Earlier I wrote about Itch.io delisting NSFW content. Here’s some followup discussion.

I’ve been impressed by how quickly gamers mobilized around this. There’s an ongoing campaign to flood the call centers of Visa/Mastercard/Paypal. Financial institutions are now ineffectually trying to deflect blame onto each other. I think there’s a chance to win this particular battle.

The issue seems to have united gamers of all types. Progressives can talk about how this hurts LGBTQ games. Other gamers might be confused by the LGBTQ association, but they’re still vehemently anti-censorship. And look, I’m not complaining.

In the long term, Collective Shout and Project 2025 are targeting all porn as well as LGBTQ content. However, Collective Shout will claim that in this case, they were only trying to take down the very worst stuff, i.e. games with sexual abuse, incest, or pedophilia. From what I’ve seen, opinion is divided on these “abusive” games. Opinion is divided… but there is not much disagreement. Gamers recognize that the “abusive” games themselves are not particularly relevant. Whether you’re in favor or against the presence of “abusive” games, it doesn’t actually matter, because the censorship goes way beyond that.

But my instinct is to defend the “abusive” games. I’d like to elaborate on that, and also explain the LGBTQ associations.

It should first be said that NSFW is not the same as porn, is not the same as 18+. Media can have mature themes that are inappropriate for kids, while lacking any sexual content. For example, I mentioned that In Stars and Time was briefly delisted, and I think that’s because it had an 18+ tag. While lacking explicit sexual content, the game has themes of trauma, and may not be appropriate for kids. I’ve seen multiple articles mention the delisting of Consume Me, an upcoming game that includes portrayals of eating disorders, but which is not NSFW. Payment processor guidelines are fairly unclear, and could be interpreted to forbid lots of 18+ games, or any games with violence at all, absurd as that may be.

And then there’s non-pornographic NSFW media, media that is sexually explicit but not intended to provoke erotic reaction. This tends to be the most defensible form of NSFW in the public sphere. For example, we can point to personal narratives of sexual abuse. It’s obviously not endorsing sexual abuse, quite the opposite. And yet, these narratives may include sexually explicit descriptions of abuse. So even as censors proclaim support for victims of abuse, they actively silence victims.

But I’d like the reader to imagine beyond just personal narratives. Games and literature could address sexual abuse more broadly without specifically telling the author’s story. Or sexual abuse could be a metaphor for other kinds of abuse. For example, in Echo, there’s an abusive relationship that’s a bit of a metaphor for being trapped by one’s rural hometown. Other times, sexual abuse and conflict simply represents a character’s ill fate, like with the trope of inadvertent incest.

I have no data to back this up, but I want to claim that this “literary” NSFW is more common in LGBTQ media. Consider: LGBTQ people have higher rates of victimization by sexual violence. So yeah, they’re going to address it in their fiction.

And even putting that aside, sexuality is very obviously a site of queer oppression. They don’t like us… because of the sex. Straight people may not realize it, but they’ve often been given more affordances to talking about their own sexuality in public spaces or among friends, whereas LGBTQ people would have to out themselves to do so. LGBTQ media can be an outlet to have the conversations we otherwise couldn’t have.

So anyways, let’s talk about the porn. Porn can also be literary, although that’s not usually the association people have. Porn is basically “low culture”. People won’t admit that they like it in polite company. It’s not produced by respectable organizations. It’s expected to be of dirt poor quality. Even when present in higher culture (like in some TV shows), people downplay it and nervously joke about it.

LGBTQ pornographic media tends to span a wider range. It’s low culture, but it’s also mid-culture or even high culture. We’ve been made to feel ashamed, and have refused. It’s not necessarily high quality, since there isn’t much money to made in specifically targeting LGBTQ audiences. But we’re happier to acknowledge it’s existence, when it’s safe to do so.

So the mid- and high-culture porn tends to be more defensible in the public sphere. The low-culture porn, nobody seems willing to admit they’re into it, and nobody will name specific examples. And to be clear, that’s fine! I’m not asking anyone to share (please don’t). Just sayin’, there’s a certain irony in LGBTQ games leading the charge.

I do think that the low-culture stuff, even the lowest of the low is worth defending. It’s not necessarily good, and it’s not necessarily morally constructive. But, it doesn’t need to be.

Although as a matter of political tactics, I am not sure what to do with this.