Hot Office

Porn is much like any other fantasy genre in that for it to work, you need to buy into some absurdity in the premise. Sure, in fantasy it’s stuff like trees that can come to life and people who can summon the mightiest powers of the elements exclusively going around in their PJs, while in porn it’s that five minutes of conversation is enough to get perfect strangers to get down to boning – to say nothing of the various physical implausibilities that come into play once said boning commences – but in either case it’s all about the willing suspension of disbelief. Despite making the attempt to engage with it in good faith, however, I have to admit that Hot Office struck me as completely ridiculous even by the fantastical standards of AIF.

Things start off reasonably grounded, I admit: you’re having a chat by text with your coworker Sophie, who’s on her way to the office. It’s all presented clearly enough, with a phone-mimicking interface offering you a choice of two or three terse replies to each message by which she narrates her commute in – it’s like Lifeline with boobs. The basic scenario is also a bit silly – the A/C is off in the building and everyone else is working from home, so with a bit of encouragement from you she wastes little time in stripping down to her underwear, and then beyond – but sticks to the standard tropes of the genre.

But there’s a bunch of stuff that’s decidedly not standard, or just plain odd. For example, each step of the striptease is illustrated with a picture, which is all well and good, except that these appear to have been slapped together in MS Paint – they might have passed for hot and steamy in 1991, but kind of a lot’s happened on this front since then. The conversation with Sophie is also increasingly bizarre the more you pay attention to it: she makes a note of saying that she’s wearing a winter coat as she comes into the office, but if it’s winter why is the office so hot in the absence of A/C? If she’s your coworker, why is she showing you around the place and pointing out the plant in the corner, as if you’ve never been there before? Why are we interrupting the clothes-removing process to snap a photo of Sophia’s office chair, which has a couple of discolored impressions from the weight of her sweaty butt – is that some kind of fetish? Speaking of fetishes, WHY DOESN’T SHE HAVE ANY EYES???

This was all quite confounding. Possibly as a result of being distracted pondering these imponderables, I can’t say I found Hot Office especially hot, but its very idiosyncrasies mean that I eventually began viewing it with some affection. Possibly I only feel this way because it cuts off just as Sophie really gets her kit off – it’s apparently a free excerpt from a longer, paid game, so makes sense to leave the punters wanting more – but there’s something guileless about the very specific sexual scenario being constructed. There’s of course more than a bit of male gaze creepiness in the premise, but even that is blunted by the fact that Sophie is so ridiculously eager to strip for you, to the extent that even if you try to chit-chat about the weather and stick to the most non-committal comments possible, she’ll still aggressively insist on peeling off her shirt and sending you a picture to prove it. My head-canon explains this and all the inconsistencies in what she says about the office by assuming that actually the two of you are a long-partnered-up couple trying some roleplaying to spice up your conjugal life – so go figure that she’s babbling and giddily enthusiastic. Viewed in this light, you might even say there’s something vaguely wholesome about Hot Office.

Of course I’m sure this interpretation is completely untenable if you actually play the full game, and as the encounter gets more explicit things would get unavoidably creepy. But hey, if porn requires buying into a fantasy, I can choose which impossible thing I’d prefer to believe in.

(I still don’t have a theory for the no-eyes thing, though. Seriously, is that a thing? Please nobody tell me).