Cunt touch this: a conversation on intimate design and embarrassment

This position paper presents a conversation between players and the designers of the unique mobile game experience Cunt Touch This. Revisiting their personal experiences with playing the game, the player-authors read the game as a system that takes advantage of social embarrassment as a key element from which the pleasure of the game is derived. Contrasting this view, the designer-authors comment on the original intention, production context and purpose of Cunt Touch This. The goal of this confrontation is to explore embarrassment as a feeling oscillating between the emotional and the political dimensions of play. The unusual discussion format of the paper allows us to invite potentially challenging questions: When, where and why does embarrassment come about? What function does it have in play? Is it just part of the fun, or ideologically charged? Drawing together our differing perspectives as players and designers we contribute a candid reflection on the wider issues of embarrassment as it relates to design.