Why is rape or even just sex worse than death?

[JediMB]

My initial argument would be that rape is a form of torture, both physically, mentally, and emotionally, and therefor seen as more sadistic than outright killing, but it's a very difficult subject.

I'd agree in the case of systematic/repeated rape. Otherwise I consider it a form of assault [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_assault].

The ideal that rape is sick and murder is simply bad is very much part of society, but how it got there is up for debate. I wouldn't say it's a religious thing, because the taboo of sex (a religious issue) is very different from the taboo of rape. And I'm sure there are plenty of atheists who feel more unnerved by the notion of rape then they do by that of murder.

For your latter point, I'd say it's a case of us getting partially desensitized to murder/death, since we are exposed to it in media a lot more than we are rape.

I wouldn't be surprised, though, if the exaggerated shame forced upon rape victims stems from the ancient view that a virgin woman is worth more than one who has had sex. So by being raped a woman has been devalued, and should feel ashamed.

Of course the reality of the situation is that the perpetrator is the one who should feel ashamed, since he/she is the one who has done wrong upon another.

 

[FamoFunk]

Because rape is about dominance. Look at a child abuse or long term school bullying or ostracism victim, someone who has been completely dehumanized, dominated, and subjugated. Now condense those years of abuse into one single episode. That's why.

I think it's insulting to compare 1 episode of rape to years of mental abuse.

And that's pretty damn insulting to a rape victim.

Honestly, the real insult thus far has been to rape victims.

"Your suffering is worse because you are too weak and incapable of moving past it and overcoming your ordeal so you will suffer forever!"

I don't think anyone really gets over being raped, they just learn to deal with it better. The majority or rape attacks are done by someone you know (friend/family member) not just some random stranger who you'll never see again.

Not to mention a lot of them are too afraid to report it for fear of being accused of lying or being branded a slut or even being told they deserved it (because they were drunk) and if they do report it the person getting off free.

That's a lot of shit to get over and move from when we still don't do enough to help rape victims.

 

[JediMB]

In fact I would say we see this play out in real life already. I was watching Girl with the Dragon Tattoo in theaters and there is a scene SPOILER where the protagonist rapes her rapist. At the first scene where she is raped everyone gasps and what not and when SHE rapes him (not in a fun way) all the men in the audience still gasped like they did the first time, but all the ladies cheered. I was confused by this till I thought of how much women think about rape in their daily life (again not in a good way).

I've only seen the original Swedish version, personally... but I'm a man, and my reactions were pretty much as follows:

1) When Lisbeth was raped, I felt uncomfortable and angry at Bjurman,

2) When Bjurman was raped, I felt uncomfortable... but satisfied in knowing that he had it coming.

 

[Kaptajn Emil Alfred Conan Swagga Benzon]

My initial argument would be that rape is a form of torture, both physically, mentally, and emotionally, and therefor seen as more sadistic than outright killing, but it's a very difficult subject.

The ideal that rape is sick and murder is simply bad is very much part of society, but how it got there is up for debate. I wouldn't say it's a religious thing, because the taboo of sex (a religious issue) is very different from the taboo of rape. And I'm sure there are plenty of atheists who feel more unnerved by the notion of rape then they do by that of murder.

What this guy said. I agree with him. His point is good. Thank you, this guy.

 

[The Unworthy Gentleman]

Watching someone writhing in pain provokes a worse reaction than someone losing their life for reasons unknown to me. Probably something to do with them just being in pain and you empathising with them on it whereas a dead guy isn't really a guy to you any more.

 

[somonels]

I just finished posting about death in video games, and how technically both rape and death would be pretty much equal but would raise a serious question about why the developers would have wanted to depict it as such.

Rape isn't worse. The problem lies that surviving victims - of any crime or disaster - can become the beacons of misery, opposed to the dead we bury once but whose void causes to affect people, but there are people who do 'buck up' and continue on with their lives - something the dead probably won't do.

 

[FamoFunk]

Because rape is about dominance. Look at a child abuse or long term school bullying or ostracism victim, someone who has been completely dehumanized, dominated, and subjugated. Now condense those years of abuse into one single episode. That's why.

I think it's insulting to compare 1 episode of rape to years of mental abuse.

And that's pretty damn insulting to a rape victim.

Honestly, the real insult thus far has been to rape victims.

"Your suffering is worse because you are too weak and incapable of moving past it and overcoming your ordeal so you will suffer forever!"

I don't think anyone really gets over being raped, they just learn to deal with it better. The majority or rape attacks are done by someone you know (friend/family member) not just some random stranger who you'll never see again.

Not to mention a lot of them are too afraid to report it for fear of being accused of lying or being branded a slut or even being told they deserved it (because they were drunk) and if they do report it the person getting off free.

That's a lot of shit to get over and move from when we still don't do enough to help rape victims.

That's one thing, but it's another thing entirely to completely omit the possibility that maybe, some people are stronger than that for the sake of your own opinion.

I know people are, but really, do people truly get over something so horrific in their life?
Just because they no longer talk about it doesn't mean they're over it.
Being strong is moving on with your life, looking forward, not just forgetting about the whole thing.

It's like someone dying, you move on with you life, you get over it, but you never forget about the person.

I think the number of victims that get over it, never to think about it again are extremely low to point of not many.

 

[__Cerberus]

I think it's more about the criminal than the victim. Most of us can imagine circumstances in which we could kill another human being and be justified in doing so, but those justifications can never really exist for rape.

Possible but what if a game allowed you to rape the main villain? or rape a rapist? ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXVbC5dyG3o ) They would deserve it but would people be okay with that?
Not likely.

 

[Smithburg]

You have to remember the difference between something you see you know is fake or televised and watching it in real life. Seeing someone die will scar you ust as seeing someone raped. But media wise, we see a lot of violence, so we distance ourselves from it, or that we know its not real. Sexual crimes aren't portrayed as much so they tend to have a stronger reaction, but if you saw it every day like we do with violence, it'd be the same. It's a matter of familiarity, as you get closer it loses meaning, kinda like the more you repeat a single word.

 

[Don Savik]

I hate the whole "our society is so desensitized to rape, if we can kill 1000 people in a game we should be able to rape someone" stance.

Do you people honestly want rape to be as common place as senseless murder? You can't honestly be serious right? It honestly sounds like a few of you want to justify rape here.....

Wouldn't be surprising honestly, very freudian if you ask me.

 

[Guardian of Nekops]

Death is something we all will experience, at one time or another. It's something we come to terms with pretty early in life, and something we even look forward to, in a weird way... there is honor in death (at least, video-game death), honor in fighting for what you believe in to the bitter end, in going out with your boots on, as it were. Also, most people believe there is comfort after death, whether that be some form of heaven or just an end to suffering.

Rape is just plain ugly. It's all violation... no choice, no heroism, no doomed glorious speeches with one's final breath. There's no good motivation for rape, either, while there are plenty of reasons you might need to kill someone... if you kill someone who's about to do a bad thing, you stop the bad thing, but rape doesn't work that way. It's also a very personal, meanspirited thing, whereas dying in the press of battle is less so.

Basically, at least in storytelling, rape is avoidable, ugly, and devoid of redeeming qualities whereas killing (or theft, or extortion, or almost any other crime) can be necessary, honorable, and touching if done right. At the end of the day, though, there's no excuse for scarring someone for life just to get your rocks off.

 

[Don Savik]

I hate the whole "our society is so desensitized to rape, if we can kill 1000 people in a game we should be able to rape someone" stance.

Agreed. Why add more 'wrongs' to a game in order to justify one wrong? Most games least have an explaination or reason as to why you need to kill enemies (such as invaders from space, horde of zombies attacking survivors, ect.) while there is no reason or justified cause for raping. No guy or person can be seen as good for raping someone, whether it'd be a monster or villain (what the heck would that solve anyways? It's just.. bat crap insanity for a protagonist to do that if you ask me.)

It'd be like people saying "Well, if you guys can pick on homosexuals in a bar then we should be allowed to punch pregnant women!" Both are wrong to begin with, but adding more wrong to balance out the other doesn't make sense to me. If the plot dealt with a homosexual protagonist who got picked on a lot but still did right for the sake of humanity- then let's go at it. But if punching women in the stomach when they're pregnant is somehow justified to the protagonist.. you know- I still would not agree with that at all. Two wrongs don't make a right *shrug*

I don't think its a very thought out argument to be honest, I think its more primal in nature. People want to see sex. Rape with no consequences in a video game? even better. Its like why people like rape porn. I don't care what porn you watch, but 9 times out of 10 people are thinking with their dicks and not thinking about the seriousness of the action......because 9 times out of 10 they are male and will never experience rape of that nature. Can't tell you how many times I've heard "heh, if a girl would rape me I would TAKE IT".

makes my blood boil

 

[CrystalShadow]

It probably rests on ideas about death.

Death is an unknown. Obviously if you may just think you cease to exist, or you might believe in an afterlife, but either way, while dying is considered horrible, most people don't consider actually being dead to necessarily be a bad thing.

Dying is bad. Being dead... Not so much. (Not that anyone who hasn't died already actually knows that with any degree of certainty, but whatever.)

I think you'll find that being tortured is also considered worse than death in many instances.

And in some ways rape and torture can be seen as quite similar.

Rape is very rarely actually about sex.

If you think the most likely rapist is some horny guy who thinks about sex too much, then you're probably wrong.

Rape, above all, is an expression of dominance.
It isn't so much "I want to have sex with you"
As it is "I'm more powerful than you and I can do whatever the hell I want to you because of it."

 

[Tomeran]

Rape is among the worst acts a human being can do to another, its trauma and torture on multiple levels and FORTUNETLY it is not displayed in video games often. Except in a few japanese games, in which the focus of the game is apparantly for you to play a rapist and go stalk and rape victims. Not the first time the japanese have done sick stuff.

Rape is also a lot more common then some people might think. In the USA for example, one in every sixth(or in College, one in every 4th), has been raped or suffered some sort of sexual assualt. Heck, where I live, Sweden, we have among the highest frequency of rape cases in the world(compared to our population), and its increased 700% in the last 35 years. So yeah, its quite the problem.


But is it worse then death and murder? Death is pretty frikkin bad! Its the end of your existance! So for me, murder still tops rape, even though rape can be very capable of wrecking your existance and just wanting it to end.
But it doesnt top it by far, because -destroying- another persons life can be almost as bad as ending it. Depending on the severity of trauma, it can sometimes be worse.

As for the reasons why video games show death all the time and not rape is that there is a massive difference in how we handle the two, and that they usually are massivly different in how they are traumatic.
Death is inevitble, it comes for us all some day. That's a fact we've settled with, and the fact that it is around us all day, makes the experience of someone dying a bit less traumatic compared to rape. Because rape is not inevitble, it is not the nature of things, it is just an unneccecery and hidious crime that is capable of destroying a persons will to live.

Of course it also depends in the manner someone dies. And probably around 90% of the video game kills are done quite clean and swiftly. Games that intentionally drags kills out tend to be marked with "excessive violence" and slapped with a higher PEGI-rating. Kills with short bursts of pain are a lot better then prolonged deaths of suffering, and rape is prolonged periods of incredible suffering, both on a mental and physical level.