User blog comment:BrooklynGuido42/Sex/@comment-30303790-20120324070130

I don't think anyone's mentioned this possibility yet, but to a certain degree its probably intentional. "Sex sells" after all and slapping the word on the box isn't going to turn many people away, it would probably increase sales if anything. The fact games like WET or DoA:Xtreme even exist proves a game can manage to sale off that point alone. Plus an M rating comes with a little more cushion just in case getting drunk, downing some skooma/meth, and decapitating old women with swords crafted from the hearts of demons as part of some dark ritual killing for a corpse worshipping cult before stealing her clothes and bringing her back from the dead to be your zombified slave comes off as a little too harsh.

It wouldn't be a stretch to say that Bethesda wanted to see sex on the ESRB warning list, and if Halo: Combat Evolved got an M rating, then its hard to see how Skyrim isn't rated XXXOAGTFO...though a real miracle is how the ESRB let Duke Nukem: Forever be released at all.