Being transgender might not be a specifically erotic thing for them, but it's definitely related to sexuality. [snip]
dinosaur was rightfully pointing out the difference between gender and sexuality, the two are completely different and separate: unrelated things. You can be transgender and straight, transgender and gay (or bi, etc. etc.), just like you can be male or female and be straight or gay (or bi, etc. etc.). "Mainstream society" confusing - or rather conflating - the two (gender and sexuality) is pretty much the summation of the whole problem faced by the LBGTQ community. Even the conflation of gender and sex-organs is a painful thing for some people to have imposed upon them by others.
He totally was; I hope I didn't seem to be saying he wasn't. I just meant to say that, as part of it being "LGBTQ", and how transitioning can allow the person to be comfortable enough to enjoy sex (believe me, if you feel the kind of disconnection with your own body, it's very difficult to get intimate for a lot of people) that the two things are not completely unrelated. That's all.
Now, on-topic, in retrospect it's surprising to me how sexually charged/vulgar our groups dialogue can be, but sex acts rarely (if ever) come up in play. We have a gay player, have had gay NPCs, have hookers and potential love interests come up regularly, have off-handed flirting between PCs and PCs, and NPCs and NPCs, and between PCs and NPCs, but I don't think we've ever had sex acts pursued or enacted by anyone in play. Not even in a fade-to-black kind of way. I think this is mainly because sex can be a powerful story-telling tool, but it can also be an incredibly lazy or cheap one. Especially in the cases of sexual-assault or rape, IMO, it is real easy to use this as a cheap tool, at which point it can become a pretty repugnant form of emotional exploitation - even having played with the guys I game with for over 4 years now (we all know each other really well), I'd be very very careful how I used those elements. For it to be the powerful tool, you can too easily bump up against the borders of too dark or too personal.
Ugh, I agree about that sex can very easily become a cheap and tasteless story element. Like extreme violence, it absolutely needs to be used respectfully and not as the solitary focus of an event or scenario.
As others have mentioned, I think things like changelings (fur, tails, scales, all that) and 'ware-augmented sex (multiple or unusual sex organs or limbs, obvious cyber-"abdomens", etc.), and just about anything you could dream up as an Icon and in your cyberspace Node would be among the popular things in the sex-trade in the 6th World. What about sex-bots, is the technology there? That would seem to be a means for lots of otherwise taboo (violent) behaviors. And you could probably do magical bondage, have your body under the control of your Awakened Mistress, but still be allowed to have control of your voice to use that safe-word?
Honestly, if I was in the situation of said mistress, I'd probably also be using a spell to read the emotional state of the target, or some kind of mind-reading. The amount of intimacy that having a literal emotional connection to someone could bring would be pretty intense. It'd also immediately let you know if you're doing something that's pushing them (in the wrong way) and know to back off or change the situation. Also, if the Orgasm spell exists, it's entirely reasonable to assume there's spells made specifically for sex. They're certainly not main-stream, and likely difficult to learn, but there's definitely spells for it. Probably ones that amplify sensations (pain, or pleasure, or both) or even ones to share sensation. In fact I think sharing senses actually was a spell in 4th...
As for sex bots, and this takes a bit of a downer turn, they probably don't really exist for two reasons. I'm sure there's drones that look mostly (meta)human and stuff like those "Real Doll" things, but they're not full on Steven Spielberg's
A.I. Artificial Intelligence levels. Also, bunraku parlors exist and they make quite a bit of money. Though clearly there's a lot of people who would probably feel more comfortable having a "rather close approximation" than a metahuman with a personafix chip installed. To be honest I think the only reason it probably doesn't exist, is because Shadowrun seems to be trying to avoid the "androids among humans" thing, hence why cyberzombies are being researched and why biodrones are a thing. I dunno, I guess they probably do exist on some level since most of the technology is there, even if androids aren't really a thing.