Editor's note: I admit that I went looking for porn in video games when I was younger. To this day, I still find it interesting that video games are allowed to portray murder, which we're never supposed to commit, but not sex, which is something most of us do many times over the course of our lives. Gabriel provides a quick look in to the issue of sexually explicit material in video games below. -Jay

"Playboy doesn't cause sexual thoughts. Sexual thoughts exist and, therefore, there is Playboy. Do you see?" -Bill Hicks

Since the inception of the video game age, the temptation to somehow include pornography has constantly ridden shotgun. From the one-handed text-adventure Leather Goddesses of Phobos, to the life-replenishing hookers in Grand Theft Auto, game designers and companies have walked the line as carefully as possible to include overt sexuality without getting the dreaded scarlet "P" attached to their game. Their fears are valid. The X rating was actually invented to rate serious movies only intended for adults (The Oscar winning Midnight Cowboy was one of the first), but the porn industry's embrace of the rating turned it into such box-office poison that a new rating had to be established. The Adults Only rating from the ESRB carries much of the same stigma, keeping any game carrying it from the lucrative aisles of big box retailers such as Wal-Mart.

However, societal mores shift as time grinds inexorably on. Fundamentalist protesters from Judas Priest concerts in the '80s now hear "Breaking the Law" on classic rock radio. Profanity that would have previously resulted in massive fines from the FCC is repeated regularly on Cable television. As the first generation of gamers reaches middle age, will major publishers finally make the plunge and include pornographic content in games?

Unfairly or not, video games have an association with childhood and adolescence that is only now beginning to change. The average age of a gamer is 35, and yet any mention of sexual content in a game causes a media firestorm of biblical proportions. Perhaps the 10-year-old that chainsaws me online in Gears of War 2 might have something to do with this, but one could call that more a result of poor parenting than intended audience. We accept this rationale for movies and television, why not games?

Regardless of other factors, money talks. Despite what Pat Robertson might tell you about the godless heathens on the coasts, it's not just them spending somewhere between $5-12 billion on pornography every year.

Millions of pornographic games exist, but they don't really go much further than simple undressing or questions that result in prerecorded video footage. Japan is the exception, with Hentai games that involve everything from puzzles to dating simulators. Yet, even in Japan, most of the games in the genre don't include much sex and the ones that do are censored to comply with Japanese decency laws. Even so, they are very popular; many titles sell over a million copies.

It's proven to be profitable, the societal stigma will continue to wane over time, and the generation that started with gaming will grow old enough to accept games that push the boundaries of content. So when, if ever, will we see a game developed by a major publisher with graphic sexual content? As much as I feel that the aversion to it will erode over coming years, I also feel that graphic content will continue to remain in the periphery.

Why? For the simple reason that it isn't necessary. If people want to watch pornography they certainly know where to find it. More importantly, it's not anything that adds much to the proceedings. Most people don't pay money to see a movie just to see the sex scenes in it. It is much the same in gaming. When the focus goes soft and the two bodies onscreen entwine, the purpose of that story arc is complete.  Anything more would be superfluous.

And for the record, absolutely no one wants to see "little Kratos."