the journalist does implicitly make a commitment towards their readers to perform their job with a certain level of professionalism and adherence to good journalistic practices
And that level is very, very low. Pretty much all sites inflate scores so that they will continue to receive review copies. As you say, whether genitals are involved is totally irrelevant. It's beyond hypocrisy to make this moment the stand against the lack of integrity in games journalism when there has never been any to begin with. Games journalism was born at a time when journalism in general had already become grossly commercial, and it set out to emulate it as closely as possible. The games magazines followed the format of the sports magazines, which were already about selling you shit. It would be shocking if it had not come out to be horribly corrupt.
The fact that sex was the tipping point proves just how pathetic the gamergaters are. If they could get laid, they'd be less jealous. They should spend less time hating, and more time hustling.