Well, I feel like a lot of westerners aren’t averse to VNs because of sex scenes, but more specifically because it depicts sex scenes involving minors. At that point, it taps into the sort of pedophilia area, and that scares a lot of people. Hell, it’s even a point of contention in the law. In Australia, this kind of material is illegal to own. But you can generally get away with it because there’s no way of controlling it. If it was all characters that are clearly mature and over the age of 18, I doubt it would be as frowned upon. But I dunno; I guess Japan just doesn’t mind depicting minors having sex as much as other cultures do.
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I don’t mind H scenes. I don’t really seek them out but they are a neutral point when deciding if I want to read something. I get a little completionist on things when there are two versions and tend to go for the adult one just because I want un-edited artwork and maximum content. I would be less inclined to do this if the creator of the VN said that whatever the no ero version of the visual novel was the most canon. And I know in Japan a lot of times the all ages versions get additional scenes to make up for taking out the ero content which creates a really crazy versioning thing that makes me want to throw something.
This kind of thinking has left me at kind of a loss as to how to read Kanon and Air. It is really hard for me to think of the ero versions as the “most canon” so I kind of want to read it without the sexual content. On the other hand the completionist in me wants to see how they were originally presented to the world. I think I wish most for a way to play those games without the ero content, but once you finished a route you would unlock an optional scene or be able to do the route again with ero content - but I can very easily understand why companies would never cater to this.
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Does that logic apply to everything else? Because if that were the case, you’d have to play it without voices 
Actually, eden was pretty much like that. I had an angry discussion with a friend on twitter saying how H-scenes would have ruined the story and he had to correct me by telling me the H-scenes there were just part of some bonus chapters that unlocked after finishing the game. That was kinda humiliating…
(It’s been a while since I read this topic, so forgive me if I’m just repeating things that have already been expressed)
I’m quite neutral toward H scenes. I’m fine with them generally speaking, but my appreciation of a VN will always have very little to do with the presence of such scenes and their quality; I’ll just read them and move on in most cases (unless they’re a big part of the VN, but I don’t read nukige so shrug)
Now as to why I’m neutral about them. Simply speaking, it’s because I believe the writers themselves don’t give them much attention.
I can’t pretend to be the greatest expert in the field of visual novels, but I do feel attracted to the variety; as in, you see VNs with extremely varied settings, themes and ideas, and in fact some have extremely thought-provoking content which is absolutely held back by the presence of H scenes. And I believe that writers simply have to include H scenes in order to keep that creative freedom. While that might sound counter-intuitive, I think the freedom comes from the very fact that eroge is a niche medium, and the people who read them are fans of the medium. And generally speaking, those fans (at least a certain part of them) are tied to the medium by the biggest thing that obviously makes it stand out from others; in this case, the H content. Or rather, the H scenes are a topos; they’re what the reader, in many cases, expects to see, a constant that all eroge have. And it’s because these fans adhere to the presence of H to begin with (as in fact otaku culture being quite niche to begin with, H makes eroge doubly niche, and thus readers almost need to be at least fine with the presence of H), that creators have their freedom; since they know the fans will read their work because it’s an eroge, whether the H is besides the story’s point or not, it’s something that most creators are obliged to include, even if to a small extent, if they wish to sell their creation to their target audience.
The result of this, from my point of view, is that writers themselves hardly pour much effort into scenes that are merely present because they have to; in many cases it’s absolutely not a theme, and even then, what good would it do to start exploring a theme if it doesn’t fit into the greater story and just lasts the duration of a few H scenes? Unless we’re talking about a VN that has extensive amounts of H scenes, it would only serve to frustrate a public that observes the exploration of a theme that only ever remains shallow. I can see why a writer would just write basic, tactless H scenes and use their skills for the content that actually matters to them, since they know they’re only writing the H in order to help the game sell anyway; ultimately I don’t see why I should care about H scenes on their behalf I guess, especially when it helps create and sell works with actually great content which might simply not come to life without the presence of H.
Obviously there are exceptions to this, but the biggest ones I can think of are Key, who only moved on after gaining enough popularity, and When They Cry, which were released in a special environment (of course such an ambitious thing would stand out at Comiket). ISLAND is also all-ages, but that’s being published by Frontwing off the back of their hugely popular Grisaia series, which does have H (and not just a little at that); so ultimately, either you’re publishing your product under specific conditions which allow you to do away with the H, either you need to do like everyone and include some in order to sell. Once again I’m not an expert so what I’m saying might just be entirely wrong, who knows.
Comparisons with “real” novels are all well and good, but I don’t believe them to be that correct when the core of the matter here is choice. While novelists wouldn’t reject the opportunity to explore sexuality in their works, the novel medium is absolutely not defined by the presence of sex; it’s a far vaster medium that’s divided in genres, movements, all of which have their own topoi as I mentioned earlier. H is the topos in VNs; in novels, it can be a duel scene (19th Century French literature), the death of a main character (Greek tragedy)… but as far as I know sex scenes have never been a topos in literature, although romance is; but then it’s up to the writer if he wants to explore sexuality. There’s too vast a gulf between “real” novels and VNs to simply compare them.
So I guess at the end of the day my point of view is that I don’t see why I should be so bothered by something which is just something the writer himself didn’t care enough to do tactfully; it’s just something that has to be there in order for VNs to retain what attracts me to them, so I just can’t say I find them terrible when I can’t help but think the medium couldn’t work as it does now without them. It might as well not be there, but I can see see why it has to be there anyway, so I think it better to just move on from them.
I think that’s what I want to say. I haven’t written anything in a while, so it’s probably awfully unclear, but I think I said what I wanted to. 
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Like I said, with Key it tough. I want the voices because for me that is a part of the “most canon” experience. I get wishy washy on the H scenes with Key because they were originally there, and then removed, which usually seems for the best, so I kind of don’t care but there is a part of me that doesn’t do well with the idea of “removed” content.
If only they would make Perfect Editions for every game. It at least tells you what is most canonical (ergo, H-scenes are not in LB, whereas they are in Tomoyo After)
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Welllllll, in LB’s case, its pretty strongly implied that all the H-scenes still happen… you just dont see them.
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Honestly don’t really care either way. You can click through them if you don’t like them, or you can read them if you do.
My viewpoint is that this “if an h-scene isn’t necessary, it shouldn’t be there” opinion is kind of contrived and doesn’t have much basis in anything. Unless it’s actively undermining the narrative (as in, breaking character and things like that), then I don’t really mind. The reality is that people have sex, and it’s actually weirder that a couple would be so chaste that they just don’t have sex at all.
There’s things like marketing demographics for developers to consider, of course, but I don’t think that most VNs are developed for younger ages, and of course you’re probably aware there’s going to be h-scenes going into a VN, and can just quickly ctrl through them in most cases.
In short: I think they’re fine and don’t even necessarily have to drive some sort of theme or major plot point home.
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No, I think that that argument makes lots of sense. Sure, its something almost all people do at some point, but to explicitly show such a special act within a serious narrative, I think it would have some sort of meaning. I struggle to even think of a parallel because sex is something so unique.
I guess you could argue that, in the current society, perhaps many people don’t share the same feelings about sex that I do, that its seen as less “special”. Well, like I said, at some point I would love to discuss why such a large majority of sex portrayed in VNs is for pleasure and not with the intention of procreation (and perhaps even more mysterious, since that is the case, why contraceptives are so rarely mentioned). But even so, you would think that it would more often be an important moment/development for the two characters.
Also, I would guess that some people would probably argue that the “undermining the narrative” happens more often than maybe how you view it. Besides just acting completely out of character, including explicit sex not only sets a different mood, but also makes a statement, both of which could easily be inconsistent with the rest of the experience.
I’ve stated my opinion on the matter previously, but I just wanted to say: this is a great point and brings up some interesting rationale behind a lot of current thought.
Perhaps it is due to the fact that such a large majority of people consider sex as something for pleasure and not with the intention of procreation…
True, but the need to explicitly show it is what we’re discussing now, I believe. As yerian said, if you do that, then there should be some sort of meaning… at least, if you want all parts of your fiction to have meaning in it
It just strikes me as somewhat curious that sex in particular is the only thing in media that really gets the “it should only be there if it has to be” treatment. Most stories have a lot of “unnecessary” elements because they add slight touches where there would otherwise be none.
I honestly actually think sex is one of the most underexplored aspects of relationships in most forms of media - and while it might not be necessary to drive things like characterization or themes, that doesn’t mean it can’t contribute to those things.
I guess it’s also worth mentioning that I personally don’t have the viewpoint that sex is something special. It is somewhat odd that sex in VNs tends to be for pleasure yet contraceptives don’t have a tendency to appear, but I don’t think that has anything to do with the broader idea of including h-scenes in a work. It just has more to do with the writing quality of the h-scenes in question.
I think the general consensus is that h-scenes are usually pretty bad, and I would probably agree with that. Characterization breaks are pretty frequent and it’s rare for an h-scene to fit the mood. Fortunately, the question is about h-scenes in visual novels, not poorly done h-scenes in visual novels. The concept of including h-scenes is something I’m generally ok with, but poorly written content is poorly written, h-scene or no.
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Well that’s because it’s a very legal issue. By showing sex explicitly, you limit the audience to one that is of age 18 and above. Furthermore, it also distracts people from seeing it in a more innocent light, and people are forced to see it from the perspective of pornography.
It’s a very societal thing; perhaps people (or rather, the government) who live in Germany would not mind that sort of thing but would instead be appalled at the sight of extreme violence. Of course, the societal issues of the English-speaking west affects localization as a whole and thus restricts publishers from putting these things on platforms like steam.
But then, by not showing it explicitly and instead being more subtle about it, then you can have the same value of implying sex in the relationship, but without all of the iffy societal rules attached to it. Of course VNs don’t do that because ~reasons~ but that’s what we’re trying to discuss right now, after all.
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I think it’s debatable that certain works would have the same value without explicitly showing the sex scenes, but this once again ties back into what I said earlier: most h-scenes aren’t well written, nor are they even written to have anything to do with enhancing the narrative.
Of course the removal of a shoehorned sex scene won’t really result in a loss of value as far as the overall experience is considered, simply because they were “just put there” in the first place. The important thing isn’t necessarily just that the reader knows that the couple has sex, but what’s going on, either physically or mentally, during the sex. I doubt you could say that works like Saya no Uta, or to be slightly less extreme, White Album 2 would be the same if the sex was just implied to happen. There’s actual narrative things going on there, and the scenes aren’t just happening for the sake of happening.
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On that note I think WA2’s anime adaptation showed its sex scene in a very artistic and tasteful manner. I guess what I mean to say is not to totally remove it and imply it, but to put it in a more tasteful manner such as this…
Which goes back, as you said, to wanting sex scenes be written better (and perhaps, by extension, less explicit). I guess that’s something all of us are agreeing with at this point
So I haven’t actually read anything with H-Scenes in it yet. Still, I can muse about the hypothetical situation of me reading such scenes. I’m not that much appalled towards the idea that I would hate H-Scenes no matter what. I could see such a scene working if the relationship between the participants is at a part where that would feel natural as the next step in the relationship. However, it is not enough for it being natural. If I’m just spying in on a married couple doing it at the beginning of a story, then that’s just as bad as the famed excuse-plot that is apparently often initiating H-Scenes. That situation, while natural for the characters (They’re married, after all), is not natural for me, since I don’t really know these characters yet. That situation really would not be any different to porn, if I think about it.
Long story short, it has to feel natural for all people involved, including the reader. And that is apperently often not the case.
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I never posted here, so now that discussion arose in Discord, I think it’s a good time to share my thoughts.
First of all, I have only played one VN with H-Scenes, and it was Kanon. Now, I really didn’t like those H-Scenes for various reasons, the main of which being because they didn’t add up to the story. This made the H-Scenes look like plain fanservice, which again, isn’t something bad depending on what the VN is about, but it certainly didn’t fit Kanon at all.
Why do I say that it isn’t something bad by itself? Well, as you might know, there is people who play Visual Novels for the Hentai involved in some of them. Some of these people won’t even care about a good story, they just want their periodic share of fanservice, for various reasons I won’t specify.
What’s my absolute opinion about H-Scenes? I think they are fine so long as they go with the story. As an example: Nekopara is a VN that is generally bought for its fanservice, therefore, having H-Scenes in it doesn’t actually hurt the VN, if anything I’d say it strenghtens it . Other Visual Novels like Kanon, just don’t benefit from this. The only H-Scene that could fit such VNs one that follows what @VyseGolbez just posted. This however, isn’t an easy task, as @Yerian developed in the first half of this 1500-word Essay.
Yet, when regarding H-Scenes, I like to talk about them from a financial perspective. Steam doesn’t allow 18+ content in its games, therefore, in games like Nekopara (and surprisingly, CLANNAD too), you can find many people asking for uncensored versions or a patch that would unlock the 18+ content. What this means is that there is indeed people willing to buy 18+ games in Steam, something that Steam should be looking forward too. Selling 18+ games is however, not an easy task either.
There are people that don’t want to even watch a tráiler or preview of an 18+ VN, so how do you avoid that while still selling such VNs? The easy solution is asking whether you are OK with watching said preview before it actually being shown to you. This Works fine with adults and honest non-adults, but what happens with 18- people when asked if they are 18+ and if they want to see 18+ content? They’ll generally say that it’s fine and boom, they broke all protections the 18+ content had. Inconvenient, right? Well, this is what I propose:
Steam should hide all 18+ content by default on all accounts. By 18+ content I don’t mean that they censor 18+ games, I mean showing only the censored versión while mantaining an 18+ versión hidden. Then, these 18+ versions can only be seen with a proper age confirmation and proper consent. The consent part is easily achievable by just asking the user. The age confirmation gets a bit tricky. It would be perfect if Steam could confirm this by asking the user for their country’s ID number, though I doubt this would be legal by any means. Another option would be asking for a credit card. Since you need to be 18+ or have your parents consent to acquire a credit card, this would be a great verification method.
Anyway, with something like this, both H-Scene lovers and H-Scene haters should be happy and Steam would be even happier now that it could attract a wider range of consumers with its greater uncensored offer.
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I skip h scenes because I’ll be arrested if I don’t.
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Now the thing is, you can save a credit card as payment option. Can the info about that credit card be accessed by the user themself? I can’t check that myself since I don’t save such information. If it can be accessed, then that of course means that a child could potentially wrongly verify themself as adult, if the parents of that child saved that information. Of course, I would call the parent that actually saves that information irresponsible in more than one way, since this would also mean that this child could buy countless games. Thing is, the possibility is there, and just the possibility makes a lot of people afraid.
Actually another thing that would need to be reworked: Steams Family-game-librarys. For those not in the know, you can link up multiple steam-accounts so that only one member in a household needs to pay for a game, but all members can play the game, just not at the same time. There, they would have to incorporate some way of hiding the 18+ stuff from the library. And that could be too much work for them bothering, basically they would only see the potential short-term loss in income, since they have to pay a lot of money reworking their system against the long-term gain in money since they’re selling more stuff.
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I agree with a lot of what you said, however I do not feel like steam should allow 18+ the reason is they are very general audience. If you break the seal for vns you break it for all games. The once clean steam is now a pornish site because you broke the seal, what about workshop items too? once the seal is gone it will infect everywhere. sure you can turn it off… but that type of crowd is going to be everywhere. Like even tho I play 18+ sometimes, I wouldn’t want it on steam. I would get tired of the retarded recommendations cause I play 18+ kanon lol and just looking through all that shit. but if I have it always off I won’t buy anything…
If they did allow it, they would probably just have a different steam site/platform all together. But the thing is, if that is how it is going to be just go somewhere else anyways. But even then they may think it might stir up some problems if they allow it, they have enough problems with stuff already (ie yohjo sim lol). It is not worth the risk for them just for a bit of money. You think that they would make money but it might cause major problems.
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