Playing Dirty: Night Elves on their knees

Every other week, Bonnie Ruberg contributes Playing Dirty, a column on sex and gender in video games:

A beautiful elf has lost her clothes. Now, standing high on a rock, her long, pointy ears aren't the only parts of her body attracting attention. With a pout, she's off to the seashore to ask a friendly pirate to mend her garments -- which she'll need for tonight's raid. But when she can't pay for his services, she's quick to get down on her knees and offer some of her own. Naked on the sand, elf ears still flying proudly, she smiles as her pirate demands he get "his booty."

Whorecraft, the hardcore porn series based off World of Warcraft, certainly has a sense of humor. Otherwise, how would its creators ever have thought to turn the old D&D chuckle chuckle, nudge nudge double entendre, "Rogues Do It From Behind," into an eleven-minute porno, shot in, of all places, a state park? The real question though is does it have sex appeal. Of course, Whorecraft hires sexy actors and actresses, and the sex is real enough. But is video-game themed porn itself a turn-on?

Now on its sixth episode (the final one of the first season), Whorecraft has covered everything from troll masturbation to guild master torture, and things seem to be going well. However, with 20,000 video purchases and 100,000 bit torrent downloads, it's debatable how many Whorecraft watchers are actually Warcraft fans, and how many are just in it for, well, the porn. Not that that's a bad thing. But it does seem like even the Whorecraft team makes a distinction between sex and fandom.

Porn has always been infamous for its bad plots; that's not the problem with Whorecraft. The six existing episodes actually following a continuous storyline, and while it's pretty basic, it makes a respectable amount of sense -- at least in that porno logic, the-answer-to-every-dilemma is sex kind of way. No, for this porn viewer, the problem is simple: the geek factor doesn't enter the actual bump-and-grind.

The costumes, the make-up, and those darn elf ears seem to be the only Warcraft elements that don't get dropped the second someone drops their tunic. Aside from the green body paint or the chainmail thongs, we could be watching any professional porn: the same moves, the same shots, the same moans (Okay, that troll did keep say "Yah, man" with a Jamaican accent, but that was just weird).

Sure, it's convenient to get your fan-boy kicks in the same place as your porn, even if they're separated. But, as a porn-friendly person who wasn't so turned on by Whorecraft, I can't help but wonder whether both wouldn't be better, ahem, served with a little bit of overlap. If we need some guidance, why not turn to the plenty of people every day who are already getting off on their geekdom, the video-game slash community?

Admittedly, there's plenty of sex-base fan fiction out there that's a whole lot less sexy than Whorecraft. But the comparison is an important one. After all, what we're really asking is, can fandom make us hot? That's certainly what slash is meant to do -- and not just with generic Warcraft characters, but characters we "know."

Considering how much of the live-action porn we consume is performed by actors and actresses we don't recognize (the exception being a big-name star like Jenna Jameson), we can agree that, for us, porn usually isn't about the cult of personality. But consider LinkxZelda slash. Yes, it exists, and in relative abundance. But the thing that makes it so strange, at least for me, is that I know the characters so well. The fandom and the sex are too close together. I can't help but laugh when I hear about Zelda on her knees.

So which is it? More sex in fandom or less fandom in sex? It's a delicate balance, but in the end it's all up to you. Are you turned on by a pointy-eared porn star? The Princess Zelda? Or none of the above?

Bonnie Ruberg is a writer, researcher, and all around fangirl with a big crush on games. Find more of her work at Gamasutra, The Onion A. V. Club, or her blog, Heroine Sheik. She can be reached at .