A new video from a conservative think tank called American Enterprise Institute featuring scholar Christina Hoff Sommers says that issues related to sexism and misogyny have been brought up mostly by pro-feminist tech writers and those sympathetic to them. Sommers has written several books critical of the current feminism movement including Who Stole Feminism? How Women Have Betrayed Women and The War Against Boys: How Misguided Feminism Is Harming Our Young Men.

Women as Background Decoration: Part 2, the latest video in the Tropes vs Women in Video Games series from Feminist Frequency and Anita Sarkeesian is online. The latest video continues to explore "sexualized female bodies often occupy a dual role as both sexual playthings and the perpetual victims of male violence," according to Sarkeesian's description on YouTube. Here's a little more on the latest episode from Feminist Frequency's YouTube channel:

Crunchyroll points out new DLC for Dead or Alive V: Ultimate Edition that allows player to dress characters up for the game in bath-time or bed-time gear. Yes these ladies will be fighting in towels and whatnot according to the video promo for the DLC.

The privilege of doing so (by buying the "Bath & Bedtime Costumes" DLC) will cost you $15.

While CD Projekt Red has not been afraid to include sexual content in its The Witcher series of action role-playing games, the Poland-based developer says that sex scenes in general should be tactful. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt will contain sex scenes, according to level designer Miles Tost, but they will not be overdone or be tacky. These scenes will not be interactive either.

Apple’s CEO Tim Cook has been experiencing some pushback on Twitter this week after a consumer complained about the firm’s ‘sexist’ engraving rules. Justyn Hintze wrote a blog post explaining how Apple would not let her engrave the Alix Olson lyrics "I’ll give myself a lube job, shake my broomstick til my clit throbs" on her new iPad as it contained "inappropriate language."

GamesIndustry International has an excellent article chronicling the plight of a female developer whose game was banned from Apple's App Store for depicting a sexual act. At first blush the game, HappyPlayTime, might sound like pornography, but it's more about education in a fun and entertaining way, according to its creator.

Japanese game developer Idea Factory is altering the content of its upcoming PlayStation Vita card game Monster Monpiece for markets outside of Japan such as Europe and the United States. On hearing the news, some in the community said that Idea Factory was being heavy-handed in changing the game for release in North America.

Apparently the appetites for pornography vary depending on which next-generation system you own, if you believe some freshly released stats from porn site SugarDVD. The "Netflix of Porn" (a nickname Netflix no doubt objects to) says that, while PlayStation 4 owners look at more porn than Xbox One users do, Xbox One users look at it a lot longer.

Imagine buying your child a 3DS for Christmas and finding pornography on it... That's what happened to one parent, according to WAVY News 10. On Christmas morning Tom Mayhew's 8-year-old son decided to snap some pictures with his new 3DS. When he went to go look at the photos he'd taken he found a dozen pornographic images saved on the system.

Dustin Browder, who is the game director on Heroes of the Storm, has made a public apology for his seemingly terse comments during an interview with Rock, Paper, Shotgun about the sexualization of female characters in the upcoming online team brawler featuring popular Blizzard game characters.

Atlanta-based indie game developer Secret Library can't seem to catch a break from Apple. It submitted its retro 8-bit iOS game Hot Mess to the App store and had it rejected because it contained animated naked people kissing. In Hot Mess players step into the shoes of a firefighting robot who goes haywire and mistakes the burning passion of romance as the flames that burns down houses. He thinks couples kissing is dangerous and therefore tries to hose them down to avoid fires...

Researchers at Stanford University's Virtual Human Interaction Lab is researching how sexualized depictions of women in video games can make women feel like they are objects, and that it may alter their perception on myths related to rape.

"We often talk about video game violence and how it affects people who play violent video games," says Jeremy Bailenson, the director of the Virtual Human Interaction Lab at Stanford. “I think it’s equally important to think about sexualization.”

The latest episode of South Park on Comedy Central is called "Informative Murder Porn," and deals with investigative murder shows on Cable TV and Minecraft, of all things.

When the kids of South Park learn that their parents are watching shows on OWN and Discovery ID about sex and murder (and believe that it will lead to their parents killing each other), they use a mobile phone app to block the shows on cable TV. The app uses questions only a kid would know about things you do in Minecraft.

In late July Zynga sued a company for making a casual sexual rendezvous app called "Bang With Friends" because its title closely resembled its lineup of "With Friends" game apps including "Words with Friends," and "Chess with Friends." Since the beginning of this year, Facebook users have been able to use the "Bang With Friends" app to choose which one of their friends they’d like to "get with." The app lets you select your friends that you want "benefits" with, but the object of your affection that you’ve sel

Halo designer David Ellis thinks the Hideo Kojima-approved "sexy" design for the Metal Gear Sold 5 Quiet is "ridiculous," and says that the industry is full of what he calls "man babies." Earlier in the week Kojima said that he had directed designer Yoji Shinkawa to make the sniper character Quiet more "erotic" so that more people would cosplay her during the Tokyo Game Show later this month. Today during a press conference Q&A, Kojima told Polygon that he meant to say "sexy."

Apparently a Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain character is getting redesigned to be more "erotic" according what game director Hideo Kojima wrote in a series of tweets today. This, he believes, will make the character more appealing for cosplay.

The U.S. Supreme Court is considering a review of the 677 New Loudon Corp. v. State of New York Tax Tribunal, following a decision from the New York Supreme Court that the state government may tax exotic dancing but not other forms of dancing. Free speech advocacy group Media Coalition thinks that if the Supreme Court were to review this decision, it would likely overturn it because it violates the First Amendment. The group recently filed an amicus brief with the court urging it to review the case.

Saints Row 4 associate producer Kate Nelson tells Edge in a recent interview that she didn't like former publisher THQ's use of adult entertainment stars to promote Saints Row 2 and Saints Row: The Third.

"I did not always love how much THQ put an emphasis on porn stars," Nelson told Edge. "In Saints Row 2 and Saints Row: The Third there was an emphasis on the penthouse girls, and Tera Patrick."

Boob Jam, a developer game jam inspired by journalist Jenn Frank, hopes to create games that take the focus away from breasts as sexual objects, and put it on the challenges (and importance) of women having them.

From Frank's tweet people began talking about breasts beyond jiggle physics and as sexual objects. This led to a novel idea: why not create a game jam that can explore breasts in a non-sexual way?

And so this Tumblr came to life proposing just that.

Bloomberg is reporting that social game maker Zynga is suing the makers of "Bang With Friends," a casual sex app, because it infringes on its trademarked "With Friends" line of games (Zynga Inc. v. Bang With Friends Inc., 13-03517, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California - San Francisco). Zynga has several games that use the "With Friends" descriptor including Words With Friends and Chess With Friends.

An erotic Japanese game that utilizes a phallic-shaped controller device now has Oculus Rift support to boot. The game is called Custom Maid 3D and it lets players create a maid that you can then commit various sexual acts on using a "Ju-C Air Support" controller. The controller is like a PlayStation Move controller that is also an interactive sexual aid for men. You get the general idea of what this game is really all about...

The United States Navy has commissioned Organic Motion to create a Kinect-enabled simulation game that addresses the issue of rape. Rape and sexual harassment have been a topic of heated debate in Washington this month as lawmakers such as New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (supported by republican Senators Ted Cruz of Texas and Rand Paul of Kentucky) seek to move the oversight of rape cases from the military to civilian courts. Mainly Gillibrand is seeking this solution because the U.S.

Games for Change has announced that the game concept Safe Sex with Friends is the winner of the 2013 SEXETC.ORG Game Design Competition. The three finalists were Safe Sex with Friends, SexEd Super Task Force, and Check/Mate. After hearing presentations from all three finalists (during the 10th Annual Games for Change Festival) and thoughtful deliberation by jurors (Matt Parker, Lana Dakan, Lucinda Holt, and Naomi Clark,) Safe Sex with Friends was selected as the winning game.

Announced last year, the erotic Oculus Rift game Sinful Robot has been renamed Wicked Paradise. The game lost some of the funding it was relying on, but that has not deterred developer Jeroen Van den Bosch from continuing development. Bosch hopes to create an erotic title that is well designed and offers a narrative influenced by character-driven interaction similar to the Mass Effect series.

The very first porn-related app for Google Glass has been banned by Google, along with any other applications that someone might think of in the future. The application created by software developer MiKandi called "Tits & Glass" allowed Google Glass users to record videos and take pictures of sexual partners and share them with other users of the app who could then rate them.

Update #2: The video is back up!

Update: the video has been removed temporarily by YouTube. Visiting the link provides the following message:

"This video has been removed because its content violated YouTube's Terms of Service. "

We'll have more on this as information becomes available, but clearly someone related to one of the many games highlighted in the video has made a copyright claim.

GTFO, a documentary about sexism and harassment in the video games industry and within the gaming community has surpassed its funding goal of $20,000. With four more days to go, the documentary has managed to raise $23,829 from just 882 backers on Kickstarter. The documentary is being put together by New York-based filmmaker Shannon Sun-Higginson, who describes herself as a casual gamer.

Starbreeze Studios and publisher Sony Online Entertainment do not want to be associated with a video promoting a contest seeking "women" to star in a proposed movie based on the popular Payday game. The CEO of Starbreeze went out of his way to explain to Games Industry International this morning that the video featuring an office visit to the Overkill Software is not representative of the company's views. Some have called out the video featuring Top Model Sweden contestants Angner Sophie and Nina Strauss sexist in tone for its use of sexual language and jokes.

On this week's show, hosts Andrew Eisen and E. Zachary Knight discuss the first Tropes vs. Women video, "Bronies" and if rights holders should be a little kinder to fan projects, and the nightmarish launch of SimCity this week. Download Episode 44 now: SuperPAC Episode 44 (1 hour, 6 minutes) 60.4 MB.

The very first Tropes vs. Women video is alive and kicking and ready for your perusal. The video series by Anita Sarkeesian was crowd-funded by a very successful Kickstarter campaign, though some in the gaming community attempted to take Sarkeesian for being overzealous about misogyny and sexism in both the development and game-playing community.

The first video is called "Damsel in Distress: Part 1 - Tropes vs Women in Video Games" and is described by Sarkeesian on the Frequency Feminism YouTube channel as: