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SPOILER INFO
This article describes the behavior of a number of female NPCs. Unless you have considerable experience with the Skyrim game, you might want to not read this.
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THE BASICS
There is an excellent rape mod for Skyrim, SexLab Defeat . But what about consensual sex?
The vanilla game doesn't support even nudity, let alone sex. To reveal the private parts, there are mods that replace vanilla body textures with nude ones – many for female bodies and a few for male bodies. As to sex, the foundation of it all is SexLab Framework which has a collection of sex scenes in a variety of positions as well as many adjustable parameters. For instance, when the partners happen to be incorrectly aligned, there are hotkeys for moving one of them forward or back, up or down, left or right.
That is the technical part. What about game situations? How do you get an NPC to have consensual sex with you?
The most basic-level sex situation is provided by SexLab Framework which contains a command "play animation". That is, you can select an NPC by pressing N, choose an animation from the menu, click "play animation", and the two of you will get naked and have sex in that position. (I shall refer to that as N-sex for short.)
That feature of SexLab Framework is meant for testing if sex animations work properly. It's obviously insufficient for a proper game. Abundant challengeless sex achieved by simply walking from one woman to another and pressing N would make the game utterly unrealistic. It's implausible that one just has the ability to make every woman (and man, for that matter) agree to sex.
By contrast, Defeat makes sex reasonably challenging. You have to get behind the target and close enough and avoid being seen and heard. Then you can overpower her by pressing G . (I'll refer to that as G-assault for short.) Considering that Skyrim is set in a medieval world, it is quite plausible that when a woman is careless enough to be caught in a private place by a resourceful adventurer, she'll be in deep trouble (with emphasis on "deep").
Of course, the system is unrealistic in many ways, but the extent to which a mod can stretch the game code is obviously not infinite. So, all things considered, Defeat does an excellent job adding sexuality to your Skyrim adventure.
But that is just rape. There are obviously situations where a man can get sex from a woman without having to force her. Aren't there any mods to simulate that?
During my initial sex mod testing, I found a mod, Matchmaker I believe it was called, where you get a spell called something like "irresistibly attractive" added to your inventory. When you cast it on an NPC, she will get irresistibly attractive, and when you cast it on yourself, you will get irresistibly attractive. When you manage to do it quickly enough, the two of you will have sex. When you don't do it quickly enough (which happens too often), one of you will get naked, lie down and begin to masturbate.
Clearly, that is equivalent to just marking the target with N. The only difference is that Matchmaker supports sex acts with more than two participants – if you are fast enough in casting the spell on the right people. Good luck with that. The basic problem remains – when every NPC lets you fuck her just like that, the game becomes pointless. One can get a more satisfying experience watching porn videos.
What about mods that affect NPCs' behavior, so that you could do something to seduce them?
Before I started my first serious game, I didn't succeed in finding any such mods. So I just began to play with only the option of enforced sex. I mean, you can't expect everything from a computer game. Having the ability to rape women is still better than no sex at all.
FIRST SCRUPLES
There was that elven woman called Nimriel who wouldn't even talk to me. She was always working on the fields and her husband was always hanging around, so I couldn't G-assault her. I didn't really mind – she wasn't all that pretty. So I just traveled around, doing things. Once, there was a skirmish near their farm, and I got a lot of gear from the dead and ended up overweight. So I dropped some stuff, and suddenly she appeared and asked me if she may take the armor I had just dropped, and I said she may. After that, her attitude changed completely. She would always greet me with "It's a nice day with you around."
Some time later, I saw her husband walking in the town. I decided to use the opportunity to go and rape Nimriel. It was already late in the evening, so she had left the field and would presumably be at home. I picked the lock and entered. She was there and she was just about to go to bed. Seeing me, she greeted me cheerfully and went to sleep. She acted like it was perfectly normal that I would be in her bedroom at bedtime, having forced the lock on the door, with no one else in the house. I just didn't have the heart to rape her. I decided to grant her a special privilege – excempt her from rape. I mean, when you've already had dozens of women, you can afford to let one go. (The fact that she wasn't very attractive certainly helped.)
Later on, I extended the same privilege to a number of non-standard (mod-added) bards – meaning, pretty and kind women who wouldn't annoy me with the standard Skyrim songs but would actually play beautiful music. I hadn't the heart to rape them, even when they were very attractive.
To cut the long story short, I found a number of women who were just too nice to be violated. I mean, had they been the only women in the world, it would have been different. But when there were many other rape targets available, I could afford to let a selected few go unraped.
FORCED TO FIGURE OUT SOMETHING NEW
Eventually I was assigned a housecarl, which for all practical purposes means an eager slave – given to me to command in any way I please, indeed declaring her eagerness to protect me with her life. I figured that if she was obliged to obey my every command, that would naturally include submitting to sex. But how should I go about it? G-assaulting a follower is physically impossible in the game, apart from which it wouldn't make sense as a follower obviously doesn't need to be forced.
The follower dialogue choices didn't include a command "Let's have sex". So the only option was to press N and execute sex from the SexLab MCM. Clearly N-sex doesn't constitute cheating in this case because I can't be expected to walk around accompanied by a pretty chick eager to serve, and never fuck her. It would be extremely unrealistic.
Some time later, I realized that there were situations where a woman could plausibly be blackmailed into sex without violence. For example, when a woman is running for her life, and I have the choice of either delivering her to her enemies, killing her enemies for her, or doing nothing, she is hardly in a position to refuse sex. That the game doesn't physically support it is not my fault. I am in such a case entitled to fuck that woman with N and that is not cheating – because the situation would be utterly unrealistic if I had to physically force her.
Then I found myself in a situation where a woman asked my help in achieving her dream of learning a certain trade. The person able to teach her required that she get him a certain item, and she, being nothing like a warrior, was completely unable to go out into the wilderness and get that object. I agreed to help her and get the object for her. When I had acquired it and had returned to her town, I realized that it was perfectly plausible that I could demand sex in return.
I mean, at the moment when she asked me for help, she was not really in such a trouble that I could have pressed her to sex. But when I actually had that item in my possession and had the choice of giving it to her or not, I think it's realistic to presume that she would have let me fuck her as a reward. That the authors of the game haven't written the corresponding dialogue options is, again, not my fault. I am entitled to fuck such a woman with N and it's not cheating, because it would be unrealistic if I had to use physical force on a woman whom I can do a huge service or not.
On the other hand, I think it's pretty clear that you are not entitled to gratitude sex when a woman merely asks you to bring an item to another person, as the service you will provide her is something she could theoretically do herself, albeit wasting a lot of time.
Later still, I encountered a woman who agreed to become my follower. She was not given to me by a jarl, she was ready to accompany me of her own free will. Would I be entitled to fuck a non-housecarl follower with N just like I would a housecarl follower? Absolutely. Firstly because of the way Skyrim game works. A G-assault on a follower is physically impossible, remember? The second reason is psychological realism. When a woman is willing to become permanently bound to follow me everywhere and obey my orders, she understands perfectly that 1) I will want to fuck her, 2) I am physically much stronger than her, and 3) we would spend a lot of time in places where there would be no one she could ask for help if I did decide to take her by force. It is therefore obvious that she would never offer to become my follower unless she was ready to become my sex partner.
I further realized that in order to fuck her I wouldn't even have to dismiss my existing follower, hire the new one, fuck her, send her away and re-hire my original follower. Clearly, apart from her possible craving for adventure, attraction is the most likely reason why a woman would offer to become my follower without pay in the first place. Meaning, it is reasonable to presume that she would agree to have sex with me even if I wouldn't make her my follower (yet).
It is different when a woman only agrees to become my follower for money. In that case, I decided, I had to actually pay her first (meaning, dismiss my current follower) and only then would I be entitled to fucking her. Now, it could be argued that the offer to fight for me for money doesn't necessarily include sexual services. But then again, as in the previous case, she would surely know in advance that we will often be in places where I could force myself between her legs. So, all things considered, she would not agree to become my follower if she found sex with me unacceptable. Apart from which, women have sexual desires too, and a warrior woman is unlikely to be very prudish about it, and what better partner choice there is for her but a warrior whom she serves? Why shouldn't she be attracted to a man by whose side she is fighting day after day?
(Of course this is completely different in the case of a male follower, but I wasn't interested in consensual sex with men anyway.)
A plausible consensual sex situation of a very different kind occurred when I found myself in a temple inhabited by only women who were obviously whores. I spoke to a woman who made it very clear that she enjoyed having sex with men who visited the temple and that she found me attractive. Then she walked away. She had been created by a mod but the mod author hadn't deemed it necessary to make it possible for the player to actually have sex with her. So what was I supposed to do? She had unmistakably expressed her willingness, so raping her would have been utter nonsense. Naturally, I fucked her with N and that can definitely not be considered cheating.
That way, I started to have increasingly more non-violent sex. I guess that some stupid feminist would claim that I "realized" that rape was "wrong", but in reality I merely found out alternative but still plausible ways of initiating sex. I mean, you learn and discover throughout the game of Skyrim. Just as you eventually learn that there are more ways of fighting than just slashing with your sword, I realized that there are situations where raping is an unnecessarily harsh means of achieving copulation.
Of course, the use of N for non-violent sex demands, firstly, a reasonably good understanding of female psychology, and, secondly, honesty towards oneself. In order to not fall prey to the temptation of making things too easy, I established myself a clear set of rules for various sex bases – circumstances that would plausibly entitle me to assume submission to sex.
There are 18 sex bases, grouped into 7 categories which reflect the partner's attitude towards me. The categories are grouped into 2 classes – G-sex (forced) and N-sex (not forced).
Although this article is meant to discuss consensual sex, I will briefly introduce the 4 sex bases in the G-sex category as well, in order to give you the full picture.
The examples brought below are from my first ever serious game, the one before Deflorator. It lasted 300+ hours. In Deflorator's game, the system as such remained the same, but experiences with one or another specific woman may have been different. In Laura's game, this system is obviously irrelevant because Laura is female.
MY SYSTEM OF SEX PARTNER CATEGORIES
Forced sex partner categories
Categories of women whom I fuck with G are:
first rape
repeat rape
slave
First rape means (of course) that I raped a woman I had never fucked before.
Repeat rape means that I raped a woman I had fucked before (with or without coercion), let go, and met again at a later date.
Slave refers to a woman whom I keep permaneantly confined in an interior location that is under my control, such as a house that belongs to me. This category includes two sex bases: brat and bellicose.
A brat is a woman whom I have enslaved because her behavior is so intolerable that I can't let her walk around freely, yet she is so beautiful that I feel sorry to kill her. (Examples: Olfina, an arrogant bitch; Sapphire, a depraved criminal.)
The label bellicose applies to a woman who attacks me, not before rape (like bandits do; that is irrelevant in terms of sex bases), but immediately after rape. That grossly unrealistic behavior occurs because of unavoidable limitations in the game physics – Defeat makes the rape victim hate you, and when the vanilla game has created her aggressive enough, she attacks you immediately after recovering from post-rape shock. In the virtual reality, this means that she acted with unacceptable insolence after rape, therefore requiring attitude readjustment. As a rule, I kept such women in one of my slave storages for a while to let them fret, then I spanked them until their attitude improved (for that purpose, I increased relationshiprank ) and then set them free.
Now, whenever I fucked such a woman while she was still in confinement, the act was counted under this sex basis.
Technically consensual sex partner categories
The following sex partner categories refer to the cases when I fucked a woman with N because in the virtual reality I didn't have to use physical force to make her let me fuck her:
reluctant submission
willingness
obedience
relationship
Reluctant submission means she doesn't actually want to have sex with me but submits because she wants something from me or I could get her into trouble. This category includes 4 sex bases:
blackmail
prostitution
preceding gratitude
subsequent gratitude
Blackmail means she doesn't want to have sex with me, but she is either in physical danger (Saadia) or can get in serious trouble (Haelga, actually begged me not to betray her) and I have the power to deliver or not deliver her to what she fears. Obviously excluded is the danger of physical violence from me – that would be rape.
Even though blackmailing a woman to sex is usually criminal in the real world, it doesn't involve the use of physical force and therefore falls under N-sex rather than G-sex in the Skyrim game.
A woman can be fucked under this basis while the perceived danger exists. In the case of Haelga or Svidi, that would mean infinitely. For that matter, you could keep Saadia in permanent sexual servitude as well, simply by not doing anything about Kematu. However, that would be something I consider dishonest. Also, it seems psychologically intangible, as a woman in a life-long forced relationship is likely to snap sooner or later and refuse to go on serving you no matter what the consequences. So, in order to keep things plausible and fair, I would let the woman off the hook after a reasonable time.
Prostitution obviously means that you enter an agreement with a woman that she allows you to fuck her and you give her a specified amount of money.
When I first met a woman who begged in the street for alms in the amount of 1 septim, I figured I could only fuck her by raping her. The reason is the following. Normally it makes no sense for a woman to beg, as she could offer sexual services and earn much more. A woman begging in the street makes only sense when she finds prostituting unacceptable for some reason. So I can't fuck her unless I rape her.
Later I reconsidered my position. I realized that those women were begging in the street merely because vanilla Skyrim doesn't support prostitution. I figured that it's perfectly plausible that a beggar who is happy when you give her 1$ for nothing would agree to be fucked for 100$. (For obvious reasons, this doesn't apply to men and children.)
The other kind of beggars are women labeled Farmer accompanied by their husbands who tell you that their farm was destroyed by a dragon and now they are home- and penniless. They ask for a bigger alms – 5 septims. I was unsure if they could also be fucked for money. On the one hand, they desperately need money. On the other hand, they are married and presumably decent women who want to remain faithful, and the husband is usually right there. Considering the arguments from both sides, I decided that if they have really lost their home and livelihood and are happy when donated 5$, the husband would probably allow her wife to be fucked for 500$. Apart from which, they realize perfectly well that I could overwhelm them and fuck the woman anyway without paying anything. Remember, we are not talking about fucking or not fucking here. We are talking about either enforcing sex by physical force or coming to a mutually acceptable solution.
Later still, I noticed a couple more categories of women who could reasonably be expected to agree to have sex for money. Eventually I found mods that added actual prostitutes into the game.
Preceding gratitude can be a basis for sex when I have something the woman wants really really badly, and I have the choice to give it to her or not. Examples: Ysolda, Mjoll.
In such a situation, the woman can be fucked while the item is in my possession, or immediately afterwards because sometimes the game forces me to give her the item when I enter dialogue, and sloppy scripting is not the player's fault.
Subsequent gratitude is after-the-fact gratitude sex. This sex basis applies when sex cannot be demanded before rendering the service, but the service is big enough for any normal woman to realize that you deserve the reward. ("All right, damn you, fuck me and get out of my sight.") This right can be exercised only during a reasonably short time after the target gets to know about the service.
Example: all those women whom you free from the slavery to Miraak. You can't demand anything from them before freeing them because they are unresponsive, but afterwards they are certainly grateful enough to let you fuck them. (Apart from which, they full well realize an attempt to defend themselves would be hopeless.)
Another example: while Saadia is in danger, you can get sex from her on the grounds of blackmail. After you actually kill the men who chased her and you go and tell her about it, you can no longer blackmail her because she is no longer in danger. But certainly she will acknowledge that you did her an immense service and even if she isn't overwhelmed by the desire to make you happy, she will at least realize that her body is the only thing she can adequately repay you with. So that would be a case where you can get sex on the grounds of subsequent gratitude. That is, as long as you require it before her gratitude wears off, that is more or less immediately after breaking the news to her.
Willingness means the woman lets herself be seduced one way or another. This category includes 6 sex bases:
surrender
arousable
liking
slut
whore
desire
Surrender is a sex basis very close to the previous category. This refers to women whom I have raped earlier, but when I encounter them again, they are surprisingly friendly which shows that they aren't mad at me but have put up with their fate and in fact find me attractive, and even if they don't, G-assaulting them seems clearly an overkill. That's why it's reasonable to presume in the imaginary reality that when I tell them I'm going to have sex with them, they realize that it's better to surrender, because if they don't, I am perfectly capable of taking them by force.
Cases of surrender are understandably nowhere near as straightforward as, say, blackmail or prostitution. This kind of "consent" is obviously very much open to interpretation, so this sex basis is not to be used lightly. It requires a good knowledge of female psychology to be able to determine when a woman would surrender like that. The main criteria are remarkably friendly behavior in spite of previous rape as well as a generally acquiescent nature and definitely the lack of a steady partner. Meaning, one can reasonably presume that she is no longer traumatized, likes you and is sexually unsatisfied.
When I met Sylgja for the first time, she was asleep in her bed. I raped her without a second thought. Then she asked me to deliver an item into another village for her. I agreed. Then she told me to get out of her house. This was obviously a lack of harmony between vanilla and a mod: Defeat made her hate me because I had raped her, vanilla made her give me the quest all the same.
After I had delivered that item for her and happened to pass through her village again, I went to see her and to report that the assignment has been completed. She was incredibly friendly. She was also incredibly cute. I so wanted to fuck her. But it didn't seem right to rape her under the circumstances.
I thought what could plausibly happen between me and her in the imaginary reality. The service I had done to her was clearly insufficient to demand sex on the grounds of subsequent gratitude. But she was like "It's a fine day with you around," and allowed me to take things from her house. Even if she didn't outright desire me, she obviously wasn't mad at me for having raped her. I can imagine that if I had stepped up to her, possibly put my hands on her shoulders, looked her in the eye and told her I wanted to have sex with her, she would have realized that I won't be stopped. Even if she didn't feel like having sex, I wouldn't have actually had to threaten to use force. She would have remembered that I had raped her once and realized resistance would be futile. Apart from which, she was living alone and surely desired to have a dick inside of her from time to time. And with her hymen long gone, she would hardly have many scruples about casual sex. And I was obviously a powerful man, and a stranger who would not spread any gossip about her in the village. All things considered, a woman in her position would be not at all unhappy to give herself to me, and to G-assault her would have been an obvious overkill.
So I created a new sex basis called "surrender" and used it as a justification to fuck Sylgja with N. Only this time I left my follower standing outside. A woman surrendering like that clearly requires privacy for sex.
Another case of surrender was Carlotta. I had stalked her one evening on her way home and succeeded in G-assaulting her right in front of her house. I spent a lot of time in her town and walked frequently past her stall, and even though I rarely needed to buy anything from her, I often stopped to say hello. Sometimes she would snap at me for having violated her, but most times she would peddle her wares in her modest way. I admired her for being such a good sport and generally a nice person, not to mention very very beautiful. I didn't rape her anymore simply because she was virtually always in plain view of other people. Eventually, though, I realized that she was so cute that I just couldn't continue to walk past.
It occurred to me that one of those times when she didn't display any hostility whatsoever, she could be plausibly made to surrender. She was friendly towards me most of the time, she realized that she couldn't avoid getting taken by force if I was really determined, and she was single. It didn't seem right to just force her like any piece of ass.
There are nuances in Carlotta's behavior which actually merit a separate article which I might write one of these days, but in order not to digress too much, I shall limit myself here to stating that, all things considered, my estimate was that Carlotta's behavior with me justified my taking N-sex from her on the grounds of surrender.
Unless something goes very wrong, women who surrender can be reasonably presumed to become your girlfriends in due time (see below).
Arousable is a hard-to-name sex basis which corresponds to the common seduction situation that is frequent in the real world – a woman is sexually neutral towards you and becomes receptive under certain favorable circumstances. In the Skyrim world, I apply it when I have rendered a service to a woman, but not big enough to actually demand sex from her, and she is nice to me, but not strongly and consistently enough to justify sex on the grounds of liking (see below). In other words, gratitude alone is not sufficient and attractedness alone is not sufficient, but both together can justify her consenting to sex when the mood happens to be right.
I took sex on this basis from, for instance, Temba and Lisbet.
This sex basis is obviously very disputable and to be used very cautiously. It only entitles you to sex on those moments when the woman displays a clearly receptive mood. Other than in the case of surrender or (sometimes) girlfriend, she does not submit to your demands, she lets herself be seduced. Letting herself be seduced once doesn't mean she will do it the next time.
Lisbet, for instance, seemed at first to be willing to become my steady. The situation that led to our first sex was like this: she said after trading "If you would like anything else, let me know," and remained standing by me. If that wasn't a display of sexual willingness, what is? But later, after I had killed a guard in front of her eyes, she became consistently grumpy. In the imaginary reality I figured that she regretted having given herself to me.
Temba was different. She kept telling me how she cherishes friends like me, but the next moment she would suggest that I start working at her mill. So she looked like a manipulating and controlling type of woman who wanted to turn me into the kind of man she wanted. Judging by her behavior, she was willing not only to have casual sex, but even to become my girlfriend, only I didn't fancy one with that kind of an attitude.
In Deflorator's game, I included in this category the women witnessing me killing a dragon and previously not raped by me. I figured that the extreme fear caused by a horrible danger with the subsequent relief and gratitude is almost certain to make a woman highly aroused, a phenomenon frequently observed in the real world. Many women at rock concerts are willing to go with the band members without hesitation. Surely women would be even more willing to go with a man who has killed a town-destroying dragon in front of their eyes.
Women who witness me slay a dragon and are previously raped by me fall under the previous sex basis "surrender". They are highly aroused just like the others, at the same time they sort of hate me. Should I approach them for sex, they are very confused by those conflicting emotions as well as realizing that I won't take "no" for an answer. So they wouldn't put up a resistance, but it wouldn't be quite the same as that rock concert thing.
Come to think of it, Salma (see below) would fall into this category by this new interpretation.
Liking is another case when a woman lets herself be seduced. It applies to the women to whom I haven't rendered any services but who either act very friendly even though I have raped them in the past (such as Aija) or express the wish to be taken away (such as Erdi).
(You may ask what's the difference between the cases of Sylgja and Aija. Admitting that it's disputable, I rather felt Sylgja realized she didn't have a chance while Aija acted genuinely affected as if nothing had happened.)
I also counted Salma in this category, but hers was more a case of excitement of doing something dangerous and rewarding together. We had fought together against the undead, then I had saved her from death, and then adragonshout was revealed to me. It is unlikely that a woman wouldn't be highly aroused under such circumstances, even when she wouldn't care much about me otherwise. Indeed, when we had exited the dungeon some time after our sex and I wanted to fuck her again, she was completely unresponsive and told me she wanted to be alone. So I had to rape her.
A very curious case was Saadia whom I had raped, then blackmailed to sex and finally demanded subsequent gratitude. After that, I kept seeing her frequently and one could see I wasn't exactly her favorite. But one time when I was visiting her town again, she at first snapped at me as usual, but after a while she was suddenly "What do you need, handsome?" and a little later she said "Can I... do something for you?" I couldn't understand what had possessed her, but she was clearly offering herself, and I wouldn't let that opportunity go to waste. Maybe I had caught her ovulating, maybe she actually did find me attractive and had decided to finally act upon it. Note the seeming contradiction in her behavior which is so typically female. She desired me, but she was reluctant to show it – after all, I had raped her and so she was supposed to hate me. So she acted hostile at first, to make it emotionally easier for herself to become seductive a few minutes later.
That falls into the category of liking, not slut (see below) because slut means a woman is generally dick-hungry, not that she liked me and happened to be in a responsive mood at the moment, as was the case in that scene with Saadia.
I was really unsure what to do with Fastred. I had raped her at a time when I was very inexperienced in those things and therefore not giving much thought to the possibility of consensual sex. When I met her later, she was confusingly ambiguous about me. One moment she told me how her blood boils when she looks at me, the next moment she said how she longed to leave the village and come with me. Now, when you hate and fear and detest a man who has raped you, you obviously don't tell her that you have the wish to go away with him. Therefore it was reasonable to presume that her scolding was more a show than a real expression of dislike.
She did not offer to become my follower, in which case everything would have been clear. But she did say repeatedly that she wished she could accompany me – and that, as any woman with any sense realizes, would have included sex with me. So I decided that fucking her with a G-assault would definitely not be appropriate. As to the sex basis, I was really unsure and finally decided to place her under liking, but I admit that it's disputable, especially since she kind of had a boyfriend. Still, putting myself in her head in the imaginary reality, I rather think she would have agreed to cheat on her boyfriend with a man leading a life of adventure she craved but couldn't have, as long as I wouldn't damage her reputation and disrupt her life of a decent village maiden.
A slut is a woman who doesn't just let herself be seduced but actually wants to have sex. This applies to two kinds of behavior:
a) on our first meeting, she hints at the willingness to have sex (Mirri);
b) she is known to have had sex with several men and at least hints that she likes me (Nivenor).
You can't assume consent to sex with a slut anytime, only when she acts friendly. However, her display of attraction doesn't need to be as strong as in the case of arousable .
Nivenor is a textbook case of slut . Note the contrast to Haelga who sleeps around all right, but doesn't display any attraction towards me; she only submits because I have a hold on her, so she doesn't fall under this sex basis.
As I was a Khajiit in that game, I began to think that maybe Khajiit women ought to always consent to sex on this basis. After all, there are so few Khajiits in Skyrim that they must be hungering for a partner of their own kind. And at least Zaynabi was very friendly right after getting raped. However, I wasn't certain enough about this to actually establish such a rule, and in the next game I was no longer playing as a Khajiit, so this question became redundant.
A whore is a woman who not only hints at sex but says directly that she wants to have sex either with me or with various men. A whore can be fucked with N anytime unless she acts with outright enmity.
The only woman of this kind I have encountered is Jolene. She was added by a mod which I no longer used in Deflorator's game, so this sex basis has essentially become redundant.
Desire means a woman fancies me as a person. She is not just after a fuck, she is actually eager to become mine. In the Skyrim world, this sex basis applies to free (that is, non-housecarl) women who agree to become my followers without payment. They will give me sex anytime I want, no matter if actually hired as a follower or not.
Desire is the voluntariest basis for sex, even more so than wife (see below) because even though a wife found me attractive, she needed to be subdued before she became a wife. A woman who desires me requires no pressure whatsoever.
Obedience
is a category that includes only one sex basis – subordinate.
A subordinate is a woman who is obliged to submit to sex whenever I want to. It includes:
1) housecarls (either sex, currently following or not);
2) female followers whom I have hired for money.
They can be fucked with N anytime I want.
Female voluntary followers who don't require payment fall into the category of desire (see above).
Relationship means that I and the woman have one way or another established a steady bond which implies willingness to sex at any time. This category includes 3 sex bases:
pet
wife
girlfriend
A pet is a woman who is so stunningly beautiful that I just have to possess her and keep her away from all the other men.
Physically in the game, pets are kept tied up in slave storages together with the slaves, but as a sign of their privileged status they are not gagged. In the imaginary reality, pets are not considered slaves. Their freedom of movement is restricted but I am making their life as comfortable as possible. They have resigned to their fate of belonging to me and don't need to be spanked into obedience. I admit that it's highly disputable. Yet, in a Skyrim-like world I think it's plausible to presume that a woman's generally acquiescent nature and my obvious admiration for her striking beauty would make her submit rather than rebel. And even when it won't, it just doesn't feel right to treat a pet like a common slave.
In Deflorator's game, I no longer kept my pets tied up, as I had found that with EFF I could "hire" them as followers, then set them to be home at a place of my choosing, such as a house of mine, and then "dismiss" them. They will then walk around in that house but never leave.
I had two pets in my game: Sylphiron and Bothilda. Sylphiron just blew me away. It wasn't enough for me to go and rape her when I was in town. I had to take her to my slave storage to avoid anything happening to her. In all earnest, I wouldn't have hesitated to massacre the whole town, had it been necessary in order to possess her. It wasn't necessary, of course. I just G-assed her, tied her up and took her away.
When I saw Bothilda, I knew I loved her and was pretty much ready to destroy the whole world to have her. She was married, and I was so crazy about her that I just couldn't leave her in the hands of another man. Her husband wasn't there and I had no idea where to search for him. As I didn't want to waste a whole day standing there and waiting for him, I went to kill a nearby group of bandits, expecting to be back before bedtime. It took longer than I had expected and my heart was bleeding at the unbearable thought thay my Bothilda might be fucked one more time by another man. Fortunately I arrived late in the evening and they had not yet gone to bed. Bothilda had conveniently her back turned, so I was able to G-assault her husband. I took him out of the village and killed him.
I had fantasized about fucking Bothilda in their nice bedroom. To my dismay, she began to chase me out even when tied up. To teach her a lesson, I took her to her husband's corpse and fucked her three times: first in the ass, then in the mouth and then in the cunt.
I was disappointed by her hoarse voice and aggressive manner of speech. But her incredible beauty made everything else a trifle.
One would expect that a woman would be anything but fond of a man who has killed her husband and raped her in all holes next to his dead body. However, when I was in Bothilda's village the next time, fucked her and spoke to her, she was like "What do you need, handsome?" Meaning, she had apparently sensed my power and gotten aroused by it and thus willingly accepted her belonging to me as a partner with a status higher than a slave. So I declared her a pet of mine.
A wife is not a spouse in the meaning of official Skyrim marriage – you know, when you get an Amulet of Mara, wear it, come to an agreement with a bride and go through a wedding ceremony. Why would I do that? What is the purpose of marriage (considering that begetting children is not supported by the Skyrim game)? Sex and companionship. In terms of sex, there are hundreds of rapable women in Skyrim. In terms of companionship, no "spouse" could ever hope to achieve the level of intimacy and belonging that developed between me and Lydia. My sex basis wife means something completely different.
The story began with my killing that old sadistic tyrant who ran the orphanage. Then, several assassins (three, I think) tried to kill me. Then, I found myself in a place called Abandoned Shack with a pretty chick who introduced herself as Astrid, held me a bullshit lecture, and ordered me to kill one of the three prisoners tied up in the room.
At first I was indignant over her insolence. I could have killed her without much trouble and she had the cheek to talk to me like a superior or something. For that matter, I could have easily killed her after she gave me the key, but I settled for enslaving her.
I was abashed by the illogic of her demands. "You stole our contract, so now you must repay your debt by killing someone I point out for you." This sounds like "You burned my car, so now you must repay your debt by burning another one of my cars." Apart from which, that boy who had ordered that old woman's murder obviously hadn't performed the assassin-summoning ritual correctly, otherwise a legitimate assassin would have been there before me. In short, a textbook case of female logic. What kind of an idiot wrote that character, I thought.
A little later I began to see the events from another perspective. I switched from the default male mindset ("God, how stupid can women be?") to the mindset of a researcher of women ("What might have been the cause for her to act like that?")
It is a fact that Astrid was the leader of an organization of assassins. Now, unless artificially privileged by a feminist government, a woman doesn't become a leader of anything unless she is unusually strong. There is no feminist government in Skyrim. It follows that Astrid is an unusually strong woman. Let us keep this in mind. Secondly, what is the most important thing virtually every woman is instinctively looking for? A man strong enough to tame her. Let us put those two facts together. What is the conclusion? A woman strong enough to become the leader of the world's fiercest assassins must have extreme difficulties finding herself a man she can look up to. And we know that for women, everything is an excuse for relationships. A male leader of assassins is likely to be really dedicated to running the organization as efficiently as possible. For a woman, finding herself a man to establish a family with is always (apart from rare exceptions) primary to any work or business or cause.
When we look at Astrid from this perspective, her seemingly illogical behavior becomes perfectly plausible. She learned about a man who dared to cross the possibly most feared group of killers in the world. That has to be an extraordinary man, she thought. Either that, or a very very careless fool. To find out, she put him to the test by sending an assassin to kill him, then the second, then the third. The unknown hero defeated all of them. Can you imagine how that must have made her heart jump? Then came the final test – she abducted her hero and sneeringly told him that he was under her power and would have to do as she ordered. Afterwards she sneered at him some more for good measure ("see, I gave you an order and you obeyed"), then gave him a pat in the back and invited him to come and work for her. Had he done so, she would have used him and despised him. But he didn't. He (that is, me) made her his possession.
I don't think she was unaware of the fact that I could have killed her. (Except that maybe the game wouldn't have physically allowed it, considering her to be "essential".) She didn't mind. It was her goal to find herself at my mercy. That's what a woman craves. Had I killed her, it would have ended her miserable existence in a world where no man was able to fill her emptiness. But she hoped I would not kill her and fall for her feminine charm instead. I mean, that's what a woman's life is all about. Anyway, it all ended well. I raped her in the shack, I raped her one more time close to nearby ruins and by that time we had already come to an understanding (in the imaginary reality), and I took her to my house in Solitud. Physically in the game, I had to tie her up, otherwise the algorithm would have made her walk away. But, unlike my slaves, I kept her ungagged to demonstrate her privileged status in the imaginary reality, and I fucked her with N rather than G because in the imaginary reality she was essentially my willing life companion. (Eventually, as I already mentioned, I discovered that with EFF it wouldn't even be necessary to tie her up.)
For the feministly-trained Western men's sake I should add a little clarification – "wife" doesn't imply any kind of equal partnership. She had given herself to me to tame, I succeeded in it, and now she was mine. She must have realized in advance that a man like me would use her when and how he pleased. Strong and independent as she may have been, she lost her freedom of decision when she became mine. Mind you, it's not like I wanted to take revenge on her for having tried to kill me or something. No, that had simply been her way of flirting with me. Her obligation to obey my orders as my wife was simply the natural consequence of her becoming permanently mine. She had challenged me by putting herself up as a prize and I had won the prize. In the imaginary reality, she would have probably misbehaved occasionally like any wife does just to get a reassurance that I was still a man – and that reassurance she would get in the form of a punishment. But generally she was happy with having fulfilled her life's purpose dictated by her genes – become the possession of a man stronger than herself.
By the way, Astrid's status was still lower than that of my pets Sylphiron and Bothilda. Even though a wife is clearly more committed to me than a pet, the deciding factor is that the pets were chosen by me, but the wife chose me. That is why I cherished the pets more, and that's why it doesn't feel right to merge these two sex bases into one.
A girlfriend is a woman who gives me sex without resistance, any time I visit her. Even on those occasions when I meet her and she is unfriendly, I can presume it just to be a release of emotions, not actual rejection.
After I had made Sylgja surrender, it was pretty clear in the imaginary reality that she would no longer object to sex the next times I visited her. It is psychologically much easier for a woman to think that we have a permanent relationship rather than that she was used by me a couple of times. Apart from which, I really adored her and treated her consistently as mine. So we had no conflict there.
I also made Carlotta my steady after her surrender. She was a slightly harder case but considering her almost-consistent friendliness I think it's plausible to presume that she would have accepted. Since she kept saying how she was struggling to make a living for her and her daughter, I presumed that it would be appropriate of me to help her out a little by buying all her wares every time we had sex. I mean, it's only proper to support one's girlfriend financially and that way I didn't offend her by treating her as a prostitute. By that time I was so rich that the money I paid her was really meaningless to me. As a matter of fact, I made it a rule that whenever a saleswoman became my girlfriend, I bought all her wares when I was in town, regardless of whether I wanted to fuck her that particular time or not.
Somewhat more disputably, I made Elisif my girlfriend. Our first sex was rape, but she kept being friendly and giving me assignments and eventually reached the "It's a fine day with you around" stage. Even though she kept talking about her dear killed husband, it doesn't mean that she wouldn't be interested in getting another partner eventually. While holding dear the memory of her late husband, she would have still realized that she must go on with her life. By bringing that amulet or whatever it was to that remote shrine of Talos, I touched her deeply by showing respect for her tragic loss, and thereby made her even more inclined to accept me as her next partner. Most importantly, she was so incredibly cute that I wouldn't accept anything less than her being mine. Apart from which, she needed someone like me. She was a young maiden burdened with ruling a hold and indirectly the whole of Skyrim. She must have felt hugely lost and lonely with advisers around her but never knowing whom to really trust. A woman in her position simply feels the need for a strong arm to lean to. No wonder she displayed such fondness of me, an obviously resourceful warrior, not to mention a man bold enough to rape a jarl in her own bedroom.
Now, all those steady partnership options have one big flaw – a woman can impossibly be happy having a "relationship" with a man who roams all over the world and comes home maybe once in a few weeks and even then might be too busy fucking other women to pay much attention to his permanent partner. Well, unfortunately, that's a flaw one can't avoid in a game world. Actually, if Skyrim were real, I would impossibly waste time and effort, and risk life and limb, on all those so-called adventures, if I could live comfortably with my hundreds of thousands of septims and small but cozy harem in a nice and reasonably safe city such as Hviterun or Solitud. But then we wouldn't have a game.
OTHER GENDER CONSTELLATIONS
I haven't thought much about consensual male-on-male sex situations as I have felt no need for that so far. And should you be playing a female character, sex is really a no-brainer because virtually no man would refuse you. In fact, you could make a living as a prostitute and there are mods that let you to do just that.
As to threesome sex, I don't care much for that either (in the virtual reality, that is) and besides, making sex with two participants work satisfactorily is difficult enough.
SO WHAT ABOUT CONSENSUAL SEX MODS?
After working out all of the above, I did in fact find a few mods that involve consensual, non-prostitute sex.
There is a Sexlab mod whose author has included sex as an option into a variety of game situations. For instance, after completing the quest for Lisbet, you will have the option of taking sex instead of the regular reward. Or you could pay the bandit at Valtheim with sex instead of money.
I didn't even test that mod. There were three reasons for that.
Firstly, it covers only a very limited number of situations. Meaning, in the overwhelming majority of occasions when consensual sex would make sense, I would still have to resort to my own set of sex rules, so why bother with that mod in the first place?
Secondly, the mod appeared to make no differences between sexes. That Valtheim thing was clearly absurd because the bandit who demands money there is always female. So she would take sex instead of money? That would essentially mean that a young attractive woman would pay me money for fucking her, and that is screaming nonsense.
Thirdly, the mod description made it pretty clear that the author considered sex to be just a commodity of certain monetary value, and had no understanding of neither the reasons why, nor the circumstances under which a woman would let a man fuck her.
That said, I admire that mod author's attempt to make sex life in Skyrim more plausible. That mod is a valuable contribution that will hopefully encourage a number of Skyrim players and modders to think along those lines and to come up with ideas of their own.
Then, I saw a few romance mods, but they seemed kind of too... you know... pinky-cushy-cuddly. Apart from which, they dealt (again) with a very few pre-programmed situations rather than offering a general framework for plausibly giving you a bigger or smaller chance of getting any Skyrim woman into bed. So I didn't test them either. At the time of reposting this, I still haven't found anything even remotely comparable to my own set of consensual sex rules.
CLOSING WORDS
My system of consensual sex partner categories is meant to make the imaginary reality in the game psychologically more realistic, as well as enjoyable. I hope it can give players and modders inspiration for coming up with even better ideas in the future.
[originally published 2016-12-06]
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