I keep seeing this post get responded to so I just need to say what I’m going to say so I can stop saying it in my mind.
If the U.S. Supreme Court and most high courts of Europe can’t tell you the difference between sex and art after almost 250 years of practice following 1200+ years of common law without seeing it, you’re not going to get a bright line rule from the devs who are trying to strike a very delicate balance between exercising complete control over a realm they have all rights and responsibilities to do so and the people who are buying the product. Most of the content on the workshop is not uploaded to be art. It’s subjective for a reason. But with low polygon and vertices counts, the art is more in the making than in the product for 99% of the workshop items.
They’re not saying any kind of legal sex is wrong, but I am going to say that if you find the green crease of the decaying undead sexually appealing the balance they are trying to strike is to keep from triggering people like you. They are not trying to belittle people for wanting or having sexual urges or fantasies. What they are saying is they are not going to allow you to push that agenda here. If something is traditionally sexual in nature by common parlance or agreement, they don’t owe you or anyone any explanation–period. That includes “truck nuts”-type branding where something may not have started as sexual in nature but evolved to be such over time. That includes underage anime girls with their cameltoes hanging out. That includes “born-again” figures who “found jayzus” and who are trying to put it in the past.
This is not a meeting of NAMBLA–this is not where a quorum of people are going to decide that things that fall within ordinary governance are okay when they are not. Children and people outside of the U.S. play this game so unless the rule you want to have them enforce is “no one under 18 and no one from countries where any explicit content is illegal” you need to let them do their jobs. They are incorporated in the U.S. meaning they are first–and foremost–bound by very strict terms of what they can market, and if what you are asking them to market is a safe haven for everything that the Internet deems “okay” you’re not going to win that battle. They are taking the reigns back of their territory–and rightly so–whether or not anyone agrees with it. This is their game with our input. This is not our game, this is where we come to electronically commune within the common agreements and understandings of the EULA and TOS layered with Steam and legal requirements. This is not a really long episode of “Gamer.” This is not VR Chat. This is not marketed as sex training. This is not marketed as reparative therapy. This is not marketed as a place to hook up. This is not e-Tinder (or e-Grindr, no judgments). This is not marketed for or in the pursuance of sex. They don’t have to make a comment on any type of sexuality, orientation, or other consideration–just its presence. If that content cannot be separated from its sexuality, it falls within the guideline the Devs have stated–period. Just because someone can find it sexually appealing (like your obsession with the burger-eating maggot fest you referenced) does not mean that it will be considered that way by the Devs. However, this community proves every, single day that its sole purpose is to skirt as many rules as it can through malicious compliance and the Devs need to have the flexibility to enforce its own standards. Because, at the end of the day, maybe they don’t want to see it, either.
To be further clear on the conflated point you tried to make regarding adult content, those other categories are not considered unilateral adult content. People are not storming the streets to get teenagers to close their legs because they’re on heroin. People are not shooting doctors who are treating gunshot victims. The March of Dimes isn’t fighting with the religious right about whether alcohol during pregnancy leads to lung cancer. All of those things from a purely legal perspective are a freedom of choice issue that parents can override. Your parents have the unadulterated and unquestioned right to expose you to violence, gore, blood, alcohol, tobacco, and illicit substances as a whole that are not illegal when it does not endanger you or those dangers are calculated on balance with what they are able to provide in your circumstances. (Which, by the way, adrenaline is not illegal–it’s illicit because it’s prescribed but norepinephrine is used to treat allergic reactions and heart failure.) That said, your parents are not forcing you to play this and the laws and policies governing this game–long before you get to the TOS and EULA–are largely silent on this with the exception of how the game must rate itself once it has done so. And the workshop already has rules about all of those things, as well–the community just doesn’t go out of its way to test those limits the way they do with underage girls, breast-laden monsters, and men who should be dead an average of twelve times a night.
There is no question, however, that sexuality and sexual content is squarely within the adult realm. Children–teenagers included–cannot send sexually explicit information across State lines to other teenagers, just the same as adults. “Romeo and Juliet” laws are not uniform State-to-State within the U.S. and they are even less so–if present at all–country-to-country but things that can get you killed are being part of the LGBTQA+ community in many of the countries this game is played in. The definition of explicit content varies State-to-State and country-to-country. The definition of “bad” and “wrong” and all other considerations that are contrary to those varies among municipalities before even looking at it on a larger scale. That doesn’t change the fact, however, when something is clearly sexual, having common consensus hasn’t been enough to change or unseat the law so you cannot expect a small team of developers to be like, “Hey, 100 people voted for your all-fours naked man to be ridden five times around a track so we’re gonna call it a day.” If you cannot find where the issue lies in that statement, this is not the platform for you particularly when you are going to find an issue where it does not lie. This is not the issue of Trivia where you could play 10 games and get 5 questions that weren’t anime–none of the questions in Trivia relate to breast size or the long and sordid careers of sex workers. This is not the issue of Virus where you can play 8 revolving games and have everyone bail on you for Overtime. This is not an issue of preference. If you can provide a coherent, salient argument for how a man on all-fours being ridden around five times on asphalt ass-up is not funny because it is a statement of sexual dominance by furthering toxic masculinity; if you can provide a further argument for why you think every person who voted for it inherently knew and agreed with that statement without reservation or question; and you can then find yourself not laughing at the end of it–I’d love to hear it and I would love to hear from each person who voted for it and why.
Just because something is funny does not lessen its toxicity or its toxic effect. Just because someone finds it funny does not make it funny; just because a vocal minority speaks out does not make it the majority standing. And, as you find in any democracy, just because you vote for something doesn’t make it the best or what wins out. There. Are. Rules. If you want this game to be enduring, this cannot be a safe haven for everything. Legally, this cannot be a safe haven for everything, even if it were to be removed from Steam. Your slippery slope argument completely misses the boat and the intention of what the Devs have been trying to say all along. The slippery slope is not that they are going to crack down on every piece of this game until we’re throwing cotton balls into the wind upon an empty landscape so that no one will harm so much as a grain of sand–and to suggest that that is where this is heading is asinine. The slippery slope they are trying to prevent is the ever-increasing comfort this community finds is okay to shove in the faces of everyone else.
And, to respond to a previous allegation that this has anything to do with body shaming: stop. This is not about body shaming. This isn’t about shaming of any kind. There is no shame in creating content that gets shot down. Especially if you’re going to try to brand workshop content as art, you have to understand that not everything is going to succeed and this is not a gallery for everything. The Devs did not put out an armature that says you must meet certain body requirements. I wear a f-ing cone, for God’s sake. They are not saying that these people (animals, robots, pirate ships, etc.) do not, did not, can not, should not exist. What they are saying is they are not going to exist here. They are not going to get into an arms race with workshop content that is going to have them fielding more and more complaints every day.
There is nothing unclear about these rules. What you are unclear about is why it is happening. That doesn’t actually matter, because a change in policy to remediate a past wrong is not evidence of any wrongdoing–or rightdoing, for that matter. It’s legally not evidence. What matters is that the Devs are taking appropriate steps forward to make this a safe environment. If you do not feel safe because they will not let you dress up underage girls in a scantily-clad manner; because they will not let you have over-endowed men/women/dragons/lycanthropes/whatever running around and being put on screenshots you send or post as microadvertisements of this game; or because they don’t want to have to explain to a governing body (whether it’s Steam or anyone else they answer to) how riding around a mostly naked man or having a porn star be their most-liked anything makes this a kid-okay platform; this is not the game for you. Thirteen is not a magical number for exposure to this and just because it happens elsewhere does not mean it has to happen or be encouraged HERE.
