Jimquisition: Rape vs. Murder

[JoaoJatoba]

First of all, rape is wrong and immoral. It's such a violent act that nothing would justify it.

However, concerning video games, I cannot see the difference between a 'rape game' and sex practices such hardcore S&M and assault role-play. Bear in mind I assume such sex fetishism is being practice by sane and responsible adults, and the women KNOW they are in a safe environment (safe word: banana) with someone they trust, doing something they want.

I know (or want to believe at least) that women that are into that kind of thing DO NOT WANT TO BE RAPE FOR REAL. No sane human would like to be rape. But, for some couples, it's game. As much as 'video rape game'.

That's the only reason I, till now, been not able to condemn such games.

What you guys think?

 

[Soxafloppin]

Really enjoyed this weeks episode, I don't mind rape being part of the Story of a game...but as a Gameplay element? Fuq dat sheet.

 

[Excludos]

Good video this week, Jim. Altough there was a couple of points I think needs discussing, I generally agree with you. Rape is a tool that can be used to define a character or a story in a game. But it should never be the core mechanic of a game, and it certainly shouldn't be pleasurable. Killing, on the other hand, in a story element, can be both pleasurable (hopefully in a non-sexual way) and justified. And for the most part it also doesn't leave any victims. With that said, the tool for "victimized" killing in a game is there just as much as rape, and I condemn games that use them the wrong way as well.

 

[Aardvaarkman]

You say that there is no chance to heal yourself after death. This is true. However, you don't have to live with it. You don't heal after rape. It says with you for the rest of your life.

That's not necessarily true. I have been raped, and I consider myself healed. Although I won't forget it (at least until dementia sets in), I consider myself "healed" of it. It no longer has any power over me. I could have killed myself over it, and I would no longer be here.

I'm not sure if that's better or worse, but that's a whole other elephant in the room - should we have the right to kill ourselves? I think that's a more important topic to deal with before we try justifying murder, as Jim and and many other people here are trying to do.

 

[Alexnader]

when you think about it, isnt rape like torture? like, its tourture more or less. doesnt kill you, but its torture...

Yeah in terms of how reprehensible it is I'd agree in saying rape and torture can be on the same par. It's about power imbalance, there is a victim who is often permanently scarred mentally and physically and to be reminded of such treatment could well be just as horrifying as being reminded of rape.

Anyway as for the Jim's main argument, I agree entirely however he needs to do a better job distinguishing murder from other forms of killing.

Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide (such as manslaughter). - Wikipedia (so it's true automatically)

Killing enemy soldiers in a war is not legally murder, fighting off an attacker in self defense is generally not considered murder. This is the kind of homicide that most games employ, those that go beyond these PG-13 forms of killing are often just as controversial as games featuring rape. e.g. Going Postal or that game that was going to let you re-enact the columbine massacre.

 

[Aardvaarkman]

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

Actually, I think there is. In many countries there are laws about "statutory rape" which mean that even if two people who are passionately in love with each other have consensual sex, it is considered rape because one of the partners is older than the other.

Most legal codes have very strange rules regarding sexual conduct, in which one day you are a minor who is unable to consent to intercourse, yet magically being one day older results in a huge change of status, where you are allowed to consent to just about anything.

I think our legal codes don't really coincide with reality, where things are much more indeterminate and dependent on context.

 

[HarryScull]

the thing about equal opportunity falls flat when I consider how much chance the innocent town guard had against the all powerful dragonborn

other than that it was a good episode

 

[Treblaine]

Hitman is the closest you get to a murder simulator... but not quite.

Agent 47's motivation is never just to kill for the sake of killing. He kills for another purpose, such as his affecting political change, administering a personal justice (i.e. revenge) or preserving his own life from someone or group that threatens him.

But it does LOOK a lot like he is a serial killer when he sneaks into people's bedroom and butchers them alive. But you all ways get the sense it is somehow justified. Like you were killing real villains as a comeuppance for their insinuated crimes.

But you can't ever get that justified impression with Agent 47 sneaking in a giving surprise buttsecks to his "targets". Rape is 100% selfish, while taking someone's life may help others for how that person hurts others. Like capping drug dealers or corrupt politicians, it serves a purpose of killing them to simply STOP the doing any more bad things.

Hitman games in fact reward the player for killing AS FEW people as possible. My most enjoyment playing Hitman was being near totally traceless, apart from the killing of the actual target it's an amazingly non-violent game, all about sneaking, trickery and misdirection.

 

[Treblaine]

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

Actually, I think there is. In many countries there are laws about "statutory rape" which mean that even if two people who are passionately in love with each other have consensual sex, it is considered rape because one of the partners is older than the other.

Most legal codes have very strange rules regarding sexual conduct, in which one day you are a minor who is unable to consent to intercourse, yet magically being one day older results in a huge change of status, where you are allowed to consent to just about anything.

I think our legal codes don't really coincide with reality, where things are much more indeterminate and dependent on context.

Well that grey area is semantics, the problem is using the term "rape" for an 18 year old having sex with a 17 year old. I'm not saying it should be legal, I'm saying it should be treated differently from rape and certainly have a different name than rape. And not really relevant to this discussion which isn't about a dating games where some of the people to woo are under the age of consent.

By rape, it's clear Jim (and I) were talking about adults forcing other adults to engage in sexual intercourse. There is no grey area between that rape and sex. Though Jim seems to mainly focus on the side of the player controlling a (presumably) male character who rapes mainly female characters.

I focused more on being a character (male or female) where the AI antagonists are trying to rape the protagonists and they could be male, female or a genderless alien. Think of Ridley Scott's Alien... just not "impregnating" via the mouth...

 

[Aardvaarkman]

By rape, it's clear Jim (and I) were talking about adults forcing other adults to engage in sexual intercourse. There is no grey area between that rape and sex.

No, that is not at all clear.

Neither Jim or yourself mention rape as an activity that only involves actions between adults. As legally defined, rape includes the violation of minors. In fact, most people would consider the rape of minors to be more heinous than the rape of adults.

Your wording seems to imply that the rape of minors is less serious than the rape of adults. Additionally, it's rather strange that you define rape as "forcing other adults to engage in sexual intercourse" - there's nothing about rape that requires the victim to "engage in sexual intercourse" - it's physical violence that is forced upon them - not something that requires engagement in anything sexual.

 

[Treblaine]

when you think about it, isnt rape like torture? like, its tourture more or less. doesnt kill you, but its torture...

Yeah in terms of how reprehensible it is I'd agree in saying rape and torture can be on the same par. It's about power imbalance, there is a victim who is often permanently scarred mentally and physically and to be reminded of such treatment could well be just as horrifying as being reminded of rape.

I wonder what is the purpose of focusing on the power imbalance. Surely shooting someone in the face is also a power imbalance. Suplexing a player into a concrete floor is about power, dominating your opponent. And doing such things are also would be painful, extremely painful in terms of things like burning someone with a flamethrower. So many games have down right torturous death.

If power, domination and pain are the problems with rape then those are also the problem with violence in games, including justified homicide such as self defence or in war.

The point is that rape doesn't serve a purpose, shooting and killing someone stops them hurting you or others, which is the reason to justify such violence in the first place. You can't rape in self-defence. Rape gives selfish sexual satisfaction at the direct expense of their suffering and humiliation.

 

[zefiris]

I agree with everything in the video, except one thing.

That women cannot rape. Women can rape men just fine - not just male children. We just culturally ignore this a lot. It is generally hard to imagine for men - which is the problem. Many men do not believe men can be raped by women, therefore, a male rape victim raped by a woman is someone most men flat out do not believe. Women are far more likely to believe a male victim there.

Which makes sense, due to the way female rape victims (who are still more common, admittedly) are treated.


Sorry for adding some feminism to the subject. My point is just that rape is terrible regardless who does it. And I do, indeed, not want to encounter it in a game as an activity the player does. Obviously people can still make such games...but we can judge them for doing so. Freedom to make stuff is not freedom from criticism.

 

[Metalrocks]

I agree with everything in the video, except one thing.

That women cannot rape. Women can rape men just fine - not just male children. We just culturally ignore this a lot. It is generally hard to imagine for men - which is the problem. Many men do not believe men can be raped by women, therefore, a male rape victim raped by a woman is someone most men flat out do not believe. Women are far more likely to believe a male victim there.

Which makes sense, due to the way female rape victims (who are still more common, admittedly) are treated.


Sorry for adding some feminism to the subject. My point is just that rape is terrible regardless who does it. And I do, indeed, not want to encounter it in a game as an activity the player does. Obviously people can still make such games...but we can judge them for doing so. Freedom to make stuff is not freedom from criticism.

this reminds of the book by michael crichton. he wrote a story about a woman molesting a man she was crazy about. even when the man refused her, she still sexually harassed him.
if i remember correctly, it was based on a true story.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disclosure_%28novel%29

 

[Treblaine]

By rape, it's clear Jim (and I) were talking about adults forcing other adults to engage in sexual intercourse. There is no grey area between that rape and sex.

No, that is not at all clear.

Neither Jim or yourself mention rape as an activity that only involves actions between adults. As legally defined, rape includes the violation of minors. In fact, most people would consider the rape of minors to be more heinous than the rape of adults.

Your wording seems to imply that the rape of minors is less serious than the rape of adults. Additionally, it's rather strange that you define rape as "forcing other adults to engage in sexual intercourse" - there's nothing about rape that requires the victim to "engage in sexual intercourse" - it's physical violence that is forced upon them - not something that requires engagement in anything sexual.

Nonsense. It's perfectly clear. At no point was age of consent brought up, it only discussed violence against adults. It's quite clear this has nothing to do with

Yes, I AM saying it is less serious for a 18 year old boy to have sex with his 17 year old girlfriend... than it is for a 40 year old man to rape a 10 year old girl, who could NEVER consent and it's insane to suggest such a little girl could. The law is absolute viewing all under 18 the same because that is the way it best functions putting all under the category of "sex with am minor", but clearly those two scenarios are different from each other.

I am saying it should NOT be called rape when a teenage girl is so far into puberty and has sex with another teenager of such similar age. That it should not be equivalent to "rape of a minor" which implies a girl who is pre-pubescent or barely pubescent, not a girl who has for all practical purposes finished pubescence and is considered responsible in other factors such as criminal responsibility.

One is a horrific crime that no little girl should EVER have to suffer, the other is something almost every single highschool sweethearts are likely to do.

All that links them is the semantics of "sex with a minor".

I am not saying 40 year olds should be allowed to have sex with 17 year olds. Simply that it not be treated the same as sex with a 10 year old.

"Your wording seems to imply that the rape of minors is less serious than the rape of adults."

There was absolutely NO implication on my part and you know it. It is 100% CONTRIVED INSINUATION on your part.

Don't think you can get a one-up on me by making vile and disgusting and BLATANTLY FALSE allegations against me. You know FULL WELL I never remotely implied anything like that.

there's nothing about rape that requires the victim to "engage in sexual intercourse" - it's physical violence that is forced upon them - not something that requires engagement in anything sexual.

Nonsense definition as that means all violence against anyone is rape. A man punching another man is rape. Shooting somone in call of duty is rape. Your definition is worthless. Did you think about this at all?

Understand by "sexual intercourse" I mean coitus, sodomy, fellatio or cunnilingus. Forcing anyone to engage in those, either giving or receiving, is rape. Rape is obviously and undeniably sexual on the part of the perpetrator.

 

[medv4380]

You covered the topic very well. I was hesitant to even watch given the title.

In terms of Rape in Games I think it boils down to context. I think the titles that where mentioned that the player participated in the Rape should only have AO ratings, and should be rejected by the community as they have been.

I think Rape could be implemented in a Story as you've pointed out in books, and Villans could be done in a similar fashion. I'd be best to Imply it though since a graphical depiction would justify an AO label and the possible backlash.

In terms of the Legal nature of Murder vs Rape I know a lot of people don't understand why Rapists don't face the death penalty as Murderers do. It's a hard thing to explain, but it basically boils down to if we treated Rape as Harshly as Murder more woman would be Raped then Murdered than just Raped. Same thing applies to pedophiles. If we put them up for the death penalty then more of their child victims would be just murdered after the act.

I also think a game where you play as a Murderer where you stalk and kill a helpless victim should also be rejected by the gaming community. I have no interest in playing as Jack the Ripper.

 

[DudeistBelieve]

The other thing that you didn't touch on is that in a video game, killing someone is generally very fast. You shoot them in the head, and down they go. You cut off their limbs, down they go. You fight with someone, maybe tussle with them, snap their neck and down they go. You do it quickly, and then it's over. Rape is a prolonged event. Murder in video games can be easily discarded as irrelevant because it's done and over with very quickly, but rape is something you'd have to stay focused on and actively continue to do. I'll be honest, if I was playing a game that required me to rape someone in order to progress the plot, I'd snap the disc in half and throw it out. Not only is it something I'm not prepared to do, but I don't want anyone else to have to do it either.

Same thing in multiplayer games. If I'm playing Diablo and someone kills me, I restart in town and carry on. I entered the game knowing that I might get killed, and it happened, and yes it kind of sucks but in the end it's not really that bad. If I'm playing a game and another character actually rapes me, it means the other player has to actively continue doing things to me, and I have to sit there and watch it happen, or else try to resist. Again, being killed is pretty much the way of things and it's fast, but being raped is almost exactly the opposite of that.

The irony, of course, is that the word rape has been firmly ensconced in the gamer vernacular for quite some time. Offensive or not, it's there, and odds are it always will be. And that only makes the conversation all the more confusing and awkward.

So mass murder is better than rape simply because it's quicker?

 

[Zack Alklazaris]

I am curious to see what others would think about a Rape Game. As in you are stalked, kidnapped, and someone tries to rape you.

The object of the game is to avoid, to fight, to try and stop, etc the game from getting to the point of rape on your character.

 

[karamazovnew]

Spot on Jim. You nailed the issue. We all die, but I for one would rather have a sniper shot to the head today, than have my girlfriend raped. There are so many ways in which we can violently find ourselves at the "mercy" of others and rape is the extreme. And it needs to go. First offense? Guilty without doubt? One shot to the back of the head, no exceptions, no excuses, no mercy. I'm looking at you America... you still have the death penalty. Put it to good use.

 

[Schadrach]

Good points about the victim issue in the case of rape vs. murder.

Of course, there are also the victims of attempted murder and violent assault who might have much the same reaction to violent media as our rape victim. As well as the family of the victim.

The one issue with this otherwise fine video is the complaint that whilst theres plenty of advice for women on how not to get raped theres little telling men not to. Its kinda like saying theres plenty self defence advise but nothing telling people not to kill each other, we dont really need to be told and if you were to tell men specifically not to rape, as if they were children or didnt know right from wrong, then it feels like your treating men as if they would rape without being told not to. Ive seen people make the same complaint and it feels a bit like characterizing all men for the actions of few.

That, and there are organizations like Men Can Stop Rape, whose sole purpose is to tell men not to rape, because that totally works.

I don't know if i understood you right there but did you say rape is something
"Women just can't physically do", which is just wrong, of course they can force someone to sex as much as a men can do it.
Your next point however, that for the most part only women fear being raped and that it happens a lot more to women is true though.

It depends, in many jurisdictions rape isn't something a woman can do without an instrument (because rape requires one to penetrate), and a woman forcing a man into sexual activity through force, the threat of force, or while unconscious, intoxicated, or otherwise unable to consent isn't counted as rape (it isn't by the FBI/CDC statistics, for example; with the CDC using "made to penetrate" to cover that case).

There's also the possibility of the accusation of rape being used to selfish ends. It is rare, and does not excuse real rape in any way, but it does happen. Some people consent and then afterwards claim they were raped so they can sue someone or use it for some other selfish malicious goal.

Less rare than some would like to admit, but more rare than still others like to claim. The "other malicious goal"s seem to range pretty broadly from case to case from things like an abusive girlfriend/wife threatening the accusation if her partner/victim dares try to leave, to leverage in custody disputes, to even something as ridiculous as trying to dodge a cab fare.

As for the rape issue, I agree almost wholeheartedly. I do say almost because I saw Tentacle Bento mentioned. I bring this up because there is some rather interesting concepts to this in its relation to rape.
Rape, as an act between two humans is quite obviously a horrible thing, and is why something like "Rapelay" was quickly shelved and forgotten.
Yet rape, as a tentacle and human, is probably one of the things Japan is most known for. There simply is no analogue in real life (besides the obvious), and as far as I'm aware of in general is completely accepted. I could turn Safety off on my google images and search "tentacle rape", but I'd rather not. I don't need to see how many results I get of it, because I know there will be a lot.

Which brings me to Tentacle Bento. I saw it, laughed a little at the idea and went on. Never had an interest in backing it, but I could see a little of the humor behind the basis of the game. Yet it apparently got kicked by kickstarter for one reason or another.
Again not having really looked too deeply into the game, from what I saw there was no real evidence that the game was saying the schoolgirls grabbed were raped. Where they? Maybe! I don't know. You just capture them, and they join your side.

So what is with that?

Also, the project apparently went to some other similar site and is succeeding from what I read on the main kickstarter page. Which obviously means that whatever site they are on definitely doesn't mind.

1. Kickstarter cancelled them as a response to an organized campaign to do so, mostly started and focused around certain feminist blogs. One of (if not the only) case where Kickstarter cancelled a project for reasons other than obvious fraud (like the one that copy-pasted the Banner Saga page)..

2. The game was/is totally not explicit, using innuendo and genre-savviness to imply the tentacle rape bit. As far as overt text goes, you could be just as well eating them.

3. They went to their own companies main website and set up their own system with which to be funded, via PayPal and a merchant account. The same people in 1 tried to get PayPal to freeze their account, but PayPal has not yet done so, to my knowledge.

Also, it happens very often that men are falsely accused (about 20% of all rape accusations) of rape by women who have no idea what kind of harm they are doing with such accusations, especially because of the air of 'ultimate evil' that surrounds it. This has done very little to promote contacting the police for actual rape victims, but instead often fuels the 'woman was behaving slutty' argument. Without a doubt a bad thing, but something to think about.

That 20% number is wildly in contention. The only really honest answer one can have for the incidence of false rape accusation is "more than never, less than always, and there seem to be enough examples of it kicking around that it should throw reasonable doubt on a case supported by only the accusation, but often doesn't." There are studies, yes, but various studies have returned wildly different results. Studies that use approaches that are approved of by academic feminism (which are not coincidentally ones that minimize the rate and will tend towards false negatives rather than false positives) tend to give numbers in the 2-8% range, while other studies cluster around ~20% and ~40% (ones that use the metric of "if and only if the accuser says it's a false accusation, it is" tend to land in these ranges), while still others that use a very liberal measure of what counts as a false accusation get numbers as high as 90%. It's literally all over the place.[footnote]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_accusation_of_rape#Rumney[/footnote]

It doesn't help that they don't even necessarily use the same definition of a false accusation, either. In some cases, being merely that the person accused did not commit the crime is sufficient. In others, it takes an accusation used to intentionally harm another who did not commit the crime, regardless of whether the crime occurred. In others, it is a false accusation if, and only if, the accuser believes it to be so. In still others, it requires that it be clearly provable that nothing happened to the victim at all, and nothing short of that is sufficient.

You know that whole "violent games make you violent" thing that we all deny because it's demonstrably bullshit? Why do we deny that, again? "Because it's escapism." "Because it lets us put off steam and actually makes us less violent."

I know none of you want to hear this, but there's absolutely no difference between that justification and the idea that playing (or making) a rape fantasy game is wrong. Look at Japan over the last few years, let's see what effect these kinds of things actually have. You see, Japan has a genre of entertainment called "lolita", and I wouldn't recommend Googling that if you aren't familiar with it. It branches off into (drawn) child pornography very quickly. However, Japan actually has an extremely low rate of sexual child abuse compared to most first-world countries. How does that work? They're getting their fix from a victimless source. Ever since that one controversial rape game got banned in Japan and threatened to criminalize that entire subgenre, rates of real sexual abuse (in general) have been on the rise in Japan. Gee, I wonder what the correlation is?

Whether or not you or I like the idea of rape is irrelevant, as irrelevant as the fact that some religious extremists think all forms of violent media should be banned. It's victimless, and if anything, it's preventing the horrible acts it depicts by giving people that are considering them a harmless alternative to the real thing.

And yes, I do think drawn child pornography should be legal everywhere by extension. The witch hunt we have going against pedophiles is just making them more dangerous -- give them something to satisfy their strange desires that DOESN'T involve kidnapping and child rape in real life.

You are arguing directly against a firmly entrenched piece of feminist theory right here. That being that the very argument used commonly regarding violence in media is exactly the opposite of correct if, and only if, the topic at hand is rape. They call it "rape culture". No one is ever willing to explain what makes rape "special" that would render it not only an exception, but an outright inversion of precisely the argument used to protect other violence in the media.

 

[Aardvaarkman]

Nonsense. It's perfectly clear. At no point was age of consent brought up, it only discussed violence against adults. It's quite clear this has nothing to do with

So, if age of consent was never brought up, how is it clear that Jim defined rape as being between two adults? In fact, he directly mentioned rape games, where the age of the characters seems pretty ambiguous. There was footage in his video of a rape game, where the female character looked very young.

I am saying it should NOT be called rape when a teenage girl is so far into puberty and has sex with another teenager of such similar age.

But that frequently is defined as rape, which according to you and Jim, is apparently worse than murder. How far into puberty is far enough for a female to be allowed to have have consensual sex with an older male, and how much older can he be?

"Your wording seems to imply that the rape of minors is less serious than the rape of adults."

There was absolutely NO implication on my part and you know it. It is 100% CONTRIVED INSINUATION on your part.

There was no insinuation or contrivance involved at all. You directly stated that Jim was defining rape as only something between two adults. You can't deny this, it is what you wrote.

If you actually meant that rape included violations against minors, then why did you write that it was only about adult-on-adult rape?

Nonsense definition as that means all violence against anyone is rape. A man punching another man is rape. Shooting somone in call of duty is rape. Your definition is worthless. Did you think about this at all?

I absolutely thought about it, did you? Being raped is not "engaging in sexual intercourse" - it is being physically violated. "Engaging in sexual intercourse" implies a voluntary interaction, an involvement between two people intended to satisfy their mutual sexual desires. That's not what rape is.

Understand by "sexual intercourse" I mean coitus, sodomy, fellatio or cunnilingus. Forcing anyone to engage in those, either giving or receiving, is rape. Rape is obviously and undeniably sexual on the part of the perpetrator.

But rape does not mean that the victim is engaging in the sexual act. They are being subjected to an action that they don't want to be engaged with.