"It was an explosion," recalled Erika (all first names have been changed) as she described her "mini first time." Why the diminutive? Because of the unusual setting for this sexual initiation: The Sims 2. This video game, released in 2004 and designed as a life simulation, allows players to control the daily lives of their avatars, the Sims. "As a somewhat uptight high school student, the first Sim I created was an ideal. A 'cool girl' who was supposed to be a hypersocial heartbreaker, to 'complete' the game," she remembered.
To achieve that goal, Erika initiated numerous interactions, notably with a non-playable Sim – a secondary character whom the player cannot directly control. Their bond quickly deepened. So much so that, among the catalog of interactions allowed by the dialogue interface ("flirt," "joke," "dance with"...), a new option appeared: "woo hoo." "In Sim language, that's the way to say 'to have sex'," Erika explained. "I was convinced that only heterosexual relationships had been included in the game, so seeing that there were other possibilities stunned me and made me curious."
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