This project explores the concept of sexual play, understood as actions motivated to satisfying an individual’s desire (Paasonen, 2018), within queer pornographic video games. With a focus on gay men/sex, this project analyses these games and their framing of play through sexual scripting – a lens that interrogates the prescribing of sexual conduct and activity (Marshall et al, 2018: 16). Using a mixed-method approach of textual analysis that is engaged with queer virtual and autoethnographic perspectives, it questions how play and agency is structured for the player and their sexual behaviours, focusing on in-game representations, mechanics, and play experiences.

Links

Twitter: @harriresearches

Birmingham Centre for Media & Cultural Studies: Game Cultures research cluster

Blog: More than just “hot coffee”