Jimquisition: Rape vs. Murder

[xPixelatedx]

If you can justify murder, you can justify anything.

Im sorry I do not buy the whole noble kill theory. There is no such thing. There is never a time when it is a noble thing to take a life into your own hands and snuff it out. What there IS however are mechanisms of public absolution of that crime, when OTHERS absolve you of guilt for whatever reason. But internally that stain can never be wiped off no matter how noble your intentions may have been. It will always remain with you and in essence become a part of you.

So It bears repeating. If you can justify murder, you can justify anything, including rape.

If I could get a stadium of people to applaud you, I would. I can't believe we've reached this point where murder is ok, I am so utterly disappointed with this community right now. I hope that a lot of these responses were made by people younger then 16-18 years of age, people who don't yet have the cognitive ability to understand just how precious life is. Whats worse, people on this board are even justifying torture and sadistic murders now against rape, saying it's totally ok to be a psychopathic sadist because games put you against enemies who deserve it. We really are a charming species if this is popular opinion.

At the end of the day one thing holds true. You can still live a long, fulling and even happy life after being raped. You can't do that if your DEAD. Stealing that opportunity away from someone is by far the most evil thing another person can do. If someone told me that I had to succumb to being raping in order to live, I would certainly choose life. Most sane people would to, including many of the people who made comments here stating that rape was worse.
Kind of funny how that works.

 

[wintercoat]

If you can justify murder, you can justify anything.

Im sorry I do not buy the whole noble kill theory. There is no such thing. There is never a time when it is a noble thing to take a life into your own hands and snuff it out. What there IS however are mechanisms of public absolution of that crime, when OTHERS absolve you of guilt for whatever reason. But internally that stain can never be wiped off no matter how noble your intentions may have been. It will always remain with you and in essence become a part of you.

So It bears repeating. If you can justify murder, you can justify anything, including rape.

If I could get a stadium of people to applaud you, I would. I can't believe we've reached this point where murder is ok, I am so utterly disappointed with this community right now. I hope that a lot of these responses were made by people younger then 16-18 years of age, people who don't yet have the cognitive ability to understand just how precious life is. Whats worse, people on this board are even justifying torture and sadistic murders now against rape, saying it's totally ok to be a psychopathic sadist because games put you against enemies who deserve it. We really are a charming species if this is popular opinion.

At the end of the day one thing holds true. You can still live a long, fulling and even happy life after being raped. You can't do that if your DEAD. Stealing that opportunity away from someone is by far the most evil thing another person can do. If someone told me that I had to succumb to being raping in order to live, I would certainly choose life. Most sane people would to, including many of the people who made comments here stating that rape was worse.
Kind of funny how that works.

I agree with the both of you.

I've got games like The Elder Scrolls and Fallout series where I can murder dozens of nonhostile NPCs who do nothing but defend their homes from my attacks. Are those deaths justifiable? I've got Prototype, where I find myself regularly mowing down fleeing, terrified civilians. Are those justifiable? I've got GTA games where I can go on a killing spree, murdering dozens of innocent bystanders, then murdering the police who respond. Are those deaths justifiable?

Both murder and rape are horrible things. The latter leaves you mentally and emotionally scarred, with the possibility of recovery(however slim it may be). The former robs you of a future, with no chance of recovery. Both rob you of your self. Claiming one is worse than the other, for whatever reason, cheapens both of them and the effects they have on society.

 

[HannesPascal]

There's a difference between killing and murder. War games like COD offer few opportunities to murder somebody but you kill a lot of people. Few games are centered around murder Manhunt being one of the few. The difference being if you kill people to get to a goal or if you murder people for the killing.

 

[blackrave]

Contrary to popular belief woman can rape man
BUT
all known techniques to do so are lethal to man
So it will be less about rape and more about killing

Besides that
Yeah, don't rape, just, don't, please!

Explain? Tying him down with viagra will kill him or it won't work? Or just fucking him with a strap-on ?

Ok, I admit, maybe "all known techniques" was a bit exaggerating
I mean raping methods without chemicals involved
I'm not sure I'll be able to explain correctly, but basically it is about lacing erected dick so hard that blood flow is stopped
Then female can rape man until seizure kicks in (eventually it will happen)

But with stuff like viagra man-raping is less lethal of course

P.S.And a little strap-on action never have killed any man

 

[Spearmaster]

Rape vs. Murder

Why is it so much better to take a life than to rape somebody in fiction? Why can videogames allow us to get away with killing thousands of our fellow humans with swords and guns, yet a game like Rapelay drowns in scorn before finding its sales restricted? Is it hypocritical for games to approve murder and shun rape?



It's a topic that comes up with some frequency, and naturally The Jimquisition has all the correct answers ... even if they're probably terribly wrong.



Watch Video

Wow Jim you really went out on a limb with this one, what a champ, It really took balls to come out and say rape is bad...was there a point to this video other than your attempt at championing yet another cause that already has better and more qualified champions?

Did I hear you say that rape is more damaging than murder? If that is the case are you saying that its more humane to euthanize a rape victim? What about the family, spouse or children of the murder victim do you care nothing for their pain?

Also you said murder can be rationalized and/or even justified through story rendering it almost moral at times...So if someone writes a plot to a rape game that makes rape justified or moral for what ever reason you can rationalize it then? It works both ways granted a justified rape has probably never happened but these are video games, I'm sure they can write a plot to do it.

I know you mean well but this video was laced with ignorance on both sides of the topic, it sounds like you care more about people knowing your stance on something than actually having an intellectual discussion about it.

EDIT: My point is that rape and murder are both wrong and by putting the "VS" between them you can make it seem like one is less wrong when they are both just wrong. If someone can rationalize murder they also have the capacity to rationalize rape and vice versa. Its a good thing video games don't cause people to do bad things in real life.

 

[viranimus]

Snip for space

I thank you for the sentiment. Perhaps my perspective is a little skewn by

Almost

being

Murdered

myself. Being inches/seconds away from death ended can have that same sort of traumatic effect of utter powerlessness, being violated, having the trauma permanently branded on your mind and forced to relive it for the remainder of your days. It has the added effect that rape does not have of regret. To almost be murdered it is like that moment is etched into time and you look at that moment of your life and realize had things been just slightly different and the attempt been sucessful how would you have felt about how you left this world. How would you feel of the things left unsaid and undone. Things you never got the chance to redeem yourself of. Those things haunt you almost as much as the actual trauma itself. The constant thought of "had I just done this differently maybe none of this would have happened" Not to diminish the pain a rape victim suffers but that is a pain they simply dont experience on the same level.

So in all fairness I must admit to being biased, but I still firmly stand behind my statement. If you can justify murder, you can justify anything in this existence.

 

[Cid Silverwing]

I lol'd quite much at the picture of Breivik at 04:40. So true.

*is Norwegian, therefore getting the joke*

 

[RvLeshrac]

Of course, no one forces you to like the creators of games like that either, but if you want to ban, censor or regulate one, you have to hold to that morality across the board. My own personal opinion is against censorship, no matter how awful the material, but I can respect other views on the matter, so long as they are self-consistent.

The Slippery Slope has never been as true as it is for speech. When you censor speech of one type, it becomes much more appealing to start censoring speech of other types. More dangerously, when you censor speech, you run the risk of giving it far more power.

In danger of skirting Reducto ad Hitlerum, the best modern, real-world example is that of Germany. The what-can't-be-called-the-Nazi-party-any-longer-due-to-legal-concerns has grown in power over the last several decades, which has led to other parties embracing more nationalistic, anti-immigrant rhetoric. Hell, even on the other side of the EU, you have Greece electing fascists. Why? Because discussing *why* The War happened is either illegal at worst, or frowned upon socially at best. When the people in a society take notice of corruption in the current system, they begin to look towards those ideas that the corrupt system deems 'too dangerous,' and embrace them without regard for the consequences.

If you want a less Godwin-y example, the libel laws in the UK are a prime target. Scientists and members of the media in England are often crippled by the threat of libel suits - even when claims they've made are perfectly accurate - because their laws make no distinction between ACTUAL libel and statements of fact which happen to be unflattering. Why are they so broad? Because once 'hate speech' was censored, it became a lot easier to start censoring 'uncivil' speech.

There's no honour in only defending the rights of people with whom with agree.

 

[hooksashands]

I think you can explore a wide variety of themes in fiction to cater to any number of demographics.

Yeah. Just not rape enthusiasts.

 

[Gigano]

Problem with all these arguments: Why don't they then apply in real life?

If the fact that sometimes killing can be justified makes any and all forms of "killing" inherently less heinous, then why is murder considered the worst offence by every criminal justice system that exist in reality? If being raped is a fate worse than being killed, then why don't we compassionately encourage rape victims to end their misery?

Rape might be the perfect way to portray someone as evil, but hardly more so than having them blow the head off some random pedestrian. Though in the peculiar environment of puritanical US culture, where violence is awesome and all sex is taboo, it might make some sort of internal sense.

 

[daxterx2005]

"Don't rape please"
Okay, I wont Rape any pleases

 

[Casey Goddard]

I find myself agreeing with pretty much everything Jim is saying, but I still have a hard time buying into the idea that rape is objectively worse than murder. I actually wrote an post on my blog a while back about Rapelay. The main point I wanted to make was the game kind of got scapegoated to avoid facing much larger social issues.

Here's a link if you want to read it:

http://caseygoddard.blogspot.jp/2011/05/in-defense-of-indefensible.html

There's also some links at the end of the blog post to some other interesting views others have had on the game.

 

[somonels]

Didn't feel this week's episode, not only because Jim over-glorified himself taking a stance on a tired topic but got this out of it instead of developers using escalating shock values, making fairly naive assumptions on player behavior and - as a rare and woefully brief moment - using the medium correctly as a conditioning device.

Rape is made of elemental evil, Murder... is a grey area?
You may claim to be talk to god, and act the way you do, but I don't think the psychiatrists will help you either, Jim.

 

[Treblaine]

Is it just me, or are all the moral arguments coming from the perspective of a game where you - the player - is raping other characters. Isn't that completely different matter if your playable character is the one who would be the one that the enemies are trying to rape.

All very good points of how in most games they don't glorify or trivialise murder, but almost exclusively depict JUSTIFIED killing, justified often by tenuous means but not killing for the sake of killing. And there is no justification for rape. But killing and general use of violent force is justified in preventing injustice to yourself, or at the very least in completing an objective.

I think video games ARE ready for antagonists who rape, I think that fear of rape is a suitable motivator for the player to avoid and is an evil logic to the antagonist's motivation. See Deliverance, Pulp Fiction or the Millennium Trilogy. Video games are ready for this.

But not "battle raper" which I understand is just about the player acting out a rape fantasy, rather than them pitted AGAINST a "rape horror". Dying and capture in a video game has always lacked weight for how you are essentially invincible...

As to rape survivors, they should not play such games, not until they are ready and only if they want to or think it would help them deal with it. There are MILLIONS of soldiers who are severely traumatised by the horrors of war, they should not play violent war games as they risk disturbing flashbacks. Someone who was violently mugged and beaten into disability should not play a fighting tournament game. If we exercise self-censorship by how certain individuals might have been personally affected then we couldn't do anything. If your parents recently had a traumatic divorce, then don't go see Kramer vs Kramer as it'll be too raw.

Spoiler: few points of inaccuracy

PS: dave chapelle's "whore uniform" is talking about prostitution or being "easy". Raping a prostitute or "sexually liberal" woman is still rape, not theft or fraud. He is suggesting a guy be lecherous to a woman asking for her phone number because she is in a "whore's uniform"... not beat her unconscious and violently sodomise her. It has nothing to do with rape.

PPS: men need to be told not to rape in the same sense they need to be told not to murder, or not to start fires, or steal things, or vandalise property. Every boy and girl is told not to hurt women and rape clearly hurts them. Men ARE told this with the "no means no" ads and the UK has an ad series as well

 

[Evil Smurf]

You are very brave for making a video about this Jim.

 

[Chaos Marine]

I agree with everything here. Another view point would be, however, better someone gets their rape-jolies in a game than in real life.

 

[Treblaine]

I find myself agreeing with pretty much everything Jim is saying, but I still have a hard time buying into the idea that rape is objectively worse than murder. I actually wrote an post on my blog a while back about Rapelay. The main point I wanted to make was the game kind of got scapegoated to avoid facing much larger social issues.

Here's a link if you want to read it:

http://caseygoddard.blogspot.jp/2011/05/in-defense-of-indefensible.html

There's also some links at the end of the blog post to some other interesting views others have had on the game.

Yes, murder is worse than rape. But do you actually "murder" in video games?

Is rape worse than killing your opponent in combat? Murder is UNJUSTIFIED killing. Rape is unjustifiably having intercourse with someone. You justifiably have sex with someone with their consent, when it is not rape but simply sexual intercourse.

I'm not saying soldiers "consent" to being killed by enemy snipers. But by taking up arms and aggressive stance, there IS the agreement to "kill or be killed". That's the often enumerated code of war that all humans have understood since pre-history, to submit and accept domination and fight. A recent development is the concept of surrender, that one can even after taking up arms my put down arms and submit to capture and not be killed, and that if arms are laid down then to be killed then is murder except in extreme circumstances where they cannot be taken prisoner.

And of course, games don't "really" have death. Team Fortress 2 where everyone respawns so easily and you of course never feel any pain of dismemberment, how is this death? Death is painful and PERMANENTLY ends life. But that doesn't happen in video games. It's an inconvenience. But rape is a traumatic memory, you can't just rewind the clock or die and re-spawn it will always have happened.

But compare the controversy over Rapley (Rape-lay? Ra-Play?) with the "No Russian" level in Modern Warfare 2.

See the No-Russian level had MURDER! Killing civilians en mass in unmistakably murder - unjustified killing - and it was controversial as hell, only got a free pass as you did not "have" to shoot, it was not your actual mission, just to stand there and walk with them. Grand Theft Auto has gotten similar flack for the ability to kill civilians but it was never what the game was actually about so barely sneaked through.

There isn't a grey area between rape and sex.

But there is a grey area between justified killing and murder, which is why as controversial as murder is in games it will more likley get through on that ambiguity where rape won't as it is so black and white.

 

[SoopaSte123]

Spot on again, Jim. Yknow, I can't remember watching a Jimquisition video I've disagreed with (and that's saying something because I disagree with a lot of things). Perhaps one of the first few episodes... but I don't remember those with much clarity. Regardless, thank god for you, Jim.

 

[The Last Parade]

I dont think rape should be banned from video games, but it shouldn't be glorified

 

[Treblaine]

I agree with everything here. Another view point would be, however, better someone gets their rape-jolies in a game than in real life.

Well maybe rather than that, a BDSM simulator. Which makes clear it is Domination play, both partners willing playing an act a role for fun, not actual unwilling rape. But then again, that would be kind of a trivial distinction as there is no real "will" in an AI controlled character anyway. I don't know, just make clear it's OK to play dom-games with your partner, no so much with some random person you meet in a subway.