What’s the one thing that could save the dignity of the Beowulf franchise? Oh, I know: a naked, digitized Angelina Jolie.

Huh? Apparently, Angelina is doing the voice acting and mocap for Grendel’s mother–of all people/characters/things. Her nudie pixel likeness appears in the movie, and now it’s made its way into the game. Along with it comes “much sexual innuendo,” according to Beowulf’s narrative designer Gabrielle Shrager. There was “no way around it,” says Shrager, “because the Faustian character who is Grendel’s mother goes about getting you to sign the dirty deal with her by using her extremely tempting body… It’s a very, very important part.”

Shrager goes on to say, “There’s a feminist twist to it because she’s using all of her feminine wiles to say ‘look how easily I can wrap you around my finger.‘ What’s great about it is that in the game you can resist that… You’ll get heroic points for it depending how long you last. It can be very, very difficult.”

Okay, let’s back this feminism bus up. Before we claim there’s something empowering in prepackaged, Hollywood-generated, Angelina-esque sexiness (a claim the game itself seems to deny, since it rewards players for fending off sultry female otherness), let’s look at the larger issue: when did Grendel’s mother go from a vicious ball of fur and claws to a naked temptress? Imagine Grendel. Not too pretty, right? Now imagine Grendel with eyelashes and a bra. That is Grendel’s mother. Weird, sure. But a grotesque force to be reckoned with. Not a naked beauty with digital nipples.

Granted, the choice to make Grendel’s mother a sexualized character is an interesting one. Remember, you’re in the presence of someone totally obsessed with femininity and monstrosity–so the idea that this monster of a literary character could carry a sexual (and sexually powerful charge) is kind of great. But, in my opinion, the movie makers–if the game makers–totally chickened out. To really push the reinterpretation, they should have let a hideous monster of a Grendel’s mother seduce Beowulf while slobbering out from between her razor sharp teeth.

Giving us Angelina Jolie makes everything super safe. We all know she’s sexy. There’s nothing daring or challenging there. But if we felt drawn in by the feminine whiles of something ugly, something base… Well, then we might really earn our heroic points.

“‘If you’re a girl who likes girls who likes games, you’ve found your place on the internet.”

This is exactly what the gaming world needed. Seriously. The amazing women of Thumb Bandits–which you’ll hopefully remember as the female-run, lesbian-friendly game site–have started up a new blog, LesbianGamers.com. Can you guess what their slogan is?

Tracy Whitlaw, who’s in charge of the girl-on-girl PR, explains, “It’s time for us to have a full on lesbian site. We’ve been lucky enough to have a lot of support from lesbians at Thumb Bandits.com and now we’re giving them lesbians who game their own space.” Hip hip hooray.

The blog is already sporting posts about potential lesbian action in Beyond Good and Evil, Battlestar Galactica, and of course Portal. It’s also got an adorable crush post about Kristen Bell. I anticipate much future happiness in the form of insightful analysis, feminism, and tales of all the lovely video game characters we girls have ever had the hots for…

First there was Build-a-Bear. Then there was the (just released) Build-a-Bear game for the DS. As if that didn’t incite enough of a WTF, now apparently there’s a Build-a-Bear virtual world in the works, due out this winter. Seriously. It’s called Build-a-Bearville. And it’s “stuffed with fun.” Kill me now.

My bear-loving gut tells me this brightly-colored company is plotting some sort of world domination. You can just see their beady plastic eyes glistening with the reflected light of Club Penguin. I should have listened to my friends when they told me Build-a-Bear was evil. I should have known something was wrong the first time I stuffed an ID tag with a track-able bar code into the gaping hole in a teddy bear’s back.

Ok, before I sound like some sort of teddy bear lunatic, let me explain. I am a Build-a-Bear survivor. Yes, for one year in high school the girl who writes about sex made stuffed animals for children–and goddamn it, she liked it. At least, for a little while. Granted, it was my first (and last) retail job, but it seemed perfect. I got to work with kids. I got to work with toys. I’m a total sucker for cuteness, so both of those things work. Then, I began to see the problem with actually liking children and working for Build-a-Bear. I wanted to make kids happy, not convince them they had to make their mommies buy their bears three different pairs of shoes. No lie: I was instructed to tell them that their stuffed animals would love them more if they had accessories.

Four years later, I still haven’t totally gotten over my bear-related trauma. I see Build-a-Bears in malls and I instinctively hide. Some part of me must be thinking: what if they want me to take over a shift!? My first published article was actually something of a Marxist rant against my time among the teddy bears. Then, while I was in San Fran last year for the Sex & Games Conference, I was amazed to find The Basic Brown Bear Factory at the Cannery–the adorable, earnest little shop that Build-a-Bear had stolen its ideas from, even its color scheme. Just this September I was back at the Cannery. To my horror, the Basic Brown Bear Factory was totally empty. You could practically see the tumble weeds of teddy bear fuzz rolling past the windows.

So it’s fair to say I’m not approaching this from an objective (or probably even a reasonable) angle. The fact remains: Build-a-Bear is taking over the world. While the DS game just recreates the process of “making” a bear you’d experience in a store, the MMO “lets you bring your furry friends to life” by decorating their rooms, collecting points, and of course getting special rewards for each new one you buy. Stuffed animals rock. Kids who like stuffed animals rock. Why must this be so sucky?

Anyone not living in New York these days–like yours truly–might have missed The Village Voice’s awesome 2007 Best of NYC issue, which was out on the streets last month. Along with suggestions for great restaurants, bars, and stores, you’ll find in the issue the following sexy New York-related recommendations. I wonder who could have written them. Possibly a girl who spent the summer in the city having way too much fun at sex toy shops and gay bars? Ah France, when it comes to kinky consumerism, you’ve got a lot to learn…

-Best Place to Creep Out Retail Employees by Shopping for Do-it-yourself Bondage
-Best Store for Sexifying Your Bathtub
-Best All-you-can-eat Aphrodisiac
-Best Anatomically Correct Lollipops
-Best Sex-Toy Shop for Sniffing Leather
-Best Revamped Sex Toy for Masturbating à la Sarah Jessica Parker
-Best Place to Hear about Scrabble Fetishes

Thanks to a J-list.com care package, I was able to play a few hentai titles before high-tailing it out of the country. While I’m hoping to play more once I get home (or once I break down and dual boot my Mac), I’d like to take a sec to tease out some patterns of sex/gender imagery I saw in and The Sagara Family. As the local h-game expert, Leigh Alexander has been dutifully consulted on this list. She says that while a lot of these patterns hold true for a hefty chunk of hentai, it’s important to remember that, like another medium, h-gaming is full of sub-genres–each with its own standard set of plots, archetypes, and other such analytically sexy fun. Without further ado, those sex/gender patterns:

-You playing from the perspective of a young male virgin.
-The story hinges around/is set in a non-traditional/queered family environment.
-An unexpected level of attention given to the act of being slapped by women.
-There is, of course, the overall assumption/perception of social interaction as a series of multiple choice questions, the correct answers to which will get you into someone’s pants.
-All women are beautiful; all women are potential sexual partners.
-Many of the women–even if they turn out to be sex pros–start as virgins.
-When a woman says “no,” it doesn’t necessarily mean “no.”
-Textual details take precedent over visual stimulus. (That ones not sex/gender-y, it just makes this language dork happy.)

Any h-game players want to do add to this list?

As you may have noticed, my cybersex column Click Me has been on something of a hiatus while I settle in here in France. Hopefully the sexy fun will start up again soon.

In the mean time, I do have one little addition I’m hoping to make to the column: a clause down at the bottom encouraging readers to write with questions to their friendly local cybersexpert, “The Clickable Clit.” As in, me. As in, “Dear Clickable Clit, I’ve always been curious about online pubic hair.” Or, “Dear Clickable Clit, where does internet porn come from?” Things like that, just less nonsensical.

“The Clickable Clit” was actually an alternate name I had in mind for the column when it first started up, so I’d love to get some use out of it. Plus, it’s just fun to say. Clickable Clit. Clickable Clit. See? Fun!