User:Darklocq/Geek Feminism/LoversLab Analysis
This is a temporary save of a (TES-related) article; I just need a working MediaWiki in which to save and examine it while I resolve an issue. Will remove it later. [Still working on it.]
GeekFeminism.Wikia.com edit summary: "Total overhaul by Darklocq, into a comprehensive wiki article instead of a first-person blog-style post. Added a great deal more detail, including on key women in sex-mods scene, plus updated information (e.g. on male body models, etc.)"
Error I get due to over-aggressive spam/vandal filter:
Something went wrong
The modification you tried to make was aborted by an extension hook
I examined the filters at that site, and it's requiring an account 1+ years old at that site to do anything at it.
Article text:
LoversLab.com (LL) is a modding website containing a plethora of unofficial mods, often of an erotic or pornographic – and sometimes violent – nature. It also provides some romance-oriented material, and a lot of non-sex/non-nudity material such as texture and 3D model (mesh) improvements; new weapons, spells, and buildings; lighting effects to make the game more vibrant; editing utilities; and forums about creating and using mods.
What sets LoversLab apart from other mod sites (the most dominant among which is NexusMods.com) is simply its permissiveness of virtually all subject matter. Consequently, it is the home of most virtual-sex-related mod development for several games, most popularly Skyrim and Fallout 3, among other releases in the Elder Scrolls and Fallout franchises (which are intensely violent right out of the box, and definitely not for children), and various games using the same core game engine.
These mods can be tame or extreme, given individuals' sexual and gaming tastes. LL is home to a framework specifically for virtualized sex, named SexLab, though there are others produced elsewhere, such as OSex.
Many of the mods require the use of a script extender and scripting frameworks that expand the capabilities of the original game engine (also true of thousands of non-sexual mods on other mod sites). Some, including the virtual-sex mods, require a rather complicated setup before use, including pre-installation of many dependencies.
The adult gaming community (including at LoversLab) has long involved female modders, many of whom have been quite influential in this scene. Nevertheless, LL is rather male-oriented, and not all women will be comfortable perusing the site's offerings or participating in its forums.
Mod Content and Site Focus
The range of mods on LoversLab is extensive and varied, depending on where you may look, though adult content is the most common, and is the primary focus of the site as its name suggests. It was initially created to host and further develop content rejected by other mod sites.
As mods are a means to extend the content and capabilities of the game, and are created by volunteer hobbyists, many tastes are accounted for (and few fetishes are not), with little attempt to placate anyone's sensibilities, ever.
Content Types
The majority of adult mods (on LL and elsewhere) focus on realistic detailing of bodies and clothing, and role-play interaction (including animated sex).
They tend to range from aesthetic art, to elaborate relationship and activity simulation (not all of it sexual), to simple (and probably player-masturbation-oriented) sex simulations, often in a voyeurism/exhibitionism or sex guild/cult sort of milieu.
The most elaborate mods on LoversLab focus on the raw and hardcore side of sexuality, including detailed, interactive genitals, sex animations (graphic and often rough), added sound files for sex scenes, and BDSM gear. Other mods can go further, into slave trading, bestiality, even rape (both attacking and being attacked).
Most of this content is patently objectifying, of course, but is not limited to male gaze upon virtual women; there's a significant gay male side, and some female mod authors have devoted a lot of time to dolling up and stripping down male characters, too. More importantly, women modders have been instrumental in the development of female body models and tools for them, as detailed below.
Few LL mods focus on relationships and intimacy other than the directly sexual sort, but some do, and many include such features without them being central. More in that vein are also found on other sites.
Nearly anything goes in LoversLab mods, from animal and monster sex, to all bodily functions, to incest themes, with the exception of simulated pedophilia. A minority of LL mods feature sexual violence (most often toward females); this is examined in more detail below.
Some downloads at LoversLab, like new weapon meshes or better sky textures, have nothing to do with sex or bodies, and are just hosted at LL because the modder in question prefers that site.
Some mods, though sexual in nature, will often boost one's experience by adding detailed texture and mesh packs which will make the games more beautiful in style. Such mods as Schlongs of Skyrim make male characters more "biologically complete" and also provide various body shape options from flabby to bodybuilder, while mods like Body Presets and Optimizations will give a female character a more varied look with the ability to control the body shape in-game. Various base body model and texture sets are available such as Caliente's Beautiful Bodies Edition (CBBE), Dimonized UNP, Leyenda Body, and many others, and most for Skyrim also include the humanoid cat- and reptile-based beast races of the game.
Role-play Enhancements
Various mods are focused on extending the mechanics of the game, to give the player a more immersive experience (often in conjunction with some of the categories below, like new models and animations). A few examples of the range available:
- Focusing on satisfying a character's needs and desires though adult-oriented quests, timed requirements, locales, and challenges (sometimes with risks like STDs, addiction, etc.).
- Relationship simulation, from foundation of families through pregnancy, to entering into master/slave BDSM arrangements.
- Danger enhancements, like avoidance of capture by and submission (including sexual) to bandit hordes, and the possibility of monsters (not all of them humanoid) having a bit more than your death in mind when they come after you.
- Criminal enterprise, including drug smuggling, prostitution, and the capture and selling of slaves.
- Raunchy places, people, and scenarios, like seduction challenges, vampire blood-and-sex dens, brothels and strip clubs, and a nudist palace (complete with auto-undressing of NPCs for bathing).
- Extreme violence and gore mods.
3D Body and Item Modeling
Nude content is abundant, with various body types, providing much more range than that found at Nexus and other mod sites. While Nexus provides a larger total number of body models (mostly designed with the BodySlide software), they are usually minor variations on each other, and generally within the "strippers and glamour models" range. LoversLab options include:
- Emaciation to extreme obesity.
- Functional, interacting penises, vaginas, mouths, and other body parts.
- Simulations of pregnancy, menstruation, lactation, ejaculation, and intercourse, plus more medically oriented subject matter like STDs, and amputation and other severe injuries.
- Body customizations for every fetish: huge or flat-chested breasts, monster-size penises, huge buttocks and thighs, heavily tattooed skin, etc.
- Finely detailed foot models.
- Detailed, functional BDSM equipment.
- Pure-fantasy material like humans with horse feet (and horse penises for that matter), "tentacle sex", etc.
- Simulated bestiality with new animal models and scripting.
- Sexualized outfits for both sexes (also common on Nexus and other sites).
Visual enhancements range from simple face smoothing to finely sculpted body models and high-resolution, realistic skin; many community participants are digital artists with galleries on sites like DeviantArt.com. However, the bulk of the basic body-looks improvement mods are on Nexus.
Animation and Interaction
Much of the mod material at LoversLab consists of animation, physics, and interaction effects. There are often packaged in elaborate collections, with surrounding structure like sex quests, overhauls of aspects of the game mechanics, virtual sex clubs, and so forth, as mentioned above. But many are also just small add-ons. Some require additional software to manage (e.g. FNIS for Skyrim).
The majority of these have been developed with female bodies in mind, though many animations and some physics effects are unisex, while some are male-specific, such as erections and male self-pleasuring.
Broad types include:
- Advanced multi-party interactions – horse-mounted combat, new dodge and block abilities, and of course sexual activities – which can be coded down to individual finger animation.
- Dialogue and behavior expansions – Often involving mini-quests or various requests that can be made (for sex, relationship changes, etc.). Nexus has an order of magnitude more NPC mods (including overhauls of the follower system) than LoversLab, but LL has some exclusives, as in all these categories of mods.
- Temporary static poses – for carefully arranged character screen shots, be they battle or bedroom scenes. Some of these packages are actually hosted on individual authors' websites rather than LoversLab or Nexus.
- "Collision" physics – interaction between objects not previously coded to react to each other, such as hands and breasts. LoversLab mostly hosts specific implementations rather than the underlying toolsets. The major exception is SexLab.
- "Bounce" physics – accurate or exaggerated motion on body and clothing parts and other game objects, especially breasts, buttocks, bellies, thighs, hair, jewelry, cloaks, skirts, and sheathed weapons. The basics were primarily developed at Nexus, but some LoversLab implementations, like "Naturalistic HDT and Beast HDT" by Bazinga, are very popular.
- Altered basic character animation – runway-model-style strolling, a crab-like ninja sneaking style, dramatic flips during jumps, and many other variations, most commonly combat styles and walk/run changes. Most of the latter are female-specific, and range from very exaggerated, to just subtle hip sway to prevent females in the game from using the stiff masculine default walk.
- New "special" animations – triggered by in-game events or commands, and consisting of all sorts of actions, like embracing, stripping, juggling, contortion, funny dance routines, masturbation, etc.
- New "idles" – short and randomized activities for NPCs to perform automatically instead of just standing like statues when they are not busy– from drinking an ale, twerking, or interacting with nearby objects like stools or workbenches. Some are subtle in-place motions, like more-visible breathing, stereotypical "girly" ankle pronation, yawning, a hand on the hip, weapon practice, etc.
- Elevation control – high heels, levitation, diving in water, "going down", BDSM rope suspension, laying on a bed, etc.
These motions are controlled through complicated scripts and XML control files, and generally come with this material supplied, though some setup is often required, after installing numerous prerequisites.
The LL Community
The user community at LoversLab overlaps broadly with that of Nexus and other sites; LoversLab is where they go for, mostly, a particular kind of modding.
Demographics
Due to the demographic most attracted to virtual-sex gaming – heterosexual single men – the most common theme is nude, curvaceous females and unrealistic "get right to the hot stuff" interaction with them. Such players' gameworlds are typically full of female characters in skimpy clothing (by far the most popular form of gear mod, on LL and other sites).
The games support both third-person perspective (see your entire player character from behind and a bit above, with ability to move the in-game camera to the front or side), and first-person (see through the character's eyes, and don't see any of the player character's body but the hands), with the ability to switch back and forth between them.
Third-person-perspective "adult" gamers attracted to women tend to use female player characters, to watch them move and to dress them up in elaborate outfits (or notable lack of an outfit). First-person players who are male more often use a male character, to enhance their roleplay. Both strap-on mods and erect penis mods exist for each play style, for the sex simulations, plus mouths and fingers coded to interact with genitals.
A significant amount of gay-male-oriented material is featured at LL. Lesbian content is less common, and seems mostly male-authored and reflecting that market's ideas about "girl-on-girl action", not lesbian romance, though the more recent underlying games are gender-preference neutral. Some of the earlier ones in the Elder Scrolls series were very hetero-normative, e.g. blocking or enabling romance quests based on player-character gender, a limitation which players quickly modded away. Various LL mods are quite bisexual; anyone can do anything with anyone else.
The majority of the detailed male body replacements for current games were developed at LoversLab, while (perhaps surprisingly) most female ones were not, but at the more general-interest Nexus site and (for earlier games) now-defunct sites like PlanetElderScrolls.
Female Modders in this Scene Have Been Key Influencers, and Hardly Prudish
Virtually everything done at LoversLab depends heavily on the underlying body models, their skeletons, and physics attached to them. Significant parts of that back-end material and several tools for working with it easily were written by women (and most of it's hosted at Nexus, since it's not sex-specific – "unclothed" and "sexual" aren't synonyms).
Though many never realize it, one of the two most popular nude female body models for Skyrim (and the first of them), "Caliente's Beautiful Bodies Edition" (CBBE), was developed by a woman. Caliente is also the primary author of BodySlide, the tool by which most body variants from naturalistic to extreme have been developed for Skyrim, Skyrim SE, Fallout 3, and other games using the Gamebryo engine. She also created Outfit Studio, the software used to fine-tune and "remix" gear – from lingerie to plate armor – to fit those bodies; and Texture Blender, for seamlessly joining body textures and merging overlays like freckles and tattoos and pubic hair. Only a tiny fraction of the female follower and gear mods that exist would be around without her work.
Some of the best-regarded sexualized male outfits (among other work, such as more realistic horses) were also developed by a woman modder, under the moniker AlienSlof, for the prior Elder Scrolls game Oblivion. Dating back to the game before that, Morrowind, innumerable revealing female outfits have also been created or co-created by female authors; for example, "Kat's Kastle" for that game has over 1,000 outfits (about 90% of them skimpy), and is populated by hundreds of NPCs modeling them, but only a tiny handful of male items.
Probably the no. 3 most popular no-permanent-undies female body model for Oblivion is "The Girl Next Door" (TGND) by Luchaire and Kalia. Its more naturalistic approach to the female form than previous "swimwear model"-style bodies has inspired recent hybrids like GBEC (all the gravity, plus more curves, for kind of a 1950s burlesque shape).
While the typical "pretty girl companion" NPC mod is male-authored, the most popular of all time ("Vilja", available from at the author's website, in versions for Skyrim and Oblivion) was created by another woman, Emma. She's also famed in the scene for perhaps the best-looking female companion mod for Morrowind ("Laura Craft Romance and Adventure", with a studly male counterpart, "Imperial Boyfriend Indiana James"), also notable for what was at that time the most detailed interaction scripting; a clear predecessor for the sex mods. Further, her introduction of children in a mod for Morrowind was so popular it inspired Bethesda Softworks to add children to Skyrim much later, though modeling of pregnancy itself is more of a LoversLab specialty that arose somewhere in the middle.
So, not all assumptions one might make about this modding community will bear up. It simply isn't as male-dominated as it appears at first glance.
Historical Background
The first nudes-and-outfits modding community for this genre of game (open-world 3D adventure RPGs) developed in the early 2000s around Morrowind, to produce more accurate bodies and get rid of the built-in underwear set. This allowed player-created outfits (e.g. a strapless gown or a male kilt) to not show underwear parts like bra straps or thick briefs. Better-looking undergarments than the original tan rags could also be used. Sex mods had not been developed yet, and LoversLab did not yet exist. Similar work was done around the same era by both men and women for different-genre games (like the Sims series) and other virtual environments. Outright virtual sex content was primarily developed first for Second Life, more of a socializing VR space than a game, and has also involved many female modders (including professional ones; there's a market for paid SL mods).
As physics modeling improved with successive releases in the Fallout and Elder Scrolls series, more and more modders devoted time to simulating direct character interactions, eventually including sex. This led rapidly to a community split, and the creation of LoversLab, after more squeamish players objected to the explicit content, despite the not-for-kids nature of the games. The modding communities for the successive games are thus palpably different, with Morrowind gamers focusing on minor enhancements that do not detract from the "vanilla" game aesthetic, while little regard is given to such concerns by many Skyrim modders, who often create things like bikinis and rubber catsuits and Daisy Duke shorts that look very out-of-place in a swords-and-sorcery fantasy game.
Misogynistic Material
A few mods at LoversLab might be interpreted as downright misogynistic, though many are simply BDSM-themed and may feature dominant women, too. Some mods do include sexual violence; while they may be unisex as to perpetrators and victims, some only have female targets – one of the few sources of on-site content criticism between modders, though it generally manifests as a request to add male victims and female assaulters as a feature.
Some such mods simply integrate the possibility of rape as a consequence of things like getting into a fight with a bandit crew or a big male demon-thing, as a realism and danger factor. But others are quite focused on non-consensual sex, a "virtual rape spree" thing which dates in video gaming to the Grand Theft Auto series (to considerable public controversy, which is still ongoing).
Broader social commentary about such matters is sharply divided, going back to Andrea Dworkin and the anti-porn crusade that ramped up (to little effect) in the 1970s, and picking up steam within the videogaming sector after the "Gamergate" extended controversy in the 2010s. The bare gist of the dispute is the hypothesis that such material encourages real violence against women by programmatically dehumanizing them in ways that may have strong psychological effects, especially on the young; versus the counter-theory that the opposite happens, by providing a harm-no-one outlet for darker urges and fantasies – perhaps the very reason people (of both sexes, though males more so), flock both to violent games and other media, and to pornography featuring things they won't ask a real partner to do. In simplistic terms, it's the "All men are rapists and thugs at heart, and this just makes women more like meat and easy targets in their eyes" side, versus the "If you just masturbated, or got out your frustrations by killing 100 fictional goblins, you less unlikely to go rape or punch someone even if you're that kind of man" side. This debate will likely continue for several more generations, and both sides present partially defensible but incomplete arguments.
A complicating factor is that women have long been involved as creators of, not just participants in, sexual content in all media and genres – definitely including game modding. Reality is complicated. Lesbian filmmakers produce lesbian pornography bought by real lesbians, not just lesbian-fetishizing men. Plenty of female sex workers assert they chose that career and do not regret it; they have organized "respect and legalize our work" movements in tolerant places like San Francisco. Gay male porn and prostitution have nothing to do with women at all. One slice of feminist reasoning has proclaimed that all pornography and sex-industry material is ultimately a form of male exploitation of and violence against women, but (homosexuality aside) this denies agency to women who produce such material and do such work; in effect. It brands them as some combination of victimizing "gender traitors" and duped, willing victims themselves. This is a view such women – also feminists, but of a sex-positive, sex-owning, sex-using sort – do not accept. This debate, too, is a polarized doctrinal schism and a world-view mismatch which is likely to continue indefinitely.
At any rate, it's clear that rape-oriented content on LoversLab is produced by men, for men. And while it does not form the bulk of the material at LL, it is tolerated there both by the site's administrators and the user community.
The LL Community and New Female Arrivals
If you've come to LL for something specific, like a nice skin texture or a body skeleton model that supports more animations, and have no interest in the sex stuff and are put off by graphic sexual content, you should probably stick to the threads and the downloads category for thattame material. If you wander around on the site, you will quickly run into things that are difficult to "un-see", and which are offensive to many people.
The average LoversLab modder is probably thought to be a heterosexual male with Madonna-whore complex, simultaneously worshiping and objectifying women (or an idea of them) – enthralled with their form, but focused on deriving pleasure from them (virtually, in a game world full of cartoon dolls who like to be half-naked in public).
But this isn't really fair or accurate. Many of the male modders do great unrelated work, like better-looking building textures, or more challenging enemy NPCs, or realistic penises for that matter. More importantly, lots of female gamers play gorgeous women running around in chainmail bikinis or diaphanous mage robes or leather hotpants. The male fantasy is mainly visual, the female one usually about having the freedom and the looks to actually do it (in a realm free of catcalls, and where a grope by a stranger would be grounds for decapitation by swift sword-stroke. "Still not asking for it.")
But LL is very testosterone-heavy. Consequently, many women will likely feel uneasy at this site (as they might on their first visit to a sex club, or as the last woman left toward the end of a party at a fraternity house). LL does have long-term, thick-skinned female users, who are there because they want to be, and who've learned to work around the socialization problems of some of the male users there.
Men in the forums generally will not be sensitive at all to feminist concerns, but are unlikely to be personally rude to an obviously female visitor (and would be criticized for it) without what they see as due cause; most will be courteous and happy that it's less of a pork-swords party. The most immediate and certain trigger will be raising feminist or moralist objections to any of the content. This will, within that forum, be almost uniformly interpreted as "trolling" (stirring up debate just to make people angry and waste their time), and will result in a lot of criticism, and possibly even the forum thread being locked or deleted, and the complaining visitor blocked. Bickering and drama, especially about politics and religion/morality, is actually against the forum rules (found in a sticky post near the top of the "General Discussion" forum section).
As with any site with a sex connection and a lot of men, there are occasionally individuals on the site who appear to be actual misogynists and gynophobes. As long as their evident woman-hating/fearing is confined to things like producing abuse-oriented mods, the user community there appears to tolerate them, drawing a distinction between fictional fantasy content that depicts terrible men, and being a terrible man personally to people in forum discussions (without "cause", as outlined above). Whether this is right or not is irrelevant; it simply is the way that venue is, and visitors just need to be aware of it. The subcultural norms there are simply different that the usual webboard's, and share much in common with the "no kink-shaming" rules in other sex-oriented venues: don't antagonize people for their preferences or fantasies, no matter how distasteful you find them. Much of this will also apply to criticizing sexualizing mods at Nexus and other mod sites. It's best done elsewhere, as meta-commentary on the gaming scene and feminism, in forums specifically for that.
Conclusion
Avid modders of video games find adding details to a game very important (sometimes in an enhanced realism direction, sometimes toward wild fantasy). One's own tastes must be taken into consideration before diving headlong into the mass of mods that are out there.
There are mods on LoversLab that are probably not recommendable for someone simply looking to add a more mature or complete experience to a game that is already fantastic without it. Going overboard will ruin even that experience. Overloading the game with mods can also introduce instability (especially if you add or remove them after a playthrough has already been started), and there are numerous compatibility problems between unrelated mods. The more complex physics and animation mods are challenging to set up and configure. They also increase the maintenance complexity of the game (e.g. requiring the use of third-party utilities on a frequent basis to ensure that animations work properly).
Those with the stomach for trying out the seedier mods, like rape encounters and other more extreme content, may find their combat becoming more challenging. The range of new animations available is also quite diverse. So, some of these mods may be of interest even if the sex mechanics aspects are not what you're looking for.
The Nexus modding community has by far more content, both tame and nude (but not outright sexual) on their site, and also covers a larger number of games.
It's not clear that any mod at LoversLab literally furthers the hatred of women; even most mods with rape have it as a crime and a danger, not a goal. One might argue the mods that focus on rape are detrimental from a feministic perspective. But male characters can also be victims and females perpetrators (against both sexes) in most of them.
So, it's less hatred of women and more about an aggressor taking advantage of human prey, in games that are already very violent by design (on average, virtually any encounter outside of a town in a game like Skyrim is going to lead immediately to bloodshed).
Whether mods of this nature are a feminist issue is open to debate, along with the decades-running question of whether violent or sexualized (and especially both at once) media are a social problem of some kind more broadly. But these mods are thought-provoking. Isn't it oddly unrealistic for an ultra-violent game world like that to be devoid of rapists? Isn't it strange that sex doesn't seem to happen at all (where did the children come from?) Have all the women had hysterectomies, with no one ever having monthlies or getting pregnant? That is, do female body process have to be hidden away (in a game full of decapitations and the living-dead) for some reason? Why is everyone shaped the same (like a pinup model)? Can cartoon boobs be offensive if you also support topfreedom? Why shouldn't a barbarian warrior woman walk around bare-breasted? (Lots of real-world cultures did until Christian missionaries browbeat them – or worse – into putting on shirts.) Would people actually give a damn about someone walking around nude, in a rough world of short, violent lives, surrounded by bloodthirsty monsters? How can there be virtually no crime but either theft or murder (in the unmodded game)? And so on.
If you want to try out LoversLab mods to ponder such questions yourself (while fighting for your virtual life), it is recommended that you have a strong stomach when it comes to looking through the sexual content, as the plethora of such material can be shocking at times (people will computer-animate some really strange stuff). But remember, there are people who enjoy content like this, and you'll be on their turf. Avoid confrontations over the content.