Powerful new tools to control who your Sim is and is not interested in being intimate with!
In yesterday’s free base game update, players got several big new features, including a new sexual orientation feature in CAS! This new tool will allow you to control who your Sims are and aren’t interested in both romantically and sexually. These settings will determine how that Sim interacts with others during gameplay.
CAS
Deciding your Sim’s sexual orientation begins in CAS. Open up the gender settings to see a new tab to the right called Sexual Orientation. Click that tab to be presented with options regarding your Sim’s preferences.
By default, all Sims you create will have the same settings that Sims always operated on previously; they will be interested in anyone and willing to explore sexual and romantic options with anyone. You can keep these settings if you like, but if you’d like to customize these preferences further, you now have the freedom to do so.
The menu is broken down into the following categories:
This Sim is romantically attracted to:
- Men
- Women
This Sim is exploring romantically
- Yes
- No
This Sim is interested in WooHoo with:
- Men
- Women
You can select one, both, or no genders for all options. Separating romantic attraction from sexual attraction allows players to create more diverse Sims. These settings will allow you to create Sims across a wide range of sexual orientations, including asexual and aromantic Sims.
The Yes/No option for whether your Sim is exploring romantically will determine whether or not they’ll reject romantic advancements from Sims who do not fit their preferences. If you select Yes, your Sim may be open to romance with Sims who do not match their preference settings. If you select No, your Sim will always reject romantic interactions from Sims they don’t have a preference for.
Gameplay
You’ll see these settings take effect in Live Mode as you play and begin interacting with other Sims. If you are on friendly enough terms with another Sim, you can ask them about their WooHoo preferences and their Romantic preferences under the Romance social tab. Make sure you are quite close with that Sim, first! Most Sims won’t feel comfortable discussing their sexual orientation with an acquaintance.
When you ask about a Sim’s Romantic preferences, they’ll also tell you whether their preferences are set in stone or whether they’re open to exploring different options.
Once you’ve discovered a Sim’s Romance and WooHoo preferences, you’ll be able to see that information in their Sim profile under the new Sexual Orientation tab. An icon next to their portrait tells you whether they are open to exploring different preferences or not.
You might be wondering how it’s possible to pursue WooHoo with Sims without first building up a romantic relationship. Well, there is a new interaction under the Friendly social category called Ask to be WooHoo Partners. If two Sims are good enough friends with each other, they can Ask to be WooHoo Partners without needing to have a pre-existing romantic relationship. WooHoo Partners will be able to WooHoo (or Mess Around for Teens) but will not gain Romance points from doing so and won’t be in any kind of committed relationship.
Other Notes
- The Sims Team acknowledges the issues around making sexual orientation binary and have promised that this feature is still being worked on and added to in order to make it even more inclusive in the future.
- The Sims Team did not go back and adjust the sexual orientation of all the pre-existing households. They are all still pansexual by default but the player can change this themselves if they want to.
- Sexual Orientation is not a feature that can be opted out of. You can’t turn it off, just like you can’t turn off someone’s sexual orientation in real life. However, as previously mentioned, Sims will continue to act the way they always have if you choose not to customize the default settings.
- While we did find this new feature quite powerful, we also ran into a couple issues with it. Most notably, WooHoo Partners still get jealous and gain the Furious About Cheating sentiment if they catch their WooHoo Partner being intimate with someone else. This seems to defeat the entire point of a no-strings, no-commitment sexual relationship in the first place.
