From "corny and hot" to "porn-y diversion": How gamers think about sexually explicit content in modern games

I can very easily name lots of games with graphic dismemberment and death, but it's not as easy for me to name more than a handful of games with sex scenes, graphic or not. Explicit dating sims, like those in which fucking is the objective, marked as "Adult Only" on Steam and similar platforms, are not what I’m describing here, because those are considered to be niche products. In mainstream games, sex scenes are still pretty rare, especially compared to violence, which is commonplace in video games across genres.

Is this because sex remains taboo in North American culture, entertainment, and video games, despite the pervasive sexualization of (particularly female) characters in games? Or is it that violence is a more common game mechanic and therefore needs to be treated differently than sex, which is often presented as part of storytelling?