This is Addressed to Scott, from the Kevin McCullough piece on Mass Effect and the Sex Box:

Scott writes:	Sunday, January, 13, 2008 12:57 AM
knight_of_baawa - wrong as usual...
You're just wrong, KOB. If this "game" contains adult sexual content, society has a long history of regulating who has access to it. From the age-ratings for movies (G, PG, R, NC-17, X), the age requirements to rent/buy adult movies (18 or 21?), to keeping adult magazines behind the counter at convenience stores, society has always regulated these things, and I'm sure there are many other examples. I'm not familiar with this "Mass Effect" product, but if it is anything like KMC describes, it would certainly fall under the same guidelines as the adult products mentioned above. If it’s a sexually oriented adult product that has been intentionally marketed/targeted to 15 year olds (or anyone under the age of consent), that sounds like a violation of multiple laws...

Actually, it is not marketed to 15 year olds, nor does it have the drastically sexual content Kevin McCullough would have you believe.  The game is primarily about the human race, having come in contact with several varieties of extra terrestrial sentient beings, and how it copes with the necessity of finding its own intergalactic identity.  Naturally, human nature will come into play here: the unfortunate potential for evil (and the blessed potential for good), the need for security in its environment, and of course a little bit of human sexuality, just to name a few.  You know, themes that literature and movies try to tackle when they're not attempting to make the quick buck on sensationalist dribble.

The majority of the game, I assure you, is running around like Jack Bauer in 24, trying to secure information, stopping the bad guys from blowing up space colonies, etc.  The mission is not simply to copulate with anything that walks on two legs, and in fact that is a greatly smaller part of the game than you are led to believe.  The extent of it, for better or worse, is a strip bar scene (which I could not discern any particularly raunchy aspect of it aside from the dance itself):

http://youtube.com/watch?v=eLXRakqHFDc

And the love making scenes that happen in the combinations of man on woman, man on female alien, woman on female alien.  No "Man on Man" here.  It is definitely not the case that, "...the video game 'persons' hump in every form, format, multiple, gender-oriented possibility they can think of."  Link to "sex scenes" (about as graphic as the Titanic love scenes, which was PG-13):

Female on Alien: http://youtube.com/watch?v=icZifr_a04U

In fact, a little jaunt over to Gametrailers.com will show that the love making aspect is only meant to be a tertiary tidbit in terms of the overall story:

http://www.gametrailers.com/game/2211.html

When was the last time you saw a porno go in depth about the nuances of character design, or the rationale behind choosing environment A for a particular event versus B?  The answer, you don't.  There are such games out on the market, but the ESRB (http://www.esrb.org/index-js.jsp) would most certainly rate those games AO (Adult Only), and due to the non-marketability of such a rating (some retailers such as WalMart have banned those titles from ever being sold in their stores) most developers don't ever develop a game with sex of the nature at hand at the forefront.

So, simply put, the gaming industry does not make games like those to be sold widespread in the US.  There have been a few noticeable instances where an AO game has censored itself in order to gain the M rating (which still requires that retailers card the individual who buys them to check to see if they are 17 or older), and those arguably teeter on the line.  In fact, and I'm only basing this on what I remember, there was actual topless nudity in the game before the ESRB threatened to give the game an unfavorable rating.  It was, as you can see in the above scene, cut out.  I suppose the gratuitous butt shot in the scene was enough to make it Mature anyways, since it was suggestive.

Because it received an M rating, it rightly has no business in a teenager's hands, and in fact requires an adult to purchase (or a careless cashier), which in turn means that you, the parent, must do a little research on the game your kid is asking for.  It involves nothing more than a simple stroll over to ign.com, gamespot.com, or even the above ESRB site, which has all games it reviewed in a database for your parenting ease.  Do not blame the developer, the medium, the publisher, or the console maker if the game does not belong in your kid's hands.  There are several industry fail safes set in place so that they give YOU the parent all the information and power to decide what your kid will wind up playing.  It is only your fault for allowing your kid to possess such games.  

There obviously is a market for games like Mass Effect in the United States, so do not ruin these games for people, such as myself, who wish to play them in their spare time and experience a good escape from reality.  Widespread commentary, and certainly widespread, uneducated legislation will do nothing to alleviate the problem of kids getting their hands on games they should not have.  Do not rely on big government to run your lives for you, as that is a slope far more slippery than allowing suggestive content in video games.  I do not mean to insult anyone, I am just telling it like I see it.