CW: this one is...it's maybe NSFW in the same way that you wouldn't play some Bayonetta in the same room as your parents, if you catch my drift.

ben esposito, director of neon white, has claimed that that game was made "by freaks, for freaks", which got me thinking. what does such a game look like? what does a true game that flies it's freak flag high wear before it begins to peel it off, teasing all around it just enough to excite them before baring it's full naked form for an audience it knows will bark and howl for it? bayonetta. obviously.

such blood has been spilt over one question, rephrased and relitigated countless times: is bayonetta exploitative or empowering? feminist or objectivist? I'm here to tell you that the answer to these questions is Yes. bayonetta is a character designed by a woman under the direction of a man who wanted his dream woman brought to life. bayonetta is an all-powerful dominant force rarely not in complete control of the situation, that dances and parades herself for the male gaze as well as her own amusement. spank material for straight cis teenage boys and the most delightfully camp For The Gays drag show energy in the world, and earnest transition goals for transfems. bayonetta is all these things at once. the perceptions of bayonetta and what she is and does tangle up in themselves in a mess under the covers: sex, and by extension erotica, is inherently messy and you aren't going to get the clear-cut answers you want by demanding obsequious deference: you're in mommy's house now. be good, and maybe she'll give you what you want.

kinesthetic erotica to boil your blood and make the hairs on your neck stand on end like almost nothing else in the world. the thousand tiny moments of ever-building tension until it explodes into relief that the wicked weave system creates will never fail to make me shiver with delight, a bed of deep satisfaction that makes it so easy to excuse all the awkward fumbling when it reaches out of its comfort zone. it's an intoxicating (s)witch, one that's open to anything you can imagine and more besides. turn the difficulty down and you can effortlessly style on heaven's soldiers as the dominatrix supervillain of your wildest fantasies, or turn the difficulty up and have the game break you over its knee and make you beg for more, whilst still consenting to your learning how to turn the tables and show paradiso what a real witch can do.

many games are very bad at being convincingly erotic for a wide variety of reasons, whether out of the depressing commercialism of it all, the narrow audience of straight cis teenage boys most big games are aiming for, or just for taking themselves far too seriously. bayonetta succeeds because it puts such immense effort and care into fooling around, into not only its ludicrous high camp world and story, but also in the act of playing it, and enticing you to engage with it on terms both you and it consent to. dom or sub, any, all, or none of the toys of it's bedside table, in cutscenes and in play, bayonetta has one goal that overrides all others: to bring you to it's infinite climaxes, over and over again.there are many many tiny irrations and dissatisfactions with bayonetta that crawl into my mind once i'm hit with the clarity of the afterglow, but once i'm in there, it's hard to think about them, it's hard to think about anything else, other the game's intoxicating invitations push harder and faster against your limits and its, until either you or it or both of you can't take anymore, until...

...until we are all satisfied.