The Feminist Dilemma

Yeah, right, you think. A porn producer with a feminist dilemma. Well, crawl down to the bottom and start reading how I got here, before you judge. And secondly, yeah, it's totally possible. And I'll explain why.


I know, this stuff doesn't look like it's catering to feminism, does it? And, admittedly, the game or interactive novel is intended to reach a male audience with one thing on their mind. As per usual, one could argue.
Before I continue I should explain that the current active beta is

1. one branch of a game setting or framework that has(so far) two branches; the development demo preceding this branch is simply disabled to reach the most recent production stage first and exclusively and 
2. in early stages, which means the foundation of the various story lines and resulting (possible) interactions is established but the story in itself, the extent of the narratives is extremely limited. This might give you the idea it's just plain superficial and stupid, which it is, at the moment but that's not going to stay that way. The various roles you can choose for the protagonist will have a more profound effect on character relation and development thereof.

Now, that being said; the Feminist Dilemma. So, ok, sure, I'm a man, I like porn (my wife knows and doesn't mind) and am frequently disappointed by how shallow it is, especially where games are concerned, which is why I started to code this to begin with. But worse than disappointed, I'm frequently infuriated by some of the behaviours, attitudes and plain assumptions that are considered to be normal, and thus become norm. This is teaching men and boys the wrong thing. So, in my game, there comes a time (depending on which character you've selected to play) that you get to comment on the girl's outfit and subsequently have to respond to her reaction. And this you can get wrong. Check out the screen-shot below.

Yup. You got it wrong. You can't judge a girl by what she's wearing, that's none of your business and you should treat her according to her actions and what she's saying. The protagonists admits as much but still has to start over. No excuses.

I'm assuming there's plenty of users who will find this annoying. The girl looks like a slut, right, and she's in a bleedin' porn game, what does she expect. Well, the same thing as when she comes home with somebody after clubbing in a figure hugging dress and that's not to be raped. No matter what she's wearing.

Angering potential users of this game, especially when you're poor as dirt and months if not weeks away from living under a bridge might not be the smartest of moves. But I will not do rape, I will not do non-consensual and even if my characters are or have to be, in this context, somewhat shallow, stupid or predictable there will come moments that my morals and ethics start protesting and I'll point out some horrible misconceptions, often indeed reiterated by porn.

That's when my feminist dilemma kicks in.

Deal with it.