Sexplaythings
Rules and instructions for
seven sex-games
Eric
Zimmerman
You hold in
your hands a design magazine devoted to sex. Sex and design?
Should sex be designed? Can sex be designed? I don’t mean the
accessories of the sexual act – sexy garments, overspecialized furniture, battery-operated
toys – but the very act itself.
As a game
designer, sex offers itself up as a vast, juicy, untasted subject for design
experimentation. Games are rational systems of rules and regulations, boundaries
and goals, winners and losers. Yet at the same time, games also embody play:
the supple permutations of improvisation, the syncopated dance of uncertainty.
Play questions, bends, and breaks the very rules that give rise to it.
And so it
is with sex. Rule-bound in complex webs of social etiquette and hormonal
biochemistry, sex emerges from ritual and convention, even as it unmakes those structures
in its own forms of play. A cozy coupling between these two essential human
endeavors, sex and games, would seem to be in the cards.
But I
haven’t yet seen a serious design investigation of games and sex. So to test
these virgin bedsprings, I present for your pleasure a pocketful of sex game concepts.
Some are formal game systems, with clearly defined rules and winning conditions.
Others are more like structured play. But all of them are functional prototypes
ready for you to playtest on your own. If you don’t end up following all the
rules, that’s perfectly understandable – in the moist heat of a well-played
game, rules often get quite slippery. Just remember to wear proper protective
gear and to practice safe play.
Couples
Eavesdroppings
A game for two intimate listeners. Play this game in any setting where you and your
fellow player are more or less shielded from prying eyes, but where you will be
able to overhear nearby conversations. Suitable locations include a clothing
store dressing room booth, a roomy bathroom stall, or an apartment with thin
walls and noisy neighbors. First-time players can try eavesdropping on a
television, for a low-risk practice game or two.
Your
behavior with your play-partner is determined by what you overhear. During a
silence or lull, make dirty conversation, loud enough for someone nearby to notice.
Every time the eavesdropped topic changes, remove a single garment and toss it
where it might be seen. For each overheard insult or disagreement, you both
must deliver one gentle kiss or touch – and for each compliment or tender word,
one pinch, slap or bite.
By mutual
consent, both players can adjust the rules according to the content of the
conversation, the circumstances of your setting, and the predilections of both
players. How long can you play without being detected? You score one point per
minute of anonymity. Half-points if you are discovered before you finish the
act. And double score for getting another pair of players to eavesdrop on you.
Arbitrary
Fetish Solitaire
This game
of random pleasure is for a single player only. Select a general-interest
magazine and open it to any page. Fixate on the first image you see, and let
the rest of the world fall away to the margins of your awareness. For the
duration of the game, this image represents the very essence of your desire,
the throbbing heart of your libido, your masturbatory mandala.
You know
what to do. To win, let the image guide you to the sweet satisfaction of
self-induced sexual climax. You can do it. Yes you can. Don’t cheat and use
your imagination. Okay, you can cheat a little bit, but the point is to enjoy
rewiring your desire. Trust me. It works. After mental sex with a strapping
SUV, a coyly submissive bottle of cough syrup, or a roomful of naughty Ethan
Allen recliners, fucking your own species in the real world will seem like a
lackluster alternative.
The
Chastity
Less a sex
game than a game premised on the very absence of sex, this grueling contest of
stamina and willpower is recommended only for those with a passion for long-distance
endurance. The rules of the game are simple: abstain from sex. (Rule clarification:
the challenge comes from knowing what you’re missing, so the sexually inexperienced
are not eligible to play.)
While solo
play can be useful for training, the more competitively nonsexual would do well
to organize contests of two or more players. Once the race begins, the goal is
to be the last one remaining in the game. Some winning strategies: fix up other
players with the most charming, attractive, successful singles you can find.
Buy them fancy new wardrobes, homes and cars. Arrange for them to be kidnapped
by prepaid prostitutes. Plus, all of that work will keep your mind off the fact
that you’re not getting any yourself.
As a game
design problem, the Chastity Marathon presents a curious paradox. What does it
mean to win? Those that remain in the race indefinitely never quite seem to
reap the pleasure of victory, while those that finally do lose usually enjoy
the circumstances of their defeat. Choose whatever strategy suits you. Just
remember: you may have been already playing this game for years and not even
know it.
Pretend Sex
This metaphysical
play activity is inspired by children’s’ classics like “House,” “Doctor,” and
“Cops and Robbers.” You can play this game anywhere and with anyone. Come to
think of it, there’s nothing wrong with playing Pretend Sex in a house, with a
doctor, and in the presence of real-life cops and robbers.
The goal of
this game is to play at having sex – but not really have sex. To play,
simulate as best you can the sounds, sights, and interactions of sex, by
yourself or with others, in any way you see fit. Go wild. Get busy. Do your
thing. Lions, tigers, and bears, oh my. You get the
idea. Just remember: you’re not having sex. You’re playing pretend. And if you do
get turned on and end up really having sex, you lose. Big
time.
You see, the
theory of General Relativity, the field of Semiotics, and Rod Sterling all
agree: apocalyptic things are bound to happen when signifier and signified get
mixed up. Nobody expects to raise a family playing House. Or cure cancer by
playing Doctor. So please, whatever you do, don’t get off playing Pretend Sex.
Probabilistic
Sex Role-Playing
One
existing sex phenomena comes quite close to games: the well-documented activity
of sex role-playing. The Dungeons & Dragons geeks of erotica, role-players spice
their sex with a dash of narrative flair. The problem is that the stories these
sex-gamers cook up are so impotently generic. Master and
slave; boss and secretary; cowboy and Indian. Yawn, yawn, yawn. If you’re going to experiment with sexual narrative,
then the narrative should be, well, experimental.
So. Inserting
the sex-gamer role-playing impulse into the tried-and-true gloryhole of game randomization,
we get Probabilistic Sex Role-Playing. To begin, two players agree on a meeting
time and place. Then each player secretly concocts a detailed character sketch,
complete with false name and back-story, full-blown costume with hair and
makeup, plus any additional prostheses and props necessary to complete the
illusion.
The two
players meet at the appointed rendezvous and viola! They must role-play through
their sexual encounter, no matter how surreal the juxtaposition. Some of my
favorites over the years: blind pirate captain & furry baby squirrel slut;
vampire zombie goth leather schoolmarm & recovering
alcoholic pizza deliveryboy; fresh-faced Capitol Hill intern & crooked
undercover cop (who is posing as a fresh-faced Capitol Hill intern).
Experienced
players can add more bodies to the cast, increasing the narrative possibilities
geometrically with each new player. Do the math. A Probabilistic Sex Role-Playing
game with seven or more players generates more story possibilities than a roomful
of monkeys banging their keyboards (and each other) for eternity.
The
Sweat Bead Game
An anatomical game of strategy for two. To setup the Sweat Bead Game, you
and your opponent carefully place long lines of electrician’s tape over your
entire bodies, creating a grid of perfectly positioned two-inch by two-inch squares.
Then you both spend 24 hours at a tanning salon. Afterwards, remove the tape to
reveal a clean grid of squares from your brow to your toes, and every fleshy protuberance
in-between.
Here’s how
you play. Disrobe down to your gameboard epidermis and choose a starting square
on your opponent’s skin, touching it with some part of your body. Alternating turns,
each player is permitted to expand his or her position by touching one more adjacent
square, retaining contact with all of the initial positions as well.
Take your
time and choose your moves carefully. Every precisely placed finger, wrist, and
forearm, every point of hip, belly and inner thigh contact must follow the rules
exactly. The Sweat Bead Game is a Chess match of flesh that winds around
itself. The board for one player is one and the same time the same time the
pieces for the other, creating mathematical permutations of dizzying
paradoxical complexity.
Initially, these
strategic depths may slow down the action. But have faith in your natural
ability to play. Before too long, you and your opponent will internalize the
rules and the game will proceed on a more intuitive level. Can you maintain
your current position and add just one more square? Can you lure your opponent
into making an illegal move? Matches of The Sweat Bead Game can go on for days.
If you can continue to play until the grid lines fade completely from your
close-pressed skin, the game ends in a draw. However, you may find that you and
your opponent have exchanged sides like a copulating Jacob’s
Ladder. In that case, you’ll have to play a second time to get back
inside your own body again.
Exquisite
Corpses
This game
for many, many players is part chain letter, part memory exercise, and part
serial orgy. Any game of Exquisite Corpses begins innocently enough. Two initial
players, let’s call them A. and B., have sex. Player B. notes one element from the
encounter: a particular technique or position, a memorable garment or perfume,
an unusual setting or time of day, an unexpected phrase whispered involuntarily
at the moment of ecstasy. Anything that tickles the fancy.
Player B.
then continues the game by having sex with a third party, player C. Player B. must
include, during sex with C., the fancy-tickling element from the first
coupling. Player C., in turn, is required to remember what it was, and take
note of something else to pass on for next time.
Player C. moves on to sex with D., incorporating both of the previous rules,
which D. carries forward to E., along with one more. And so on. Like a libidinal
Victorian parlor game, the details add up, making each new instance of sex a progressively
convoluted ritual of elaborately stylized sex. By the time we get to players G.
and H., we find them in the back seat of an abandoned schoolbus, using only their
elbows to undress each other, tongues dripping with low-carb cookie dough, 3-inch
false eyelashes akimbo, rubbing genitals to armpits and moaning the words “
More than
just a way to indirectly screw with your lover’s lover’s lover’s lover,
Exquisite Corpses is a collaborative sex design exercise. The game continues
until a player makes a mistake and leaves something out, or until by chance the
circle returns to A., the original participant, the game’s player zero. If
players Z. and A. can complete the chain, and yet still manage to actually end
up having something resembling sex, then the game ends in a win for all players.
Otherwise, think of the trouble you went through and you didn’t even get laid.