thread: 2005-03-11 : Love, Friendship, Romance, Sex
On 2005-03-15, Charles wrote:
Meg,
Is it really the EXXXTREME CLOSEUP effect, or is it more of a Too Much Information (or is that really the same thing?)? It doesn't sound like is is so much that the scene becomes meaningless, but that it becomes uncomfortable or gross. In some ways, it seems closer to being stuck watching two friends make out. Long before you get to the point where you're having to watch anything outrageous, every detail is a reminder that you really don't want to be watching or listening to this. I think the fact that it reaches the unpleasant point only slightly after the mention of the color of someone's nipples suggests that we are still in the TMI problem, and not yet to the "Is that a piston engine, or they having sex?" boredom of EXXXTREME CLOSEUPS.
TonyLB,
I think that the issue of SC gets foregrounded here because, unlike roleplaying in general which can be ruined by lousy SC, romantic and sexual roleplaying are going to be ruined by anything other than an unusual SC which specifically incorporates them as appropriate and expected roleplaying events.
The issue of audience and distancing seem central to the SC required for romantic and sexual roleplaying to function. I wonder if PTA-type mechanics might help with this. It seems to me that one of the major functions of PTA mechanics (although I haven't actually played it) is to support having scenes that don't involve the entire party. By giving players who don't have characters in the scene an active part in creating the scene (through fan mail, framing and outcome description), the game allows for scenes with only a few PCs to hold the attention of the entire group of players. Possibly, this same mechanism would help with romantic/sexual roleplaying, by actively incorporating the audience players into the scene, it both might decrease the degree to which they would suffer from the sensation of being trapped watching their friends make out, and might also serve to increase the distancing aspect between the two players whose characters are involved. If other uninvolved players are describing aspects of the scene, this might help to remind the active player of the scene as a scene, rather than as a situation being played out by the two players.
Thinking further about Six Feet Under, it is interesting to note that it is specifically about sexual relationships. The quality of the sex that various characters have is repeatedly key to the story.
