More Like This Please: Zumanity

Recently, I spent about a week in Las Vegas for a tech conference. While I didn't get to do too many Vegas things because I was getting over a horrible cold, I took the time (and walked 2 miles) to see Zumanity, a burlesque show by Cirque du Soleil. In short, it was wonderful all around and I left the theater thinking that every game designer, heck every gamer, needs to see it.

Why do I say that? Well, for me it is one of the best examples of what healthy sexuality looks like as an art form and media. The show had a number of acts, everything from two women swimming in a water bowl to a male stripper to a delicious milk bath scene. One of the more interesting acts to me was an aerial silk act where the female performer's routine is a metaphor for female sexual pleasure. The soundtrack is of a woman gasping and moaning. We also have a homoerotic cage match where the men become jealous of each other because of their mutual interest in the woman watching their fight. It looks like it's going to break out into a fight when they realize they can all have what they want. In addition, one of the male performers had an amazing pole routine. The hosts for the evening were a 1950s inspired couple who interacted with the audience. The "wife" found a boyfriend in the audience pretty early in the evening and the husband modeled how to handle that without getting mad, something that is meta to a degree given the amount of audience participation in the show.

I know that can be a lot to absorb at once, especially if you haven't seen the show, but really what I found is that the show overall was a great example of something I had found earlier in the week. Since I often talk about female representation in games, especially the overrepresentation of sexualized women, I'm often accused of just being anti-sex. This saddens me because it suggests that the people making these accusations can't imagine a world where all types of female sexuality are equal and respected. We've become so used to the versions of sexuality churned out by our media that we believe that it is the way sexuality is.

I wanted to find a tool to help explain the difference between how sexuality is most commonly portrayed and healthy sexuality. Not long before the show, I found a framework called CERTS. It stands for Consent, Equality, Respect, Trust, and Safety. Underlying the framework is a basic belief that healthy sexuality is positive and can enrich our lives and that there are many forms it can take but they are grounded in the CERTS model. (More info can be found here)

I believe that CERTS isn't just useful for person-to-person interactions, but also for media. Zumanity itself is a great example of this.

Let's start with consent. The show is upfront about its content manner. They make it clear, in a non-judgmental way, that the content is going to be sexual in nature. The female ushers wore shirts that gave the illusion that they were naked, so if the nudity or upfront nature of the show was going to make you uncomfortable, you would know early. They told attendees that the show often used audience participation and gave instructions on how to opt out of that if you wanted to. Not only did they work hard to gain the consent of the audience, none of the skits I saw even hinted at anything other than enthusiastic consent.

Besides being consensual, the show stressed equality. Unlike my previous burlesque experience, there were men performing on stage and women weren't the only people being sensual or sexual. In addition to numerous heterosexual couplings, we had the aforementioned women in the champagne glass and a long kiss between the two cage fighters (I think the only kiss of the show). We also had people of color, two larger ladies (the Botero sisters), African dancing, an awesome male dancer with a pink mohawk, and more. There was something for many different groups.

In terms of respect, no one group's desires were seen as more important than anyone else's and everyone's sexuality was shown in a positive and embracing light. Even the fake ad for a product called Titties (baggies filled with scotch) seemed to have the message that we can have fun with the desire for bigger breasts and also with how women's bodies change as they age.

Trust is one of the required components of the show. It's a physical show with a lot of acrobatics and stage craft. Things need to be done correctly and well. But the trust wasn't just between performers. In order to have audience participation, the participants needed to be free to do things that might be seen as bad out of context. As a result, no photography or recording was allowed during the show. Ushers seemed to be pretty good at spotting it too. A couple near me came in a little late and took a picture during the pre-show. An usher promptly arrived and asked them to stop.

For a theater show like this, there wasn't much needed beyond the norm for safety. While alcohol was served, the ushers were always around. Audience members were asked to remain seated during the aerial acts.

By meeting all five parts of this model, Zumanity as a show allowed attendees to explore their sexuality in a healthy way. I think games could take a similar approach and that this model could illustrate how we can have a broader diversity of female characters without taking all sex and sexuality out of games. In fact, I think how often our conversations concentrate on the overrepresentation of sexualized female characters points to a lack of multiple elements of the model. For instance, if I pick up a product that's about exploring a basic castle and all the female characters look like they should be in a Victoria's Secret catalog, how is that equal? How could I have opted-out? Is the combination of content and lack of consent, respectful of me as a consumer? How can I trust other products?

I think if we can move towards a CERTS model, we'll get a lot closer to pleasing everyone.