I agree, I think woohooing in public is very distasteful, I never let my Sims do that. I don't have ACR or any mod that affects romance/relationships. I like my Sims to be monogamous and faithful to each other.. In my eyes they must be married first (I'm not religious or anything, I just think it's more romantic that way).

I don't really thing anybody here is judging anybody; silently, maybe, but I think we're all just sharing what we believe.
Also, I'm just curious, how does this relate to feminism exactly? I think this has less to do with the fight for equality of everyone and more just understanding different points of view. (I will admit though that I'm a terrible feminist and I'm not really "involved" with it.)

For some people, sex prior to marriage is immoral though, because of religious purposes. Same for sex in public places. I'm not saying I think it's immoral, but for some that's apart of their moral compass. I think, in terms of sex, what's moral and immoral is different between everyone. People naturally will have different morals, based from the way they were raised and what not.
But, anyways, I couldn't care less what people do with their sex lives, and I have no right to call it immoral or moral. That's their business. My sex life, everybody's sex life, should go with what you believe to be moral. If you think having sex with your mother within the house is moral, go for it. If you think having sex even while you're engaged is immoral, don't do it.




Especially if it was right-off-the-stove grilled cheese.
Seriously though, it can be a frustrating aspiration. Their world revolves around grilled cheese. Every want is grilled cheese. Every fear is grilled cheese.
Life's purpose is grilled cheese.

Just because the game gives you the ability to have "amoral" (however you define the word) sims doesn't mean you have to have them engage in said behaviour.

Personally, I think the different options give the user a good balance, as you can create and play sims that fit your "morals" and/or your style, from virgin spinsters to pansexual polyamourous swingers, and everything in-between (save trans sims).

And, if you are so inclined, wants could represent deep desires and could give rise to good stories - perhaps society said that romance sim had to wait until marriage and be a good wife or husband, but all they can think about is crazy woo-hoo times - how does that affect them? Do they act on their desires and destroy their "perfect life"? Do they repress them and act out in other ways - drugs, drink, spousal abuse, religious zealotry, etc...

My own sims run the gamut from those that have one partner their whole life (and waited until marriage) to ones that, by almost any standard, lead depraved lives of random hook-ups (sometimes for money), exhibitionism, and "taboo" relationships, with the majority someone in-between. Most of my sims get married after having 2-6 partners (from both steady relationships and/or hook-ups) as teens and young adults, stay loyal to their spouses, and don't engage in public woo-hoo as adults, but I like that they can be bad if it suits their personality and story-line.

I find it irritating when the wants roll over to all purple when it's a sim it's not appropriate for. I have sims who are immoral--they have a different standard for themselves and for others--which is, if you think about it a moment, how EA programed them to be. I have sims who are amoral--they do what they want and they don't care when others do, too. I have sims who are moral. Not just with woohoo, but with everything. Big surprise, the first two categories tend to have rougher lives than the third. Just like in reality: there are consequences to actions.
As far as reality goes, I think anyone who engages in non-monogamous sex is foolish because the consequences can be potentially deadly. Sims have a much safer world than we do in some ways.

Non-monogamous sex is only foolish when you do it foolishly. Basic precautions against pregnancy and disease are (or should be, in any reasonably-arranged society) simple to take in the modern world. (God, I love Planned Parenthood!) My own period of promiscuity was good for me and I have not one regret about it. No, not even about That Guy. I got a life time's worth of mistakes out of the way in nine months with That Guy and emerged much wiser, with no negative consequences to speak of. (I can't vouch for him, but he was on a collision course for disaster before I met him, anyway, and no doubt has collided by now. No choice I ever made could possibly have hastened or retarded his progress, given his absolute refusal to be honest with anyone, himself included.) The emotional skills I gained during that period have stood me in excellent stead since then, and it's probable that my marriage wouldn't have survived 27 years and counting without them.

Within the game, the rolling of wants for inappropriate people at inappropriate times is one reason why I treat erotic wants as representing physiological states. Sims can want things that are bad for them, and resist or succumb to temptation, and make good or bad decisions, based on circumstances and character; and this is how story happens. Most bad sexual/romantic decisions are not bad moral decisions; they are bad emotional decisions.

The vanilla mechanics assume two contradictory fantasies of sexuality that may or may not be peculiarly American - I am not in position to judge. In one fantasy, romance and sex are inextricably connected in adult life and sex is always emotionally meaningful; in another fantasy, sex is all-pervasive and universally accessible and desirable. The essential conflict between these two approaches provides a surprisingly nuanced and fruitful way to explore various facets of character within the game engine, though; and I have never yet had a problem coming up with a rationale for behavior based on it which is more firmly rooted in real human character than either of these fantasies would seem, at first glance, to allow. In a lot of ways, it's the Sexual Revolution in a nutshell.

Romantic mods tweak the mechanics in different ways, ostensibly in the name of "realism," but really in the service of different aspects of of the societal constructs we create in order to handle our own emotional needs. Which is a perfectly good use of the game.

I just MUST reply to this one.

Seeing as this thread deals generally with promiscuous sims and not promiscuous female sims, I don't see what it has to do with feminism. The reason I said that the Romance aspiration in Sims 2 = whore, is that the word 'romance' in real life doesn't usually have anything to do with sex and the meaning of the word 'whore' happens to be a person who has sex all over the place. If you see having a lot of sex as being offensive, that's all on you. Personally, I'm a whore and I'm pretty happy with that. It's more of a lifestyle to me, than anything else. I don't see what morals has to do with it, I've never cheated on anyone or lead anyone to believe I wanted more than I did. If it's safe, sane and consensual, I can't see it being immoral.

People who aspire for romance usually fantasize about being swept off their feet, sigh when they see two people in an intimate kiss and wants love. In Sims though, love has nothing to do with it. They replaced love with woohoo, which is sex. That was my point. I have never heard of a real life person who considered themselves a romantic, and then when they finally found themselves in a meaningful and committed mutual relationship, their first wish is to get out of it or have an affair. I don't see how pointing that out can be offensive. Let alone to one specific gender.

Also, I specifically looked for posts where people judged others letting their sims be sexually free or experimenting and I couldn't really find any (I could, on the other hand, find posts of people who judged others that didn't), so I have no idea where you see "the amount of judging other people and their life choices in this thread". I suppose it's all about what you want to see.

In my opinion, it's people like you who makes people generally afraid of saying anything about anything. Like even acknowledging that humans have races will make people shout 'RACISM', as if races are so horrible and something to be ashamed of... If you don't want things to be taboo (like promiscuity), let people talk about it, rather than shaming them for being open about it.

And yes, I know this post will make me unpopular, but I believe in speaking about all the things that people don't think should be spoken of.

If you are interested, I invite you to read a few feminist blogs that explain issues beyond the classic "we get less pay". Feminism is so much more than just getting equal pay checks and sharing the cleaning duties. I can't explain it to you, and I don't want to. I'm tired of being a cyclopedia for people who can't bother to read up (not saying you're one of them, just explaining I've stopped telling people how or why something is feminist or racist). If one wants to know, one has to do the work. It's not something that can be explained in two minutes over a forum debate.

As for poster above me, I apologize but I'm not going to go there. You and I are never going to agree on anything, at all, so there's no point.

English language lesson for the benefit of those who have English as a second language:

Actually, "whore" is a derogatory term for the provider in a commercial sexual relationship. Men who fill this role are called "gigolos," which - though still derogatory - is less derogatory. You will never hear the word "gigalo" thrown about casually to denigrate men; and (the issue of scansion aside) the song "Just a Gigalo" would have a completely different mood and meaning if it were titled "Just a Whore."

The term "slut" is a derogatory term for a woman who has had a lot of sexual partners, and is often thrown around to make women's sexuality sound like a bad thing when not controlled by men.

Both terms are also casually used to justify sexual violence against women - because if a woman is held to be either, she is assumed to be "asking for it" and it wasn't really a bad thing to rape, harass, humiliate, stalk, or even kill her. She wanted it, really.

Nor is there any female equivalent of the positive term "Ladies' man" or "stud," nor any term equivalent to "player" or "womanizer," terms which may be used positively, negatively, or neutrally, depending on the speaker's point of view.

And that is why this is a feminist matter.

So if I change the word 'whore' to "very promiscuous and puts sex above everything else", it's no longer offensive, even though I mean exactly the same by it? That makes sense.

As for the difference in how terms are used against males vs. females, that pretty much makes everything offensive, seeing as men have apparently spent a lot of time an effort, thinking of names to insult women, whereas there are hardly any offensive words aimed at males-only. Even worse in my language, than in English. Even the male version of female offenses (like sexual promiscuity) are no longer offensive, if aimed at a man, so I agree with that. I don't consider promiscuity as being a bad thing though, therefore I don't see classifying someone as being sexually promiscuous as being a bad thing either. That's just me.

This subject gets to me, because I seem to be one of the few who believes in full equality. Meaning not equality whenever it comes in handy or it can be used to someone's advantage, but always and in all aspects. Whether it's men/women, black/white (or in the case of my sociaty, Arabic/Caucasian), young/old. Of course some things has to be taken into consideration, as genetics does make a difference. You can't expect an old man to be able to run a marathon equally to a young lad, but one example, is the typical "a woman's place is in the kitchen" crap. And yes, I do consider that crap. What irritates me, is that the same woman then turns around and says "How are you afraid of spiders and don't know how to fix a door..? That's just... something men DO". I wasn't born with a wrench in my hand. I don't know how to fix anything, anymore than a woman is born with a magical talent for cooking, just because she has estrogen.

All-together, I believe that offensive is a matter of the person reading. I have seen many cases of a white person saying something that another white person called racism on, whereas a black person replied "Eh, I'm black and I don't see how that's supposed to offend me." Reality is perspective.

I understand how you feel that you don't see it as a negative thing and therefore the word is not, but you don't make up the entire world. A white person who calls a black person nigger is being offensive, even if they personally don't mean anything bad with that words.

Words have history. Words have meaning. And that goes way beyond your personal understanding of them and their meaning. It's not about how you intend them, it's about what they mean in society. That's how language works.

You're doing exactly what you're trying to use against me, though. You're right that me not finding something offensive doesn't mean that no one has the right to be offended by it, but that also means that you finding something offensive, doesn't automatically make it so. I actually get offended when my grandmother refers to my cat as an "it". She's not an it, she has a gender, but I don't start arguing with her about it, because I know that she means no offense by it and it's not a statement to her. That's just how she speaks.

The "OMG! Sex before marriage!" and monogamy thing really has nothing to do with "morality" and everything to do with keeping bloodlines "pure" as well as enforcing the idea of "legitimacy" once the concept of inheritance was introduced into various societies. For reasons of inheritance and because most societies on Earth are patriarchal, it became very important to know who was whose father. The easiest way to do that is to encourage/enforce the concept of monogamy. Mostly, for most of history, that concept was legally and "morally" enforced only on women because it's pretty obvious who a child's mother is, but for most of history it's been impossible to tell, conclusively, who a child's father is. (So, in that sense, the entire concept of monogamy began as something that was indeed extremely sexist and that was enforced by the larger concept of patriarchy and, even now, it's the psychological basis for judging women who like sex and who have a lot of sex with many different partners.)

Anyway, the way to ensure the purity of bloodlines in patriarchal societies as well as to make sure that only "legitimate" children inherited money, land, titles, etc. was to yoke women to one man, through laws and arranged marriages and religious taboos and such, so that she would only bear children fathered by the one man to whom she was married. It didn't always work, of course. Women still had affairs and got pregnant by men who weren't their husbands because during that time marriage had nothing to do with love (although some certainly developed into that, over time) and so the relationship sometimes proved to be entirely unfulfilling, emotionally and sexually, for the wife. So she'd seek what she needed elsewhere, even though it was often very dangerous for her to do so. But for the most part it worked well. So, the whole concept became rigidly enforced and thoroughly ingrained, psychologically, pretty much world-wide, and it's really not because of "morality." "Morality," especially once codified by religion, was simply the justification used to enforce and ingrain the whole thing.

Of course, in Victorian times it began to become more common for marriages to be about love rather than politics and money/property and such. (Not everywhere, of course; I've shifted to talking about Western society now.) Once you put love into the equation, people don't want to share their partner with anyone else because now we've developed this romantic ideal of your partner loving you and only you for the rest of his/her life.

Which, IMO, is silly. That's not to say that I didn't have that ideal once upon a time. We all do because now IT is what is socially conditioned/encouraged. (Because if you really love someone you'll be with them forever, happily ever after, blah, blah, right?) But during my marriage I learned that people change, sometimes in ways that the other person is not willing to accept or deal with. And here's the thing: IMO, they shouldn't have to. In my marriage's case, it was I who changed, drastically, in ways that I didn't expect or foresee at all and that my husband wasn't willing to deal with. And, in retrospect, it was selfish and, indeed, morally wrong of me to expect him to do so, much less to try to make him do so through emotional manipulation and such. (Which I am certainly guilty of, I admit.) Because for me, my morals are guided by the concept of harm. As in, an action that harms another person in any way is morally wrong, so that action should not be undertaken. Which is why I say now -- hindsight being 20/20 and all -- that the things I did to try to "save my marriage" (*insert heroic fanfare here*) were all morally repulsive because it did harm to my husband. (Which isn't to say that attempts to save a marriage in general are bad or wrong, of course. I'm just saying that the things that I, specifically, did using "saving my marriage" as a justification, were bad and wrong.) So this "do no harm" concept, for me, applies not just to sex but to life in general.

Which brings me (finally ) to the Sims. The way I play my game is, for the most part, "the world as I would wish it to be," and I, of course, would wish that the world conformed to my own personal morality. I'm sure everyone on the planet wishes that everyone else conformed to their personal morality. So of course that will never happen in the real world...but I can make it happen in my game. So, my Sims' lives are, for the most part, guided by my own ideals and my own moral code, and when it comes to sex (or woohoo, if you prefer), my morals are the same as it is for anything else. That is, if it does no harm to anyone, it's all good.

And, IMO, the only way that sex can possibly be harmful (aside from sexually transmitted diseases, I mean) is if it's non-consensual. If the involved parties are all good with what they're doing, and if they're all of an age where they can officially give consent according to the rules of their society, then there is and can be nothing morally wrong about it. I don't care if the parties have been married for 40 years or just met 40 minutes ago. I don't care if the parties are of the same gender or what-have-you. I don't care if it's a group of 2 people or a group of 20 people. I don't care if one or more of the parties is being paid to have sex, so long as they aren't forced into that profession and are in it of their own free will. S'all good. And it's all likely to be reflected in my game, too. (Well, except maybe a group of 20 people, because you can't do that in the game. ) Why? Because those are my morals...which many people would find completely immoral, I'm sure, but I, frankly, don't care. Judge me all you want. I'm not saying that I, personally, would do all of those things. I'm just saying that there is, at least according to me, nothing inherently wrong with doing any them. When it comes to sex, consent is the only thing that determines whether or not the act is moral.

Of course, in game terms, the player has to decide what constitutes consent. Some people will only allow Sims to woohoo if they're married. (Although I say that's morally shaky, frankly. Just because you're married to someone doesn't mean that you always want to have sex with them when they want to have it, after all. It certainly doesn't give one spouse or the other the right to have sex whenever they want.) Some will allow it only when both potential partners have a want for it. Me, I just let ACR do its thing, once I set it for each Sim. In my game, some of those settings are determined randomly. Some are set according to aspiration. Some are set according to personality. In my experience, once properly set, ACR does a pretty good job of giving each character a "moral center," if you will, at least when it comes to sex. Especially because I tend to grab townies/NPCs when they walk by or on community lots and give them individualized settings, as well.

All that said, the fact that the game gives the characters plenty of places to have sex is morally neutral, IMO. It says nothing about the morality of either the player or the game developers. Because once the game is in your hands, it's up to you how you're going to use it. And if you're averse to the idea of Sims woohooing in an elevator (or a car or a changing booth or a closet or a park bench outside of the grocery store or whatever "exotic" locale you choose), you don't have to allow them to do so. If you're averse to the idea of Sims woohooing before marriage,you don't have to command or allow them to do so. And if you're personally averse to those sorts of things in the real world, then having an entirely different set of rules and standards for collections of pixels on a computer screen doesn't make you a terrible person, either. The game is more physical extension of fantasy, and one of the purposes of fantasy is to explore living in different ways than that which we can or would even want to live in the real world. And in general, fantasy is all good, so long as one can separate reality from fantasy. And there are vanishingly few people in the world who have trouble with that distinction.

iCad, I always enjoy reading your posts, even if it tends to take a while, lol.

I agree with everything you said and I need to practice the arts of putting things in a way that's not in-your-face, as I tend to do. In all posts I've read by you, you've had a way of expressing your views and opinions without offending anyone on any side at any time.

Respect to you!

What is going on here? Will somebody tell me? Did I open a "Can Of Worms" posting this thread? How in the world did we go from talking about our little pixels Sims being adventurous in woohooing to talking about "feminism" or even using the "N" word? Did a tornado pass through here? Have we lost our common senses because of it ? This is about the SIMS and their world, when did "Feminism" walk in here or the use of the "N" word walk in here.

My Sims just love to WooHoo in the photo booth. Take a few Sim selfies in the process. Always winds up with Mrs. CrumpleBottom and her purse.

Sure, seems dirty for some, but for me, it's better them than me. While I'm laughing my head off, my poor Sims are feeling the wrath of the purse. My Sims 1 Sims already go through Miss CrumpleBottom, only fair if my Sims 2 Sims have to suffer as well.

the n-word has been used too many things amiss in this thread. I am done.

I don't really want to get into a big debate or argument, but I would just like to point out that sex can be harmful, as people can be emotionally hurt by it sometimes. For example, if one person thinks they are having a casual fling, and the other person is getting very attached.

Wrong word choice from me. I meant non-exclusive, not non-monogamous. Three people in an exclusive relationship are just as safe as two, or ten. Sorry about that. (I'm pregnant and sick, how's that for an excuse? Pretty lame, right?)

I admit to having some prejudices on the matter due to being acquainted with an individual convicted on multiple counts of premeditated murder for knowing he is HIV positive, picking up young women and convincing them to have unprotected sex. The individual is charming as all get-out and could probably, as the saying goes, sell ice to an Eskimo, and apparently claimed he had just had an STD test and was perfectly safe but didn't show the non-existent results to his victims. Since condoms aren't 100% perfect at protecting against transmission of STDs, even when used correctly, I'll hold with foolish for casual real-world sex, gender irrelevant.

In mine, there is nothing aside from making out before marriage--just easier that way. Just because they want to woohoo, doesn't mean they'll get to while on a date. I don't let them do just anything, they're not animals, after all.

It can also be harmful if you're cheating on someone who thought you were in a monogamous relationship. In that case, if you aren't prepared to remain faithful then you should break up with the person.

Random aside. I've heard men referred to as sluts, so it isn't a solely feminine insult.

I believe it came in with the use of the word "morals" applied to sex/woohoo. Yep, can of worms is a pretty good description. Words matter.



It's not the sex that's harmful in your example, I'd say, it's the dishonesty or lack of communication. It's the expectations, not the act itself.

And the way I usually hear/see it used is as "man-whore" or "man-slut" - which pretty much carries an implication that this is an exception, and that the typical whore or slut is female. Kind of like saying "female pilot" because pilots are usually male, or specifying "women's basketball" because the assumption if you just say basketball is that you're talking about men playing.

^^^^^^
Took the words right out of my mouth.
(Plus, although it isn't a friendly term, "whore" also can be used when describing men. So again, I'm not really seeing how this can relate at all to feminism. And I thought I was just missing something here.)
EDIT: Oh! People above have already brought this up. Cool beans. I know that in my tween-youth age, I said man-slut or man-whore. Never to anyone's face, just when talking to friends. The stigma of women keeping those titles has just happened over time. And, personally, distinguishing between the two doesn't bother me. Maybe that's a bad thing to some people, but it doesn't get to me because that's how it's been throughout my lifetime. Sure, they mean the same thing, but you'll need to distinguish or I'll assume it's a man/woman.


Sure. Feel free to send the links to me in a message.

Anyways, I think we should all try and get this thread back on topic. It's strayed too far from Pleasantview to the real world for comfort.
I think with romance sims, it's all about how the player views the aspiration. Clearly every player is different and interprets what their wants mean however they would like. As somebody else in this thread said, The Sims 1 & 2 were a lot more about having fun and not being realistic, whereas Sims 3 limits the player to, well, a mostly realistic society. With that being said, I think that the creators of The Sims 2 gave us a lot more freedom to imagine what we want with our sims. With each aspiration, people could interpret something else.
For example, the Money aspiration. Sometimes I imagine my sim as being like Mr. Krabs from Spongebob Squarepants, where they just want tons of money. Other times, I just take it as my sim wants to be successful in their career and to be well-off.

I don't think anybody's mentioned the use of second aspirations yet. I think with romance sims it's a nice way to counterbalance the promiscuity or hopeless romanticism in your sim, whichever way you view the aspiration's meaning. It adds deeper "character" to your sims. Plus, they'll no longer roll "woohoo in a car" on a semi-daily basis.

What sims do under the covers, in the photo booth, dressing room or any other areas they can think of is merely up to the imagination of those in control. For all we know they're just playing cards, or hide-and-seek or trading family secret recipes. They don't really give birth, babies pop out of those cute green plumb-bobs. The big bellies are just a reaction to all the pressure going on in said plumbbobs. This would explain how a male can occasionally 'give birth' since it isn't actually an anatomically correct creation. They can get angry and yet still be friendly at times, they like most everyone, are non-judgemental as to a sims skin color, looks or how they dress. Although they do make fun when a sim is learning to dance, that is hilarious, but the dancing sim takes no mind to it. Sims are aware that they entertain us and don't mind as long as they're fairly comfortable, they accept the trials and tribulations we put them through. So, occasionally a sims comes along and steals your newspaper, maybe they're just protecting you from some upsetting news.

Players have many ways of how they run their game, we all have different opinions or ideas how we want their lives to go. I don't judge how others play if it isn't the same way I do, it's all about personal choices. I just play for fun and forgetting about stress and real life problems for awhile.

This thread really did take a turn...jeez.

At the end of the day, we all play our game the way we play it, for whatever reason; and you know what, that's perfectly fine and as it should be.

Happy Simming, everyone!

You can see what's going on under the covers by removing the bedsheets, but you don't want to. It is horror of Lovecraftian proportions. XD

I never liked the name for Romance sims. 'Romance' to me is not sleeping with as many people as you can; it's finding that special someone. Maybe they should have called them 'Player' sims or 'Lusty' sims lol.