101: Will Bobba for Furni

[TomBeraha]

No, coffee lady would have a case if the McDonalds had put something in her coffee which got her sick, but no case because they did everything they are supposed to with hot drinks, the most that should have come out of it, is a new regulation stipulating that restaurant's now have to warn customers that their coffee is indeed hot, and will burn them, through a notice on the container. If such regulation existed prior to the incident, they might be responsible for her medical bills, or whatever else the punishment given by the law above said. (ie fine of $X amount for failing to comply with regulations) This isn't the situation we have, and especially while talking in the light of new frontiers, we need some common sense to reign. The reason we shouldn't be holding McDonalds liable is because the lady could have brewed coffee at home to the exact same temperature by following the directions on the machine, spilled it on herself, and had the exact same results, and I don't think anyone would argue that was Mr. Coffee's fault.

I'm not sure we as the society need to punish stupidity, as it seems to punish itself. ignorance isn't an excuse.

 

[Archon]

Cheeze, now that we've laid it all out, you and I aren't very far off in our opinions. It seems like my focus on "rape is about sex" is reactionary to the "rape is power" stance on the other side, as much as your "rape is about power" is reaction to "rape is sex" talk. We are in agreement that it's sex and power. Your note on erotica that doesn't include sex at all was cogent. I think if one takes a very broad-minded view, it's easy to see that dividing sex from power in any circumstance is hard - harems, as you say, come to mind.

Good debate!

 

[TomBeraha]

It's also funny that this thread on sex in video games contained a discussion about hot coffee, and it had nothing to do with GTA!

Comments like this make me groan

 

[Blaxton]

Incidents like Bungle's assault on LambdaMOO, the creation of a Dominic in Sociolotron and the rape of Jung Na-yung paint a grim picture, but to date, they are isolated occurrences far removed from the mainstream.

Sorry but this is going to seem off topic by now, seeing as how the discussion moved the way it did, but I wanted to clarify what I originally wrote.

I have no problem with discussing things as they have been here in the forum. I think the parallels and differences make for interesting debate. My problem is best captured in the line quoted above.

I recognize that there is a common thread that binds the three instances. The focus of the article was to bring up the dangers of having interactions with anonymous people in online communities. To me, however, the last example doesn't belong there. I think the article would have been compelling (and personally, perhaps even more so) had the last case been omitted and the article been focused more on the other two cases. The use of chat rooms and online communities is well known (and something anti-MySpace people have been lobbying about for some time). They belong in separate categories.

Rape victims have a tendency to take on life-long psychological disorders that can include (but not limited to): eating disorders, depression, self-mutilation, difficulty with sexual identity, and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Some victims commit suicide.

While online rape cases don't come with the same amount of empirical research as physical rape, I believe it is unlikely that the list of long term issues is the same. That is why I don't like putting actual people up for comparison like that. What happened to the virtual rape victims and the physical rape victims is a world apart. If I was Jung Na-Yung I would be angry to have my experience compared to that of people whose avatars were manipulated online without consent.

 

[Blaxton]

CP, what I'm saying is that the two things are vastly different, and though I have seen a breakdown of rape types I would be willing to bet that the things you enumerated would yield similar consequences for the victims.

Suggesting that virtual rape and physical rape are the same thing because of a common signifier doesn't make much sense either. Just because the act is sexual it doesn't demand the term rape, I don't think it should be used here. Sexual assault or harassment would be much more apt, and those terms (with their connotative meaning) bring valid comparisons. I never said there was no comparison, but rather that the comparison with rape was not proper.

And yes, if the destructiveness of the various acts of rape were drastically different then they need to be viewed differently. Crimes often bring sentencing directly related to the destruction, be it physical or mental, that they cause. You can't separate the severity of the crime from the impact it has on the victim(s).

Virtual rape may be the dominating term, but it forces people to categorize it improperly in my opinion. It aggrandizes the severity. Virtual rape may be very frustrating, confusing, and painful, but it isn't the same as being physically raped and it isn't close enough to warrent the comparison.

 

[Russ Pitts]

I have to say I'm in awe of how much intelligent discussion has centered around this piece. Thank you all so much for giving it so much thought.

What happened to the virtual rape victims and the physical rape victims is a world apart. If I was Jung Na-Yung I would be angry to have my experience compared to that of people whose avatars were manipulated online without consent.

I understand what you're saying here, and how the link between the events described may seem tenuous. Let me first address the subject of whether or not Miss Na-Yung would be offended by her story's inclusion in this retrospective.

For starters, none of us will ever be Jung Na-Yung, so speculation of this kind of meaningless. However, it wasn't my attempt to suggest in any way that the rape of a real girl, in real space, is in any was as severe, emotionally or physically, as a similar even happening between avatars in a game. Yeah, sure, there are parallels, and as legba's story suggests, virtual rape can be pretty traumatic, but being trapped and physically assaulted by someone you trust is in a whole other universe from that kind of thing. So, while the two events may have a number of similarities (from motivation to psychological effect) they're just not the same thing. To suggest my intent was to proclaim they are is to miss the point entirely.

To address the (perhaps valid) critique of how the article was structured, allow me to suggest that we look at the events described, not as the assemblage of similar circumstances, but rather as complimentary events, building a case for the acceptance 9or not0 of sexual interaction in an online world, which then spills back out into the real world.

Dibbell's tale of the rape of legba describes one of the first instances of online sexual assault, an event that punctured the innocence of what we (at the time) believed was our safe place away from real life assholes like Bungle.

At this point, it's important to read the section on Maslow carefully (and the source material if you have time). This describes why and how we, as people, express our needs for things, and suggests why, when we move into the virtual world, our desires go with us.

Which leads us to the discussion of "willing rape" on site like Sociolotron, where people log in with the sole purpose of satisfying their seedier needs. It's an example of the online space conforming to our needs, not, as in the case of legba, the other way around. And from there we look at cases of people taking advantage of the needs of others (for sex) to satisfy their own needs for items, good and/or services.

Epicslut and Rob Conzelman both whored themselves for virtual loot, Rob posed as a femal and cybered for picket change, while Epicslut broke the fragile membrane and went all the way, as they say, in the real world, with a complete stranger for a bucket of coin. Two people who both recognized that people will always want sex, and, in the true spirit of entrepreneurship, capitalized on that need, using the virtual world as the meeting place to arrange sexual encounters paid for in virtual money. This is akin to the frontier women, tired of being raped by the local miners, banding together to form brothel. It's everything we've always found fascinating about the online space and more, regardless of whether or not you agree with the morality of the situation.

And so, if Epicslut and Conzelman can do it, why can't the kids of Habbo Hotel? The story of Habbo kids babboing for furni illustrates that it does happen; kids do cyber for game loot. It's a bit vile to consider, but then again, so are sweaty encounters amongst teenagers in middle school bathrooms, and on the jungle gym, but that happens too. And guess what also happens? Teenagers taking their spirit of entrepreneurship offline to score vitual loot, just like Epiclsut.

How does Jung Na-Yung's story fit into this? As I said in the article, the game Audition, unlike Habbo and other kid-centric sites, does not actively discourage this kind of behavior, which many think ultimately led to Jung's rape. The game profits from the desires of folks who use it as a singles bar or worse, and in allowing this to go on under the guise of being a kid friendly game, thereby (allegedly) encourage sexual activity between minors and adults, and in the case of Jung, the rape of children.

So, in basic terms, is Jung Na-Yung's rape similar to the rape of legba on LambdaMOO? No, not really. Except it is. And if we can accept the fact that online spaces are capable of being adapted to service our real world needs, then we have to also accept that they will be used by folks who are out to satisfy their own needs at the expense of others. Just like Bungle did to legba. Just like happened to Jung Na-Yung.

Now then, if someone wants to go ahead and suggest that if I need to write a 1000-word defense of my article in the comments, then perhaps I should have done a better job of writing it in the first place, well, I can accept that. but the events described all lead directly to Jung's rape, and the use of online spaces as real world sexual gratification engines. The writing has been on the wall for some time, and now we're beginning to see it actually happen. The question is still: what are we gong to do about it?

 

[Blaxton]

CP, I can see how I am misunderstood in that section, the wording is unclear. I'm not supposing that online harassment or sexual assault is something easily shrugged off. I think that people that have seen it first hand may very well have been strongly affected. I'm not trying to say that the victims don't deal with severe backlash, but rather I'm saying that the term rape causes us to inflate that severity.

I wish I had some studies to look at. It would be nice to know for sure either way. But, from the evidence that we have right now there is no definite answer. From my perspective, so far, the gravity is different.

Russ, I believe I did perhaps misplace the direction in which the comparison was meant to go. I appreciate you clearing that up for me. Essentially, that was my problem from with it. From my reading of the article the use of the word rape (and some of the other language) immediately brought me to a wiring where the link was meant both ways (as a comparison between the acts and the concerns that these actions raise about online interaction). If you use the term rape becuase the sources that you used utilize the term then I can respect that, but I do disagree with it.

I wanted to clarify my point because in my first post I feel I was a bit too frank. This is, after all, an article and debate focused on something quite heinous and I feel pretty strongly about it, so I jumped to very hard stance.

 

[Blaxton]

I think you're right, CP about assuming I have been more concerned with you're first listed item. I have been thinking in general trends. Exceptions and extremes are often unpredictable, and while I don't want to say we should ignore them, I do believe that the greatest good can be done when concentrating on the mean and mode.

I'm also concerned with the second one. But, again, I feel that the maximum is most probably higher for physical rape victims than it is for virtual rape victims. But if we get too caught up in the individual cases, it's hard to say any crime is any more destructive than any other. If a person is verbally insulted, they may, in a very very extreme case, take their own life. I'm not talking about continued verbal abuse, just simply cracking after hearing something insulting. It's not likely but still possible. But to say that calling someone a name and doing something else, something like rape, has the same damage potential would be looking at the extreme and unreasonable maximum. I know it's an extreme example, but thats the point. When you get to the outskirts of any curve you start to see some very confusing things.

The last three items I have been aware of, but I have neglected them. I think they raise a couple questions I need to think about a bit. I'm getting caught up in the debate, which wasn't my original intention of posting my (supposedly, but apparently not really) clarifying statement. I'm going to have to go through the rest of the posts to get a bearing on things.

 

[Blaxton]

I think it's relevant because it realigns the normal. The weight of the term rape decreases when we add in lighter crimes under the title.

We are a species that relies on categories and generalities. Inflating the severity of a thing by use of a common term may trivialize the severity of another with that same common term. Learning the usage of the term rape when applied to virtual cases may throw off the subconscious reaction of disgust ever so slightly.

From a cognitive psychological approach, learning new connotations will prime the brain for different responses. While we can all step back quite easily and say "rape is an awful crime" I don't think it's as easy to say that, when adding on new definitions to the term, we will continue to default to the sentiment to the degree that we are doing now. That is why I feel the term needs to be separate. Placing the term rape and the experiences that go along with it on a different level is important in keeping people aware of the evil it has connected to it.

That is the more scientific explanation, I suppose.

My very first original post was based mostly on empathy and how I believe someone would feel in a situation like this. I can imagine feeling very wronged if someone were to suggest they understand my trauma becuase of something similar that happened to their avatar. To think that the situation is at all the same, or that the person could possibly understand the things that I had gone through would be violating in it's own way. I don't think people like to be told that they are being understood when they know they aren't, its frustrating.

This is how I have felt about it, but it's not a good argument for debate so I've tried to steer away from it since I got involved in actual back and forth about the issue. I don't think I'm really being honest, though, in trying to debate in the logical format that we are doing.

As Russ stated: For starters, none of us will ever be Jung Na-Yung, so speculation of this kind of meaningless.

He is right. I don't _know_ how Jung feels, but as a human being I have constructed a mental model of her in my brain the best I could manage, and I came saw a revulsion to the comparison. It's a complete loop in logic, to try to understand someone for the sake of arguing that it's impossible to understand them without going through their experiences personally, but as a empathetic person I'm going to try anyway.

In my method I was upset about it, enough to write up and post a response saying so. I may be wrong from a logical point of view, but I don't think it was wrong to feel the way I did. I wish I had written my first post more clearly and less abrasively(which is what I intended to do in the second response I wrote in this thread) but I don't believe that being offended was the wrong way for me to feel. Also, with the way Russ explained, I felt eased about it and that I was seeing something unintended.

So, in response to your second question, my motivation for anger was rooted in what I just described. It has less to do with the greatest good, less to do with how and why virtual and physical rapes differ, and everything to do with how I felt the person I was feeling would react to the comparison.

I probably sound pretty crazy, but that's pretty much the bottom line and where I started in this thread.

 

[TomBeraha]

Personally, I don't see the value of "the subconscious reaction of disgust." I see a lot more value in calm, considered, sympathetic reactions. When our subconscious reactions influence our positions on things, we're just asking for trouble.

I wonder about this statement. On the one hand I like to completely agree with you CP, when I normally talk to people and form arguments I try my best to form mine from a logical base when I've had a chance to consider my point of view. The other hand says that if we assume we have an unbiased perspective because we've rationalized our point of view and taken a calm reaction we have failed to consider the other half to our bodies. There is an evolutionary drive to feel and empathize, and ignoring it is like making assumptions without using all your senses. Part of what makes up common sense is that most of us just know when something isn't a great idea. We get that not through a logical calm progression, but through our emotions and feelings. I don't really have a point to make with that, just trying to get my thoughts on it out here to see why you feel that way.

To the ongoing discussion: I don't feel that rape in any of it's forms where it will cause OTHER people to feel afraid for themselves due to the actions on another can be ignored. If we want to argue about the semantics and which is worse that's fine, the real issue to me though is "how do we prevent this?" Do we enforce chat logging and having people sign up using their verified real world information and invade the privacy of others? Much less than deciding the punishments for these various actions - how do we stop them? Should we stop them? Is this just natural deviation and changing so that if rape becomes a better option for survival we'll still be able to go on as a species? Does that excuse it? There are a lot of questions, some with easy answers some with not so easy answers that I have. Do we want a monitored (safer, but still not SAFE) online virtual world, or a unmonitored one that might let a few more deviants through the cracks? What's the right answer here?