Ladykiller in a Bind
Kinky at face, Ladykiller in a Bind is not fucking around about fucking. But it’s also not kidding about consent. Yesterday, developer Christine Love removed sex from a potential plot branch after players expressed discomfort.
Ladykiller in a Bind is an uncensored, queer, BDSM sex game that is now sold on Steam. Its alternate title says it all: “My Twin Brother Made Me Crossdress As Him And Now I Have To Deal With A Geeky Stalker And A Domme Beauty Who Want Me In A Bind!!.” In Ladykiller, the protagonist, a lesbian woman dressed as her brother, hooks up with various women with various proclivities on a cruise. There are two male-bodied characters she can pursue, too.
Ladykiller‘s President (a man) is the sworn rival of the protagonist’s brother, whom the player impersonates. In the game, he reveals himself to be a manipulative jerk. In a sexual context, his dark side is a lot to handle. The scene in question’s script describes the encounter as a “hate-fuck.” Essentially, the President manipulates the protagonist into giving him a blow job, but context surrounding the scene adds some nuance.
“Let me hear you say ‘YES!’. Come on, where’s that ENTHUSIASTIC CONSENT?” he says. He puts his hand on your character’s neck. Begrudgingly, she’s into it. The scene escalates. The script is online and, frankly, I found it hard to read. The scene was prefaced by several warnings and an opt-out button. Even reaching the scene takes a lot of effort.
In her latest Ladykiller patch notes, Love says that she removed the scene “due to strong player feedback.” She adds that the scene has been “completely rewritten and now has a different tone.”
Her explanation:
“The original goal of the scene was to demonstrate a darker — certainly not safe IRL — fantasy to contrast with the safety of the Beauty’s arc. But even after multiple revisions, clearly a lot of players were extremely uncomfortable with its presence, and still ended up being blindsided — I think I failed to account for the player’s context, and I’d rather the scene be gone than make anyone else uncomfortable.”
Love said “no comment” when asked how many fans requested edits to the President’s sex scene. Early on, Ladykiller warns that, “In real life, all power exchange must be negotiated.”
Comments
10 responses to “Sex Game Removes Intense BDSM Scene Following Fan Feedback ”
Hold up, how is this BDSM?!
And if in real life consent needs to be negotiated, why is BDSM always portrayed as being the opposite.
Its about trust and giving control away consensually between two……or several people.
Yeah, if anything, it’s just SM… barely. As you said, it’s about trust and in a slave Master relationship/session, the slave actually has more power as the moment they say no or the safe word, that’s it. End of session. The Master cannot proceed (otherwise it becomes assault).
Sex and Taku!
What does BDSM stand for?
The best I could come up with was Blind drunk sexual maneuvers, Big dick small mouth or Bald dude shags monkeys.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BDSM
Bullshit censoring by a weak author. Have the guts to say it’s a rape fantasy. Nothing wrong with that. But, oh no! The triggerings!
(Any money she got some whingers going on about how that scene hit too close to home and made them feel unsafe…pathetic)
Bullshit censoring by a weak author? It sounds a lot more like an artist taking on criticism of their work, seeing if their end-result fulfilled the intention they had and adjusted their work because they felt it didn’t fulfil their intention.
If the external criticism was the motivating factor in the ‘revision’ then the author’s intention was likely satisfied by the original work. The author obviously wanted that scene in the game as a “darker fantasy” (see quote in article) but she didn’t account for certain players being super-triggered-you-guys(!) and bugging her until she changed it…
Her own words say that she’d rather change it than to make people uncomfortable.
Or are creators not allowed to change their mind? Are they not allowed to adjust their own work as they see fit?
Sure they are, if they are weak and want to pander to complainers 🙂
Here she’s basically said that but for the complaints, she’d have left it as it was.