I think that this is a muddy topic that gaming doesn't deal with very well. Is it "consensual" to be able to talk a specific character into boning you by using walkthroughs/guides/etc and does it gamify sex? I don't particularly have the answer but I've had great discussions on it.
I've personally never understood how the question of consent comes up in these discussions, we're dealing with interactive fiction, everything happens subject to our willing disbelief and is help by the illusion of choice, that said I'm very much against the kind of writing you're talking about that treats relationships as very one sided, with rare exceptions in RPGs you are always the active participant in any interaction with your companions, and since the advent of "friendship points" a very unrealistc meta-game around relationshipping takes over from what should be something driven by roleplaying, you know like you would hope would be a big part in a (R)ole(P)laying (G)ame *sigh*
You just explained it to yourself: everything happens to our willing disbelief. It is interactive and some individuals think about sexual politics as they play their games. Some individuals don't find it believable that NPCs around you would want to have sex with you for various reasons, and the only one that brings them over the line is because you're the main character in the story (the only person that has agency due to being the player). This, again, depends on what game we're talking aboutn
I'm honestly not really sure what the rest of your post is saying but I'm going to try my best.
I don't know if I agree that a "call-response" type of interaction is active participation. It is what we are limited to due to the medium but the NPCs typically only interject their story once you've gotten enough relationship responses with them thus leading to a companion quest in which you complete to gain access to the sex scene/relationship or at specific points in the story. Very few games have random interjections where the character tries to parse out what type of person you are, we assume it happens over the course of the travels but we don't know that to be sure. The approval system is a way to truncate this but I don't believe it's effective and doesn't combat the game-yness of the situation. Your character takes the lead in 90% of interactions because, narrative and design wise, that's how it has to happen. To me, that's not anything even remotely like a relationship. It's not necessarily about the points, it's about the gameplay design that puts sex/companionship as a task list.
Essentially, role-playing games are about taking roles. Sometimes people like to put themselves into roles they'll never have in real life and their are complications that can internally spark from that. Some people like playing a different role than themselves. I don't limit how other people play due to my preference to how I like to play games and, as such, discussions like this are very valuable to me.
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Rest at ease you've understood me perfectly, I was just commenting on exactly the thing you're talking about here, how these approval systems that truncate relationships don't reflect how relationships work but do reflect a worrying side effect of romance as 'feature' in games. People take them for granted, they don't roleplay into one, they choose who they think they like most then just pump their points up to see the content, very "game-y" , very dull and not conducive to good story-telling by the player or the writer.
By making that point about how the player is the only active party in the relationship I was criticising it, it's something you expect because of the medium yes, but it also creates this same dynamic, like you said, where players hit checkpoints by spamming the NPC, the NPC is 'activated' (give you dialogue/quest), you continue their story.
Very few games have random interjections where the character tries to parse out what type of person you are
'Very few' is generous and fucking annoying, there needs to be a real NPC revolution in RPG games if they want to keep making stories about them being characters in their own right, as opposed to hangers-on to the PC.
Your character takes the lead in 90% of interactions because, narrative and design wise, that's how it has to happen
I'm not sure I agree that it
has to be this way, playing with narrative control is something games haven't done, not something they can't do.
