Sex Work Is A Thing In 'Animal Crossing'

By now, you've probably seen a couple of quality memes about what the best way to pay off your debts to raccoon tycoon Tom Nook. If not, please enjoy this old standard.

As it turns out, there's plenty of room for sex work in Animal Crossing -- just ask Denali Winter. They're a nonbinary hairdresser and sex worker; two professions hit as hard as anything during this shitstorm. But both this pandemic and this adorable game have brought out both the creativity AND horniness in people, which made it a perfect tool for Winter to help their clients in a new way.

In the game, there are a number of things you can do to humiliate someone on your island. You can hit them with a net, trap them in cages, and just generally make them feel bad (which you can then later mock with different "Reactions"). Doing this to an NPC villager might make them want to move to a new island, but some of Winter's clients are paying for this experience in Bells, the in-game currency. They'll go even further into the dom-sub relationship too, as clients find themselves doing chores around the island for them, such as watering flowers.

Furthermore, the fact that Winter is nonbinary is particularly attractive to clients who are figuring out their gender identity, and Animal Crossing is an ideal place for that (at least until Cyberpunk 2077 comes out). The game doesn't force you to pick a gender, just hairstyles. From there, you're free to experiment all you want.

It's kind of amazing to take a look at Winter's work with their clients and contrast that with where we were with games 10 years ago. If you told the folks behind Red Dead Redemption, for example, that the future of gaming was not the heightened realism of horse cocks and outlaw crime they were promising, but rather rainbow-colored cartoon horseys and a PG-rated exploration of gender and sexuality, their jaws would've hit the floor. Don't get us wrong, we still want all the yee-haw the Red Dead franchise shoots at us, but a little variety can do a soul some good.

Because here's the thing -- plenty of people are getting lonely and thirsty right now, and if there's a willingness to help others in this game instead of relentlessly gouging each other over turnip prices, then more power to it.

Isaac is on Twitter and Instagram @NotFunnyIsaac and his favorite villager/best friend is Puddles, who he will defend to the death.

Top Image: @pondsmelt/Twitter