BtS: Sex and Violence in Bound by Night

NOTE:  I was planning to release this post next week, but that would be after Patreon does the monthly billing cycle. Since I thought this might be nice information for you to have while you decide whether to continue to support the project (and I hope you do!), I decided to push it out now.

Recently, I've had a couple conversations that required me to articulate how "far" things might go in BBN. I also discovered the game was briefly tagged as having rape-like content on another website. The tag was quickly removed when people who had played the demo pointed out it wasn't an accurate tag, but it made me realize there might be some confusion out there.

It also prompted me to refresh my memory on Patreon's terms of service, so I thought I'd share some information here on what kind of boundaries or guardrails you can expect around sex and violence in BBN. This post doesn't bear directly on the story, and is both serious and lengthy, so if you decide to not read any further, you won't be missing any content or context in the game.

What kinds of sex?

Bound by Night starts off pretty hot and heavy. What Alex gets in the game’s opening with Kai is a largely consensual experience with a bossy top but not someone who abuses or hurts Alex. (In fact, I would say Kai was very attentive to Alex.) There’s a budding dominant/submissive relationship there, but no bondage or heavy kink. That (possibly along with the project's title) may have you asking, "Is there going to be bondage and heavy kink?"

The honest answer is I'm not 100% decided on this, but I'm leaning against including a lot of bondage in Bound by Night, although there may be one or two scenes of that nature if I can make it work with the characters' personalities and if I feel I can write the scene properly. (I actually have plans for a tie-down scene but I can almost guarantee it's not what anyone is thinking.) Not to yuck anyone’s yum, but hardcore bondage just doesn’t tickle me down there, so I'm anxious about whether I could write an interesting and erotic sex scene that relied on a kink I just don’t share.

That's not to say the sex is going to be entirely vanilla. Submissive, dominant and more fluid dynamics will feature prominently, and there will be a heavy psychological component to those that I hope will prompt some thoughts about what people consent to and when they willingly surrender power and control to someone else (or assert it over them). I'm also working on plans for some threesomes or even a group scene -- depending on what I can make work for the characters. (Some of these scenes will also be unlocked based on the choices you make.)

There will probably at some point also be a sex scene involving a werewolf in its hybrid form. Patreon has a "no bestiality" rule which I fully support, but I don't think a conscious, sentient human-turned-monster qualifies. I've also seen other projects here on Patreon that are heavy on furry/monster explicit content, so... yeah, that will be included, but likely as an optional scene as sex with a monster gets into a realm of kink not everyone may be interested in. 

What about consent and rape?

In the opening splash screens of BBN, it states:  "This game includes depictions of violence as well as sex between men, including some non-consensual situations." I left this intentionally vague because I didn't want to get into a discussion about what constitutes rape or consent in a game that is, at least in part, about power-dynamics in relationships and whether and how to submit or dominate others with whom you share a physical, emotional or sexual attractions. And what constitutes consent when someone is psychologically manipulating -- or outright gaslighting -- you? But, between the errant tagging on another site and some legal reasons (discussed below), I think I need to be more explicit.

Patreon explicitly prohibits rape-based content, and I have every intent of honoring that. And, to be completely honest, rape-fantasies are not something I enjoy watching/reading and I wouldn’t enjoy writing. But as a black-letter rule, it's also against the Patreon TOS. So, even if I wanted to, this isn't the platform by which I could support such a project.

So, to put it bluntly, no, as far as I'm concerned, this game/VN will not incorporate any rape or rape-like fantasies.

What about violence?

Funny thing about modern society:  representations of non-sexual physical violence is apparently 100% fine. I see BBN as more of a light psychological horror story, not something focusing on gore and dismemberment, but when you have vampires and werewolves and hunters, I think by the end of this story, there will have been some fights and one or more characters may have met a final end. 

There may be some erotic overtones or stylizations to those scenes (e.g., a confrontational sequence in chapter 2), and I can see how that kind of scenario might be triggering for someone. And ultimately that's why I wrote the splash-screen language the way I did. Not because I plan to write a rape-scene, but because I can't possibly know what might be upsetting for someone and I don't want to re-traumatize someone with a triggering sequence.

How often will there be sexual content?

In the opening of our story, Alex was almost immediately groped by his supervisor, ordered to get laid, got laid, then turned into a passive boy toy while things (both fun and scary) happened to him. I did that for a couple reasons. First, to see if I could even write and present an erotic sex scene that you would enjoy and, second, to grab your attention and get you interested in this game. Hopefully I succeeded on both counts.

But, how often will Alex or another character be getting the Big D? It won't be every chapter or even every update. While it hopefully isn't obvious, Alex’s scene with Kai was actually very much tied to the plot and set the stage for future events. I intend for every explicit scene to do that in some way, either advancing the plot or showing how the relationships between the characters develop. (And if it happens to be a turn on, so much the better!)

So, how often!? As often as I can write them to fit the story. That’s the best answer I can give you right now.

To what purpose?

I describe Bound by Night as an erotic horror visual novel. You could call it pornographic if you want and I wouldn't object to that adjective, but while there will be sex (maybe a lot of sex) I don't intend for it to be a sex simulator or what I would call a porn novel (not that there’s anything wrong with either!) 😉 To me, the term erotic novel means there is a story and a plot that includes sexual content, rather than a piece of virtual porn that has a plot loosely draped over it. (I like porn, too, but I sure don’t watch it for the plot. With this story, I hope you do care about the plot and the characters... and get turned on along the way.)

So, I hope that offered some insight into what is in store for Bound by Night.

Have thoughts, reactions, suggestions, feedback? Share them in the comments below or on Discord. I promise I won’t bite (unless you ask). 😈