In media rating systems, rated R stands for "restricted," meaning that the media should only be seen by adults or with adult supervision because it has sex or violence. It's the equivalent of the ESRB game rating Mature 17+ (M).
This is a hand-curated collection other people's games, zines, and other creations on itch.io that would meet that rating and are about people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, or asexual (LGBTQIA).
This collection is part of my directory of other people's creations on itch.io, Curated Collections of LGBTQIA, where you can find more collections about other topics, and on specific sorts of transgender identities. I personally select and review each creation in them, even if they are different than my own views or experiences as a queer person myself.
Content: Rated R. This is about a series of horror movies, so the illustrations based on them show blood, gore, violence, torture, and disturbing scenarios.
Medium: An illustrated zine. There are versions for reading on screen and printing, with instructions for how to do that. Length: 36 pages.
About: "This zine is both a personal story told through the lens of the Saw film franchise and a love letter to the films themselves. In this zine, I discuss the nature of the Saw movies, how I connect to the characters in them, and how I've processed things like grief & gender transition through unconventional means. Some of the themes in this zine are grief, parental loss, violence, queer love, and gender. This zine also contains spoilers for the first seven Saw films, as well as (illustrated) graphic content, such as blood and some gore."
Content: Rated R. This version has some adult drawings.
Medium: Book.
About: Essays and art reinterpreting some male superheroes from Marvel Comics as queer, butch, transgender, and gay.
Content: Rated R. References to sex, kink, and drugs, but nothing explicit is shown.
Medium: Zine.
About: "15 poems about love, intimacy, and sex while trans, made of lines taken from Craigslist ads. A little sad, a little bitter, a little tender. NSFW unless you work at Good Vibrations."
Queer themes: The poems represent various sorts of people: transgender men, transgender women, and gender nonconforming people.
Vibe: Loneliness, fear, and desire.
Content: Rated R just because of nudity from the waist up.
Medium: Comic book.
About: "Quiet moments of intimacy between two butch lesbians."
Vibe: Peaceful. Wholesome.
Content: Rated R. Sex scenes. Blood. Art and description of animal sacrifice (bull and sheep) as part of religious practices in ancient times.
Medium: A poetry book illustrated in full color.
Length: 28 pages.
Genre and subject: Historical fiction.
About-- as described by the artist-- "two women in the ancient world, inspired by the fragments of Sappho and her translators." A priestess falls in love with a noblewoman and sings of the intimacies that she yearns to do together.
Queer themes: Women loving women. Tagged as lesbian.
Vibe: Sensual.
Content: Rated R. No actual sex scene is written or seen, but the story revolves around plans for one. It makes references to various things used for sex acts and kink, and discusses consent.
Medium: A tiny computer game created with Bitsy. It can run in your web browser. The game is only in French. A fan has written a complete English translation in the comments.
Length: About ten minutes. There is one ending and no choices, so you can see the whole story in one play through.
Genre and subject: Comedy.
About: Search your bedroom for the harness while your two girlfriends make playful remarks as they wait to use it on you.
Queer themes: Lesbians. Polyamory. Transgender women. (One of the triad mentions that she takes estrogen.)
Vibe: Silly and realistic. Naughty and yet also wholesome.
Content: Rated R.
Medium: Poetry zine.
About: A zine of poems about the etymology behind queer words.
Content: Rated R, 18+. As part of people's life stories, these memoirs have some scenes of kink and sex.
Medium: A comic book.
About: An anthology of the true life stories of several people, retold in comic book format.
Queer themes: All of these true stories come from queer trans men.
Vibe: Some humor, some of which is about hard experiences too.
Content: Rated R, 18+. Warnings for police violence, PTSD, werewolf sex scenes, deaths of transgender people, discrimination against transgender women, and violence.
Medium: A lyric game.
Genre and subject: Fiction. Erotic horror.
About: You are a werewolf. Draw a map of your subways and document your efforts to love and survive in your city. Remember the other werewolves who you have lost or could lose any day. The narrating character is a trans woman werewolf. This game was written as a metaphor for some of the experiences of transgender women.
Vibe: Urban gore. Grief. Sensual. Tender. Visceral. Aesthetically powerful. Cathartic.
Content: Rated R. This is a realistic story about sex and BDSM, but it doesn't show the acts. It talks about feeling guilty or ashamed about your kinks. It also talks about how some kinks can be physically dangerous or distressing.
Medium: A tiny computer game created with Bitsy. It runs in your web browser.
Genre and subject: Fiction.
About: A lesbian butch/femme couple prepares for a BDSM scene. The butch is an experienced top, but gets uncomfortable about it this time. Instead of going ahead with the scene, the femme does some caring things for the butch.
Vibe: Hurt/comfort.
Content: Rated R. There is dialog about sex, but no sex scenes.
Medium: A computer game created in Bitsy, which runs in your web browser.
Story: Wander a twisting maze and talk with your friends who you run into.
Queer themes: Much of the dialog is about being asexual or aromantic.
Content: Rated R, 18+, for a lewd creature from Roman mythology.
Medium: Custom emoji for use on Mastodon.
Flags: Rainbow and transgender flags. There is also a plain "jelly green" design.
Content: Rated R. Description of violence and discrimination against gay and transgender people. Description of suicidal ideation. Brief mentions of abuse and drugs.
Medium: Zine. Designed for reading on screen.
Genre and medium: Nonfiction. Memoir.
Length: 12 pages. A 15 minute read.
About: "A short memoir of a southern transman." This focuses on the aspects of the author's life story that have to do with transition, especially seeking hormones and confronting fears of transphobia.
Queer themes: Transgender men.
Vibe: Matter-of-fact, personal, heavy, with occasional humor. Reaching a place of hope and contentment after a long hard journey expecting the worst.
Content: Rated R. Graphic gore, blood, medical abuse, sex organs, cutting. History of oppression of various marginalized peoples. Harms that happened in real life, as well as fantasy body horror.
Medium: Zine. Full color collages. Designed for reading on screen.
About: This criticizes psychiatry's history of pathologizing people who are transgender and would have been considered spiritually attuned in non-western cultures. The degradation of people who are mentally ill was unified with the degradation of people who are queer.
Vibe: Painful, raw, defiant. Celebrating those of us who have been demeaned: in other words, queer pride.
Content: Rated R, 18+.
Medium: Book. Nonfiction. An illustrated memoir.
About a long-term relationship between three men within a plural system.
Content: Rated R, 18+. Content warning on page 1 for non-sexual nudity and needles.
Medium: Zine.
Genre and subject: Nonfiction. Essays.
Content: Rated R, 18+. Warnings for medical discrimination, and candid talk about sex organs and gender transition options.
Medium: A computer game that runs in your web browser. Illustrated interactive fiction created in Twine. After you have played through all the endings, watch the epilogue, which is a short animated video.
Story: You are a therapist. Decide how much to test your patient or support her goals. After each therapy session, the game changes to her point of view, showing the impact of your decisions on her life.
Queer themes: Transgender women. Medical gatekeeping. Medical transition. Unlicensed medical transition.
Vibe: Judgment, hope, loss, dehumanization, determination. Some reviewers said this was so sad that they cried.
Content: Rated R, 18+. Explicit sex advice, with illustrations. Safe, sensible, and consensual.
Medium: Book. Zine. 18 pages long, with covers.
Genre and subject: Nonfiction. Sex advice.
About: "This zine is about how trans bodies are beautiful. This zine is about the myriad ways you can love (and fuck) with your trans body. Yourself, others, the whole deal!"
Queer themes: This has sex advice for trans women, trans men, nonbinary people, and their partners.
Content: Rated R, 18+.
Medium: An electronic zine
About being a very online trans woman, consuming pop culture and creating glitch art, to survive domestic abuse and widespread transphobia.
Content: Rated R. Has some explicit sexual art. Internalized homophobia.
Medium: Zine. Illustrated.
Genre and subject: Nonfiction. Memoir.
About: A personal zine about discovering being gay and trans.
Content: Rated R. References to sex and drugs.
Medium: Nonfiction. Personal zine. Full color.
About: Anecdotes of a few conversations from the zine author's personal experiences in gay culture.
Content: Rated PG-13 or R. Partial nudity and kink gear.
Medium: 6-page mini zine. Illustrations. Textless. There is a version designed for reading on screen, and another that you can print and fold.
About: Illustrations of the artist's trans friends and partners. They're engaged in realistic everyday scenes of peaceful affection: bringing a bottle of water, kissing in a garden, sharing lunch after a kink scene, putting together furniture, and cooking a meal.
Vibe: Cozy. Queer positive. Feel good.
Content: Rated R. Content warnings for: artistic nudity, transphobia, and description of feelings about various body parts and functions, both dysphoric and euphoric. Menstrual cycles. Breast milk. Facial hair. Cannabis. Dissociation. Toxic masculinity. Religious intolerance and shame.
Medium: Non-fiction book. A zine available in several formats: for printing in full color and folding, for reading on the computer, and audio read aloud by the author.
Duration: The audio version is almost 20 minutes long. The print version is 22 pages long, not counting covers or end papers.
About/relevance: The author is a plural trans girl and doe therianthrope. In this zine, she describes her experiences as she began gender-affirming hormone therapy, and her perspective on this as a doe.
Vibe: Sincere, vulnerable, tender, wistful, hopeful, joyful.
Content: Rated R. Sexual content. Homophobia. HIV/AIDS. Some of the material shown is meant to be recognized as offensive or crude.
Medium: Slideshow. A collage of screenshots and magazine clippings.
Genre and subject: History. Media literacy. Media criticism.
About: "A visual essay on gay experience that draws from games, film and magazines."
Curator's notes: If you read this, please read it very carefully, noticing whether each page comes from fiction or real historical documents. The visual essay format may be confusing to readers who aren't already familiar with gay recent history and representation in media. The essay uses screenshots from video games and movies, mingled with real historical documents. Make sure you look at the caption that tells what the image comes from on each page.
Content: Rated R for references to some sexual topics.
Medium: Full color illustrated zine. There is a version designed for reading on screen, and one for printing.
Genre and subject: Nonfiction. Memoir. Humor.
Content: Rated R. Do not play this if you are under 18. I'm not familiar enough with this game to give all possible content warnings, but here are some: Sexually suggestive dialog and illustrations, explicit sex scenes, and sexual nudity. Encounters with transphobia. Alcohol. Incest (between enthusiastically consenting adults of the same age who aren't biologically related. You can avoid the incest story line, but early dialog suggests it as an option a lot). BDSM.
Content: Rated R.
Accessibility: Some of the text is intentionally difficult to read for artistic reasons.
Medium: A personal zine designed for reading on screen.
Genre and subject: Nonfiction. Memoir. Poetry. Collage.
About the zine writer's personal experiences with being a lesbian, enjoying being surrounded by other sorts of queer people (gay, bi, and trans), and how being a lesbian doesn't necessarily mean being a woman.
Content: Rated R. "The game features an optional sexually explicit section, which requires the player’s consent before moving forward, and can be skipped in its entirety. The Abridged PDF removes this scene as well."
Medium: "a digital comic with light choose-your-own adventure mechanics". More than 130 full color comic book pages.
About: "... an award-winning interactive graphic novel telling the story of ... two men, with two polar opposite sexualities, working together toward one mutually fulfilling relationship."
Queer themes: Polyamory. Gray-asexuality. Men loving men.
Vibe: "gentle, optimistic, and optionally erotic".
