Father Time said:
John Funk said:
Volf said:
flying_whimsy said:
This is probably the most pissed off I've ever heard movie bob sound; I don't blame him, either, as I've said the exact same thing on more than one occasion over the last few years. I remember calling some friends out on throwing the word rape around more casually than I was comfortable with and they looked at me like I grew a second head.
Seriously, nerd culture based sexism is something I would seriously like to see go away. Forever.
using the word rape to mean lose doesn't equate to sexism
No, but it does devalue the concept of rape as one of the most horrifying things a person can do to another human being, and certainly doesn't help deal with widespread rape culture.
Rape Culture 101. [http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/2009/10/rape-culture-101.html] Educate yourself.
The theory of rape culture always seemed kind of sketchy to me. That author seriously thinks games with rape in them encourage a society where rape is not taken seriously? I'd love to see what evidence she has to support that but I'm guessing it's nothing.
It's not just games with rape in them, it's that it becomes a very tricky quagmire of linking violence, aggression, and (male) sexuality while simultaneously sexually objectifying women and trivializing rape. There's no ONE thing that gets done to support it, but... well, once you start to understand it and see it, there's no unseeing it.
Abandon4093 said:
It's still a completely null point. We don't condone violence against women, far from it. As a culture we're much more accepting of women being violent to men than vies-versa.
Culturally we are far more likely to condone sexual violence if the woman is the perpetrator. Just look up that bullshit that happened with 'the view' or some other garbage day time chat show. When they brought up the story about that guy having his penis cut off and 3/4 of the panel burst out into fits of laughter and saying her probably deserved it, because he was a guy. They were then forced to do an apology, if that's what you could call it. Can you imagine that with the roles reversed? If a chatshow with male panellists had laughed at a women having her genitalia mutilated. They'd have been fired and probably had legal action brought against them faster than you could blink. I'm not bringing that up to whine about how women get preferential treatment etc, but you can't bring up cultural opinions about sexual violence and then ignore things like double standards.
That isn't an isolated case either. Just look at that experiment.
Are you really going to say that we culturally support violence against women? Because that's just bullshit.
It's true that violence against women by men is considered more acceptable - even funny - by society at large. Is this problematic? Of course. But it's ALSO seated in the inequal status of women, by and large. Women are viewed as weaker and inferior, so ergo violence by them against men isn't something to be taken seriously by large swathes of the populace. They see it akin to a child being violent against an adult.
Yes, it's a problem. But women don't have the social and institutionalized power that men do. So while people not taking violence against men seriously is problematic, it's also problematic when one state (Kansas? Missouri? Around that area, I forget) stops prosecuting domestic violence cases entirely because it can't afford to do so. It shows where the priorities lie.
And on the harmless fetishisation side of things, females being dominant is ever more present in both pop-culture and the bedroom.
...which is, again, a male fantasy. Not that there's anything wrong with sexually aggressive or dominant women in fiction, but it almost always goes hand in hand with a "ingenue vs slut" narrative. How many of those women are the heroes, compared to a virgin "good girl"?
So no, I didn't read down to that part because frankly it's more of the same tripe that always get brought up in conversations like this.
"MOAAR WOMANZ GET WRAPED THERFOR EET MATTERS MUUR!"
Making up a concept such as rape culture and then focusing on it's effects on one gender/sex is so unbelievably hypocritical I can scarcely believe I'm having to point it out.
Women AND men are both the target of sexual violence and assault, to focus on one more than the other is tantamount to saying that one matters more than the other.
Not to mention I doubt the figures on the percentage of women that have been raped in comparison to the percentage of men that have been raped are even close to being accurate. What is it, like an estimated 1 in 6 women report rape or sexual abuse. I'd wager the ratio is even more alarming with men. Because there is an even greater social stigma attached to that, especially if you identify as a heterosexual male and happen to have been raped by another male.
Yes, there is absolutely a stigma against reporting rape if you are a man, and these statistics only cover REPORTED rape. It's almost certainly higher for women, and much higher for men.
But frankly, it does make sense to focus on rape and sexual violence against women more-so than men - not excluding them, but focusing on the women - because not only do men have more institutional power, but it IS more common.
Here's the thing, in blunt facts: A man is more likely to rape somebody than a woman. If we want to prevent somebody from raping somebody, that message needs to be targeted at men. And since men rape women more than they rape men, well.
Should sexual violence against men be ignored? Of course not. But a widespread culture of sexual violence against women (and, it might be added, the "feminization" of men who are sexually violated) lends itself to certain forms of pushback.
I'm pretty much going to put that 'rape culture' BS in the same category as Andrea Dworkins and her theory that all sex is rape because there's penetration.
--snip--
No no no.
You can't just bat that away.
Is saying "murder", "cripple" or any other word being used as a hyperbolic synonym for 'dominate', in the context of competition the same as saying "rape"?
If not, you'd better give me an actual reason. Not some quasi-feminist ramblings about our big bad culture being pro-raping women (because apparently raping men doesn't count) with a list of bias supposedly proving that.
I don't buy into Dworkin's ideas, but I sure as hell buy into the idea of a rape culture. Once you see it, you can't unsee it.
And here goes. I'd like you to read this, first: Why Rape Jokes Are Never Okay [http://www.menspeakup.org/why-rape-jokes-are-never-ok].
There is a reason that rape is considered very different from "murder" in this sense (and I'm going to just ignore the "cripple" bit, as A.) it's hardly used in the same context and B.) when it is used, it's used in a way that the word has been used for years; i.e. "his economy is crippled" in StarCraft. "Rape" as a synonym for "dominate", however, is a new development in language).
In 2006, there were 17,034 "murders and nonnegligent manslaughters" in the United States. In that same year, there were 92,455 "forcible rapes." This does not include other types of rape, like rape by duress - and as mentioned above, that number is likely to be MUCH higher given that this was just the number of REPORTED forcible rapes. There are some estimates that say that only 20% of rape cases are ever reported. While this may be a particularly highball estimate, we can both agree that this number is likely significantly higher, yes?
Right away, rape and sexual violence is a crime that affects far more people a year than murder. And from a consequence of that, you are more likely to know a rapist than you are to know a murderer (in fact, you probably do. And whoever they are, they sure don't seem like a rapist, because if there were an easy way to identify rapists we'd be doing it already).
Refer back to the article I linked. You read that, right? The vast majority of rapists think that *all men rape.* Now, obviously that's not true. And the idea horrifies most of us non-rapist guys, undoubtedly.
Which is why telling rape jokes, or trivializing rape as a synonym for "defeat in an electronic game" is problematic. Because it reinforces to a rapist viewing that "yeah, this is okay." And that makes it more likely that, y'know, he'll do it. The more trivial the concept of rape becomes, the easier it is for someone who's thought about it to go and do it.
And that's why "rape" is inherently different from "murder". Also, well, going back to the concept of a society that links sex with violence and aggression against women. There is no "murder culture," but there is a "rape culture."
Even if these two things weren't true, the fact that there are so many more people affected by rape than murder every year should be reason enough.
Volf said:
John Funk said:
Volf said:
flying_whimsy said:
This is probably the most pissed off I've ever heard movie bob sound; I don't blame him, either, as I've said the exact same thing on more than one occasion over the last few years. I remember calling some friends out on throwing the word rape around more casually than I was comfortable with and they looked at me like I grew a second head.
Seriously, nerd culture based sexism is something I would seriously like to see go away. Forever.
using the word rape to mean lose doesn't equate to sexism
No, but it does devalue the concept of rape as one of the most horrifying things a person can do to another human being, and certainly doesn't help deal with widespread rape culture.
Rape Culture 101. [http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/2009/10/rape-culture-101.html] Educate yourself.
And when people are hungry and they say they are "starving", it also devalues a very terrible slow death that millions of people suffer from, and yet I don't hear people saying that
that word isn't discouraged. So why focus so much on this word? Why not discourage the use of the word "starving"?
Father Time said:
John Funk said:
"What about teh menz?" isn't always the answer.
So you don't think people should bring up rape against males in a discussion about rape in general? Good to know.
John Funk said:
Abandon4093 said:
John Funk said:
Abandon4093 said:
Like any of that actually needed to be addressed.
1 asshole =/= even a small portion of people who play games. His opinion of gaming-culture, which is a nonsense phrase to begin with, means exactly the same. The only reason that douche got any attention is because he was on some shite TV show.
People like you, responding to this type of behaviour as if it's actually some sort of real issue and not a few lone nuts being retardly backwards are what give the stereotype of 'sexist gamers' credence. Because it gives the impression it's a serious enough issue for it to be addressed.
News flash......... it's not.
And BTW, 'rape' is not a sexist phrase. What is sexist is your assumption that that phrase is in someway, only demeaning to women. You didn't overtly state that, but I don't really see any reason for you to have brought it up if that wasn't your point.
"I'm raping you!" When used in the context of a competition is in no way sexually explicit. It simply means one side/person is dominating the other side/person. If you read any more into it than that, you've got hangups.
It is trivializing one of the most traumatic experiences a person can foist on another human being to a mere "LOLOL I'M WINNING." If you don't see any problem in that, then you're ignorant as hell.
I assume you mean the 'raping' part.
In that case when someone says "we're murdering you" or "I crippled your ass" (which are phrases I've heard just as much as 'raping' when playing fighting games, sports games and shooters against mates) we should reprimand them for being ignorant as hell because they trivialised murder and being crippled. Both things I'd argue are worse than rape.
It's not a trivialisation, it's got nothing to do with the actual act of rape. It just draws on the connotation of dominance that word evokes.
I really wish we didn't have to bubble wrap our words incase they bounce off the wrong person.
Again, refer to "Rape Culture 101."
Nothing in that article refers to how the use of rape in trash talk trivializes it.
How often have you heard "my parents are going to murder me because of my bad grades". Is murder trivialized? No. Far from it.
You can talk about how it makes people uncomfortable and is immature and you'd be right but the idea that it trivializes rape is debatable.
See my response above.
