Turn Someone On (part one)

The first basic move we get—both in the game text and on the top left of the game’s reference sheet—is Turn Someone On. This tells us something about the game and it’s priorities and that we are not in Kansas anymore. AW had a Seduce or Manipulate move but this is really different territory; Seduce or Manipulate is explicitly “not (or not just) trying to get them to fuck you”. Turn Someone On is…

Turn Someone On isn’t necessarily trying to get someone to fuck you. It isn’t necessarily ‘trying to’ anything. Turn Someone On really sort of dislodges itself from the structure of agency that most pbta moves assume: trying to do or not do something (to do it, do it, etc). By contrast, Alder writes of Turn Someone On, “sometimes, it just happens”.

The next thing Alder writes is “This move is at the heart of how Monsterhearts understands sexuality, especially teen sexuality. We don’t get to decide what turns us on, or who.” This is both true to my own experience and understanding of teenage sexuality, and appealling to me as a bisexual adult. Alder describes this as Monsterhearts understanding of sexuality (especially—that is, not only—teenage sexuality), but seems to say something about the world and not just the game. This is Alder living up to the promise made on the first page, that by playing we “contend with all the chaotic possibility and uncertainty of desire”.

Sorry, I got distracted from the point I was going to make. “We don’t get to decide what turns us on, or who.” But we also don’t get to decide how we turn someone else on: “Unlike the other basic moves, Turning Someone On can be triggered even if there’s no specific action being taken; your character doesn’t have to intend to Turn Someone On.” Sexuality just happens, and if it’s consistent with anyone’s conscious desires or intentions that’s just a (happy? unhappy?) coincidence. The game posits (creates, through this move) an amorphous force of desire that absorbs and rearticulates the individuals at either end of its movement.

Maybe: sexuality is to MH as the psychic maelstrom is to AW? “It’s everywhere, just outside your perception, and if you open your brain up to it you can learn things from it. It learns things from you, too. If you know how, you can reach out into it to make things happen.”

Idk I’m making this sound so heavy but also part of what’s great about Turn Someone On is how fun and funny it is in play! We are all here to describe the weird intentional and unintentional ways we arouse each other; that’s a good time! We are here to watch what the dice will do with these moments in the narrative where our characters are so exposed, teetering between power and vulnerability and overwhelmed by hormones and magic. Wanna make out?