Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback WOW so Baldur's Gate has gone from fun GAMe to borderline cartoon porn?

You know, I quite honestly think that the op is just a troll trying to stir people up. Notice how he is not out here anymore but we're still going with these posts.

Concern trolling is a thing : https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/concern_troll
I have also seen some "think of the children" rhetoric in this thread : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_of_the_children
Not to belittle anyone legitimate opinion on this subject of course.

More or less.


That being from the US doesn't mean prude by default. I'm a 60 year old biker, and it's really irritating to see "I bet you're from the US because x". If you can't counter an argument any other way, then why try? So far, the PC Police haven't been at my door, wanting to arrest me for something I've said in this or any other topic, so far. They haven't been here to arrest me because I bought a game that has sex in it either and I live in the Bible Belt. If it was going to happen anywhere in the US, this would be the place. So, by all means call out positions you disagree with, but stick to the arguments, instead of attacking point of origin, because no matter what you believe, you might be over-estimating the value of that statement. You say you're not a prude, and I'm definitely not, and we're both from the US, how much value did "I bet you're from the US" bring to the conversation?

Okay. I want to make one thing clear because it keeps coming up again and again.

It is not about being prude for the sake of being prude or religious for the sake of being religious - just because someone wants to be better than someone else or more holy or some sort of nonsense like that. Just because someone is from the US, or the Bible belt, or whatever, and they believe in certain moral standards, doesn't mean that they are upholding such standards just because they feel like it. I mean, some are, of course, upholding such standards because that's what they've been taught and nothing more, but there is a valid reason why people like me are doing this kind of thing. I am not out here speaking up about this kind of thing so that I can be persecuted or attacked or so that people will praise me for being righteous or holy or whatever. I do not enjoy this, actually.

The reason for my stance (and why many are "prude" about such things) is because of this concept: We are trying to look out for others who are weak against certain temptations to help them NOT commit criminal acts as a result OR that may cause them to destroy their lives. It is this concept and reason that leads me and others (again not everyone, obviously) to speak up.

Sex is different from violence because most individuals can watch hours and hours of violence and not be affected by it in the slightest. Meanwhile, turn on an explicit sex scene, and within fifteen seconds everyone in the room is feeling the heat. With some, it doesn't even take that long. Sexual desire is strong, and it demands instant gratification. Without a healthy way of appeasing said desire, many people - not just a few - turn to buying it or worse; rape or molestation. I have also known people, and heard plenty of stories, about how because someone could not control their sexual appetites, they ruined their marriages. They either wanted their spouse to give them something they saw in media, and that spouse was unwilling to do it because they didn't like it or felt wrong about it, or they felt their spouse wasn't giving them enough sex, or whatever the reason. When their spouses put on weight and no longer live up to the images of men or women that are displayed in media, they become dissatisfied and "fall out of love" with them. Some hunger for sex so much because they see it everywhere that as soon as a coworker or friend starts hitting on them, they struggle to resist such temptations.

Now, that's, of course, not everyone, but that's not the point. Because I and others care, and because we don't want to see our brothers and sisters and friends destroy their lives, we speak out against such explicit sex scenes being in media. We may not be as vocal about violence, but again it is because it doesn't instantly spark intense feelings and urges.

So, again, the point of this is to say that people like me are not speaking out against this kind of stuff because we're just being prude. I'm speaking out because it pains me deeply when I speak with people who work in the anti-sex trafficking ministry and I hear about all the terrible things those men and women go through who are being kidnapped and forced to sell themselves because there are a LOT of people who can't control their sexual appetites. It also pains me when I hear about marriages being destroyed because someone can't control their sexual appetites and they go and cheat on their spouses and so forth. It's because I care about people and I've seen and heard too much to deny that sex in media has a great impact on men and women of any age. A single nude image can spark intense lust and cause someone to do something stupid.

And just to be totally clear, I highly doubt this is the reason that the OP created this post. Again, I'm fairly certain he was just being a troll to stir people up. I'm only saying all this because people keep attacking the US and the Bible belt and Christians in general by expressing their frustration that we're all just being prudes. Some of us are, but not all of us.

And for those who want to knit pick the definition, let's clearly define a prude: "a person who is or claims to be easily shocked by matters relating to sex or nudity." Lord knows, I am not shocked by it. I simply don't approve of it, nor do I like seeing it or hearing about it being in media.

idk about everyone else by my understanding is that this post has somewhat transcended op's initial concerns and is more about how to implement explicit scenes and interactions in a constructive manner rather than pearl clutching.
op seems to be gone.
anyone can take this thread in whatever direction they want.
it would be encouraged especially if that direction is more construction feedback than freaking out.
or chastising op, who is clearly gone.

That's true until someone new comes in hot from the title and the OP

This is a very typical of this sort of stance though - instead of working on our response and why we respond to that sort of thing we instead insist that the item in question be removed. You see, its women not wearing enough clothing that is the problem, not our response to and view of women. Its that there are people who are sex workers not our need to visit sex workers in the first place. You will exhaust yourself trying to police the world, and probably piss off everyone in the process.

To me it smacks of a lack of maturity, education and self-control. We can't have honest conversations about women's health because some men are offended by the terminology we use for parts of female anatomy. So lets not have the conversations and just ignore those needs.

If someone is "weak", help them become strong. Get them into therapy.

Also, go watch Moral Orel. It's great!

Y'know, if your original response had been this articulate instead of resorting to a weird ad-hominem reverse-flex about pussy you didn't get, I think we could have initially had a much more constructive conversation about this. For now, I'll move past that and pretend like it didn't happen to discuss the actual points you make here. But please reread my original post, as my concern wasn't based solely on where OP is from and I did fully counter their argument before even bringing up their location, which I mentioned as an aside to portray the social attitudes towards nudity and sexuality in the US (see below).

I never said that being from the US implies being a prude by default, and I primarily listed my reasons for disagreeing with OP without blaming anything on the country they might be from. But the secondary point that I made, and the issue that I will argue, is that being from the US DOES contribute to an unhealthy mindset concerning sex and nudity, compared to say Europe (this is imprtant as I'll mention later). It's pretty easy to see this mentality; head over to your local park there in the bible belt and ask any woman who has children how safe she feels breastfeeding in public. Then make your way over to any middle/high school and ask the teaching staff if sexual health and safety is a part of their curriculum at all, as opposed to abstinence as the only teaching methodology. Then look to see if there are any nude-friendly beaches or hot springs around your area, and while you're already on Google check how many cases of sexual assault are blamed on "what she was wearing" or any other similar excuse, and see how many of the offenders get away with it. The point is, as a society in the US, we stigmatize sex, and are substantially more accepting with violence. There isn't really even a mainstream concept in most places here of non-sexual nudity. Now again, this is very generalized, and myabe your friends and social circles are different (as are mine) but that doesn't make it any less of an issue for our mainstream society.

To answer your last question, my intention was not to over-generalize every person in the US, but the "point of origin" of the original argument, as you mentioned, is pertinent to the conversation. I think it is important to understand that Larian is not a US studio and the origins of OP's original comment are least tangentially related to the concern here (I'd argue more than tangentially related but because I'm an evolving, learning human being, I'm not so rigid in my viewpoints that I'd refuse to have a conversation about it). Someone in Belgium might be less likely to even attempt to make the same argument as OP, because likely they could walk across the street to the public nude beach right, or down to the legal sex-work district in their town (some hyperbole but you get the point).

@Black If I understand you correctly here, I agree with you. People "not being able to control their sexual appetites" is a symptom, not a cause, it's a terrible fucking argument/stance, and it's a piece of what I'm discussing in my original post. We have an unhealthy social mindset concerning sex and nudity, and too many people want to sweep it under the rug instead of talking about it or getting help. A huge piece of that is that we've stigmatized sex.

I don't have the energy to tackle all of your post @GM4Him and I appreciate the time and effort you put into the response, but it reads very much as a victim-blamey persecution complex. You don't punish everyone for things that only a few people do, and if the conversations around sex were more open people might feel more comfortable confronting them. If your platform is as you stated above, "We are trying to look out for others who are weak against certain temptations to help them NOT commit criminal acts as a result OR that may cause them to destroy their lives. It is this concept and reason that leads me and others (again not everyone, obviously) to speak up," then it feels like your focus should be more on getting those individuals help so that something as normal as human sexuality isn't triggering them to commit crimes.

So, you have it on good authority that these criminal activities are caused by sex in video games? What about the terrible things that happened to people in ancient Rome? Did they have video games, and we just didn't know, or is it more likely that it's part of the human condition? If someone's having a problem with this kind of thing, they, or their families, need to take the steps to get the help they need. It is not your responsibility, or moral obligation, to say what should or should not be published in a video game because "but these people". They would be better served with boots on the ground trying to help them, than trying to change a video game that some, or most of them will most likely never even see.

We are in agreement.

I did not say "sex in video games" I said sex in media, and Rome was full of sexual promiscuity, violence and loose morals on every front. Why was Rome the way it was? Because they didn't care about the morals of one another. And that's exactly where the "civilized" world as a whole is going. People don't care that certain things cause others to have issues. They've adopted the attitude of "Ah just grow up," and "that's not my problem, it's yours" not realizing that maturity and age have nothing to do with people struggling to control themselves. You can be 80 years old and still struggling with the same things you struggled with at 15.

All I did in Latin class is have old men rant at me about the downfall of society and the promiscuity of women. People certainly cared. Though, their solution was like yours. Force it all away. Needless to say, it did not work. You can't force human sexuality to not awaken.

BDSM lovers in poly relationships are not more prone to mental Illness, so I don't think openness towards sex causes mental problems... or rape.

Side comment
LATIN GANG RISE UP

I know you "feel" that this is true because you watched Gladiator and are now an internet expert, but its really not. Sexuality in Rome was subject to certain complex moral and ethical standards. I am not going to get into it because it would be a dissertation and you wouldn't understand it or read it anyway. If you decide to educate yourself, start with Gibbon and go from there.

Also, other people are not subject to your personal religious morals. If it doesn't violate the law or the social contract it's not our responsibility. You are of course welcome to not play the game, which may be the easier option here.

What media did they have in Ancient Rome? None. So, as I postulated, it's just part of the human condition. We are all of us born with these urges, some act on them in one way, some in other ways, others try to suppress them in others, for their own good... Media quite obviously had nothing to do with it. I don't see it as not my problem, I see it as not my business. I guess that's not entirely true, because someone's sex addiction isn't my problem, unless I'm in a relationship with them, or directly related. Some poor soul in Arizona struggling with this isn't on me where I live. It's also not on me to assign blame for how they came to have these issues. Maybe, instead of "sex in media", it was an abusive parent, or maybe they were totally neglected, or spoiled? Maybe they're just a sick bleep.

For all of that, you once did a thread where you suggested a fade to black for the sex scenes. I was 100% on board with that optional feature. At the time, I even stated that I might even use it myself, since pixel sex really isn't my thing. I'm not fussed about it one way or another, but I'm also not on board for crusades with "think of the (insert group here)". I'm not down with trying to exert my will onto others, whether it's "nope, you can't have that black screen" or "remove the sex", or anything in between. I'm down for letting game studios make the games they want to make, and if it doesn't appeal to me, I won't buy it. But I also won't be going to their forums with "you need to change x if you want me to buy your game". I would expect to get a reply, publicly or privately telling me that I can just spend my money elsewhere.

Please note:

- Prostitutes (and sometimes entertainers and actors) were not given this legal protection and the rape of a slave would only be considered a crime of property damage against the slave’s owner.

- Males were allowed to sleep around as much as they liked so long as their mistress was unmarried, or, if they were with a boy, he was over a certain age.

- Brothels, prostitutes and dancing girls were all considered to be ‘fair game’, as were older males – on the condition that he was to be submissive.

- Children were protected from sexual activity, but ONLY if they were freeborn Roman citizens.

- Prostitution was legal and endemic. Slaves were considered as much their master’s property in sexual terms as they were economically.

And finally, here is your Roman media:

The Romans wrote about sex in their literature, comedy, letters, speeches and poetry. There seems to have been no low-culture taboo attached to writing – or otherwise depicting – sex frankly. The finest writers and artists were happy to indulge.

Roman art is filled with images that would today be regarded as pornographic. In Pompeii, erotic mosaics, statues and frescoes (used to illustrate this piece) are found not only in known brothels and bath houses which may have been places of business for prostitutes, but also in private residences, where they are given pride of place.

There are erotically-charged objects almost everywhere in the suffocated city. This was something that the Romans could cope with, but not modern Europeans – many such discoveries were kept largely under lock and key in a Naples museum until 2005.



Yeah. Rome was great. We should be like them.

But I've never studied Rome.

Would you like more articles?

Edit: I took the link I originally used out because apparently it has nasty pics. Ugh!

As far as I can tell, this matches up with the basics one learns in high school. You should be familiar with the attempts to stomp out "depravity" in the city and why they failed if your knowledge goes beyond that.

Considering this information, and the prevalence of sex crimes in countries... where men are protected from uncovered women and sex at all times... It's hard to understand why you think it would work.

Bruh. This thread has gone through like 5 distinct topics of convo related to sex/nudity, each of them somehow more wild than the last.

Well, I didn't see "you know where people had tacky sex everywhere? Rome" coming, but I /am/ looking forward to page 30

What will we be arguing about on page 30? single choice
	Aliens puppeting this thread to study human psychology
	The merits of hentai over anal
	The problematic age gap custom Tav could create and how this harms both the elderly as well as minors
	Was Jesus Shizuncoded and what does that mean for Judas
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