It’s written by Dr Irene Cooper, a professional sex therapist in the UK and you can find it and other resources at:

My Female Orgasm

Linda

There’s yet ANOTHER twist in “willing unwillingness” which is the subversion of “power structures” through enacting them - after all, these fantasies involve male physical and sexual power over women; one of the most traditional things there is. So a woman gets pleasure from thinking about herself as acted-upon, when she is in fact the actor, but her agency is to take sexual release from scenarios of a man controlling a woman, but the controlled woman is the author of the whole thing to begin with, but… but…

The snake eats its tail.

Brummbar, you’re right, the rape thing is complicated. In my own experience, it’s a matter of masochism. At the same time though, I see masochism as a claiming of power in and of itself. In that way there’s something empowering about willing unwillingness - a paradox, to be sure, but one that undercuts traditional power structures to the extent that opens up whole new arenas for understanding the role of women and the submissive. Not that it has much to do with games, just something I’m personally obsessed with…

John, I disagree that you disagree :-). What I mean is that I agree with you, that this pattern can be seen in many other places, specifically story. And while I would argue that even simpler, two-player games could be seen to have orgasm-like qualities (put there through the increasingly intense interplay between two players), I think you raise a good point that the more straightforward example of this, specifically in one-player plot-based games, tends to be a more contemporary model.

Indeed, it tends to be a closer match to the build-up/climax/exhaustion than games. Games originated, don’t forget, in the kind of two-player competitive contest that originated in sports (Pong, Combat), and in single-player, increasing difficulty games with no real end until the player failed (most classic arcade games). The build-until-final-boss-then-resolution pattern tends to be a result of a game’s story, I’d say, more than its being a game.

(1) Outright masochists. (I’ll assume anyone reading THIS ‘blog is familiar enough with sexual psychology to know what masochism entails.)

(2) Reluctant erotic agents who fantasize about being “forced” to do this or that, but are really more like authors or movie directors staging scenes in which they are the “victims” - while at the same time in total control of the dialogue, setting, props, etc.

I suspect the latter group could turn this into a game wherein such scenarios are constructed and then enacted while the authoring woman, alone or with a partner, views them for erotic stimulation.

Imagine, for example, a “sim” game along the lines of The Movies but focusing on explicit sexual depictions. I can easily see some jaw-droppingly wild stuff resulting therefrom.

Anyway, it’s strange, at first, that it seems to matter so much that you’d have to make your partner orgasm in a society which so much focus on individualism. But then there’s always the power issue. You can see that in porn in general in one form or another, or even in some less refined depictions of sexual tantrism: sex as conflict and orgasm as loss, men being sided with power/action and women with pleasure/passivity. Old Taoist sexual rites in which the important was for the man not to orgasm come to mind also.
The basic constructs of societies are already in germ in their sexual practices.

“The problem with playing Orgasm is that there are no save points. Also, the controls can be tricky to, uh, master.”

Which is why before they were done away with and forbiden, it was traditional in France that a young man had to go with prostitutes, often on the father (parent)’s instigation, before getting married: the bride was expected to be a virgin, obviously as a lineage investment, but the groom had to be experienced, he needed to have learned how to satisfy her, i.e to play his part as a good husband.

“Can getting turned on by a partner's pleasure ever be an entirely selfless process?”

Can getting turned on ever be an entirely selfless process? I’ve been doubting this.

To be sure, there are plenty of people for whom sex is a trophy: the prize they receive for their latest conquest, not unlike a big-game hunter stalking and bagging the most desirable prey. And demonstrating your sexual prowess by bringing their partner(s) to climax - that too is a badge of merit, so to speak.

But to my mind, that is sex in its most superficial, self-absorbed form. It presumes sex is devoid of romance or affection or trust or respect or tenderness; sex becomes a point on your scorecard, rather than, say, an expression of affection through physical intimacy.

One could just as easily question the selflessness of, say, giving gifts: do you do so because you want to make the recipient happy? Do you expect something in return? Are you simply displaying your largesse to show off? And the answer varies by person and depends on circumstances: what you give to the love of your life isn’t going to have the same meaning to you than what you give your Aunt Maple.

This, perhaps, is the main reason why videogames have so far failed to present sex convincingly: because they are unable to capture the subtleties and ambiguities of human relationships. Gaming strips sex down to its barest physical elements, without any of the emotional oomph behind it. Not that the physical components to sex are unimportant; but just that games aren’t really able to go beyond that element yet.