Sex and Death : To be Human and Larping

(Featured photo by Photo by Cyrus Crossan on Unsplash) Sex and death – the two things in life that are impossible to escape. Even if you are ace and you decide to never touch a human being sexually, I bet that informs a whole bunch of your human interactions – I know figuring it out certainly informed a lot of mine. Going back further, even if you somehow never touch the concept of sex, two people likely had some to make you exist. Sex brought us into life and death is going to take us out.

But Ericka, I larp to escape these heavy philosophical questions and the vague existential dread that surrounds us at all points in time living in the hellscape we call this modern age! Isn’t this a larp blog?! Why are you making me think about the big picture of life? Look – if everything is a bit too much for you right now and you don’t want to ask your characters some tough questions because you’re in your Type 1 Hobbits-and-Care-Bears larp era, this is not the blog post for you. I also fully support the light hearted, all-fun-no-pain larp existence you have embraced, please teach me your peaceful ways, master! 

However, if you are like me and you like to dive into those Type 1.5+ games that allow you at least a little drama, some tears, betrayal, maybe a little death and a lot of love in between? Then I challenge you to stick around, even if we’re going to be asking some hard questions. They are far more enjoyable to answer in-character than they are out-of-character, and they might even teach you something about yourself in the long run. 

I was recently in an advice giving discussion with some folks about how you prepare for larp. I love seeing the wide variety of ways that all my friends prep and everyone does it in some unique fashion. Also, shout out to Monte Lolen for many late night conversations where we realized we both do this for characters and helping me refine the question process around sex and death. It is one thing I do early on in the process for every character I play in a game where my any of three favorite Rs are involved: Reality, Risk, and/or Romance. If you think about the wide span of games, at least ONE of those is involved in 98% of games I enjoy, usually more than one. If I find myself playing in a setting where those themes are on the table, I fairly quickly in the character prep process think about my character’s thoughts on sex and death.

Sex and death. It really is that simple. It really is also that terrifying. Such small words for such deeply driving human forces. But they are concepts that not only drive a character’s motivations and active play, but also having solidly grounded character philosophies where these topics are concerned will give you far better reactions when the heavy shit is hitting the fan. We don’t spend every day of our lives encountering things that make us evaluate our relationship with sex and death, but larps are slices of heightened reality. They are (usually) designed to make dramatic situations occur that will make a character confront one or both of these topics. If you are playing a larp where you have a pre-written character sheet, sit down with that sheet and read it a few times to see what answers you’ve already been given to these questions! I bet it already tells you a lot about these specific subjects. If you’re making your own character, well, let’s dive in!

Let’s start with sex. This might not be a sexy larp, that’s fine! This might not be a sexy character, also fine! But is there romance? Even if you are playing teenagers, is there that possibility of stealing off to a closet to play seven minutes in heaven? Have you had your first kiss yet? What do you feel about the cheerleader that everyone calls a slut? Are you scared of sex? Have you had the sex talk with your parents? Are you queer? Do you even know how to explore being queer? Playing young adults or college students on the edge of discovering themselves is often where this character examination becomes the MOST important, as it’s often far from our current lived experiences but can be incredibly formative to a young adult’s world! 

Maybe this is a world where sex is banned or repressed (hello Victorian, Edwardian, and similar games). Do you yearn for it? How do you express those needs when you can’t show them? Have you always restrained yourself? Are you scared of this mysterious forbidden thing? Do you crave it? How does it relate to romance and marriage for you? 

Maybe you’re ace. If this is a larp where romance or sex is on the table, how does it feel for your character to not interact with that side of things? Is it alienating? Are you accepted for not understanding that part of interaction? Are you revered by this society for not falling prey to your sexual drives? Are you some sort of alien creature who is fascinated by human sexuality but doesn’t really understand how it all works and just simply doesn’t have the same sex drive? (Shout out to my last run of Helicon.) 

Death. The undiscovered country. This one is often a little more difficult for the simple fact it’s also more difficult in real life. I know I’m still working on my relationship with it, are you? It is distinctly possible your character doesn’t have everything figured out yet either. But, also, depending on the larp you attend, it is also distinctly likely your character is going to meet with the harsh reality of death by the end of the weekend. Even acknowledging that your character has no clue, no experience with death, and that being confronted with it would be very difficult will arm you for some awesome scenes. 

I often think we play death too light in larp – especially in the boffer community. We get inured to violence because we see it so much in play, but it should still be an awful and jarring thing. Even in the old vampire games I used to do, the permanent destruction of an immortal creature should have been something that shook most vampires down to their bones. Therefore, I make a strong pledge to myself to truly try and give death the weight it deserves in the world I’m in with the character I’m playing. A great example was I went to the NeverAfter larp last spring where I was playing a normal human being off the streets of New York who had been spirited away to a world of fairy tales – but she was still a normal waitress from New York City who had no real experience with death. And then someone not only kills one of the mod bosses in front of her, but rips off his head and starts carrying it around as a TROPHY. Well, my poor girl just went to the corner of the field and puked her guts out. She was in complete shock. After game, I received many compliments about that, because people had forgotten how awful that would be to a normal human off the streets. 

Let’s zoom back a little, though. There are so many questions around death. Has your character made any sort of peace with it – through religion or otherwise? Have they ever seen someone die? Are they grieving someone? If they have lost someone they are close to in the past, this is when I like to think about the ball in the box grief analogy. Was it very recent and everything feels like that ball is hitting a wall of grief constantly? Or was it a long time ago but there’s still a few things that ping off those waves of grief and, if so, what are those little things? Are they preparing to lose someone else because of the situation of the larp? Are they preparing to die themselves?

Much like sex, having set character feelings on death before going into the game will make your reactions far more human in the most intense moments of the game (even if those feelings are not having thought about it at all)! Being able to show genuine character grief and having consistent triggers that brings it up paints a clear picture as to who that person was the character lost – it makes them both more sympathetic and interesting. 

I’m curious if anyone else already has this practice in their gaming? If you have done this, what scenes has it made for you in the past? If not, do you have a character coming up you want to try it with? What’s their reaction to sex or death? Leave me some ideas for the future here or in messages! And while I know these things are hard to think about in real life, I find them a relief to think about in games – it’s a place where I have control and I can put down the story when it’s over but still have room to explore those hard topics. I challenge you to give it some thought, even if you normally wouldn’t. Until next time, I’m out to probably go die in at least two larps over the next four weeks. Wish me luck!