beginning to get a little circular; we're just saying
the same things in response to each other. I'm going to trim it
down to a few things mostly tangental to what we've been
talking about - not because it's invasive (it isn't) but just because
it doesn't seem to be going anywhere.
>> Place a woman who doesn't particulairly want advances of any sort
>> in a college enviornment - she's a closet lesbian, say, and not the
>> fantasy type that likes including men. I make a polite pass at her.
>> There is strong social pressure to be sexy, so she responds somewhat,
>> keeping it at a flirty level, but playing along solely in order to
>> avoid being deemed frigid or prudish. Strange as it may seem,
>> this is not an unrealistic situation.
>Maybe not unrealistic, but it sounds a little forced. Like not offering
>someone a beer in case they're a closet recovering alcoholic. By your logic,
>you could *never* flirt with a woman, even outside college, because the
>American environment is still enough to keep many lesbians in the closet.
>While I feel sympathy for people forced by society to stay in the closet,
>chances are that either (a) a woman you pick at random is *not* a closet
>lesbian or (b) if she is, she'll have worked out a way not to have sex with
>men despite the social pressure.
The lesbian thing was a bad example - it could just be a normal
girl who really isn't into the dating game. The point is that motives
for flirting and dating in college are almost never what they seem
because social station and popularity muddy the mix to a far
greater extent than they do elsewhere.
>Arg. You're right, but she's going to have to work it out eventually. Besides
>which, presumably you'll be able to convince a woman that you're open to
>signals with no danger of negative consequences. IMO, never having
>relationships can also have serious negative consequences.
Of course. That's why I will choose healthier communities in which
to initiate those relationships than college.
>Did you ever read Brave New World? Quick synopsis. There's two ways to avoid
>the pain that emotions cause: live an unemotional life; commit suicide. I'm
>strongly against either of these forms, so even if love is painful sometimes,
>I choose it.
I'm not advocating a passionless existance. Far from it. I just
don't like words that no one will define clearly, that I am required
to pledge in order to avoid hurting people, and then let society
and context define for me.
>There's plenty of women out there who will agree with you on that. You're just
>buying into societal stereotypes that all women want families.
Fair enough, and sorry.
[porn induustry and morality]
>Yeah, you're probably right. But if I can't be sensationalist, life will be
>much less exciting.
Being sensationalistic on this particular point is likely to get us
all roasted at some point or another. If people come to believe
that porn is evil, I very much doubt they'll leave out AIF - or my
favoured and healthy WAM community - or Myco's BSDM group -
just because they are "healthy" porn.
I certainly don't mean to harp on this, or to be rude or
condescending. If this comes off that way, I'm truly sorry
because it's not what I mean.
>Oh, OK. So it's not as bad a problem as I thought. You're just anti-college.
>Now we just need to work on the shyness thing. Well, I can't think of a better
>forum of advisers than a bunch of people who play games where they get to
>imagine having sex with people who don't actually exist.
Heh. Actually, you folk all seem great and very well-adjusted...
>Every relationship in life is going to be man, woman, peer group. Bad news:
Not to _nearly_ the same extent, and the peer group is often much
more mature and less outright malicious.
>Oh, that's *so* standard Hollywood male. OK, maybe your non-desire is
>different than the standard Hollywood male's :)
The commitment thing is more a matter of ideology than fear-of-
settling down. I _could_ make a commitment; I could even do it
well. The big thing is that I don't think _most people_ _should_.
I think the societal demand for a "stable family" (meaning all the
instability is brushed into the shadows) is overwhelmingly
destructive. My aversion to commitment is strong of a sociological
scale and less strong on a personal scale - although it's still there,
for sure. I don't expect to lead a wild, promiscious life by any
means, but I don't forsee marriage either.
>I guess it's just so far from my experience that I can't identify with a suave
>character at all :)
Heh. I'm starting to think a more natural, somewhat whimsical
character would work better anyway. Suave is to... serious and
dour. Basically, as long as we avoid the sleazebag, any character
should be fine for me.
>Only played the first. Which is too bad, as I got the impression that the
>later ones had more sex & better graphics.
They do - but I haven't played them either. My lifestyle does not
permit buying adult-oriented games, sadly.
**Epithet**
Epithet
>On Thu, 07 Sep 2000 19:24:16 GMT, slip...@hotmail.com (Epithet)
>wrote:
>
>>*realistic* computer geek, though. My rationale behind the suave
>>protaganist is that it makes the work more appealing overall, and
>>particularily increases the appeal to straight women from zero to
>>at least marginal.
>
>Hee hee, you're joking about this part. right? :) As long as you
>don't apply it to RL also. . . .
Suave might have been a bad word. Appealing is some manner I
would consider a prerequisite for the game to be attractive to
straight women, though. Am I wrong here? I know I wouldn't find
a game where I play a sweaty, overweight, morally repugnant and
uncharismatic girl running around screwing attractive men very
appealing from a male player's perspective, so I made a logical
jump that it is likely the same for women.
For a man, the erotic part of the game originates from the fact
that the women are sexy - whether in body, personality or both;
whether the protaganist or NPCs are female doesn't change the
fact that a man's focus will be on the women. In I-O, for example,
you play a woman, but the game is very appealing to men because
the girl you play is a hottie. I would have assumed
that a woman player would likewise be focused on the men in the
game, whether they be protaganist or conquest, and would want them
to be sexy - whatever she considers that to be. Am I wrong here?
Since you seem to be the only woman available to interrogate, let
me ask this: what qualities do you like in male characters in an AIF
game?
**Epithet**
Mr Wish
We
> might all get a kick and/or inspiration out of them, and ArKane could post
> them on his Ideas page.
Hmm. That is in theory a very good plan. However I make no promises to
carry it through because my RL schedule as well as working on my game and
playing an unhealthy amount of Sydney 2000 with the wife on the PC means my
free time is few and far between at the moment!!
> 4 years? You're a real oldtimer!
Cheers. Now I feel really paranoid about the grey hair in my beard!! :-)
> Introducing Sexed Generation II: The Wrath of NewKid...
>
> (I believe it's called "Wraith" these days, unless NewKid changed his mind
in
> the last couple of days.)
Not sure if that was a typo, or my sieve like memory!
ATB.
Mr Wish
Rap
> This could easily get into the tired discussion of whether or not
> homosexuality is generic or choice.
And yet, look! I'm ignoring the discussion completely!
[babbling about Love]
> Hey, that made sense! No seriously. I know what you're saying here.
> It only takes about a third of a lifetime to figure the differences
> out. It takes the rest of it trying to figure out to explain it to
> someone else.
That's because Love is all you need. Love hurts. Love stinks. Love is a
battlefield. Can't buy me love. Some say love, it is a river. You're addicted
to love. You can't hurry love.
Sounds pretty undefined to me!
Rap
slip...@hotmail.com (Epithet) wrote:
> On Thu, 07 Sep 2000 22:13:01 GMT, Rap <raprap...@my-deja.com>
> wrote:
>
> >In article <39b7ec0d.42821914@news>,
> > slip...@hotmail.com (Epithet) wrote:
>
> This talk is beginning to get a little circular; we're just saying
> the same things in response to each other.
OK. As soon as you admit that I'm right about all of this and you're wrong, we
can stop talking :)
> The lesbian thing was a bad example - it could just be a normal
> girl who really isn't into the dating game. The point is that motives
> for flirting and dating in college are almost never what they seem
> because social station and popularity muddy the mix to a far
> greater extent than they do elsewhere.
I agree that we're getting circular here. Maybe you & I just had different
college experiences. All I can say is that while society *affected* many
people's relationships, I think the main reason people dated was that they
wanted -- I believe your phrase was, "friendship, empathy, and sex". Maybe
some of them wanted commitment too, although nowadays I think college is
considered more a time of experimentation, so that going out with no
expectation of commitment is fine, as long as both sides realize that's what
it is. (I might even go so far as to say that commitment could add to a
relationship's friendship, empathy, and sex, but we would probably get into an
argument again. Would it help if I said I meant commitment and not
Commitment?)
> I'm not advocating a passionless existance. Far from it. I just
> don't like words that no one will define clearly, that I am required
> to pledge in order to avoid hurting people, and then let society
> and context define for me.
Hm.
Define life. Define intelligence. Define self-consciousness. Fun, morality,
goodness, justice (and their "opposites").... Many of the most important words
in our lives are not clearly defined. Some might say they *can't* be clearly
defined.
But anyway, it seems like you're saying society *has* defined love, but you
find the definition empty and not really worth making great sacrifices for.
> Being sensationalistic on this particular point is likely to get us
> all roasted at some point or another. If people come to believe
> that porn is evil, I very much doubt they'll leave out AIF - or my
> favoured and healthy WAM community - or Myco's BSDM group -
> just because they are "healthy" porn.
Heh. Good point. I often wonder what positions on porn I can safely espouse in
conversations with RL people without getting in trouble.
> Heh. Actually, you folk all seem great and very well-adjusted...
Oh. You didn't find the alt.games.xtrek.child-sacrifice sub-group yet, did
you?
> >Every relationship in life is going to be man, woman, peer group. Bad news:
>
> Not to _nearly_ the same extent, and the peer group is often much
> more mature and less outright malicious.
I'm not sure if you've got an overly dark picture of college, or an overly
rosy picture of post-college. Look at world politics & tell me they're acting
mature -- a friend of mine once said it's all four-year-olds in a sandbox.
OTOH, I have to admit that the advantage of post-college is that you have more
latitude to choose your closer peer group (not work, but at least friends).
And college, by cooping up all those raging hormones in one place, does
present some pressures not present in, shall we say, Real Life.
> The commitment thing is more a matter of ideology than fear-of-
> settling down. I _could_ make a commitment; I could even do it
> well. The big thing is that I don't think _most people_ _should_.
> I think the societal demand for a "stable family" (meaning all the
> instability is brushed into the shadows) is overwhelmingly
> destructive. My aversion to commitment is strong of a sociological
> scale and less strong on a personal scale - although it's still there,
> for sure. I don't expect to lead a wild, promiscious life by any
> means, but I don't forsee marriage either.
I think I disagree with you an awful lot.
IMO, the vast majority of stable families really are stable. There are
obviously some major exceptions, and no family's perfect, but I think it's
better than the alternative. (Maybe I don't know the alternative. Certainly
having two people invested in raising a child seems more likely to offer that
child what it needs than having just one. For example.)
I'm not sure we can have a logical discussion about this, though.
ArKane
>In article <8FA993B6A...@207.106.92.200>,
> no...@invisible.org (ArKane) wrote:
>> Rap was overheard typing about:
>>
>[snip!]
>> This could easily get into the tired discussion of whether or
>> not homosexuality is generic or choice.
>
>And yet, look! I'm ignoring the discussion completely!
Good, I was hoping that it would get turned around for explanation.
Which is easy enough, just not in this forum.
>[babbling about Love]
>That's because Love is all you need. Love hurts. Love stinks. Love
>is a battlefield. Can't buy me love. Some say love, it is a river.
>You're addicted to love. You can't hurry love.
I.O.U for your love (clip from some nearly obscure Irish fellow and
his band)
>Sounds pretty undefined to me!
No, just unexplainable.
ArKane
>Define life. Define intelligence. Define self-consciousness. Fun,
>morality, goodness, justice (and their "opposites").... Many of
>the most important words in our lives are not clearly defined.
>Some might say they *can't* be clearly defined.
Everything is energy, that flows in one direction or another, passing
through and around all things. In some cases this energy is attracted
to other energy flows, even enhanced by them. At other times, the
energy is repelled and diminished. This is our definition for
everything you asked above. Thank you grasshopper, you may continue.
>IMO, the vast majority of stable families really are stable. There
>are obviously some major exceptions, and no family's perfect, but
>I think it's better than the alternative. (Maybe I don't know the
>alternative. Certainly having two people invested in raising a
>child seems more likely to offer that child what it needs than
>having just one. For example.)
>
>I'm not sure we can have a logical discussion about this, though.
Yes you can. You just proved it by saying that "two people invested
in raising a child etc". You didn't say a father and mother, you
didn't say husband and wife, or any other stereotypical grouping.
I adopted people into my "family" that helped me along the path.
Family is a word, it doesn't only mean blood relation.
tukulti
wrote:
>On Fri, 08 Sep 2000 02:43:35 GMT, tuk...@mail.com (tukulti) wrote:
>
>>On Thu, 07 Sep 2000 19:24:16 GMT, slip...@hotmail.com (Epithet)
>>wrote:
I realized I snipped part of your paragraph that might add meaning, so
I'm adding it back in. . . .
>>>True. I'm not opposed to the computer geek as protaganist nearly
>>>as much as I am the sleaze-as-protaganist. It's be nice to see a
>>>*realistic* computer geek, though. My rationale behind the suave
>>>protaganist is that it makes the work more appealing overall, and
>>>particularily increases the appeal to straight women from zero to
>>>at least marginal.
>>
>>Hee hee, you're joking about this part. right? :) As long as you
>>don't apply it to RL also. . . .
>
> Suave might have been a bad word. Appealing is some manner I
>would consider a prerequisite for the game to be attractive to
>straight women, though. Am I wrong here?
Ah, well. . .when I first read it, I thought you were saying that it
was the computer geeks that have no appeal to straight women. After
this reply of yours, I realized I didn't know if you were referring to
computer geeks, sleazy men, or AIF games in general having no appeal.
> I know I wouldn't find
>a game where I play a sweaty, overweight, morally repugnant and
>uncharismatic girl running around screwing attractive men very
>appealing from a male player's perspective, so I made a logical
>jump that it is likely the same for women.
This is talking about sleazy protaganists, right? If that's the case,
then I agree. A sleazy character wouldn't be fun to play, but I guess
it could be funny if it were a joke (kind of like real life--real
sleaze bad, fake sleaze fun :).
> For a man, the erotic part of the game originates from the fact
>that the women are sexy - whether in body, personality or both;
>whether the protaganist or NPCs are female doesn't change the
>fact that a man's focus will be on the women. In I-O, for example,
I know you mentioned I-0, but I guess for the most part, NPCs are
described more than the PC. At least that's been my observation. . .I
could just get too involved in the puzzles and sex to really notice.
:)
>I would have assumed
>that a woman player would likewise be focused on the men in the
>game, whether they be protaganist or conquest, and would want them
>to be sexy - whatever she considers that to be. Am I wrong here?
No no. . .I just misunderstood you, I think.
> Since you seem to be the only woman available to interrogate,
Nah, I think they just all ran off to do something productive, like
write a game.
>let
>me ask this: what qualities do you like in male characters in an AIF
>game?
Hmm, I think it's harder to suggest qualities and a personality for
the PC (and currently most PCs are male). With NPCs, there's usually
some description of their looks and actions, but the PC's qualities
and personality seem to be more implied with the actions the writer
builds into the game for the player to do. Now maybe I'm just missing
a bunch of literary clues in my quest for sex, so I could be wrong. .
. . :)
But I suppose that it is possible to suggest qualities for the PC, and
you are talking about male characters in general, not just the PC,
so.... Like I said, I agree with you that sleazy protaganist can be
off-putting. And I don't have any objections to the computer geek
hero.
Also, I think what I'd like to see in a male character depends on the
game--if it's a parody, then of course the character's qualities have
to fit that. If it's supposed to be realistic, then the character
should have some shortcomings. If it's supposed to be the perfect
man, then he should have all that wonderful intelligence and sense of
humor and good look stuff.
Hmm, don't know if that all made sense. Maybe I'm sleeping again. :)
--Jan
tukulti
wrote:
>In article <8FA993B6A...@207.106.92.200>,
> no...@invisible.org (ArKane) wrote:
>> Rap was overheard typing about:
>[babbling about Love]
>> Hey, that made sense! No seriously. I know what you're saying here.
>> It only takes about a third of a lifetime to figure the differences
>> out. It takes the rest of it trying to figure out to explain it to
>> someone else.
>
>That's because Love is all you need. Love hurts. Love stinks. Love is a
>battlefield. Can't buy me love. Some say love, it is a river. You're addicted
>to love. You can't hurry love.
Don't forget--love bites! And it bleeds. It's bringing me to my
knees (*snicker*). Love lives, love dies. Oh yeah, and love begs, it
pleads. All in one song too--I'm confused.
--Jan
Chazz
Love hurts....
Love scars....
Love moves iron bars....
Gatorade.....
What do you mean that was an actual song?
--
Chazz
-------------
To reply, change everything after the @ to aol.com
Mycophile
news:8FA8F41C6...@207.106.92.200...
> Rap was overheard typing about:
>
> >I vigorously contend that one can interact with a woman in a
> >sexual way (not necessarily actual sex) without thoughts of sex
> >dominating the way you interact with them.
>
> I had a feeling if I could keep reading this I might find something
> to add my 5 cents worth to. I can vouch for this theory personally,
> most of my good friends are women, our relation/friendship has
> nothing to do with sex. A side effect of this is that with a few of
> them, flirting becomes a highly involved game just to see who can
> twist things around more. It's highly amusing to be able to do this.
> I wouldn't change it for the world.
I'll second that. This is a godawful long thread that I'm still wading
through, but I might as well add something to it. Regarding Epithet's issue
with not treating women sexually, I'll say that my approach has always been
to make friends with girls and see where it goes. I'd say the majority of
my friends are girls, but that's because of chance and because I get along
with them better, not because I'm seeking to get into their pants.
I've never been one to "hit on" a girl, because to me doing so seems very
predatory and doesn't come naturally at all. I wouldn't even know where to
begin without feeling foolish. Having in my mind all the criticisms of guys
who have a very predatory nature in such things, I wouldn't be able to take
myself seriously if I took that same approach.
I view sexual tension as an important and necessary part of social
interaction in general. Maybe it's not helpful a lot of the time, but it's
certainly there. One can't simply androgynize everyone in one's own mind
and try to ignore the issue. I just view it as a healthy part of any social
relationship. I can exchange double entendres with a female friend, and we
can implicitly or explicitly acknowledge or discuss our sexual natures
without objectifying each other, whether or not we have an interest in each
other.
I have friends who I'm attracted to who are unavailable, not interested, or
of an incompatible orientation, and I don't take measures to keep my
attraction secret (within the bounds of tact, of course), but that hasn't
harmed my friendship with them. It's understood, through my actions, that
I'm a mature individual and can deal with it. An attractive woman *expects*
a straight man to be attracted to her, and if he acts like he isn't it's
just that much more obvious that he's intimidated or otherwise afraid to
express his interest.
I think that by denying another person's sexuality, you deny a part of them,
and of yourself. Further, by isolating yourself sexually, you deny yourself
the opportunity to form a more realistic picture of what human sexual
interaction is really like. I didn't have a girlfriend until I was nearly
18, and I had plenty of time to build up resentment, fear, and unrealistic
expectations. When you convince yourself that love is unattainable (for
you), it becomes easy to project unreasonable ideals on it, or to tear down
the love you see in others. It's idealism associated with inexperience.
I've been there, and can tell you that experience does change one's outlook
quite a bit.
Anyway, I think I'll stop rambling. Incidentally, this isn't directed at
any one person, though it stemmed from Epithet's comments. I was just sort
of taking the idea and running with it. It only applies to you (gentle
reader) insomuch as you recognize yourself in my comments.
Myco
Mycophile
news:39b8c21a.21469100@news...
> >Every relationship in life is going to be man, woman, peer group. Bad
news:
>
> Not to _nearly_ the same extent, and the peer group is often much
> more mature and less outright malicious.
I'm sure your experiences are very valid, but you can't judge all college
peer groups by them. Reading your descriptions of them, I recognize nothing
of what I've experienced in college, and everything of what I'm familiar
with from stereotypes. If your peer group is immature and malicious, you
need to find a new one. There will always be people like that, in any walk
of life. The point is to avoid them.
Or maybe, being antisocial, you went in with expectations that people would
be like that, thus contributing to exactly what you dreaded, and coloring
your perceptions to make it seem even more so. A positive feedback loop
combined with a self-fulfilling prophecy.
ArKane
...at the speed of love, my heart comes back to you. (Or somesuch
like that)
ArKane
>"ArKane" <no...@invisible.org> wrote in message
>news:8FA8F41C6...@207.106.92.200...
>> I had a feeling if I could keep reading this I might find
>> something to add my 5 cents worth to. I can vouch for this
>> theory personally, most of my good friends are women, our
>> relation/friendship has nothing to do with sex. A side effect of
>> this is that with a few of them, flirting becomes a highly
>> involved game just to see who can twist things around more. It's
>> highly amusing to be able to do this. I wouldn't change it for
>> the world.
>
>I'll second that. This is a godawful long thread that I'm still
>wading through, but I might as well add something to it.
>Regarding Epithet's issue with not treating women sexually, I'll
>say that my approach has always been to make friends with girls
>and see where it goes. I'd say the majority of my friends are
>girls, but that's because of chance and because I get along with
>them better, not because I'm seeking to get into their pants.
>
[snippage]
>I think that by denying another person's sexuality, you deny a
>part of them, and of yourself. Further, by isolating yourself
>sexually, you deny yourself the opportunity to form a more
>realistic picture of what human sexual interaction is really like.
> I didn't have a girlfriend until I was nearly 18, and I had
>plenty of time to build up resentment, fear, and unrealistic
>expectations. When you convince yourself that love is
>unattainable (for you), it becomes easy to project unreasonable
>ideals on it, or to tear down the love you see in others. It's
>idealism associated with inexperience. I've been there, and can
>tell you that experience does change one's outlook quite a bit.
It's nice to know I'm not the only one that gets it. Sometimes it's
hard to keep that in mind, even when you know there has to be others.
On another note, does all this frank, and rather meaningful
discussion mean the NG is evolving? *LOL*
Rap
"Mycophile" <my...@u.washington.edu> wrote:
>
> I'd say the majority of my friends are girls, but that's because of chance
> and because I get along with them better, not because I'm seeking to get
> into their pants.
Is it OK if the majority of my friends are girls because I get along with them
better *and* because I'm seeking to get into their pants? Not in an active way
perhaps, but, as Harry said (spoiler for Epithet!) "You pretty much want to
nail them, too."
Myco, "You and I are very much alike. [AIF] is our religion, yet we have both
fallen from the pure faith. Our methods have not differed as much as you
pretend. I am but a shadowy reflection of you. It would take only a nudge to
make you like me. To push you out of the light."
(OK, maybe this would've worked better with Myco saying it to me.)
> I've never been one to "hit on" a girl, because to me doing so seems very
> predatory and doesn't come naturally at all. I wouldn't even know where to
> begin without feeling foolish. Having in my mind all the criticisms of guys
> who have a very predatory nature in such things, I wouldn't be able to take
> myself seriously if I took that same approach.
Aside from the fact that I just can't imagine it working! Maybe the problem is
terminology. "Hitting on" gives me an image of a guy saying, "You should []
with me because I'm so hot", whereas seduction is more like a guy saying, "You
should [] with me because *you* are so hot, and I make you feel wonderful."
(Think soft-spoken hunk with Italian accent.) No?
> I view sexual tension as an important and necessary part of social
> interaction in general. Maybe it's not helpful a lot of the time, but it's
> certainly there.
And it makes things so exciting! Cf. (dating myself here) Sam and Diane, David
& Maddie, Fox & Dana... I'm told that it can even appear, rarely, in RL.
> One can't simply androgynize everyone in one's own mind
> and try to ignore the issue.
One CAN. It may not be healthy, though.
> I just view it as a healthy part of any social relationship. I can exchange
> double entendres with a female friend, and we can implicitly or explicitly
> acknowledge or discuss our sexual natures without objectifying each other,
> whether or not we have an interest in each other.
Absolutely. Telling a woman she's sexy is by no means objectifying her. It's
treating her as if she's *only* a sex object (hence the phrase) that's a
problem.
> I have friends who I'm attracted to who are unavailable, not interested, or
> of an incompatible orientation, and I don't take measures to keep my
> attraction secret (within the bounds of tact, of course), but that hasn't
> harmed my friendship with them. It's understood, through my actions, that
> I'm a mature individual and can deal with it. An attractive woman *expects*
> a straight man to be attracted to her, and if he acts like he isn't it's
> just that much more obvious that he's intimidated or otherwise afraid to
> express his interest.
Mostly true. I think in some cases, you have to act like you aren't anyway.
Examples: at work, a priest, your aunt. But maybe you're including people like
that in your "within the bounds of tact".
(Very OT: most attractive women I know don't expect straight men to be
attracted to them, because they don't actually think they're attractive. Don't
get me started on Society.)
> I think that by denying another person's sexuality, you deny a part of them,
> and of yourself. Further, by isolating yourself sexually, you deny yourself
> the opportunity to form a more realistic picture of what human sexual
> interaction is really like. I didn't have a girlfriend until I was nearly
> 18, and I had plenty of time to build up resentment, fear, and unrealistic
> expectations. When you convince yourself that love is unattainable (for
> you), it becomes easy to project unreasonable ideals on it, or to tear down
> the love you see in others. It's idealism associated with inexperience.
Good call!
Rap
no...@invisible.org (ArKane) wrote:
>
> [snippage]
>
> On another note, does all this frank, and rather meaningful
> discussion mean the NG is evolving? *LOL*
I sure hope not!
But we do seem to be having a bunch of non-AIFly discussions, some of which
might not be comfortable for me to have with my usual conversational
companions, which is nice.
And since the Real AIF Authors seem to be making plenty of progress while we
take up ng bandwidth, I figure we're not doing any harm.
ArKane
>But we do seem to be having a bunch of non-AIFly discussions, some
>of which might not be comfortable for me to have with my usual
>conversational companions, which is nice.
Right. In-depth, yet OT discussion. Hell, we're sounding like RAIF!
*ROFL* (Ok, so their IDOT posting isn't this meaningful. Wooo! We're
better 'n them ;)
>And since the Real AIF Authors seem to be making plenty of
>progress while we take up ng bandwidth, I figure we're not doing
>any harm.
Well yes, there's that too. And I just got another idea that I have
to go back and respond to.
Epithet
then, but I'll try not to do it in an in-depth discussion _about_ me
again. :)
On Sat, 9 Sep 2000 18:11:36 -0700, "Mycophile" <my...@u.washington.edu>
wrote:
>I'll second that. This is a godawful long thread that I'm still wading
>through, but I might as well add something to it. Regarding Epithet's issue
>with not treating women sexually, I'll say that my approach has always been
>to make friends with girls and see where it goes. I'd say the majority of
>my friends are girls, but that's because of chance and because I get along
>with them better, not because I'm seeking to get into their pants.
Ah. Makes sense. I still have a juvinile sense of awkwardness
around women, especially attractive ones, so I don't have as many
close female friends as men. I see your point, though.
>I've never been one to "hit on" a girl, because to me doing so seems very
>predatory and doesn't come naturally at all. I wouldn't even know where to
Nor me, for same reasons.
>I view sexual tension as an important and necessary part of social
>interaction in general. Maybe it's not helpful a lot of the time, but it's
>certainly there. One can't simply androgynize everyone in one's own mind
>and try to ignore the issue. I just view it as a healthy part of any social
>relationship. I can exchange double entendres with a female friend, and we
>can implicitly or explicitly acknowledge or discuss our sexual natures
>without objectifying each other, whether or not we have an interest in each
>other.
Fair enough. I actually agree with this, now that I think about it.
>I have friends who I'm attracted to who are unavailable, not interested, or
>of an incompatible orientation, and I don't take measures to keep my
>attraction secret (within the bounds of tact, of course), but that hasn't
>harmed my friendship with them. It's understood, through my actions, that
>I'm a mature individual and can deal with it. An attractive woman *expects*
>a straight man to be attracted to her, and if he acts like he isn't it's
>just that much more obvious that he's intimidated or otherwise afraid to
>express his interest.
Again, makes sense.
>I think that by denying another person's sexuality, you deny a part of them,
>and of yourself. Further, by isolating yourself sexually, you deny yourself
>the opportunity to form a more realistic picture of what human sexual
>interaction is really like. I didn't have a girlfriend until I was nearly
>18, and I had plenty of time to build up resentment, fear, and unrealistic
>expectations. When you convince yourself that love is unattainable (for
>you), it becomes easy to project unreasonable ideals on it, or to tear down
>the love you see in others. It's idealism associated with inexperience.
>I've been there, and can tell you that experience does change one's outlook
>quite a bit.
I don't have _any_ resentment, fear or unrealistic expectations WRT
women - honestly. At least not in more than negligible amounts. There
is a difference between the fear/resentment/illusion triangle and
simple social awkwardness. I have the latter, not the former; I'm
quite sure of this. I do feel that I know myself and that I'm fairly
honest about by faults, which I certainly do have.
With regard to love, I don't believe that it's
"unattainable" in the cynical sense you describe here - at least, I
believe very strongly in empathy, passion, communication, bonding and
the other things other people would call facets of love. If anything,
I think I have a *better* chance of achieving those things than most
people because I'm not afraid to express emotions to a friend, to cry
when I'm down, to talk about my feelings or to trust other people and
open myself to intimacy. Part of the reason I have gotten as
antisocial as I have is that I'm _willing_ to expose my feelings and
weaknesses and such. Before, I wasn't careful who I exposed them
to, and so I ended up hurt. That doesn't mean I am, or want to be,
closed and cynical by need - it just means I show one face to the
world, and another to people I trust or respect - like my close
friends, my parents and you folk.
The reason I don't believe in love is because I consider it to be
an "unrealistic ideal" - something everybody talks about that doesn't
really have any meaning. Love *doesn't* entail intimacy, and least
not the instances of it that other people have pointed to as being
love, AFAICT. It also doesn't entail respect. Marriage sure as hell
doesn't entail either, nor does family.
>Anyway, I think I'll stop rambling. Incidentally, this isn't directed at
>any one person, though it stemmed from Epithet's comments. I was just sort
>of taking the idea and running with it. It only applies to you (gentle
>reader) insomuch as you recognize yourself in my comments.
Fair enough.
**Epithet**
Epithet
wrote:
>In article <9685479...@news.zipcon.net>,
> "Mycophile" <my...@u.washington.edu> wrote:
>
>Is it OK if the majority of my friends are girls because I get along with them
>better *and* because I'm seeking to get into their pants? Not in an active way
>perhaps, but, as Harry said (spoiler for Epithet!) "You pretty much want to
>nail them, too."
IMO, sure - see below.
>Aside from the fact that I just can't imagine it working! Maybe the problem is
>terminology. "Hitting on" gives me an image of a guy saying, "You should []
>with me because I'm so hot", whereas seduction is more like a guy saying, "You
>should [] with me because *you* are so hot, and I make you feel wonderful."
>(Think soft-spoken hunk with Italian accent.) No?
Amen to seduction! Seriously, I think the difference here is that
one approach entails respect, while the other doesn't. The former
is an attempt to use another person for your own pleasure; the
latter is an invitation to mutual pleasure though an open agreement.
At least, AFAICT. Also, hitting on someone focuses on your own
ego, while (this kind of) seduction focuses on the other person's
ego and feelings.
>Absolutely. Telling a woman she's sexy is by no means objectifying her. It's
>treating her as if she's *only* a sex object (hence the phrase) that's a
>problem.
More than this, I think there's a difference between "sex object"
and a sexy lady. It's fine, IMO, to interact only in a sexual context,
as long as you pay the partner the respect a human being deserves,
she also desires such interaction and the context is proper. It's when
the respect goes away - the girl ceases to be an intimate partner and
becomes an object used to achieve one-sided pleasure - that the
problems begin.
>(Very OT: most attractive women I know don't expect straight men to be
>attracted to them, because they don't actually think they're attractive. Don't
>get me started on Society.)
I understand perfectly.
**Epithet**
Epithet
wrote:
>I agree that we're getting circular here. Maybe you & I just had different
>college experiences. All I can say is that while society *affected* many
>people's relationships, I think the main reason people dated was that they
>wanted -- I believe your phrase was, "friendship, empathy, and sex". Maybe
>some of them wanted commitment too, although nowadays I think college is
>considered more a time of experimentation, so that going out with no
>expectation of commitment is fine, as long as both sides realize that's what
>it is. (I might even go so far as to say that commitment could add to a
>relationship's friendship, empathy, and sex, but we would probably get into an
>argument again. Would it help if I said I meant commitment and not
>Commitment?)
It seems a very sterile, callous type of experimentation to me.
I am honestly starting to think that many of the most sensitive
and morally righteous people congregate in alternate sexual
communities - this newsgroup, the WAM groups, a friend of
mine who is into this kind of thing, and so forth. I suppose that
only people that are willing to truly *talk* about sex and sexual
issues come to such places, and those people are markedly
more emotionally active because they aren't as repressed. It
makes sense in a wierd way. :)
>Define life.
The state of organic matter whereby it maintains itself by
processing outside matter in cycles in a manner consistant
with established biological orginisms.
> Define intelligence.
The ability, or relative capacity to, process information is
an analytical manner and to identify and comprehend cause
and effect relationships.
> Define self-consciousness.
1. The capacity for awareness of one's own existance in an
external, non-immediate sense; also, the ability to engage
in introspection.
2. Awkwardness or lack of confidance with regard to social
situations.
> Fun
The state of enjoyment - desirable experiences - with the
connotation of a whimsical, childlike or short-term sense of
fulfillment.
> morality,
The study of which actions are proper and which are not in
an ethical context.
>goodness
The quality of a person or structure promoting morally justified
acts.
> justice
A moral paradigm with emphasis on fairness above empathy or
pragmatism.
>But anyway, it seems like you're saying society *has* defined love, but you
>find the definition empty and not really worth making great sacrifices for.
Yes. Rather, society has *warped* the concept of love into
something less centered on sincere human communication
(which, IMO, is what words are /for/) and has changed it into
a lever with which to extract social stability and to prevent
socially destructive acts. Love is all about sociology and
pragmatism, when you pare it down. It's macroscopic, not
personal.
Another way to put it: once love was a powerful word. Now,
it has been misused, redefined and watered down to the extent
where a claim of love is more an affectionate gesture than a real
statement. I use words like empathy and intimacy because they
touch many of the same ideas without having been made as banal
by pop culture as love has.
>Heh. Good point. I often wonder what positions on porn I can safely espouse in
>conversations with RL people without getting in trouble.
Me too.
>I'm not sure if you've got an overly dark picture of college, or an overly
>rosy picture of post-college. Look at world politics & tell me they're acting
>mature -- a friend of mine once said it's all four-year-olds in a sandbox.
I never claimed to want to find intimacy or potential lovers in
the forum of world political interaction. Although it would make
an interesting if dark AIF...
>IMO, the vast majority of stable families really are stable. There are
>obviously some major exceptions, and no family's perfect, but I think it's
>better than the alternative. (Maybe I don't know the alternative. Certainly
>having two people invested in raising a child seems more likely to offer that
>child what it needs than having just one. For example.)
Stable, perhaps. Intimate? No. Anyway, this is a matter of personal
opinion, so lets not butt heads. For the record, my family is (now)
the exception to the rule, in that it is both respectful and intimate.
This is not "bad childhood issues." It's the _other_ families I've
seen that scare me shitless.
**Epithet**
Chazz
Nothing wierd about it. It's like that episode of South Park: "I've never
done drugs, and I can tell you they're horrible! I mean look at me, I've
never touched it and I'm in perfect health!" Only in reverse. By the way,
I'm about to stick my nose in where it probably don't belong, but oh well.
> >Define life.
>
> The state of organic matter whereby it maintains itself by
> processing outside matter in cycles in a manner consistant
> with established biological orginisms.
Or: That annoying, boring and sometimes painful period of time between birth
and death. (see Conciousness: that annoying period of time between sleep)
> > Define intelligence.
>
> The ability, or relative capacity to, process information is
> an analytical manner and to identify and comprehend cause
> and effect relationships.
Something people confuse with being smart. (chew on that one a while, I'll
be back later to explain.)
> > Define self-consciousness.
>
> 1. The capacity for awareness of one's own existance in an
> external, non-immediate sense; also, the ability to engage
> in introspection.
>
> 2. Awkwardness or lack of confidance with regard to social
> situations.
>
> > Fun
>
> The state of enjoyment - desirable experiences - with the
> connotation of a whimsical, childlike or short-term sense of
> fulfillment.
From a Judeo/Christian view: sin.
> > morality,
>
> The study of which actions are proper and which are not in
> an ethical context.
The effort to not have fun.
> >goodness
>
> The quality of a person or structure promoting morally justified
> acts.
>
> > justice
>
> A moral paradigm with emphasis on fairness above empathy or
> pragmatism.
Wow, lots of big words in that one..... ;)
> >But anyway, it seems like you're saying society *has* defined love, but
you
> >find the definition empty and not really worth making great sacrifices
for.
>
> Yes. Rather, society has *warped* the concept of love into
> something less centered on sincere human communication
> (which, IMO, is what words are /for/) and has changed it into
> a lever with which to extract social stability and to prevent
> socially destructive acts. Love is all about sociology and
> pragmatism, when you pare it down. It's macroscopic, not
> personal.
>
> Another way to put it: once love was a powerful word. Now,
> it has been misused, redefined and watered down to the extent
> where a claim of love is more an affectionate gesture than a real
> statement. I use words like empathy and intimacy because they
> touch many of the same ideas without having been made as banal
> by pop culture as love has.
Very well put.
> >Heh. Good point. I often wonder what positions on porn I can safely
espouse in
> >conversations with RL people without getting in trouble.
>
> Me too.
>
> >I'm not sure if you've got an overly dark picture of college, or an
overly
> >rosy picture of post-college. Look at world politics & tell me they're
acting
> >mature -- a friend of mine once said it's all four-year-olds in a
sandbox.
>
> I never claimed to want to find intimacy or potential lovers in
> the forum of world political interaction. Although it would make
> an interesting if dark AIF...
>
> >IMO, the vast majority of stable families really are stable. There are
> >obviously some major exceptions, and no family's perfect, but I think
it's
> >better than the alternative. (Maybe I don't know the alternative.
Certainly
> >having two people invested in raising a child seems more likely to offer
that
> >child what it needs than having just one. For example.)
>
> Stable, perhaps. Intimate? No. Anyway, this is a matter of personal
> opinion, so lets not butt heads.
I thought that's what newsgroups were all about?
> For the record, my family is (now)
> the exception to the rule, in that it is both respectful and intimate.
> This is not "bad childhood issues." It's the _other_ families I've
> seen that scare me shitless.
My parents never hit me as a kid.
"Oh, they were so loving..."
No, I JUST DIDN'T DO ANYTHING THAT NECESSITATED IT!!!
Rap
slip...@hotmail.com (Epithet) wrote:
> On Fri, 08 Sep 2000 18:58:21 GMT, Rap <raprap...@my-deja.com>
> wrote:
>
> >nowadays I think college is
> >considered more a time of experimentation, so that going out with no
> >expectation of commitment is fine, as long as both sides realize that's what
> >it is.
>
As Myco said, I guess you had different college experiences. Luck of the draw
& all that. I could call college a lot of things, but "sterile" is most
definitely not one of them.
> >Define life.
"Life. Don't even talk to me about life."
> > Fun
>
> The state of enjoyment - desirable experiences - with the
> connotation of a whimsical, childlike or short-term sense of
> fulfillment.
[other definitions snipped]
I couldn't tell whether you were giving dictionary definitions as a joke or
not. IMO, a dictionary definition of fun, or goodness, or morality, helps not
at all in giving a person an idea of what it is. Same thing with love. You
learn by living it. My song lyric examples may have been silly, but I was
trying to show that love is lots of different things to different people. And
yet, lots of people agree it's generally a Good Thing.
> >But anyway, it seems like you're saying society *has* defined love, but you
> >find the definition empty and not really worth making great sacrifices for.
>
> Yes. Rather, society has *warped* the concept of love into something less
> centered on sincere human communication and has changed it into a lever with
> which to extract social stability and to prevent socially destructive acts.
You talk as if social stability is bad. (Perhaps you mean social stagnation.)
> Love is all about sociology and pragmatism, when you pare it down. It's
> macroscopic, not personal.
Sorry, I disagree. Can't love be about macroscopic *and* personal? About
friendship *and* sex? You say "when you pare it down" but I think you've pared
so much there's nothing left. Sure, lots of people get married to save rent
money, or because they're expected to, or whatever else. But I think you
should give people a little more credit. Some people get married because they
really want to spend the rest of their lives with one particular person.
I guess you'll argue it's stupid to make that decision; why not just spend as
much time as you feel like, and when you're done, you can leave? Well, with
divorce as easy as it is nowadays, we essentially have that situation. And
arranged marriages are less popular, and there's less of a stigma on being
single. So I would argue we're moving *towards*, not away from, love being
significant.
> Another way to put it: once love was a powerful word.
When? When the idea of romantic love was invented in medieval times and
essentially meant worshipping someone you barely knew from afar and
sacrificing stuff for them? When parents chose spouses for their children?
When gay people had to pretend they loved people of other gender to conform?
When was this Golden Age of Love you speak of?
> Now, it has been misused, redefined and watered down to the extent where a
> claim of love is more an affectionate gesture than a real statement. I use
> words like empathy and intimacy because they touch many of the same ideas
> without having been made as banal by pop culture as love has.
You're letting the bad guys win again. *Some* people mean nothing at all by
love. The same way that China is aka The People's Republic. And that other
countries call themselves democracies. The fact that they're twisting the
meaning of democracy doesn't mean Americans should stop using the word. On the
contrary, we should fight to restore its proper meaning by using it
aggressively, but only to mean real democracy. Find yourself a woman you can
have empathy and intimacy with, and she'll know that when *you* say "I love
you" you mean it a lot more than The Backstreet Boys do.
Pop culture has made *everything* banal. The answer is not to forswear the
good stuff.
> >I'm not sure if you've got an overly dark picture of college, or an overly
> >rosy picture of post-college. Look at world politics & tell me they're acting
> >mature -- a friend of mine once said it's all four-year-olds in a sandbox.
>
> I never claimed to want to find intimacy or potential lovers in
> the forum of world political interaction. Although it would make
> an interesting if dark AIF...
Congratulations on your first YANNI. (The swinger idea doesn't count, because
it's actually a work in progress.)
But anyway, that wasn't my point. World politics was just one example of
something you'd think would be mature. You can say the same about domestic
politics, or the business world, or PTAs, or baseball. Adults in all walks of
life very often act like children. In college, at least the university
administration is in theory trying to make the environment a nice one. You
have no such assurance when you go to work for a big company, say. Or play in
a softball league.
> >IMO, the vast majority of stable families really are stable.
>
> Stable, perhaps. Intimate? No. Anyway, this is a matter of personal
> opinion, so lets not butt heads.
Yeah, OK. I'll just mention that part of the reason this discussion is so
complicated is that we're talking about love between "partners" and love
within a family, which are very different things.